Coptic Books of Light — Discernment Guide

The Coptic Books of Light — A Discernment Guide

How to read the Nag Hammadi and related witnesses

The Coptic Books of Light are preserved here as ancient witnesses, not as Scripture. Many of them come from the schools often called Gnostic, and they teach things that differ sharply from the message of the prophets and the apostles. This guide is offered so that they may be read with understanding and with discernment.

What these writings hold in common

A hidden, unknowable God beyond the maker of this world.

A lower craftsman or ruler (often called the Demiurge) who made the material world, sometimes in ignorance or pride.

The material world and the body seen as a prison or a place of forgetfulness.

Salvation by knowledge (gnosis) — an awakening to one's true origin in the light — more than by faith, repentance, or the resurrection of the body.

The soul's ascent through the powers, often by means of names and passwords.

Where they differ from the canonical message

The prophets and the apostles confess one God, who is both the Maker of heaven and earth and the Redeemer; they hold the creation good, though fallen; they look for the resurrection of the body and the restoration of all things; and they teach salvation by the grace of God, received in faith and worked out in love and obedience. The Gnostic writings, by contrast, tend to divide the Maker from the Redeemer, to despise the body and the creation, and to seek escape from the world rather than its restoration.

How to read them rightly

Read them as historical witnesses to how some ancient communities thought, prayed, and longed for God. Note where they preserve genuine early traditions or sayings, and where they depart into speculation. Weigh them against the plain witness of Scripture. Do not take them as doctrine; but do not despise them either, for they are part of the full record of the ancient search for the light, and they show, by contrast, the clarity of the gospel.