Christian Apocrypha in the Lost Libraries of Late Antiquity

Several of the most prominent literary discoveries of the past century have been the contents of ancient libraries – that is, collections of texts, rather than single texts or single codices. Many of these libraries include Christian apocryphal literature. The Bodmer Papyri (aka the Dishna Papers), for example, which may have belonged to a monastery library, include the Infancy Gospel of James and 3 Corinthians. And, the most well-known collection of Christian apocrypha, the Nag Hammadi Library, which may have originated at a Pachomian monastery located close to the discovery site, features numerous apocryphal texts including the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Philip. This paper reviews the manuscript evidence of the apocryphal texts from these libraries to get a sense of how the texts were regarded by those who collected them. The paper includes also a discussion of allusions in early Christian literature to other ancient Christian libraries that contained apocryphal texts.