An excerpt from the famous Nag Hammadi Library, a collection of early Christian Gnostic writings and non-Christian Gnostic, hermetic and philosophic texts, gives a flavour of the charged climate during the beginnings of Christianity due to competing religious movements in Egypt. The discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library in 1945 illuminated understanding of Gnosticism and elucidated the Coptic language.
The text on the left page, the Acts of Peter and the Twelve Apostles, relates to the
rich people, who are damned for their contempt for mankind as opposed to the
poor, who live in humility and may receive salvation. The opposite page contains
a dialogue called Asclepius. Nag Hammadi Library, 4th century AD.
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