The French Role in Early Nag Hammadi Studies

Journal of Coptic Studies 7 (2005) 1–12

THE FRENCH ROLE IN EARLY NAG HAMMADI STUDIES

BY JAMES M. ROBINSON

After his conquest of Egypt, Napoleon left behind a large staff of scholars, who continued their work long after the British had taken over and Napoleon was gone. Hence Egyptology began with the massive Napoleonic multi-volume Description de l’Égypte, ou Recueil des observations et des recherches qui ont été faites en Égypte pendant l’expédi- tion de l’armée française, publié par les ordres de sa majesté l’Empe- reur Napoléon le Grand. This was followed by the first great French Egyptologists, Jean François Champollion (1790-1832), the decipherer of hieroglyphs, and François Auguste Ferdinand Mariette (1821-1881), the founder of the Service des Antiquités, as well as by the founding of the Institut français d’archéologie orientale du Caire. Ever since, Egyp- tian archeology has been led by French scholarship. The Directeur general of the Service des Antiquités was at the time of the Nag Hammadi discovery a French Abbé, Chanoine Étienne Drioton (1889-1960), and the Directeur du Musée Copte was a Copt who had studied under him in Paris, Togo Mina (1906-1949). Furthermore the “présence française” gave the tone to international Cairene society. Still today, the transliteration of Arabic names in Egypt usually follows the French system. Thus it is not surprising that the first contacts of scholarship with the Nag Hammadi codices were French. The present report is based on rather massive unpublished archives of letters and documents contributed by Jean and Marianne Doresse, Jacques Schwartz, François Daumas, Gilles Quispel, the Director Emer- itus of the Jung Institute in Zürich C.A. Meier, the library of the Uni- versity of Michigan, and others, as well as interviews carried on in Egypt itself with most of the Copts who had been involved. A much more detailed and extensive presentation, with full documentation in footnotes, is to be found in the Festschrift for Wolf-Peter Funk, Coptica, Gnostica, Manichaica, in the Bibliothèque copte de Nag Hammadi, section Études, Louvain: Peeters, 2005. The Nag Hammadi codices were discovered by an illiterate Muslim peasant MuÌammad {Alî al-Samman toward the end of 1945. Only a few months later, in March 1946, the antique dealer at Shepherds Hotel, 2 JAMES M. ROBINSON

Mansoor Abdel Sayed Mansoor (who used this French transliteration as a matter of course), telephoned to Jacques Schwartz at the French Insti- tute, inviting him to come and see two codices that peasants had brought in (not three codices, as Henri-Charles Puech reported to the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres two years later). Based on what Schwartz reported, they can be identified as Codices II and VII. Schwartz brought with him the Institute’s Director, Charles Kuentz, to carry on negotiations, which however failed to achieve the purchase. Later in 1946, Albert Eid, a Levantine of Belgian citizenship, enlisted the help of a Francophile Egyptian national, Père Georges Anawati, res- ident at the Cairo Institut Dominicain des Études Orientales, to secure a brilliant expertise on what turned out to be Codex I from Père Bernard Couroyer, the Coptologist at the École Biblique et Archéologique Française at the Couvent Dominicain de St. Étienne in Jerusalem. This French presence continued in 1946, quite naturally, in the persons of François Daumas, Henri Corbin, and then in 1947, with Jean Doresse. Codex III was registered at the Coptic Museum on October 4, 1946. Two months later, on December 5, Togo Mina showed it to François Daumas, who was accompanied by Henri Corbin. They read the title on the front flyleaf, The Apocryphon of John, and excitedly conjec- tured that it was a gnostic codex, whereupon Togo Mina proposed that Daumas join him in editing it. They agreed that Togo Mina would have the leaves conserved so they could be transcribed without damage, and then the next autumn, on Daumas’ return from the summer in France, they would get to work. But, as Daumas wrote me, he kept quiet about it: When I talked about the matter with J[acques] Schwartz, he recommended to me secrecy until the Egyptian government had acquired the rest of the lot. Drioton told me the same thing later. I scrupulously respected what had been asked of me. The only person with whom I spoke of this matter was A[ntoine] Guillaumont.

But by the time Daumas had returned to Cairo in the autumn, Doresse had already arrived and Togo Mina had made arrangements with him that the two of them would publish it. Daumas quietly withdrew, though obviously chagrined that he had been cut out. To understand Togo Mina’s shift from Daumas to Doresse, one must understand that Togo Mina had himself studied in Paris along with Doresse’s wife Marianne. Drioton had encouraged the Doresses to come to Cairo, and indeed took them with him as his protégés, leaving Mar- seille together on September 20, 1947. Togo Mina had been an (unsuc- THE FRENCH ROLE IN EARLY NAG HAMMADI STUDIES 3 cessful) suitor of Marianne in Paris, and of course welcomed them to work at the Coptic Museum on Codex III. Doresse easily identified The Apocryphon of John from its title on the front flyleaf and on p. 40, as well as The Sophia of Jesus (Christ), whose title stood at the beginning and end of the tractate (pp. 90 and 119). And Doresse learned through Togo Mina that another book, Codex I, was still in the hands of the antique dealer Albert Eid. Doresse sent excited letters to his mentor Henri-Charles Puech, who replied with great enthusiasm, and gave detailed instructions on how to proceed. A main purpose of the present essay is to make know these unpublished letters of Puech (1902-1986), which provide the first scholarly assessment of Nag Hammadi texts. On October 8, 1947 Puech wrote: I await with extreme curiosity and impatience all the information that you would be kind enough to give me on your return, as to the content of the three gnostic manuscripts of which you speak. I would especially like to know the texts in detail — there will be so much to get from them. But most of all, it would be necessary to publish these documents as quickly as possible, or, in any case, to announce them in a detailed way to the scientific public. I will aid you in this to the full measure of my means and — unnec- essary to tell you — the R[evue de l’]H[istoire des] r[eligions] is quite ready to publish immediately preliminary notices, an overall report, or, if appropriate, extracts of the texts with comments. Hence put everything in motion, I urgently demand, to obtain — total or partial — publication rights for these pieces, and copy as much or make as many notes as possible. 1° Quite particularly, get the owner of the manuscript of The Apocryphon Iohannis and of the Sophia Ièsou Khristou to entrust to you the responsibility of editing these two writings. We await their publication for too long a time. The libraries of Berlin will not be accessible very soon, and it is a stunning stroke of luck to have a second copy of the two works. We will quickly find here an editor: the Bibliothèque of the 5ème Section [of the École Pratique des Hautes Études], the large collection of the Musée Guimet or, perhaps, Geuthner. Previously, if you wish, the discovery could be more or less succinctly announced in the R[evue de l’] H[istoire des] R[eligions], and we could make of the translation and commentary on the texts a shared course at the [École Pratique des] Hautes Études during the year 1948/1949. Finally, what is most urgent, what is most necessary, is to convince the owner of the manuscript. Employ there all your efforts, and obtain at least the authorization to publish a detailed analysis of the piece and of its contents. In case you were to succeed completely in carrying it off, would it not be good to have the manuscript photographed?

On October 14 Puech wrote again: You ought to have already received the reply I airmailed you last Friday. This will confirm for you the sentiments that the announcement of your discovery excites in me and that the supplements of information transmit- 4 JAMES M. ROBINSON

ted this morning enliven more than ever: joy, enthusiasm, impatience. How I long to scan and study with you all these precious unpublished texts, and to set off this firecracker of first magnitude, which the official communication of the discovery to the scholarly world will be! Yes, and without neglecting the Dialogue of the Savior [III,5] and, no doubt, the treatise of Eugnostos [III,3] — you have laid hands on important texts. If one puts to one side The Gospel of Mary (of which we know, any- way, since 1938, a rather long fragment in two parallel versions, Coptic and Greek [C. H. Roberts published in 1938 a single leaf, pp. 21/22, as P.Ryl. 463 — but it is only in Greek]), the papyrus of Nag Hammadi is richer than the papyrus of Berlin, which has been guarded too jealously by the late C[arl] Schmidt, in a secrecy for which we are going to take good and prompt revenge. If, as you give me reason to hope, you succeed in obtaining the right to edit the whole, then have the whole manuscript photographed and bring the copy with you. For the time being, do not give preference to one writing over the other. They all have an interest, and, perhaps one we do not yet fully suspect. Do not worry yet about the control and all the questions about the verification and the dating of the texts. On your return I will furnish here all the necessary materials, among other things a copy of the translation of The Apocryphon Iohannis given by Schmidt in 1907 in Philothesia, a fragment of the same “apocryphon” gleaned in 1925 [apparently unknown to scholarship today — perhaps in Eugène de Faye, Gnostiques et Gnosticisme (Paris, 2nd ed. 1925)?], all the quotations useful for the difficult but engrossing problems that The Gospel of the Egyptians [III, 2] will raise, etc. The successive editing of all these texts (of all, without exception, I underline again) may be rapid if we elab- orate it together. Once the content is deciphered, we will be able very quickly, with the help of notes that I have amassed on Gnosticism, to elab- orate the introduction, the annotation, and the commentary. For the time being, occupy yourself with all the questions that can be handled on the spot: the circumstances of the discovery (place, date, purchase, etc.); phys- ical appearance (exact format, writing, ink, layout, etc.); reading of the difficult letters or passages that can only be deciphered or verified on the papyrus itself. This is already a heavy enough responsibility, especially given the little time at your disposal.

On October 27, 1947 Puech wrote again: Thanks once again for your letters and the care you are kind enough to invest in satisfying so rapidly and constantly my curiosity. The latter is enlivened each time by the more and more excellent news that you com- municate to me with so much spontaneity concerning the discovery and the possibilities for its publication. Very selfishly, I admit, I am impatient for you to be back, to bend with you over the study of these new texts and to assure, for the benefit of our science, the most prompt and complete edition possible. According to what you tell me, The Gospel of the Egyptians seems to relate even more closely to The Apocryphon Iohannis than to the anonymous Bruce text. Incidentally, all these works form a block, it seems, THE FRENCH ROLE IN EARLY NAG HAMMADI STUDIES 5

and in any case — this seems more than probable to me with regard to The Gospel [of the Egyptians] — to be products of the Gnosticism of the Sethi- ans, an important group and particularly active in Egypt in the third cen- tury, as the attestations (ordinarily neglected or passed by unnoticed) that I have reunited in my dossiers prove…. Well, we will see all that on the spot, once in possession of the complete text, and try to bring all its photographs or a careful and complete transcription. Especially, I insist, do not neglect for anything on earth the other documents of the collection. The one and the others must be related to and clarify each other. They are all, furthermore, too important not to be photographed, transcribed and studied to the core as soon as possible. Once again, the publication of all these pieces may be done rapidly enough and with facility, especially if the Egyptian government furnishes the necessary funds. We should envisage a scholarly edition surrounded with all possible scientific guarantees and accompanied by an introduction and solid commentaries. Make sure of the collaboration, which seems indispensable, of Mr. Togo Mina. For my part, I would gladly assume responsibility for all the parts of the introduction relative to literary, histor- ical and dogmatic problems, and for the annotations, other than the philo- logical remarks. Indeed, we can very well edit all that collectively.

The Doresses had to be absent from Cairo in Upper Egypt from Octo- ber 26 until December 2, 1947. After all, Doresse had been sent to Egypt to investigate Coptic archaeological sites, not to work in Cairo on manuscripts. While they were away, Togo Mina had Codex III conserved, so that on their return the transcribing and photographing could take place without the risk of damage to the fragile papyrus. But the conservation procedure was what Marianne Doresse described as a “massacre”: At the Coptic Museum, during our absence, the gnostic codex had been completely photographed and put under glass page by page, but without taking note of the order in which they lay. Better still, whereas the two con- jugate leaves at the center of the volume had remained intact, one has cut their middle fold, to put them under glass, without noting the respective connections of these pieces. Togo Mina is not to blame for this massacre. He had entrusted the work to his subordinates. The subordinates of Togo were: Abdel Bakhih and Raouf Habib, adjunct conservators; George Helmy, architect (a relative of the wife of Togo); Abdel Messih, librarian; the priest Basilios, representative of the Patriarchate; the photographer Boulos, working half-time.

As a result, the papyrological analysis Puech presented to the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres on February 20, 1948 was pure specula- tion, based on the standard 16-page quire of much later centuries: The manuscript, today slightly damaged, must have originally been made of 19 quires of papyrus sewn together and united under a simple leaf of 6 JAMES M. ROBINSON

supple leather forming the cover. Since each quire was of four sheets, it hence had in all 152 pages. There remain for us only 134 and several fragments.

Actually, Codex III is a single-quire codex, not a 19-quire codex. On January 10, 1948 a sensational news release written by Doresse and edited by Togo Mina appeared in Cairo in La Bourse Égyptienne: Having hardly scanned the volume, Mr. Doresse congratulated heartily Mr. Togo Mina for his remarkable acquisition, and gave him to understand that this discovery would mark an epoch, not only in the history of Coptic studies, but also in the study of the oldest texts of Christianity. Indeed it had to do with gnostic texts of an exceptional interest. The discovery was compa- rable in importance to that of the Manichaean texts seventeen years ago…. Professor J. Doresse, who is preparing its edition and commentary with Mr. Togo Mina, has already concluded from his first readings that a good part of current theories on Gnosticism and Manichaeism are going to be overturned by the new texts, older, more detailed, and more exact than the few gnostic works one possessed previously.

Puech had insisted primarily on Doresse bringing back a complete transcription and photographs of Codex III, which Doresse succeeded in doing, as Marianne Doresse proudly recorded: We arrived in Paris in possession of — besides the photographs — a first copy of the gnostic papyrus of the Coptic Museum made from the original.

The announcement as prepared by Doresse for Puech to read to the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in Paris on February 20,1948 had made clear that Puech’s involvement in editing the texts depended on Doresse. Of course Puech deleted this dependence on Doresse from the final text he read and then published. Furthermore Doresse did not give to Puech the transcription and photographs of Codex III that Puech had instructed him to bring from Cairo, and which Doresse had with him in Paris, Doresse apparently reasoned that by keeping the material in his own hands, Puech remained dependent on him. This was of course true, but it is equally true that it infuriated Puech. As a result, the promises in Puech’s letters about their close collaboration in editing and publishing the texts and sharing a course at the École des Hautes Études “during the year 1948/1949” never took place. Puech was still calling on Doresse to turn the photographs in to him as late as November 21, 1952. In fact, at the first meeting of the Interna- tional Committee for the Nag Hammadi Codices in Cairo in December 1970, Puech called on me, as Permanent Secretary of the Committee, to establish enough friendship with Doresse (whom I had never met) to THE FRENCH ROLE IN EARLY NAG HAMMADI STUDIES 7 secure from him the photographs. I visited the Doresses in their small Paris apartment, and we did become friends. In fact, they did entrust to me all the photographs they had. These photographs were very important in producing The Facsimile Edition of the Nag Hammadi Codices, since inscribed edges of lacunae were visible on the photographs that had sub- sequently been broken off. We were able to restore photographically these fragments to the pages where they belonged. But Doresse had photographs of far less than all the Nag Hammadi texts, as he had mislead Puech into thinking, no doubt to strengthen his bargaining position. In August 1948, Doresse presented a paper on The Apocryphon of John from Codex III at the Eighth International Congress of Byzantine Studies in Brussels. He took the opportunity to negotiate with the Cop- tologist of Louvain, Canon L. Th. Lefort, to publish the Nag Hammadi texts in the Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium of Louvain, where Doresse, rather than Puech, would be in control. Of course this Belgian publication never took place, but it is indicative of the mutual alienation of Doresse and Puech during 1948. Before leaving Egypt at the end of 1947, Doresse had heard rumors not only of Codex I in the possession of Albert Eid, but of other codices from the same discovery. But it was only a letter of February 13,1948 from Drioton after their return to Paris that broke the news, as Marianne Doresse recorded it: Jean received from Canon Drioton a letter (dated Cairo, February 13,1948) in which the latter mentions in a few words the other manuscripts that, finally, he had just seen, and sends six small photographs, intended for Jean by the one who has the codices. Much later, the Abbot clarified to us how these manuscripts had been shown to him: It was an evening. Tano had come to see him in his home to ask his advice, while asking him to observe the secrecy of the confessional. Then he showed him the lot of papyri. The Abbot had been embarrassed by this mystery, for he would have wished, in the first place, to preserve the interests of Egypt. So as to respect the jurisprudence on antiquities that was in force, he made Tano promise not to have these manuscripts leave Egypt clandestinely, while assuring him that in return he would have them bought from him for a just price (by the government or by the king), based, most of all, on an expertise which one would entrust to Jean Doresse, already accredited on the basis of the aid he had furnished to Togo Mina. It was after the acquies- cence of Tano that he wrote us this letter and transmitted the photos.

Drioton had written in his letter: Everything comes to fruition for the one who knows how to wait. The Cop- tic manuscripts of the discovery of Daba, which everyone hunts for fever- ishly, are now within reach of my hand. They belong to a private person. 8 JAMES M. ROBINSON

Following the rules of the game, I do not know (and I will never want to know) who it is, and I will not divulge the name of the intermediary. It is because the contrabandists have confidence that the policeman (who I am) wishes them no ill, that they have turned to me.

Here one has an early identification of the place of the discovery. For by “Daba” Drioton means al-Debba, the first whistle-stop train station after leaving Nag Hammadi toward Luxor, in a small hamlet near the foot of the Jabal al-™arif where the codices were in fact discovered. Al- Debba would be a much more accurate designation for the discovery than Chénoboskion preferred by Doresse and Nag Hammadi that we use today. Doresse promptly published his own first report, but not in the journal Puech edited, Revue de l’Histoire des Religions, but in the new Dutch journal Vigiliae Christianae. It was a description of the three tractates of Codex III related to P.Berol. 8502, tractates 2 through 4. But he also made a clairvoyant prediction of other discoveries, which was obviously a vaticinium ex eventu based on the photographs he had received from Drioton: Many hopes are currently permitted, and one would perhaps be astonished only a moment if some new chance would bring to light, from a jar buried for fifteen centuries, other volumes hidden by the Gnostics of Egypt, be it a matter of an Apocalypse of Adam [V,5!], or a treatise of the prophet Marsianes [X: Marsanes!] or, who knows, writings still more Hermetic [VI,6-8! - Doresse considered other tractates in Codex VI also to be Her- metic].

Clearly Doresse had identified from the photographs The Apocalypse of Adam in Codex V, Marsanes in Codex X, and Hermetic tractates in Codex VI. Doresse’s second trip to Cairo began October 31, 1948, and had its focus on the bulk of the codices. As Doresse wrote me: The second lot of manuscripts, which seems tied to the first codex [Codex III] and to come also from Chénoboskion, was in 1948 in the home of Miss Dattari, whom I could convince to show it to me, then to offer the manuscripts for purchase to the Coptic Museum, especially qualified to hold them…. Accepting the recommendations of Canon Drioton and Doresse, the owner [Miss Dattari] agreed to submit the library to Togo Mina in the spring of 1949, and Togo Mina, presenting a first report prepared by Doresse, proposed then to the Counsel of the Coptic Museum the acquisition of the lot of manuscripts. The Counsel expressed an opinion favorable to this acquisition. THE FRENCH ROLE IN EARLY NAG HAMMADI STUDIES 9

Togo Mina asked me then to prepare a scientific expertise of them, on the basis of the very complete study that I had meanwhile made of them. Then this expertise, signed with my name and countersigned by him and by Mr. Drioton, was presented to the Counsel of the Museum at the beginning of 1949. In order to prevent the discovery from escaping Egypt as a result of the numerous covetousnesses that it could arouse, Togo Mina decides (1) that the papyri would be put under seal until the end of the negotiations that had begun; (2) that the expertise established by me would be immediately published. This publication, edited in such a way as not to infringe on the rights of the owner by detailed citations, would nonetheless permit us to assure first rights of discovery in case that circumstances would let the manuscripts escape. This expertise, edited under the title: “Nouveaux textes gnostiques coptes découverts en Haute-Égypte: La bibliothèque de Chénoboskion,” appears in Vigiliae Christianae of Leyden in July, 1949 [3: 129-41].

But Doresse could not refrain from giving an interview to the Cairo press, published February 1, 1949, which seems to have ruined whatever was left of good relations with Puech, who wrote him very bluntly: At the very moment I am closing this letter, which for some time I had left abandoned on my table, I receive communication of a document which, on reading it, distresses me. It has to do with a clipping from La Bourse Égyp- tienne of February 1st, which reproduces, accompanied by your picture and with a flashy title, an interview with you. I had, however, recommended to you at your departure, in your interest as well as in that of the negotiations taking place, to show yourself both more discrete and more skilled. The publication of such an article shows great clumsiness, and will not fail to do very great harm to you. To me also, who supports you against winds and waves, and who had thought it fitting to insist, in my report to the C[entre] N[ational de la] R[echerche] S[cientifique], on the disinterested nature of your devotion to pure science. One had already spoken to me on various sides of the article in question, proof that it is known here by many, and that it is exploited against you. It has shocked, specifically, one of your best supports. I fear very much, in the direction that things are going, that it compromises seriously the success of your application for a renewal at the Centre [National de la Recherche Scientifique] or of sending you again on a mission. One would say that you tax your ingenuity to make the task of your defenders more and more difficult. I ask of you: If you do not want to stand in the way of your own future, and the future of the discovery of N[ag] H[ammadi] (whose interests should surpass all others), cease permit- ting your being adorned with the title “professor,” or any other title, and giving yourself up to such manifestations around your person. Love your work for itself, and not for yourself. I tell you all this in all sincerity, believe me.

Nonetheless, the existence of the Tano collection was broken to the press on June 10, 1949 in an even more sensational news release in La 10 JAMES M. ROBINSON

Bourse Égyptienne, entitled “Les Découvertes Archéologiques: Le gou- vernement égyptien acquiet des papyrus d’une importance consid- érable”: The acquisition of these precious documents by the Egyptian government is in progress. According to the specialists consulted, it has to do with one of the most extraordinary discoveries reserved until the present by the soil of Egypt, surpassing in scientific interest such spectacular discoveries as the tomb of Tut-Ankh-Amon. It restores suddenly almost all of a religious literature lost until now, whose importance is considerable for the history of the end of oriental paganism and the beginnings of Christianity.

The announcement to the French Academy took place on June 17, 1949: Jean Doresse, “Nouveaux documents gnostiques coptes décou- verts en Haute-Égypte,” Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, Comtes Rendus des Séances de I’Année 1949 (1949), 176-180, reported in the press as “L’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres entend des communications sur d’importantes découvertes en Afghanistan et en Égypte,” Le Monde, June 19, 1949. But it was presented by Doresse alone, since, on receipt of a copy from Doresse only the day before, Puech responded in a handwritten express letter (“pneumatique”): Not knowing anything of the content of the documents, I would not wish to see my name pronounced on the occasion of such bold or adventuresome suppositions.

But Canon L. Th. Lefort presented Doresse’s report with due respect on Doresse’s behalf to the Royal Belgian Academy on August 2, 1950: Jean Doresse, “Une bibliothèque gnostique copte découverte en Haute Égypte,” Bulletin de la Classe des Lettres et des Sciences morales et politiques of the Académie Royale de Belgique, 5e Série, 35 (1949), 422 (for the listing of it among the “Communications”), 435-449 (for the text itself). It is a considerably enlarged version of what was published by the French Academy. Puech had turned to the Dutch scholar Gilles Quispel, to whom he wrote on September 29, 1952: Thus I had occasion to ascertain the ignorances or the carelessness of Doresse. Whether it has to do with Hermetism, or with what he takes to be that, with titles arbitrarily given to certain writings, with the numbering of the content of this or that collection, his preliminary report on the ensem- ble of the discovery contains inexactitudes, errors, gratuitous statements. It has to be begun again, and I regret having been obliged, due to the lack of any means of control, to have trusted it and to have reproduced its main lines in my contribution to the Crum Festschrift. THE FRENCH ROLE IN EARLY NAG HAMMADI STUDIES 11

Before he left Cairo in May 1949, Doresse has been entrusted with packing the Tano collection in a valise, as he reported to me: Conformable to the decisions taken by the Council of the Coptic Museum, and in agreement with the owner of the manuscripts, measures were taken that the manuscripts be put in security, so that no modification could be made to their content. Doresse had the responsibility to arrange them in a valise.

Yet year after year no settlement was reached in Cairo that would make the material accessible, and so Puech remained dependent on Doresse’s information. Unavoidably, a semblance of cooperation was maintained on both sides, with Doresse supplying Puech material from The Gospel of Thomas as late as the summer of 1952, which Puech could only welcome and immediately identify in a letter to Doresse of July 25, 1952: On my return home, some hours after our interview, I was rapidly able to discover the Greek text of all the beginning and of one of the subsequent passages of The Gospel of Thomas and the Latin translation of another bit of the same writing. The Greek text is conserved, more or less mutilated, in two distinct papyri [P.Oxy. 654; P.Oxy. 1]; the Latin version is provided, without an indication of the source, by a tract that is gnostic, or, in any case, anti-biblical, which St. Augustine refutes. As a result of these first observations, the document found at Nag Ham- madi assumes an interest that is considerable, even prodigious. The whole question of the logia (or, more exactly, the logoi) of Jesus is what is going to be brought into play, renewed, and, without doubt, in large part resolved. From there, it is only one step to resume the problem of the composition of the canonical Gospels, and to return to the works of the Formgeschicht- liche Schule. The Gospel of Thomas (if one may retain this title for our text) requires, before being edited in the general collection of the volumes of Chénoboskion, the publication of a series of preliminary essays, and even, it seems to me, a separate work, to have it appear as soon as possible. Once again, regarding this writing, as of all the others, it is absolutely necessary to obtain the right to use and to quote the discovered texts, in our teaching, our conferences, and our articles. I even regret that it is too late (or too early) to make known the first results of my discovery at the next Congress of Papyrology. The communication would not have failed to make a sensation. It has to do, in effect, with texts and problems that have given rise to a super-abundant bibliography, and for which, I believe, we today hold the key. In any case, it is fitting to assume one’s position as soon as possible, to signal to the scholarly world “officially,” with the least possible delay, the facts heavy with consequences, and not to let others have the merit of doing it…. All this persuades me that, parallel to the preparation of the edition of the volume of the Museum of Cairo [Codex III], we should put all our 12 JAMES M. ROBINSON

efforts on collection III of my classification [Codex II], and undertake its immediate publication. This is certainly one of the most important pieces, if not the capital piece, of the discovery.

Puech again wrote Doresse on August 3, 1952: It is however urgent, more urgent than ever, that we meet. The news of the interdiction for Abbot Drioton to return to Egypt overthrows all our plans and strongly risks meaning the ruin of all our hopes. Your project of a mission itself seems compromised. Hence we have to examine afresh the situ- ation and envisage what can be done, if we want to save what can still be saved.

The French access to the Nag Hammadi materials collapsed completely in 1952, with the nationalization of Tano’s codices on May 12, their deposit in the Coptic Museum out of the control of Abbé Drioton on June 9, the coup d’état on July 23, the interdiction of Drioton to return in the autumn of 1952 to his position in Cairo, the Suez crisis in the autumn leading to the breaking of diplomatic relations with France and the closing (temporarily) of the French Institute, the inability of Doresse to achieve anything in Cairo with the pro-German Director of the Coptic Museum Pahor Labib in November, and finally Doresse giving up and moving to Ethiopia in February 1953.

James M. Robinson 548W. 8th Street Claremont, CA 91711 USA