Nag Hammadi - Letter From Harpocration to Sansnos

[Blood]

The least known texts from Nag Hammadi are those scraps found tucked away inside the covers. What is not typically known about these scraps is that they contain a few complete and partial letters written by monks presumably associated with the Pachomian monastery. It's instructive to see what a real letter actually looked like in ancient Christianity. Tell Petros to stop harassing people about rents! And bring us some chaff. Quite a contrast to the content inside Codex VII.

Also of interest is "Chresto" in line 12 instead of "Christo."

Nag Hammadi Codices. Greek and Coptic Papyri from the Cartonnage of the Covers, ed. Barns, Browne, and Shelton (Brill, 1981), pp. 62-63.

[Leucius Charinus]

Also of interest is "Chresto" in line 12 instead of "Christo."

Thanks Blood,

I have added this instance to a collection of similar instances: http://www.mountainman.com.au/essenes/c ... stians.htm
This letter is also registered here: http://www.trismegistos.org/text/32410
And via google books here: http://books.google.com.au/books?id=Nh6 ... os&f=false

There is a comment that this is viewed as a "spelling mistake common throughout the Byzantine period". However according to my study of this collection (above) this so-called "misspelling" has an extremely remarkable consistency. I have yet to find any instance of "Christo", "Christos" or "Christian" prior to the 5th or 6th century. However the note continues as follows: "G.M.Browne informs me that in Coptic the opposite error (XPICTOC or even XC, for χρηστος ) is sometimes found". I haven't seen any of these.

Generally though I agree that these personal letters are able to make a fascinating study.

Robin Lane Fox in "Pagans and Christians" makes the following remark (about p.414) ....

• • Extant also are three texts: a prayer and two discourses of Thrice-great Hermes.
  [FN:35] "Fascinating postscript on prayer, carefully inscribed in decorated rectangle"
  (Codex 6.7, Robinson,p299)
  
  • "I have copied this one discourse of his [Hermes].
    Indeed, very many have come to me.
    I have not copied these too,
    because I thought that they had come to you.
    I hesitate to copy these for you,
    because perhaps they have come to you already,
    and the business may burden you ..."
    
    --- Anonymous "Nag Hammadi" scribe.
  Later, RLF summarises ... The picture is intriguing. By c.350,
  we have a group of Christian monks who owned such a quantity of texts
  from the pagan's spiritual master, "The Thrice-Great Hermes",
  that a scribe hesitated before sending any more.

Be well,


LC