The Books of Jeu are two

Gnostic Gnosticism (from Ancient Greek: , romanized: ''gnōstikós'', Koine Greek: �nostiˈkos 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems that coalesced in the late 1st century AD among early Christian sects. These diverse g ...

texts. Though independent works, both the First Book of Jeu and the Second Book of Jeu appear, in Sahidic Coptic, in the

Bruce Codex The Bruce Codex (Latin: ) is a codex that contains Coptic, Arabic, and Ethiopic manuscripts. It contains rare Gnostic works; the Bruce Codex is the only known surviving copy of the Books of Jeu and another work simply called Untitled Text or ...

. They are a combination of a

gospel Gospel originally meant the Christianity, Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the second century Anno domino, AD the term (, from which the English word originated as a calque) came to be used also for the books in which the message w ...

and an

esoteric Western esotericism, also known as the Western mystery tradition, is a wide range of loosely related ideas and movements that developed within Western society. These ideas and currents are united since they are largely distinct both from orthod ...

revelation; the work professes to record conversations Jesus had with both the male

apostle An apostle (), in its literal sense, is an emissary. The word is derived from Ancient Greek ἀπόστολος (''apóstolos''), literally "one who is sent off", itself derived from the verb ἀποστέλλειν (''apostéllein''), "to se ...

s and his female disciples, and the secret knowledge (

gnosis Gnosis is the common Greek noun for knowledge ( γνῶσις, ''gnōsis'', f.). The term was used among various Hellenistic religions and philosophies in the Greco-Roman world. It is best known for its implication within Gnosticism, where ...

) revealed in these conversations.

Authorship and date

The date of the Bruce Codex, which contains the sole surviving copy of the work, is unknown and disputed, with estimates ranging from the 3rd to the 10th century. It is believed that the Sahidic Coptic of the Codex version is a translation, however, and the original was written in

Koine Greek Koine Greek (, ), also variously known as Hellenistic Greek, common Attic, the Alexandrian dialect, Biblical Greek, Septuagint Greek or New Testament Greek, was the koiné language, common supra-regional form of Greek language, Greek spoken and ...

in the early 3rd century. This estimate is because the Pistis Sophia mentions the two books of Jeu twice (158.18 and 228.35), suggesting that the Books of Jeu were written before it, and the Pistis Sophia is dated to the late 3rd or early 4th century. The author is unknown, but was presumably a Gnostic Christian in

Roman Egypt Roman Egypt was an imperial province of the Roman Empire from 30 BC to AD 642. The province encompassed most of modern-day Egypt except for the Sinai. It was bordered by the provinces of Crete and Cyrenaica to the west and Judaea, ...

Content

The work frequently refers to Jesus as "the living ne or "the life-giving", in reference to the resurrection. There are standard references to Gnostic theology: the disciples ask Jesus to "teach us the hidden knowledge". According to Jesus, the Father projected "Jeu" (Ίεου) from his bosom, and then 28 emanations formed over the Aeons, with each form, mystic name, and number spelled out with great precision. Jesus gives the "three

baptism Baptism (from ) is a Christians, Christian sacrament of initiation almost invariably with the use of water. It may be performed by aspersion, sprinkling or affusion, pouring water on the head, or by immersion baptism, immersing in water eit ...

s" to those present of water, fire, and the Holy Spirit, and explains the Gnostic mystery that will save them from the

Archon ''Archon'' (, plural: , ''árchontes'') is a Greek word that means "ruler", frequently used as the title of a specific public office. It is the masculine present participle of the verb stem , meaning "to be first, to rule", derived from the same ...

s. Jesus says that after the disciples' souls were purified and saved, they will eventually transmit themselves through the Aeons to a transcendent realm in the place of the great invisible God, the great virginal Spirit, and 24 emanations of God. The work then discusses the secret names of the aeons, their numbers, their seals, their passwords, formula which allow free passage through the

celestial spheres The celestial spheres, or celestial orbs, were the fundamental entities of the cosmological models developed by Plato, Eudoxus, Aristotle, Ptolemy, Copernicus, and others. In these celestial models, the apparent motions of the fixed star ...

, and other esoteric details. Jesus closes with a warning to only share such information with those worthy to receive the true knowledge. Much of the work is illustrated with detailed diagrams, rather than being solely text. One of the unusual features of the Books of Jeu are that they predominantly consist of mystic incantations and similarly esoteric diagrams, often including concentric circles and squares. The text was perhaps used as a sort of prayer book or spell book for Gnostic rituals. The text also includes Gnostic hymns of praise.

Analysis

The work is somewhat similar to the Gnostic

Apocryphon of John The ''Apocryphon of John'', also called the ''Secret Book of John'' or the ''Secret Revelation of John'', is a 2nd-century Sethianism, Sethian gnosticism, Gnostic Christian pseudepigrapha, pseudepigraphical text attributed to John the Apost ...

M. R. James Montague Rhodes James (1 August 1862 – 12 June 1936) was an English medievalist scholar and author who served as provost of King's College, Cambridge (1905–1918), and of Eton College (1918–1936) as well as Vice-Chancellor of the Univers ...

was unimpressed with the work; he wrote that its "mystic diagrams, and numbers, and meaningless collections of letters (...) require a vast deal of historical imagination and sympathy to put oneself in the place of anybody who could tolerate, let alone reverence, the dreary stuff."

Authorship and date

Content

Analysis

See also

References

Further reading