The Greek Gospel of the Egyptians

About this edition

The Greek Gospel of the Egyptians is known through quotations and reports by ancient authors; no continuous text is available. The central part of this selection comprises sayings transmitted by Clement of Alexandria while discussing continence, marriage, birth and death. Accompanying explanations are retained, with the transmitting author’s voice identified. James’s summary of Origen, reports by Hippolytus and Epiphanius about books with the same title, and a comparative saying from Second Clement are presented separately. The identity of all the books mentioned is not assumed. These are eight editorial sections containing ten passages from M. R. James’s 1924 selection, not a reconstructed complete Gospel. The Coptic Holy Book of the Great Invisible Spirit, also called the Gospel of the Egyptians, is a different work and is not included.

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Section and passage numbers are Life for God reading aids, not chapters and verses of the lost book. The first four sections contain six excerpts from Clement, followed by three external reports and one parallel. The arrangement is thematic. Each source label identifies the transmitting work. Parentheses retain explanations and alternatives in the historical translation; Russian quotation marks and paragraphing distinguish the speakers.

Translation notes

1. 1:1 — The parenthesis is Clement’s discussion of humanity and the death of the soul, not Jesus’ reply. The capitalized Word follows James’s designation of Christ.
2. 1:1 — This is the first of three transmissions of one saying in this collection. Their wording is kept distinct; the repetitions are not assembled into an imagined continuous dialogue.
3. 1:2 — The phrase “not because life is an ill…” is Clement’s explanation. He rejects an interpretation condemning creation and birth. The entire paragraph must not be attributed to Jesus as a single direct speech.
4. 1:2 — Decay in the selected English basis concerns dissolution and mortality following birth. The argument about the natural sequence is retained; no teaching about the moral corruption of newborn children is supplied.
5. 1:3 — Excerpts from Theodotus names a collection transmitted among Clement’s works. Here the saying is reported and interpreted; this is not a new question from Salome or an additional Gospel scene.
6. 2:1 — Salome’s question follows James’s rendering: “I have done well, then, in not bearing children?” This identifies the historical translation adopted here; it does not imply that all modern translations construe the sentence identically.
7. 2:1 — Plant and bitterness are retained as images. The short saying is not replaced with a settled interpretation about marriage, food or a particular commandment. The introductory objection and parenthesis belong to Clement.
8. 3:1 — In Stromata III.13.92 Clement is quoting Julius Cassian. In III.13.93 he replies that the saying is in the Gospel of the Egyptians. James places both portions under 92; the reference here is expanded to 92–93, and the boundary is marked by a paragraph break.
9. 3:1 — Garment of shame is retained without supplying a complete interpretation. The images of two, unity, male and female do not by themselves establish a particular ritual.
10. 3:1 — Compare the parallel in section 8 and Galatians 3:28. Similar wording does not make these texts interchangeable. Section 8 has the contrast of outside and inside, absent from Clement’s quotation; this passage instead has the garment of shame.
11. 4:1 — “I think (or I take it)” retains the transmitting author’s qualification and James’s English alternative. The attribution is not turned into an unqualified bibliographic assertion.
12. 4:1 — The Russian “женское начало” renders the female; “начало” makes the Russian expression readable and does not designate a separate deity. The following explanation of lust, birth and decay belongs to the transmitting discussion, not to the Saviour’s direct speech.
13. 4:1 — Clement discusses the use of sayings by opponents of marriage and argues against them. This short, indirectly transmitted passage should not be presented as a universal Christian norm concerning women, marriage or childbearing.
14. 5:1 — This is James’s own summary of Origen’s first homily on Luke. The judgement on Gospel writers is reported as Origen’s view, not adopted as an established fact about the authors.
15. 5:1 — The web transcription omits the reference to the Gospel “according to the Egyptians”, leaving only “of the Twelve”. The omission is restored from printed page 10 of the 1924 edition. This corrects a transcription, not a lost ancient manuscript.
16. 6:1 — Hippolytus reports the Naassenes’ use of a book and various changes of the soul. He does not quote a separate saying of Jesus here. The shared title does not guarantee identity with the text quoted by Clement.
17. 7:1 — “Deceit (error)” is Epiphanius’s polemical characterization. The statement concerning Father, Son and Holy Spirit is his account of others’ teaching, not a verbatim Gospel quotation or an editorial assertion.
18. 7:1 — The Russian “spoken in secret” renders James’s said in a corner. This testimony has not been established as referring to the source of the dialogue with Salome; it is retained among external reports about a similarly named book.
19. 8:1 — So-called Second Clement is a separate work, distinct from Clement of Alexandria’s Stromata. This parallel neither names Salome as the questioner nor identifies its source as the Gospel of the Egyptians.
20. 8:1 — The parentheses are James’s English explanations, also rendered into Russian. The saying is included for comparison; it must not be cited as an assuredly surviving verse of the Gospel of the Egyptians.