The Reception of the Nag Hammadi Codices: Gnosis and Christianity in Late-Antique Roman Egypt.

The Nag Hammadi Codices have been calling the attention of scholars of early Christianity and religions in the Roman Empire almost since their discovery in 1945. These codices, generally associated with the so-called Gnosticism, are not only an example of the religious diversity of Christianity in the Roman Empire, but also a peculiar illustration of the transmission and reception of Christian texts in Late-antiquity. The texts copied in the codices in question were probably composed in Greek somewhere between the second and third centuries, in many different locations in the Empire, but what we have today are Coptic translations compiled in Egypt, in the second half of fourth century. The natural preference for the oldest and for the so-called Gnostic conjecture, lead scholars to prioritize the study of the original context of composition of these texts. However, the last decades saw a growing interest for the study of the context of compilation of these texts in Coptic. This article intends to suggest a new approach and methodology to this kind of study in light of the theory of reception. The goal is to provide scholars with a method that may help us to understand how these texts may have been interpreted by Coptic readers in Late-antique Egyp