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The Church Fathers · c. 200–250
Zostrianos
Anonymous
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What it is
The longest text in the Nag Hammadi library and among the most damaged: an ascent through successive baptisms and levels of being, each named and enumerated, told by a visionary who claims descent from Zoroaster.
Why it lasted
Porphyry names this book by title as one the Christian sectarians in Plotinus's own lecture room were circulating in Rome, and says Amelius wrote forty volumes against it. It is the rare gnostic text with a fixed date and address.
Scripture it works from
Where to read it
Public domain and free to read in full, though not held here. The archives below have it.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
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