The Nag hammadi library consists of a collection of bound books found in 1945 in a Jar hidden in the desert near Nag Hammadi, Egypt.

Included in the cache of thirteen gazelle-leather bound codices were 52 texts, including fourth century Gnostic scriptures, a copy of Plato's Republic, Hermetic texts, etc., and the first texts found representing the Gnostic point of view from the Gnostics themselves. Before this discovery, gnostic scripture was only known in fragments culled from polemics against Gnosticism, all other existing texts having been destroyed.