Books of Jeu

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Part of a series on Gnosticism


History of Gnosticism Early Gnosticism Syrian-Egyptic Gnosticism Gnosticism in modern times
Proto-Gnostics Philo Valentinius Cerinthus Basilides
Gnostic texts Gnostic Gospels Nag Hammadi library Codex Tchacos Bruce Codex Gnosticism and the New Testament
Related articles Gnosis Pythagoreanism Neoplatonism and Gnosticism Manichaeism Bosnian Church Esoteric Christianity Theosophy This box: view • talk • edit

The Books of Jeu are two gnostic texts considered part of the New Testament apocrypha. The earliest known copy is written in Coptic, and appears as part of the Bruce Codex. They date from the third century CE.

A typical page from the 1st book of Jeu

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. Like much of gnostic teaching, it was only designed to be understood once a certain level of understanding was reached, and so appears to the casual observer to be quite obscure as to its meaning or purpose. The text has only been known for a brief time, and so there is not much academic research into them, however it does appear to be the case that the texts are some sort of manual for one or more unknown gnostic ritual(s).