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Zostrianos is a sethian gnostic text from the New Testament apocrypha. The main surviving copies come from the Nag Hammadi find, although it is heavily damaged (although on a word-by-word basis). The sethians were a group of gnostics, originally independant from christianity. ... Gnosticism is a blanket term for various religions and sects most prominent in the first few centuries A.D. General characteristics The word gnosticism comes from the Greek word for knowledge, gnosis (γνῶσις), referring to the idea that there is special, hidden mysticism (esoteric knowledge) that only a few possess. ... In the process of determining the Biblical canon, a large number of works were excluded from the New Testament. ... Nag Hammâdi is a village in the middle of Egypt, called Chenoboskion in classical antiquity, about 225 kilometres north-west of Aswan with some 30. ...


The text concerns a vision recieved by a man named Zostrianos and explains and enumerates, in great detail, the emanations that the gnostics said god (the true, highest, god) produced, in their esoteric cosmology.


The text is thought to be from the sethian sect of gnostics (the sect that viewed the biblical Seth as their hero, who was reincarnated as Jesus). Their other texts include the Apocalypse of Adam, Apocryphon of John, the Three Steles of Seth, the Trimorphic Protennoia, and the Coptic Gospel of the Egyptians. This article is about the Biblical Seth. ... The Apocalypse of Adam discovered in 1945 as part of the Nag Hammadi Library is a Gnostic work written in Coptic. ... The Secret Book of John (Apocryphon of John) is a 2nd century gnostic text of secret teachings, given a Christian context: the teaching of the savior, and the revelation of the mysteries and the things hidden in silence, even these things which he taught John, his disciple, are its opening... Two versions of the suppressed Coptic Gospel of the Egyptians (which is quite distinct from the Greek Gospel of the Egyptians), were among the codices in the Nag Hammadi library, discovered in 1945. ...


The text is thought to be a 3rd century development of the sethian group of gnostics, as they became more seperated from christianity, and closer to Platonism.