INTRODUCTION 19
of salvation from Judaism to Jesus and beyond. Yet the Christian canonical
idea of Marcion carried the day, as did Marcion's basic outline of the Christ-
ian canon, with a gospel section and an epistolary (Pauline) section. From the
perspective of the Christian Bible, Marcion lost the battle but won the war.
When we refer to the texts in the present volume as The Gnostic Bible, we
are in this world of discourse. We are presenting these texts as sacred books
and sacred scriptures of the gnostics, and collectively as sacred literature of the
gnostics. But in this Bible of the gnostics there is no sense of a single, author-
itative collection. The sacred literature in this Bible illustrates a diversity that
we have suggested is characteristic of gnostic religions. Further, the sacred lit-
erature in this Bible constitutes no closed canon. We present here what we
judge to be the most significant gnostic texts, but there are other gnostic texts
that have not been included. All these gnostic texts may be equally authorita-
tive, truths may be discovered in a variety of texts and traditions, and the way
to wisdom and knowledge cannot be closed. Such a sense of wisdom and
knowledge has made this sacred literature attractive to free spirits in the past
and equally fascinating to many in the present day.