Early Christianity

from the rest of the church is usually considered in a third-century

context, which is where Eusebius discusses it (Ecclesiastical

History6.43–6). Yet a distinct Novatian church persisted long

afterwards, and not just in Rome and Carthage. The fifth-century

ecclesiastical historians Socrates and Sozomen mention that in

their own day there was a Novatian church with its own bishop

at Constantinople, and that Novatian communities could be found

in neighbouring parts of Asia Minor (Mitchell 1993: II, 96–100).

Meanwhile, inscriptions from Phrygia in northern Asia Minor

attest to the presence there of Novatian and Montanist Christian

groups throughout the fourth century and beyond (Mitchell 1993:

II, 100–8). Similarly, histories of the debate over the nature of

the Trinity and the nature of the relationship between Christ and

God the Father known as the Arian controversy normally locate

it in the fourth century. This conflict is sometimes described

as coming to an end within the fourth century, when the institu-

tional church reaffirmed the creed of Nicaea at the council of

Constantinople in 381. Even after this, however, Christians whose

beliefs can be categorized as ‘Arian’ continued to exist – the early

medieval Gothic kings of Spain only renounced their Arianism

and sought to bring their realm into the Catholic fold in the late

sixth century.^5

In this context, we can postulate that the existence of the

Nag Hammadi codices shows that there were Christians in fourth-

century Egypt with an interest in doctrines that did not conform

to the church’s strict definitions of orthodoxy. Moreover, they

were not the only Egyptians in late antiquity with such tastes.

Athanasius’ thirty-ninth Festal Letterpresupposes that this was

the case. It can be proved also from more positive evidence. In

1886–7, excavations at Akhmim, also in upper Egypt, revealed

the tomb of a monk datable to any time between the eighth

and twelfth centuries. In the tomb was found a seventh-century

parchment codex containing an extract from a gospel written from

the perspective of Jesus’ disciple Peter. Other fragments of this

Gospel of Peterhave been found on papyrus elsewhere in Egypt

(Ehrman 2003: 13–28). But this text too had been condemned, as

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