The Shelves · Laws

Thirty-Ninth Festal Letter

Known · Attestedin Alexandria?Conjectured · Our reconstructionour placement

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I · The entry, in his form

In the table of Laws: “canon list”

Conjectured · Our reconstructionour placement

Athanasius of Alexandria

c. 296–373 CE. Bishop from 328, five times exiled, the champion of Nicaea against Arius. His Life of Antony made the Egyptian desert monk a model for Christendom, and his Festal Letter of 367 is the first to list the twenty-seven books of the New Testament as the canon.

Thirty-Ninth Festal Letter

Opening words not preserved.

Length: not counted

Above, his entry form, filled from what we know. Below, ours.

II · Does it survive? Where to read it

Survives in large part

Greek and Coptic fragments; a further Coptic fragment was published in 2010.

Was it in Alexandria?

Known · Attested

Written in Alexandria.

On the table: written in Alexandria; no evidence it was in the Library.

Read it today

III · In the show

  • Early Spread of Christianity & Esotericism, episode 17, at 48 minutes 34 secondsTranscriptEarly spread of Christianity and esotericism; Plotinus' hypostases and the Trinity.Known: attested
  • Alexandria as Esoteric Crossroads, episode 17, at 47 minutes 57 secondsTranscript“the evangelist Mark brought Christianity there in 42 CE”Church tradition, which the speaker labels 'legend… or tradition' (Eusebius, Church History 2.16); Eusebius' Chronicle, in Jerome's version, puts Mark's mission in the early 40s.Known: attested
    Correction
    What was said
    The Hermetic tracts were "all found outside of Alexandria".
    What the sources say
    Near Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt, some 600 km south of Alexandria (about 615 km in a straight line, farther by the river). Codex VI holds three Hermetic texts (the Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth, the Prayer of Thanksgiving, an extract of the Asclepius) and an extract of Plato's Republic.
  • Heresiologists and early Christian doctrine, episode 2, at 2 minutes 2 secondsTranscript“Clement of Alexandria was a little bit more um he was a little bit more amunable to you know particularly the Gnostic schools”Known: attested
+ 3 more

IV · Sources and the living entry

Ancient references
  • Athanasius, Festal Letter 39 (Greek fragments and Coptic)
Modern scholarship (3)
  • D. Brakke, 'Canon Formation and Social Conflict in Fourth-Century Egypt: Athanasius of Alexandria's Thirty-Ninth Festal Letter', Harvard Theological Review 87.4 (1994): 395-419.
  • H. Lundhaug and L. Jenott, The Monastic Origins of the Nag Hammadi Codices (Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015).
  • B. A. Pearson, Gnosticism and Christianity in Roman and Coptic Egypt (New York: T&T Clark, 2004)

Entry checked 31 Oct 2026 · no corrections · Suggest a correction ›

THIRTY-NINTH FESTAL LETTER

Beside it on the table