THE GOSPEL OF PHILIP: The Lost Gnostic Text on Sacred Union, Mary Magdalene, and the Hidden Teachings of Jesus; Translated into Plain Modern English with Commentary
About this audiobook
For sixteen centuries, this gospel was missing.
In December 1945, a farmer digging for fertiliser near the Egyptian village of Nag Hammadi struck a sealed clay jar. Inside were thirteen leather bound codices that had been hidden in the cliffs since the fourth century. One of them was a Christian gospel that no living person had read.
It speaks about the things the New Testament leaves out.
The Gospel of Philip is not a story of miracles and journeys. It is a collection of sayings, images, and short meditations written by Christians who believed that the deepest truths of their faith were never meant to be preached in the open. They wrote about the union of male and female as a spiritual reality. They wrote about a rite they called the bridal chamber, which they held to be the highest of all the sacraments. And they wrote about a woman named Mary Magdalene, whom they called the companion of the Saviour, the one he loved more than the other disciples.
These are not modern inventions. They are on the page, in a manuscript older than most of the Bibles printed today.
What makes this edition different
Most versions of this gospel are either dense academic translations aimed at specialists, or loose paraphrases that quietly add material the manuscript never contained. This edition takes a third path. The surviving Coptic text is rendered in clear, natural modern English, with nothing added and nothing smoothed over. Where the ancient page is physically damaged and words are lost, the gap is marked honestly rather than filled with guesswork.
Every saying is followed by commentary in plain language that answers the question a general reader actually asks. What does this mean. Why did they say it this way. What did the people who first read it believe.
Inside this edition
● The complete surviving text, arranged into six thematic movements
● Commentary on every saying, written for readers with no background in ancient languages
● A full introduction to the Nag Hammadi discovery and the Valentinian Christians who produced this gospel
● A thematic index that gathers every saying on Mary Magdalene, the bridal chamber, naming and knowledge, the body and resurrection, and secrecy
● A glossary of Gnostic and Coptic terms
● A timeline of early Christianity and the manuscript's rediscovery
● A frequently asked questions section that addresses the marriage claims, the popular fiction, and the honest limits of the evidence
● Suggestions for further reading
Who this is for
For readers of early Christian history who want the primary source rather than a summary of it. For anyone who has heard about the suppressed gospels and wants to judge them personally. For students of mysticism, comparative religion, and the traditions that grew alongside the church before the councils drew their lines. And for readers of faith who would rather examine a difficult text with clear eyes than take somebody else's word for what it says.
You do not need Greek, Coptic, or a seminary degree. You need curiosity.
Read the words the early church chose to leave out.
Discover more
About the author
Thornbridge Press publishes careful, readable editions of the ancient religious writings that most people have heard of and almost nobody has actually read.
The press was founded on a straightforward frustration. The primary sources of early religious history sit in one of two places. They are locked inside academic translations written for specialists, dense with bracketed reconstructions and untranslated terms, or they are loosened into paraphrases that add material the original manuscripts never contained. The reader who simply wants to know what an ancient document says, in their own language, without a doctorate and without being misled, has been poorly served for a very long time.
Every Thornbridge edition is built to close that gap. The source text is translated into natural modern English and left intact, including the parts that are difficult, strange, or inconvenient. Where a manuscript is physically damaged, the loss is marked rather than invented over. Commentary sits alongside the text in plain language and explains what the passage meant to the people who first copied it, what scholars disagree about, and where the honest limits of the evidence fall.
The press takes no doctrinal position. Its editions are read by historians, by students of mysticism and comparative religion, by members of many faiths, and by readers of none. What they share is a preference for the primary source over the summary, and for being trusted with the full picture.
Thornbridge Press publishes across the Gnostic library, the Jewish mystical tradition, the apocryphal writings, and the wider literature of the ancient near east.
