This collection of essays commemorates two important events. The first is the retirement of Professor Robert Wilson, the leading British authority on the subject of Gnosis and Gnosticism and a foremost international scholar in this field, from the Chair of Biblical Criticism in the University of St. Andrews and from the Editorship of New Testament Studies in the autumn of 1983.

The second is the recent appearance, both in facsimile form and in English translation, of the Nag Hammadi Codices. Some of these have become known in various ways since their discovery in 1945-6, but it is only until very recently that the complete corpus of material has been made generally available. Thus it is only now that we can begin to assess its significance both for our understanding of this area of early Church history and in particular for the question of the relationship between Gnosis and Gnosticism and the New Testament.