including concentric circles and squares. The text was perhaps used as a sort of prayer book or spell book for Gnostic rituals. The text also includes Gnostic hymns of praise. Analysis The work is somewhat similar to the Gnostic Apocryphon of John. M. R. James was unimpressed with the work; he wrote that its "mystic diagrams, and numbers, and meaningless collections of letters (...) require a vast deal of historical imagination and sympathy to put oneself in the place of anybody who could tolerate, let alone reverence, the dreary stuff." See also Grimoire References Further reading , for the original Coptic text and a German translation Gnostic texts Works of unknown authorship New Testament apocrypha