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Today Gnosticism survives as a living religion only among the Mandaean marsh dwellers of Iraq. But Robinson believes that the Gnostic world view has had a kind of underground existence throughout Western civilization, surfacing in such classics of existential despair as Albert Camus' The Stranger as well as among today's alienated youths. Says Robinson: "The Gnostics were colossal dropouts who opted for an otherworldly escape."
Robinson and his team will return to Egypt next month to complete the reconstruction of the final pages and explore the discovery site outside Nag Hammadi. The silent mountains there could well have more ancient gnosis to yield to modern scholars.