Gnostica, Judaica, Catholica

Gnostica, Judaica, Catholica
Author: Gilles Quispel
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 897
Release: 2008
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004139451

This volume brings together a rich and varied collection of essays by Gilles Quispel (1916-2006), Professor of the History of the Early Church at Utrecht University from 1951 until his retirement in 1983. During his illustrious career, Professor Quispel was also visiting Professor at Harvard University in 1964/65, and visiting Professor at the Catholic University of Leuven from 1969 until 1974. The fifty essays collected in this volume testify to most of the prominent themes from Professor Quispela (TM)s scholarly career: the writings of the Nag Hammadi library in general and the "Gospel of Thomas" in particular; Tatiana (TM)s "Diatessaron" and its influences; the "Hermetica"; Mani and Manichaeism; the Jewish origins of Gnosticism; and Gnosis and the future of Christianity. This volume also makes a number of his less known earlier publications (mainly presented under the heading a ~Catholicaa (TM)) available to the international community. Until shortly before he died, Professor Quispel remained active in his study of the "Gospel of Thomas." He had been one of the first to acquire the Coptic text of the "Gospel of Thomas," of which he published the first translation in 1959 and his final translation in 2005. He was also active in researching the "Diatessaron," and Valentinus a ~the Gnostica (TM). One of his most recent essays a " published for the first time in this volume a " is on a ~the Muslim Jesus.a (TM)

The Gnostic New Age

The Gnostic New Age
Author: April D. DeConick
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 515
Release: 2016-09-27
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0231542046

Gnosticism is a countercultural spirituality that forever changed the practice of Christianity. Before it emerged in the second century, passage to the afterlife required obedience to God and king. Gnosticism proposed that human beings were manifestations of the divine, unsettling the hierarchical foundations of the ancient world. Subversive and revolutionary, Gnostics taught that prayer and mediation could bring human beings into an ecstatic spiritual union with a transcendent deity. This mystical strain affected not just Christianity but many other religions, and it characterizes our understanding of the purpose and meaning of religion today. In The Gnostic New Age, April D. DeConick recovers this vibrant underground history to prove that Gnosticism was not suppressed or defeated by the Catholic Church long ago, nor was the movement a fabrication to justify the violent repression of alternative forms of Christianity. Gnosticism alleviated human suffering, soothing feelings of existential brokenness and alienation through the promise of renewal as God. DeConick begins in ancient Egypt and follows with the rise of Gnosticism in the Middle Ages, the advent of theosophy and other occult movements in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and contemporary New Age spiritual philosophies. As these theories find expression in science-fiction and fantasy films, DeConick sees evidence of Gnosticism's next incarnation. Her work emphasizes the universal, countercultural appeal of a movement that embodies much more than a simple challenge to religious authority.

In Search of Truth. Augustine, Manichaeism and Other Gnosticism

In Search of Truth. Augustine, Manichaeism and Other Gnosticism
Author: J. van (Johannes) Oort
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 769
Release: 2011
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004189971

This volume in honour of Prof. Dr. Johannes van Oort offers a rich variety of in-depth studies on Augustine, Manichaeism, and other Gnostic currents, thus reflecting the rich variety of the honorand’s research interests.

Werbung für das Christentum und Häresiographie

Werbung für das Christentum und Häresiographie
Author: Sebastian Hanstein
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 431
Release: 2024-02-19
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004691219

Die Studie nährt sich der Refutatio omnium haeresium „Hippolyts von Rom“ von gänzlich neuer Perspektive an. Sie bietet eine detaillierte Analyse der Gattung der Schrift, die als Werbeschrift für das Christentum identifiziert wird. Ein Schwerpunkt liegt in der Herausarbeitung der Intention und Arbeitsmethode ihres Verfassers vor dem Hintergrund der Methode kaiserzeitlicher Autoren. Es wird aufgezeigt, wie der Verfasser seine Vorlagen kreativ für seine Bedürfnisse verändert und zusammenstellt. Durchgänge durch das Sondergut lassen es wahrscheinlich werden, dass dieses ein weitgehendes literarisches Produkt des Verfassers ist. Eine umfangreiche Untersuchung der sog. Peraten, die Strukturanalyse und gründliche inhaltliche Auseinandersetzung verbindet, schließt sich an. The study approaches the Refutatio omnium haeresium by "Hippolytus of Rome" from a completely new perspective. It offers a detailed analysis of the genre of the writing, which is identified as a protreptikos, a promotional writing for Christianity. One focus is the elaboration of the intention and working method of its author against the background of the method of authors of the imperial period. It is shown how the author creatively changes and compiles his original sources to suit his needs. Passages through the special material make it likely that it is largely a literary product of the author. This is followed by an extensive study of the so-called Peratics, which combines structural analysis and thorough examination of content.

The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi Codices

The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi Codices
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 486
Release: 2022-08-08
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004517561

The discoveries of Coptic books containing “Gnostic” scriptures in Upper Egypt in 1945 and of the Dead Sea Scrolls near Khirbet Qumran in 1946 are commonly reckoned as the most important archaeological finds of the twentieth century for the study of early Christianity and ancient Judaism. Yet, impeded by academic insularity and delays in publication, scholars never conducted a full-scale, comparative investigation of these two sensational corpora—until now. Featuring articles by an all-star, international lineup of scholars, this book offers the first sustained, interdisciplinary study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi Codices.

Gnosticism and the History of Religions

Gnosticism and the History of Religions
Author: David G. Robertson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 239
Release: 2021-08-12
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1350137715

Building on critical work in biblical studies, which shows how a historically-bounded heretical tradition called Gnosticism was 'invented', this work focuses on the following stage in which it was “essentialised” into a sui generis, universal category of religion. At the same time, it shows how Gnosticism became a religious self-identifier, with a number of sizable contemporary groups identifying as Gnostics today, drawing on the same discourses. This book provides a history of this problematic category, and its relationship with scholarly and popular discourse on religion in the twentieth century. It uses a critical-historical method to show how and why Gnosis, Gnostic and Gnosticism were taken up by specific groups and individuals – practitioners and scholars – at different times. It shows how ideas about Gnosticism developed in late nineteenth- and twentieth-century scholarship, drawing from continental phenomenology, Jungian psychology and post-Holocaust theology, to be constructed as a perennial religious current based on special knowledge of the divine in a corrupt world. David G. Robertson challenges how scholars interact with the category Gnosticism, and contributes to our understanding of the complex relationship between primary sources, academics and practitioners in category formation.

Sacred Disobedience

Sacred Disobedience
Author: Sharon L. Coggan
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 309
Release: 2020-07-07
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1793606552

Sacred Disobedience: A Jungian Analysis of the Saga of Pan and the Devil traces the ancient Greek God Pan, who became distorted into the image of the Devil in early Christianity. When Pan was demonized, the powerful qualities he represented became repressed, as Pan’s visage twisted into the model of the Devil. This book follows a Jungian analysis of this development. In ancient Greek religion, Pan was worshipped as an honored deity, corresponding to an inner psycho-spiritual condition in which the primitive qualities he represented were fully integrated into consciousness, and these qualities were valued and affirmed as holy. But in the era of early Christianity Pan “dies,” and the Devil is born, a twisted inflation, possibly due to an underlying repression. In the Jungian system, repressed psychic contents do not disappear, as proponents of the new order tacitly assume, but distort and grow more powerful, or “inflate,” to cripple the psyche that refuses to incorporate these split-off elements. Repressed contents will expand to explosive force as the repressed elements eventually return regressively from below. It becomes important then, to understand what qualities the primitive Goat God carried, to appreciate what was repressed in the Western psycho-spiritual system, and what subsequently needs reintegration.

Yahoel and Metatron

Yahoel and Metatron
Author: Andrei A. Orlov
Publisher: Mohr Siebeck
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2017-08-17
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9783161554476

"In this work, Andrei A. Orlov examines the apocalyptic profile of the angel Yahoel as the mediator of the divine Name, demonstrating its formative influence not only on rabbinic and Hekhalot beliefs concerning the supreme angel Metatron, but also on the unique aural ideology of early Jewish mystical accounts."--Back of dust jacket.