A History of Gnosticism

A history of Gnosticism. Giovanni Filoramo
Contents
Abbreviations
Introduction
	Gnosis and modern culture
	The rediscovery of Gnosticism
1. Fragments of a Lost Faith
	Discovery
	The Gnostics and their mask: the problem of the heresiological sources
	In search of a theme: Gnosticism and its interpretations
	A voice from the desert: the Nag Hammadi library
2. Between Demons and Gods: an Age of Revelation
	A two-headed Janus: the century of the Antonines
	New religious horizons
	Ways of salvation
	Ecstasy and revelation
	In search of a new identity
3. The Gnostic Imagination
	The nature of Gnostic knowledge
	Myth, thought and society
	The nature of Gnostic myth
4. In the World of the Pleroma
	Gnostic dualism
	Prologue in Heaven
	The mystery of the archetypal Androgyne
	Divine hierarchies: the structure of the pleromatic family
	The sin of Sophia
5. The Arrogance of the Demiurge and the Creation of the World
	Sophia’s disruptive behaviour
	‘Woman born of woman’: the birth of the Demiurge
	Sethian and Valentinian cosmogonies
	Gnostic variations on cosmogonic themes
6. And God Said, ‘Let Us Make Man in Our Image and Likeness’
	Introduction
	The creation of Adam and Eve
	The unwavering race: Seth and his descendants
	The anthropogony of the Valentinian School
7. Mysterium Coniunctionis: The Gnostic Saviour
	The data
	The case of Poimandres
	Seth the Saviour
	The Valentinian Jesus
	Other Gnostic Christologies
8. Waiting for the End
	The nature of Gnostic eschatology
	The time of the Church
	Gnostic accounts of the Ascent of the Soul
9. Simon Magus and the Origins of Gnosticism
	Gnosis and Gnosticism
	In search of the origins: Simon Magus and the myth of Helen
10. Visionaries, Prophets and Divines:
Towards a History of Gnosticism
	Ecstasy, possession and revelation
	Second-century Gnostic doctors
	Resistance and surrender
11. Ascetics and Libertines
	Towards a sociology of Gnosticism
	Ritual processes
	Ascetics or libertines? The dilemma of Gnostic ethics
Notes
Select Bibliography and Further Reading
Index