Sethian Gnosticism and the Platonic Tradition

Sethian Gnosticism and the Platonic Tradition PDF Author: John Douglas Turner
Publisher: Presses Université Laval
ISBN: 9782763778341
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 868

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Sethian Gnosticism and the Platonic Tradition

Sethian Gnosticism and the Platonic Tradition PDF Author: John Douglas Turner
Publisher: Presses Université Laval
ISBN: 9782763778341
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 868

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Book Description


Apocalypse of the Alien God

Apocalypse of the Alien God PDF Author: Dylan M. Burns
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812245792
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 341

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Book Description
In the second century, Platonist and Judeo-Christian thought were sufficiently friendly that a Greek philosopher could declare, "What is Plato but Moses speaking Greek?" Four hundred years later, a Christian emperor had ended the public teaching of subversive Platonic thought. When and how did this philosophical rupture occur? Dylan M. Burns argues that the fundamental break occurred in Rome, ca. 263, in the circle of the great mystic Plotinus, author of the Enneads. Groups of controversial Christian metaphysicians called Gnostics ("knowers") frequented his seminars, disputed his views, and then disappeared from the history of philosophy—until the 1945 discovery, at Nag Hammadi, Egypt, of codices containing Gnostic literature, including versions of the books circulated by Plotinus's Christian opponents. Blending state-of-the-art Greek metaphysics and ecstatic Jewish mysticism, these texts describe techniques for entering celestial realms, participating in the angelic liturgy, confronting the transcendent God, and even becoming a divine being oneself. They also describe the revelation of an alien God to his elect, a race of "foreigners" under the protection of the patriarch Seth, whose interventions will ultimately culminate in the end of the world. Apocalypse of the Alien God proposes a radical interpretation of these long-lost apocalypses, placing them firmly in the context of Judeo-Christian authorship rather than ascribing them to a pagan offshoot of Gnosticism. According to Burns, this Sethian literature emerged along the fault lines between Judaism and Christianity, drew on traditions known to scholars from the Dead Sea Scrolls and Enochic texts, and ultimately catalyzed the rivalry of Platonism with Christianity. Plunging the reader into the culture wars and classrooms of the high Empire, Apocalypse of the Alien God offers the most concrete social and historical description available of any group of Gnostic Christians as it explores the intersections of ancient Judaism, Christianity, Hellenism, myth, and philosophy.

The Platonizing Sethian Background of Plotinus’s Mysticism

The Platonizing Sethian Background of Plotinus’s Mysticism PDF Author: Zeke Mazur
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004441719
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 355

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Book Description
In The Platonizing Sethian Background of Plotinus’s Mysticism, Zeke Mazur offers a radical reconceptualization of Plotinus with reference to Gnostic thought and praxis. A crucial element in the thought of the third-century CE philosopher Plotinus—his conception of mystical union with the One—cannot be understood solely within the conventional history of philosophy, or as the product of a unique, sui generis psychological propensity. This monograph demonstrates that Plotinus tacitly patterned his mystical ascent to the One on a type of visionary ascent ritual that is first attested in Gnostic sources. These sources include the Platonizing Sethian tractates Zostrianos (NHC VIII,1) and Allogenes (NHC XI,3) of which we have Coptic translations from Nag Hammadi and whose Greek Vorlagen were known to have been read in Plotinus’s school.

After the New Testament

After the New Testament PDF Author: Bart D. Ehrman
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN:
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 488

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Book Description
The remarkable diversity of Christianity during the formative years of the first three centuries has become a plain, even natural, "fact" for most ancient historians. However, until now there has been no source book of primary texts that reveals the many varieties of Christian beliefs, practices, ethics, experiences, confrontations, and self-understandings. To help readers recognize and experience the rich diversity of the early Christian movement, After the New Testament provides a wide range of texts, both "orthodox" and "heterodox". It includes such works as the Apostolic Fathers, the writings of Nag Hammadi, early pseudepigrapha, martyrologies, anti-Jewish tractates, heresiologies, canon lists, church orders, Liturgical texts, and theological treatises. In addition, rather than including only fragments of texts, this collection provides substantial sections -- entire documents wherever possible -- organized under social and historical rubrics.

Neo-Platonism

Neo-Platonism PDF Author: Richard T. Wallis
Publisher: Scribner Book Company
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
“Neoplatonism, a development of Plato’s metaphysical and religious teaching, whose best-known representatives were Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus and Proclus, was the dominant philosophical school of the later Roman Empire and has been a major influence on European and Near Eastern thought and culture ever since. Yet, though Plotinus has gained fame as a mystic and Porphyry as a formidable opponent of the early Church, the school’s philosophy has been little studied in modern times, largely because of the difficulty of the Neoplatonists’ writings and the lack of a good summary exposition. This defect Dr Wallis seeks to remedy in this, the first full-length study of the school by a single author to appear for over half a century.Dr Wallis’ aim has been to assist readers of the Neoplatonists’ works by an analysis of their leading ideas, based on the most recent scholarship and explaining clearly both what they said and why they said it. Particular attention is given to doctrinal disagreements within the school, and special sections deal with the Neoplatonists’ treatment of Platonic and Aristotelian texts, their attitude to Christianity and their later influence. It is shown how from one point of view Neoplatonism marks a synthesis of Classical Greek thought, whereas from another it applies that synthesis to problems of religious experience and man’s inner life which had been relatively little discussed by its predecessors. It is this application of reason to inner experience, the author suggests, that gives Neoplatonism a continuing importance and special relevance to our own day.”- Publisher

Gnosticism, Platonism and the Late Ancient World

Gnosticism, Platonism and the Late Ancient World PDF Author: Kevin Corrigan
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004254765
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 753

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Book Description
This Festschrift honors the life and work of John D. Turner (Charles J. Mach University Professor of Classics and History at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln) on the occasion of his 75th birthday. Professor Turner’s work has been of profound importance for the study of the interaction between Greek philosophy and Gnosticism in late antiquity. This volume contains essays by international scholars on a broad range of topics that deal with Sethian, Valentinian and other early Christian thought, as well as with Platonism and Neoplatonism, and offer a variety of perspectives spanning intellectual history, Greek and Coptic philology, and the study of religions.

The Demiurge in Ancient Thought

The Demiurge in Ancient Thought PDF Author: Carl Séan O'Brien
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110707536X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 351

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Book Description
This book examines religious and 'scientific'/philosophical accounts of world-generation as represented by the figure of the Demiurge, or Craftsman-god.

A Less Familiar Plato

A Less Familiar Plato PDF Author: Kevin Corrigan
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009324853
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
Provides new views of perception; embodiment; the Good/Forms; art, imagination, and the divine; interdialogue connections and unwritten teachings

The Routledge Handbook of Neoplatonism

The Routledge Handbook of Neoplatonism PDF Author: Svetla Slaveva-Griffin
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317591364
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 657

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Book Description
The Routledge Handbook of Neoplatonism is an authoritative and comprehensive survey of the most important issues and developments in one of the fastest growing areas of research in ancient philosophy. An international team of scholars situates and re-evaluates Neoplatonism within the history of ancient philosophy and thought, and explores its influence on philosophical and religious schools worldwide. Over thirty chapters are divided into seven clear parts: (Re)sources, instruction and interaction Methods and Styles of Exegesis Metaphysics and Metaphysical Perspectives Language, Knowledge, Soul, and Self Nature: Physics, Medicine and Biology Ethics, Political Theory and Aesthetics The legacy of Neoplatonism. The Routledge Handbook of Neoplatonism is a major reference source for all students and scholars in Neoplatonism and ancient philosophy, as well as researchers in the philosophy of science, ethics, aesthetics and religion.

Ablution, Initiation, and Baptism: Methodological considerations

Ablution, Initiation, and Baptism: Methodological considerations PDF Author:
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110247518
Category : Baptism
Languages : en
Pages : 2089

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Book Description
The present volumes is the result of an international collaboration of researchers who are excellent within their respective fields: interpretation of texts, studies of rites, archaeology, architecture, history of art, and cultural anthropology. They met for two conferences to discuss the significance of rites of ablution, initiation, and baptism and their interpretation in Late Antiquity, Early Judaism, and Early Christianity. The volume establishes a new international standard of research within these fields of scholarship.