History of Gnosticism [Hardcover]

Giovanni Filoramo (Author), Anthony Alcock (Translator)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0631157565 | ISBN-13: 978-0631157564 | Publication Date: October 1990

Gnosticism was considered a heresy among the early Christians and persisted for many centuries. Drawing upon the latest scholarship and a wide range of sources, including the writings of the Gnostics themselves, Giovanni Filoramo provides an introduction to this variation of early Christian dogma. He traces the origins and history of Gnosticism, from its beginning in the first two centuries AD, and the development of Gnostic beliefs and mystic philosophy. He aims to demonstrate the links between Gnosticism and heretical movements of early medieval Europe.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The best account of Gnosticism to have been written. An extraordinary and enlightening accomplishment." Times Literary Supplement

"Comprehensive, judicious and informed. Filoramo, with his light wit and his lucid style, is a historian of integrity and a thinker: these are the indispensable criteria for a study of Gnosticism, and they are all too seldom met." M. J. Edwards, New College, Oxford --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Italian --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Blackwell Pub (October 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0631157565
• ISBN-13: 978-0631157564
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,769,531 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars illumination of an obscure religious chapter, October 2, 2000

By 

G W Thielman (Tucson, AZ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: History of Gnosticism (Hardcover)

One of the most enshrouded mysteries from the early Christian era centers around the historical origin and disappearance of gnosticism. Giovanni Filoramo, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Turin, has produced _A_History_of_Gnosticism_, originally published in Italian as _L'attesa_della_fine,_Storia_della_gnosi_. In this brief volume, Filoramo examines the fragmentary history of gnosticism and its adherents. Gnosticism began as an anticosmic and nihilistic vision expounded upon by recent scholars including Carl Jung and Hans Jonas. As the first and most dangerous heresy to the church, this philosophy was condemned by the established theologians during the first four centuries, and has remained obscure ever since.

Much of what we know today about gnosticism stems from the Nag Hammadi library--a collection of manuscripts discovered in 1945 at Gibel el-Tarif. Polemic writings denouncing the cult also provide illumination. Filoramo illustrates the attempts by church apologists to trace gnosticism to Simon Magnus (see Acts 8:9-24) through a succession of schools, most importantly the Valentinians. The background of gnosticism is one of a cult born into a religious world in ferment where oriental theology had been flowing for centuries to the rather anemic religious culture of the northern Mediterranean.

The debate between _mythos_ (myth) and _logos_ (reason), settled supposedly in fifth century BC Athens (in favor of the latter), raged in the first Christian century. Mythos, originally intended to defend traditionalist religious heritage from attack by rationalists, transforms to a new identity over time. In the case of gnosticism, its development led to a philosophy dismissing the physical world as a manifestation of an ignorant and arrogant Demiurge. (The Christian view maintains that while mankind had allowed sin to despoil God's beauty, nonetheless the creation of the heavens and the earth are a manifestation of God's wisdom and power.)

Their gloomy assessment of the world was highlighted in the Valentinian school which regarded creation as the abortive outcome of the sin of Sophia--"Woman born of woman" followed by unconventional interpretations in the creation of Adam and Eve. To the gnostics, Christ--the Son of God--appeared to be capable of liberating humanity and revealing gnosis to his disciples. Since the gnostics rejected physical manifestations, to them the Savior had both suffered and not suffered. In gnostic tradition, the physical human Christ died on the cross, but the higher Son escaped this gruesome end, laughing at his tormentors. In gnostic theology, Jesus--son of Joseph--was only a man given a superior power that allowed him to reveal secrets of gnosis. Hence for the gnostics, to be a possessor of gnosis was to be superior to Jesus.

There were various teachers to this view, but probably none more prominent than Valentinus, who was born in Egypt, educated in Alexandria, arrived in Rome during the papacy of Hyginus [AD 136-140], and though once a candidate for the papacy was eventually rejected as a heretic. His teachings, based on hostile attacks by Origen, were still thriving in the third century and an edict in 428 reaffirmed condemnation of this sect.

The unwillingness to accept materialistic concepts by gnostic teaching led to cults that rejected asceticism and exalted hedonism. Epiphanius, before he became bishop of Salamis, visited a gnostic community in Egypt around 335 and fervently denounced the depravity he witnessed. Texts from Nag Hammadi, however, provide no theological rationalization for these practices, so there is speculation as to whether some gnostic sects were ascetic and not libertine. In any event, the absence of any formal organization and rejection of institutional roots ultimately doomed the sect to oblivion. By reconstructing the surviving texts on gnosticism, Filoramo has provided a useful historical and philosophical treatment on this forgotten heresy of our religious heritage.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Detailed Discussion, April 3, 2005

By 

Bu-Chan (Aotearoa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: History of Gnosticism (Hardcover)

This book by Filoramo is fairly short, weighing in at 269 pages, (189 pages excluding notes, index and so on). In that short text, Filoramo manages to pack a huge amount of information and give the reader enough to think about for a long time.

While the book describes the main and central ideas of Gnosticism, it gives a large amount of detail on each one. I honestly found some it hard to get my head around, and that is something I need to mention. I honestly feel that Jonas' and Rudolph's introductions, ("The Gnostic Religion" and "Gnosis" respectively), are easier for someone just looking for something to start with.

However, the main positive side of this book, in my opinion, is that Filoramo devotes a lot of time connecting Gnosticism to the wider religious and social environment that it found itself in. He also devotes a significant amount of time dealing with those traditions that feed into Gnosticism. Should you be seeking to understand Gnosticism as a part of a wider context, this book does that admirably well. Filoramo seems to present Gnosticism, not as a surprising aberration, but as an understandable result of earlier religious and cultural ideas. In this, Filoramo has written a fine book that does not waste time in unnecessary words and rubbish.

He also discusses briefly the history of scholarship in Gnosticism, which is fairly useful for putting his own book in a wider context.

Another positive is the sheer amount of endnotes that Filoramo provides. For anyone who wishes to follow up on particular areas of his book, he has provided a large number of references for you to check. Also, he has provided a large bibliography for further reading, should you be interested. Filoramo also quotes extensive sections of the texts from the Nag Hammadi Library as well, which is awesome.

One problem is that is some of the writing itself. The translator has used some pretty specialised words, which I did not know, and could not find in my dictionary. While this has happened only a few times, and does not effect the overall meaning so much, it did mean that I could not understand a few sentences. Also, some of the sentences are pretty long, using a lot of clauses in each one. This makes it hard, sometimes, to keep track of what the point is.

A second issue that I have is that Filoramo makes some comments that are not sustainable from evidence about the status of Marcion as a Gnostic. Marcion has prompted debate as to whether he fits into the Gnostic tradition. Kurt Rudolph says that Marcion cannot be understood without Gnosticism and he rests firmly inside Gnosticism. While quoting Clement of Alexandria in support of his idea that Marcion's ascetism was not based on ethics, (whereas he claims Gnostic ascetism was), he attempts to show why Marcion cannot be a Gnostic. However, he ignores much evidence to the contrary, including sources from the same century as Marcion who clearly considered Marcion a Gnostic.

That being said, the book is overall pretty good. I would still recommend Hans Jonas' The Gnostic Religion or Kurt Rudolph's Gnosis: The Nature and History of Gnosticism for an introduction to Gnostic belief over this book. However, this book is an excellent opportunity to view Gnosticism in its wider context, as part of a fermenting history of ideas and influences. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. It was hard going, but worth it to the end.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perhaps the best for understanding Gnosticism, April 1, 2007

By 

calmly - See all my reviews

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This review is from: History of Gnosticism (Paperback)

A wealth of insights. Filoramo seems to have the best understanding of what the ancient Gnostics were about as anyone I've read. Arguably surpassing

* Hans Jonas The Gnostic Religion
and
* Simone Petremont A Separate God: The Christian Origins of Gnosticism

Jonas is excellent for understanding the Gnostics from the modern viewpoint of existentialism (be sure to get an edition of Jonas, e.g. the 2nd, that includes the Epilogue: "Gnosticsm, Nihilism and Existentialism") and Petrement may be most intriquing for her agressive speculations to uncover the development of Christian Gnosticism from issues raised by the Pauline and Johanine communities. But for understanding the Gnostics on their own terms and without undue speculation, I haven't found the likes of Filoramo.

"A History of Gnosticism" is not just history but also sociology, mythology and psychology in a powerful mix. If I thought before that Gnosticism spoke to my condition, that it was more than "DaVinci Code" fad, Filoramo has strongly confirmed its power to me.

Filoramo presents Gnosticism as arising at a time in which people had a new and growing self-awareness, times of great change in which inner conflicts were also becoming great. Such conflicts didn't lend themselves to easy definition: it took a new burst of mythologies to express them. Evils seem hard to dismiss, the body itself seemed demonized. At a time when conditions seemed overwhelming, the desire for a savior became more urgent. Gnostic myths, whether of Jesus or Sophia, pointed to a victory over earthly powers and over death itself.

Filorma works closely with Sethian and Valentinian Gnostic texts to reveal the themes that the Gnotics developed and how they addressed their concerns. He relates his insights about the Gnostic texts to their historical conditions, the fluidity of working in small egalitarian groups that encouraged so much myth-making and the sense of marginalization that kept Gnostics questing and meeting for centuries. Trapped in bodies and time, forced to gradually learn spiritual lessons in exile from their divine origins, Gnostics armed themselves with myths to do battle with powers of darkness while here on earth.

Filorama does not try, as Petrement has done, to find a single origin for Gnosticism. He does not even argue for an exclusively Christian origin. What he presents is rich movement that welled up freshly to express key concerns and responses within Western history that address the problems of individuation that continue to have significant meaning for us today. Thankfully those teachings have not been lost and there are people such as Filorama who are able to convey their spirit to those of us today who see not a fad but a recovery of profound spiritual help.