What is the origin of this humanity on planet Earth? What is the origin of all of the races, of Nature, of all which has been, is, and shall be? "There are facts, cosmic and geological events, that are worthwhile to study in these treatises of Gnostic anthropology. There is no doubt that Gnostic, scientific anthropology unveils all veils related with the origin of the human being and the universe." Moving far beyond the limitations of conventional thought, this book presents a view of this planet which is harmonious with all of our most ancient traditions, and indicates the path towards the resolution of our most fundamental problems.
From its earliest days, Christianity has been marked by a rich diversity of beliefs and practices. Different interpretations of Jesus’ life and mission, as well as conflicting views about worship and rituals, gave rise to numerous sects in the first centuries C.E. Condemned as heretical by the official Church, these early movements were lost to history until the twentieth century, when the discovery of ancient documents opened a new perspective on the evolution of Christianity. The Beliefnet® Guide to Gnosticism and Other Vanished Christianities is a fascinating look at the diverse strands of the early Christian church. It examines the alternative Christian ideas propagated by the Gnostics, Sethians, Valentinians, Marcionites, Encratites, and Montanists, illuminating the philosophical sources and religious traditions that fostered them. Special attention is given to sects that presented the greatest challenges to the developing orthodoxy: the Hermeticists, the Manicheans, and the Neoplatonists. There are also thought-provoking discussions about the secret Gospel of Mark and the Gospels of Mary and Thomas, and the newly discovered Gospel of the Savior. From the premier source of information on religion and spirituality, the Beliefnet Guides introduce you to the major traditions, leaders, and issues of faith in the world today. This authoritative, fully accessible guide to early Christian movements sheds light on the hidden histories and intriguing mysteries that fueled the extraordinary success of books ranging from Dan Brown’s blockbuster The Da Vinci Code to Elaine Pagels’s critically acclaimed Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas.
Is God involved? Why do bad things happen to good people? What is up to us? These questions were explored in Mediterranean antiquity with reference to ‘providence’ (pronoia). In Did God Care? Dylan Burns offers the first comprehensive survey of providence in ancient philosophy that brings together the most important Greek, Latin, Coptic, and Syriac sources, from Plato to Plotinus and the Gnostics. Burns demonstrates how the philosophical problems encompassed by providence transformed in the first centuries CE, yielding influential notions about divine care, evil, creation, omniscience, fate, and free will that remain with us today. These transformations were not independent developments of ‘Pagan philosophy’ and ‘Christian theology,’ but include fruits of mutually influential engagement between Hellenic and Christian philosophers.
The 'Apocalypse of Adam' was discovered among the papyri from the ancient gnostic library at Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in 1946. It is a revelatory discourse that Adam delivers to his son Seth. This discourse is the fifth and final tractate in Nag Hammadi Codex V. The manuscript is now in the Coptic Museum in Old Cairo (codex inv. no. 10548). In Part I of this significant treatment, Hedrick analyzes the sources that lay behind this work, the redaction, and the main theological themes. In Part II, he provides the Coptic text, translation, and notes on the complete text, broken down by Source A, Source B, and the Redactor's additions.
In this important contribution to the scholarly study of Egyptian Gnosticism, Pearson situates Gnosticism in its historical context and describes its manifold relationships to Judaism, early Christianity, and ancient Platonism. Birger Pearson gives special attention to the controversial issue of the impact of Gnosticism on early Egyptian Christianity up to the Muslim conquest of the seventh century. "Pearson is one of the most thorough and perceptive scholars in Gnostics studies today. The topics he deals with here are current and important, and no doubt will remain so for some time. This volume is a must for everyone in the field." —Douglas M. Parrott, University of California, Riverside "Uniformly excellent contributions on the subject.... Students and teachers will benefit from Pearson's insightful and creative observations." —Marvin Meyer, Chapman College
First published in 1983. The volume Cyclical Time and Ismaili Gnosis brings together in English translation three of Henry Corbin's richest and most complex studies, originally presented at the Eranos conferences of 1951 and 1954 and another conference in 1956. Each of these three relatively early studies is built around a complex, highly creative 'comparison' of the phenomenological correspondences between texts (often highly fragmentary) from a vast range of spiritual traditions from late Antiquity (including Manichaenism and the sects of Sassanid Iran) - all 'gnostic' in the root Greek sense of that term favoured by Corbin, though not in the narrower historical sense used by most contemporary scholars - and comparable spiritual themes in an equally wide range of Islamic texts eventually preserved in the later Ismaili Shi'i tradition.
Paul is traditionally seen as one of the founders of Christian sexual asceticism. As early as the second century C.E., church leaders looked to him as a model for their lives of abstinence. But is this a correct reading of Paul? What exactly did Paul teach on the subjects of marriage and celibacy? Will Deming here answers these questions. By placing Paul's statements on marriage and celibacy against the backdrop of ancient Hellenistic society, Deming constructs a coherent picture of Paul's views. According to Deming, the conceptual world in which Paul lived and wrote had substantially vanished by 100 C.E., and terms like "sin," "body," "sex," and "holiness" began to acquire moral implications quite unlike those Paul knew. Paul conceived of marriage as a social obligation that had the potential of distracting Christians from Christ. For him celibacy was the single life, free from such distraction, not a life of saintly denial. Sex, in turn, was natural and not sinful, and sex within marriage was both proper and necessary. Superbly researched and reasoned, this book corrects misinterpretations of Paul and restores him to his proper place in the history of Christian thought on marriage and sexuality.
