Poetics of the Gnostic universe : narrative and cosmology in the Apocryphon of John

Author(s)

    • Pleše, Zlatko

Bibliographic Information

Poetics of the Gnostic universe : narrative and cosmology in the Apocryphon of John

by Zlatko Pleše

(Nag Hammadi and Manichaean studies, v. 52)

Brill, 2006

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Note

Includes bibliographical references (p. [276]-302) and indexes

Description and Table of Contents

Description

This volume is both an essay in Gnostic poetics and a study in the history of early Christian appropriation of ancient philosophy. The object of study is the cosmological model of the Apocryphon of John, a first-hand and fully narrated version of the Gnostic myth. The author examines his target text against a complex background of religious and philosophical systems, literary theories, and rhetorical techniques of the period, and argues that the world model of the Apocryphon of John is inseparable from the epistemological, theological, and aesthetic debates within contemporary Platonism. Poetics of the Gnostic Universe also discusses the composition and narrative logic of the Apocryphon of John, explores its revisionist attitude towards various literary models (Plato's Timaeus, Wisdom literature, Genesis), and analyzes its peculiar discursive strategy of conjoining seemingly disconnected symbolic 'codes' while describing the derivation of a multi-layered universe from a single transcendent source.

Table of Contents

Contents Preface Introduction ............................... Chapter One. Narrative and Composition The Frame Narrative Manuscript Witnesses Authorship and Narrative Voices Dramatis Personae John's Failed Inventio John's Vision: Form and Content The Revelatory Monologue: Narrative Structure, Plot, Voices Dispositio: What Is-What Has Come to Be-What Will Come to Pass Plot: The Logic of the Savior's Narrative Dissonant Voices, Consonant Models: Plato, Sophia, Moses ............................... Chapter Two. The Realm of Being Agnostos Theos Praising Oneness: A Literary Analysis The God without Qualities Kataphasis Formation of the Spiritual Realm The Language of Procession in the Apocryphon of John ............................... Chapter Three. The Realm of Becoming Sophia "Our Sister" (Prov 7:4) Sophia the Lowest Aeon Sophia's Miscarriage Sophia's Motivation: The Soul "in Travail of Birth" Cosmogony, Part One: The 'Gnostic' Demiurge Ialdabaoth in the Luminous Cloud Ialdabaoth the Villain Ialdabaoth the Demiurge "Let Us Make a Man" Ialdabaoth the Jealous God Cosmogony, Part Two: Sophia's Repentance Narrative Function of the Episode Other 'Gnostic' Interpretations of Genesis 1:2b Sophia's Movement and Wisdom Literature Temporal Coordinates of Sophia's Movement: Sophia, Ialdabaoth's Assistant Spatial Coordinates of Sophia's Movement: Metanoia, Its Meaning and Function "What Will Come to Pass"-Diakrisis, or Final Separation ............................... Conclusion Bibliography Index locorum potiorum Index nominum et rerum

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