Gnostic Religion in Antiquity by Roelof van den Broek (review)

The monograph Gnostic Religion in Antiquity is an event. An expanded revision of the introduction to Roelof van den Broek’s Gnosis in de Oudhuid: Nag Hammadi in Context (Amsterdam: In de Pelikaan, 2010), it presents for the first time to Anglophone readers his stab at a broad overview of the phenomenon of “Gnostic religion,” as defined in Chapter One. “Gnosis,” we learn, is “an esoteric, that is [sic] partly secret, spiritual knowledge of God and of the divine origin and destination of the essential core of the human being which is based on revelation and inner enlightenment, the possession of which involves a liberation from the material world which holds humans captive” (3). “Gnostics” are people “whose religious outlook is determined by this understanding of gnosis” (3). “They were not adherents of a clearly discernable gnostic religion, characterized by a coherent set of ideas and rituals and practices in an identifiable social group”—a swipe at David Brakke, The Gnostics (2010)—“but were people with a distinct gnostic mentality” (8). “Gnosticism” is disparaged as a misnomer for what van den Broek terms “Gnostic religion”: a “radical form of gnosis expressed in the great gnostic myths of the second century,” characterized by a distinction between the high God and the creator-god, identification of humanity with the former, salvation from earthly life via the revelation of gnosis, and enactment of this salvation in ritual (10). The Gospel of Thomas deals with esoteric knowledge, salvation through knowledge, and duality, “so there is every reason to call the Gospel of Thomas gnostic” (11)—just in the sense of “gnosis,” rather than radical “Gnostic religion.” Scholars will contest these points.

Chapter Two introduces the reader to our sources about Gnosticism. Chapter Three introduces, summarizes, and provides a date for every single text (!) of the Nag Hammadi, Bruce, and Askew Codices (including, puzzlingly, the “non-Gnostic or hardly Gnostic” ones and the Thomasine literature, neither of which are classified as “Gnostic religion” by the author), as well as excerpts from Valentinian works. Clocking at one hundred pages, it reads less like a chapter of a book than a compilation of dictionary entries, albeit full of keen observations. Here, too, the volume eschews contemporary scholarly categories, abandoning the terms “Sethianism,” “Ophitism,” and “Classic Gnosticism” in favor of terms referring to the “Barbelo myth” known to Irenaeus, Haer. 1.29. The result is the seriously misleading placement of texts that do not mention Barbelo at all under the respective headings “The Barbelo myth and gnostic exegesis of Genesis” (e.g., Hypostasis of the Archons) and “The Barbelo myth and heavenly journeys” (e.g., Gospel of Mary, [First] Apocalypse of James). On the other hand, the treatment of Valentinian sources is clear and representative of the Forschungsstand. Chapter Four introduces us to the “Anti-gnostic literature,” namely the heresiographers and Plotinus.

Chapter Five grants the reader (finally) exegesis of what has thus far been introduced. It begins with practice, focusing on the “experience” of “gnosis,” and “theurgic” practices related to ancient magical literature. Gnostic heavens are mapped out; cosmogonies and salvation-histories are recapitulated and compared. Chapter Six tackles the vexed question of Gnostic origins, critiquing scholarly attempts to demonstrate the Platonic, Christian, and Jewish roots of “Gnostic religion.” Less convincing is the explanation that “the gnostic mood was in the air”—explicitly retreading E. R. Dodds’s “Age of Anxiety” thesis—so “Gnostic religion arose from … Hellenistic religious syncretism” (230).

As far as introductions to the subject go, this book is perhaps unsurpassed in scope and detail, yet it is not without problems. Editing is haphazard—I counted three errors on p. 23 alone, the adjective “magic” is misused throughout (in lieu of “magical”), etc. The uneven size and structure of the chapters makes for choppy reading. Details are oversimplified, as when Plotinus’s hypostasis of Soul is confused with the World-Soul (157, debatable at best—cf. Enn. 4.3 [27] 2–8), or it is stated that “gnosis” saves from...