From Jewish Magic to Gnosticism

By Attilio Mastrocinque
June 2005
Mohr Siebeck
ISBN: 3161485556
262 pages, Illustrated, 6 1/8" x 9 1/8"
$115.00 Paper Original

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The author examines the intriguing link between magic and Gnosticism. There were two main reasons why Christian thinkers identified Gnosticism with magic: the fact that the roots of Gnosticism lay in the Hellenistic Judaism influenced by the Chaldeans and the Magi, and the need felt by orthodox Christians to distinguish themselves from Christian Gnostics by proving that the latter were magicians.

Contents include: The Marcionite Snake, Ophite Doctrine, A Snake in the Sky, Chnoubis the Serpent God, The Ophite Diagram, Asia Minor and Egypt: the Roots of Gnosis, The Snake at the Highest point of the Universe, The Decan of the Astronomical Pole, Aberamentho, Magic and Christianity, Bibliography.



Judaism; Religious History
Studies and Texts in Antiquity and Christianity, No. 24

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