Practicing Gnosis

Ritual, Magic, Theurgy and Liturgy in Nag Hammadi,

Manichaean and Other Ancient Literature

April DeConick, Gregory Shaw, and John D. Turner, Leiden: Brill, 2013

Description

Ritual, magic, liturgy, and theurgy were central features of Gnosticism, and yet Gnostic practices remain understudied. This anthology is meant to fill in this gap and address more fully what the ancient Gnostics were doing. While previously we have studied the Gnostics as intellectuals in pursuit of metaphysical knowledge, the essays in this book attempt to understand the Gnostics as ecstatics striving after religious experience, as prophets seeking revelation, as mystics questing after the ultimate God, as healers attempting to care for the sick and diseased. These essays demonstrate that the Gnostics were not necessarily trendy intellectuals seeking epistomological certainities. They were after religious experiences that relied on practices. The book is organized comparatively in a history-of-religions approach with sections devoted to Initiatory, Recurrent, Therapeutic, Ecstatic, and Philosophic Practices. This book celebrates the brilliant career of Birger A. Pearson.

(Text from the publisher)

Table de matières

Introduction

For Birger Pearson: A Scholar Who Both Studies and Embodies Syncretism

Religionsgeschichtliche Schule, Religionswissenschaft, Piano, Oboe and Bourbon

Birger Pearson: Scholar, Professor and Mentor

Birger Albert Pearson A Bibliography

The Road for the Soul Is through the Planets: The Mysteries of the Ophians Mapped

Ecstatic Religion in the Roman Cult of Mithras

The Gospel of Philip as Gnostic Initiatory Discourse

Becoming Invisible: Rending the Veil and the Hermeneutic of Secrecy in the Gospel of Philip

Ritual in the Second Book of Jeu

Death on the Nile: Egyptian Codices, Gnosticism, and Early Christian Books of the Dead

Going to Church with the Valentinians

Practicing “Repentance” on the Path to Gnosis in Exegesis on the Soul

Opening the Way of Writing: Semiotic Metaphysics in the Book of Thoth

“I Worship and Glorify”: Manichaean Liturgy and Piety in Kellis’ Prayer of the Emanations

The Manichaean Weekly Confession Ritual

Ritual Ingenuity in the Mandaean Scroll of Exalted Kingship

Natural, Magical, Scientific or Religious? A Guide to Theories of Healing

Astrological Medicine in Gnostic Traditions

The Persistence of Ritual in the Magical Book of Mary and the Angels: P. Heid. Inv. Kopt. 685

Image and Word: Performative Ritual and Material Culture in the Aramaic Incantation Bowls

From Baptismal Vision to Mystical Union with the One: The Case of the Sethian Gnostics

Marcosian Rituals for Prophecy and Apolytrosis

Ritual in the Hekhalot Literature

The Platonizing Sethian Gnostic Interpretation of Plato’s Sophist

Did Plotinus “Friends” Still Go to Church? Communal Rituals and Ascent Apocalypses

The Meaning of “One”: Plurality and Unity in Plotinus and Later Neoplatonism

Theurgy and the Platonist’s Luminous Body

Index

Lien

https://brill.com/view/title/24418

Essays in Ancient Greek Philosophy I

John P. Anton, Albany: Suny Press, 1971

Description

The essays in this volume treat a wide variety of fundamental topics and problems in ancient Greek philosophy. The scope of the section on pre-Socratic thought ranges over the views which these thinkers have on such areas of concern as religion, natural philosophy and science, cosmic periods, the nature of elements, theory of names, the concept of plurality, and the philosophy of mind. The papers dealing with the Platonic dialogues examine with unusual care a great number of central themes and discuss them in considerable depth: problems in language and logic, myth, reason, hypothesis, eros, friendship, reason, morality, society, art, the nature of soul, and immortality; in addition, they offer fresh discussions on a number of basic morphological, methodological, and philological issues related to philosophical arguments and introduce new aspects for a critical reexamination of controversies surrounding the doctrines and the authenticity of certain Platonic works. The essays on the philosophy of Aristotle are closely reasoned analyses of such basic themes as the universality of the sensible, the nature of kinesis, the problem of future contingencies, the meaning of qualitative change, the doctrine of phantasia, the essence of intelligence and the metaphysical foundations for the ethical life. The essays on post-Aristotelian developments in ancient philosophy offer challenging and well-documented discussions on topics in the history of ancient logic, categorical thought, the ethical doctrines of ancient Scepticism, epistemological issues in the physical theory of the Epicureans, and basic concepts in the metaphysics of the neo-platonists.

(Text from the publisher)

Table of contents

Introduction

Journal Abbreviations

  1. Pre-Socratics

Religion and Natural Philosophy in Empedocle’s Doctrine of the Soul – Charles H. Kahn

Cosmic Periods in the Philosophy of Empedocles – Edwin L. and Minar, Fr.

Mind’s Commitment to the Real: Parmenides B8. 34-41 – Alexander P. D. Mourelatos

The Problem of Anaxagoras – Margaret E. Reesor

Empirical Aspects of Xenophanes’ Theology – H. A. T. Reiche

Anaximander and the Problem of the Earth’s Immobility – John Robinson

A Zenonian Argument Against Plurality – Gregory Vlastos

Parmenides on Names – Leonard Woodbury

2. Plato

The Argument from Opposities in Republic V – R. E. Allen

Gorgias and the Socratic Principle Nemo Sua Sponte Peccat – Guido Calogero

Dreaming and Waking in Plato – David Gallop

Techne and Morality in the Gorgias – Robert W. Hall

On the “Gold-Example” in Plato’s Timaeus (50A5-B5) – Edward N. Lee

Some Observations Concerning Plato’s Lysis – Donald Norman Levin

Language, Plato, and Logic – Ronald B. Levinson

Reason and Eros in the “Ascent”-Passage of the Symposium – J. M. E. Moravcsik

The Unity of the Laches – Michael J. O’Brien

The Two States in Plato’s Republic – Martin Ostwald

Supporting Themes in the Symposium – George Kimball Plochmann

The Argument for Immortality in Plato’s Phaedrus – Thomas M. Robinson

Plato’s Hypothesis and the Upward Path – Thomas G. Rosenmeyer

Reply to Dr. Levinson – Rosamond Kent Sprague

The Creation Myth in Plato’s Timaeus – Leonardo Tarán

The Philosophical Passage in the Seventh Platonic Letter and the Problem of Plato’s “Esoteric” Philosophy – Kurt von Fritz

3. Aristotle

The Metaphysical Foundations for Aristotle’s Ethics – Thomas Gould

The Universality of the Sensible in the Aristotelian Noetic – Joseph Owens

Aristotle on κίνησις – Arthur L. Peck

Aristotle’s Treatment of φαντασία – D. A. Rees

Notes on Aristotle De anima 3.5 – John M. Rist

Aristotle’s Doctrine of Future Contingencies – Richard Taylor

The Aristotelian Doctrine of Qualitative Change in Physics VII, 3 – G. Verbeke

4. Post- Aristotelian Philosophy

Ancient Interpretations of Aristotle’s Doctrine of Homonyma – John P. Anton

Οὐ μᾶλλον and the Antecedents of Ancient Scepticism – Phillip DeLacy

Knowledge of Atoms and Void in Epicureanism – David J. Furley

Body and Soul in the Philsophy of Plotinus – A. N. M. Rich

Subject Index

Name Index

Link

https://www.sunypress.edu/p-220-essays-in-ancient-greek-philoso.aspx

Practicing Gnosis

Ritual, Magic, Theurgy and Liturgy in Nag Hammadi,

Manichaean and Other Ancient Literature.

Essays in Honor of Birger A. Pearson

April D. DeConick, Gregory Shaw and John D. Turner, Leiden: Brill, 2013

Description

Ritual, magic, liturgy, and theurgy were central features of Gnosticism, and yet Gnostic practices remain understudied. This anthology is meant to fill in this gap and address more fully what the ancient Gnostics were doing. While previously we have studied the Gnostics as intellectuals in pursuit of metaphysical knowledge, the essays in this book attempt to understand the Gnostics as ecstatics striving after religious experience, as prophets seeking revelation, as mystics questing after the ultimate God, as healers attempting to care for the sick and diseased. These essays demonstrate that the Gnostics were not necessarily trendy intellectuals seeking epistomological certainities. They were after religious experiences that relied on practices. The book is organized comparatively in a history-of-religions approach with sections devoted to Initiatory, Recurrent, Therapeutic, Ecstatic, and Philosophic Practices. This book celebrates the brilliant career of Birger A. Pearson.

(Text from the publisher)

Table of contents

Front Matter

Introduction

For Birger Pearson: A Scholar Who Both Studies and Embodies Syncretism

Religionsgeschichtliche Schule, Religionswissenschaft, Piano, Oboe and Bourbon

Birger Pearson: Scholar, Professor and Mentor

Birger Albert Pearson A Bibliography

The Road for the Soul Is through the Planets: The Mysteries of the Ophians Mapped

Ecstatic Religion in the Roman Cult of Mithras

The Gospel of Philip as Gnostic Initiatory Discourse

Becoming Invisible: Rending the Veil and the Hermeneutic of Secrecy in the Gospel of Philip

Ritual in the Second Book of Jeu

Death on the Nile: Egyptian Codices, Gnosticism, and Early Christian Books of the Dead

Going to Church with the Valentinians

Practicing “Repentance” on the Path to Gnosis in Exegesis on the Soul

Opening the Way of Writing: Semiotic Metaphysics in the Book of Thoth

“I Worship and Glorify”: Manichaean Liturgy and Piety in Kellis’ Prayer of the Emanations

The Manichaean Weekly Confession Ritual

Ritual Ingenuity in the Mandaean Scroll of Exalted Kingship

Natural, Magical, Scientific or Religious? A Guide to Theories of Healing

Astrological Medicine in Gnostic Traditions

The Persistence of Ritual in the Magical Book of Mary and the Angels: P. Heid. Inv. Kopt. 685

Image and Word: Performative Ritual and Material Culture in the Aramaic Incantation Bowls

From Baptismal Vision to Mystical Union with the One: The Case of the Sethian Gnostics

Marcosian Rituals for Prophecy and Apolytrosis

Ritual in the Hekhalot Literature

The Platonizing Sethian Gnostic Interpretation of Plato’s Sophist

Did Plotinus “Friends” Still Go to Church? Communal Rituals and Ascent Apocalypses

The Meaning of “One”: Plurality and Unity in Plotinus and Later Neoplatonism

Theurgy and the Platonist’s Luminous Body

Index

Link

https://brill.com/view/title/24418

Apocalypse of the Alien God

Platonism and the Exile of Sethian Gnosticism

Dylan M. Burns, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014

Description

In the second century, Platonist and Judeo-Christian thought were sufficiently friendly that a Greek philosopher could declare, « What is Plato but Moses speaking Greek? » Four hundred years later, a Christian emperor had ended the public teaching of subversive Platonic thought. When and how did this philosophical rupture occur? Dylan M. Burns argues that the fundamental break occurred in Rome, ca. 263, in the circle of the great mystic Plotinus, author of the Enneads. Groups of controversial Christian metaphysicians called Gnostics (« knowers ») frequented his seminars, disputed his views, and then disappeared from the history of philosophy—until the 1945 discovery, at Nag Hammadi, Egypt, of codices containing Gnostic literature, including versions of the books circulated by Plotinus’s Christian opponents. Blending state-of-the-art Greek metaphysics and ecstatic Jewish mysticism, these texts describe techniques for entering celestial realms, participating in the angelic liturgy, confronting the transcendent God, and even becoming a divine being oneself. They also describe the revelation of an alien God to his elect, a race of « foreigners » under the protection of the patriarch Seth, whose interventions will ultimately culminate in the end of the world. Apocalypse of the Alien God proposes a radical interpretation of these long-lost apocalypses, placing them firmly in the context of Judeo-Christian authorship rather than ascribing them to a pagan offshoot of Gnosticism. According to Burns, this Sethian literature emerged along the fault lines between Judaism and Christianity, drew on traditions known to scholars from the Dead Sea Scrolls and Enochic texts, and ultimately catalyzed the rivalry of Platonism with Christianity. Plunging the reader into the culture wars and classrooms of the high Empire, Apocalypse of the Alien God offers the most concrete social and historical description available of any group of Gnostic Christians as it explores the intersections of ancient Judaism, Christianity, Hellenism, myth, and philosophy.

(Text from the publisher)

Table of contents

ABBREVIATIONS

Introduction

CHAPTER 1 – Culture Wars

CHAPTER 2 – Plotinus Against His Gnostic Friends

CHAPTER 3 – Other Ways of Writing

CHAPTER 4 – The Descent

CHAPTER 5 – The Ascent

CHAPTER 6 – The Crown

CHAPTER 7 – Between Judaism, Christianity, and Neoplatonism

APPENDIX: READING PORPHYRY ON THE GNOSTIC HERETICS AND THEIR APOCALYPSES

NOTES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Link

https://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/15230.html

Marius Victorinus entre gnosticisme et néoplatonisme

Description et organisation

L’iniziativa dei seminari sul Neoplatonismo latino (coordinati da A. Galonnier e H. Casanova Robin) è particolarmente importante per gettare luce su un aspetto meno conosciuto della filosofia platonica, che di solito privilegia il mondo greco. Per quanto riguarda Mario Vittorino, dopo gli studi magistrali di Pierre Hadot, la ricerca ha ulteriormente messo in evidenza quanto profondamente influenzato dalla filosofia platonica fosse stato lo scrittore, che elabora in tal modo una visione particolarmente originale del cristianesimo niceno. Inoltre, Vittorino nella sua speculazione serba traccia di influenze meno ‘ortodosse’, vale a dire dottrine caldaiche e gnostiche. Pur se poco conosciuto, questo autore è un testimone eloquente dell’osmosi tra filosofia neoplatonica e correnti esoteriche, senza tralasciare l’applicazione di tale schema alla dottrina cristiana. Non a caso Agostino ne traccia un ritratto all’inizio del libro 8 delle Confessioni, quasi a voler dimostrare che cristianesimo e filosofia possono interagire tra loro.

Je voudrais signaler que dans la journée du 05 avril 2014 (salle D116 – 1er étage) à 15h 45 je ferai une conférence ayant comme titre : « Marius Victorinus entre gnosticisme et néoplatonisme » (Chiara O. Tommasi Moreschini – Université de Pise).

Cette conférence aura lieu à la Maison de la recherche de l’Université Paris-Sorbonne, 28 rue Serpente 75006 Paris et se déroulera dans le cadre du séminaire « La tradition du néoplatonisme latin au Moyen Âge et à la Renaissance » organisé par Hélène Casanova-Robin et Alain Galonnier, avec la collaboration d’Alice Lamy, et avec le soutien de THETA (CNRS – Centre Jean Pépin) et EA 4081 « Rome et ses renaissances » (Université Paris-Sorbonne). Voici le propos de ce séminaire : « La réalité d’une école néoplatonicienne latine fait débat depuis de nombreuses années. Les interrogations se bousculent donc à son sujet : a-t-elle vraiment existé, structurée par une tendance doctrinale et des représentants conscients d’y appartenir, ou n’y eut-il que des auteurs d’expression latine dispersés, qui se sont référés, chacun à sa manière, avec des objectifs et des résultats différents, aux penseurs néoplatoniciens grecs ? Dans quelle mesure les multiples emprunts faits à ces derniers que l’on peut y repérer trahissent-ils une adhésion plus ou moins profonde au système qui les sous-tend, ou une réception superficielle et une pure instrumentalisation ? Peut-on concevoir un tel mouvement en dehors du commentarisme strict ? Le néoplatonisme chrétien serait-il le seul à avoir constitué une tradition, renvoyant le courant païen à la nébuleuse évoquée ? C’est à ce genre de questions, et à certaines autres, que nous nous efforcerons de répondre, en parcourant, sous divers éclairages, plus de mille ans d’histoire de la pensée occidentale ».

Plato Revived

Essays on Ancient Platonism in Honour of Dominic J. O’Meara

Karfík, Filip & Song, Euree (eds), Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013

Description

The essays compiled in this volume individually address the varied forms in which the revival of Platonism manifested itself in ancient philosophy. It pays special attention to the issues of unity and beauty, the mind and knowledge, the soul and the body, virtue and happiness, and additionally considers the political and religious dimensions of Platonic thought. Starting from Plato and Aristotle, the studies examine the multiple transformational forms of Platonism, including the Neo-Platonists – Plotinus, Porphyrios, Iamblichus, Themistius, Proclus, and Marinus – along with Christian thinkers such as St. Augustine, Boethius, and Dionysus the Areopagite. The authors who have contributed to this volume make multiple references to the scholarly work of Dominic J. O’Meara. Their further refinement of O’Meara’s approach particularly casts a new light on Late-Platonic ethics. The essays in this collection also contribute to scholarly research about the multiple inter-relationships among the Platonists themselves and between Platonists and philosophers from other schools. Taken as a whole, this book reveals the full breadth of potential in the revival and transformation of ancient Platonism.

(Text from the publisher)

Table of contents

Preface

Unity, Intellect, Beauty

Werner Beierwaltes – Plotins Theorie des Schönen und der Kunst

Alexandrine Schniewind – Le statut des objets intelligibles chez Alexandre d’Aphrodise et Plotin

Pascal Mueller-Jourdan – « Toute pluralité participe en quelque manière de l’un » Le premier théorème des Éléments de théologie de Proclus revisité par le Pseudo-Denys l’Aréopagite

Eyjólfur Kjalar Emilsson – Leibniz, Plato, Plotinus

Soul and Body

John Dillon – Shadows on the Soul: Plotinian Approaches to a Solution of the Mind-Body Problem

Filip Karfík – Δημογέροντες L’image de l’assemblée dans les Ennéades VI, 4 [22], 15

Euree Song – Ashamed of Being in the Body? Plotinus versus Porphyry

Lenka Karfíková – Das Verhältnis von Seele und ratio in Augustins Abhand

Happiness and Virtue

László Bene – Ethics and Metaphysics in Plotinus

Marie-Luise Lakmann – „…die feine Stimme der Zikaden“ Iunkos, Περὶ γήρως und die platonische Philosophie

Suzanne Stern-Gillet – When Virtue Bids Us Abandon Life (Ennead VI 8 [39] 6, 14–26)

Daniela P. Taormina – Porfirio ha scritto un trattato Περὶ τοῦ ἐφ’ ἡμῖν?

Christian Tornau – Augustinus und die neuplatonischen Tugendgrade Versuch einer Interpretation von Augustins Brief 155 an Macedonius

Irmgard Männlein-Robert – Platonismus als ‚Philosophie des Glücks‘: Programm, Symbolik und Form in der Vita Procli des Marinos

Platonopolis

Rafael Ferber – Das Paradox von der Philosophenherrschaft im Staat, Staatsmann und in den Gesetzen Einige Bemerkungen zur Einheit und Variation des platonischen Denkens

Cinzia Arruzza – Being True to One’s Birth: What is gennaion in the Noble Falsehood of the Republic?

Ada Neschke-Hentschke – Ἀδικία – Strafrechtsprinzipien bei Aristoteles und Platon Zur divisio und significatio textus der Nikomachischen Ethik V 10 (1134 a 17–1136 a 9) und zu Platons Strafrechtsexkurs (Nomoi IX 859 b 5–864 c 9)

Philosophy and Religion

Andrew Smith – The Image of Egypt in the Platonic Tradition

Tatjana Aleknienė – La prière à l’Un dans le traité 10 [V, 1] de Plotin et la tradition philosophique grecque

Denis O’Brien – Augustine at Ostia: A Common Misreading

Jacques Schamp – Thémistios et l’oracle des philosophes

Alain Lernould – Boèce. Consolation de Philosophie III, metrum

Dominic J. O’Meara: Teacher and Scholar

Alexandre Jollien – La philosophie n’est pas la philosophie c’est pourquoi je l’appelle la philosophie

Nicolas D’Andrès – List of Publications by Dominic J. O’Meara

Link

https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110324662/html

Noms barbares I.

Formes et contextes d’une pratique magique

M. Tardieu, A. Van den Kerchove, M. Zago (eds.), Turnhout: Brepolis, 2013
Description
Je vous annonce la parution d’un ouvrage collectif issu des différentes rencontres du projet ANR Cénob sur la question des noms barbares dans l’Antiquité. Il s’agit de l’ouvrage : Noms Barbares I. Formes et contextes d’une pratique magique, sous la direction de Michel Tardieu, Anna Van den Kerchove et Michela Zago, Turnhout,  Brepols, 2013. Nous attirons votre attention plus particulièrement sur les articles consacrés à Plotin, au gnosticisme et aux lamelles orphiques.

(Texte de la maison d’édition)

Table de matières
– Introduction, par Michel Tardieu
PARTIE I. Objets magiques et magie de nommer
– Nommer la matière, par Michel Tardieu
– La parole et l’objet, et vice-versa, par Jean Yoyotte
– Torche et encens en Anatolie et Mésopotamie anciennes, par Alice Mouton
– Les lamelles d’or montanistes et orphiques, par Michel Tardieu
– Le rôle des noms barbares dans le déroulement d’une defixio, par Amina Kropp
– Noms barbares et « barbarisation » dans les formules efficaces latines, par Nicolas Corre
– Des noms imprononçables, par Maria Gorea
 PARTIE II. Signes et phonèmes
– Le discours vide de la parole étrangère (CH XVI 2) : exercices d’ethnocentrisme entre Égypte et Grèce, par Paolo Scarpi
– Langues étranges dans les textes magiques suméro-akkadiens, par Michaël Guichard
– « Ceux qui font la voix des oiseaux » : les dénominations de langues, par Michel Tardieu
– Jeux graphiques et phonétiques dans les noms barbares du papyurs magiques pLeyde I 383 + pBM 10 070, par Amaury Pétigny
– La magie égyptienne : de l’image à la ressemblance, par Yvan Koenig
– Numero e filosofia. Alcune note sul cosiddetto Ottavo libro di Mosè (PGM XIII), par Silvia Pieri
PARTIE III. Noms magiques des dieux
– Le nom physique du dieu, par Michela Zago
– Les noms magiques d’Aphrodite en déesse barbare (PGM IV 2912-2939), par Michel Tardieu
– La signification plotinienne du nom d’Apollon, par Luciana Gabriela Soares Santoprete
– Le « nom insigne » d’après Marc le mage, par Jean-Daniel Dubois
– Les noms barbares dans le traité gnostique Melchisédek (NH IX, 1), par Anna Van den Kerchove
– Le nom barbare Kaulakau selon l’hérésiologie chrétienne, par Lucia Saudelli
– Formations et origines des nomina barbara dans les objets magiques syriaques des ve-viie siècles, par Flavia Ruani
Lien

Ὁ ἐν οὐρανῷ ᾍδης

La naissance du Purgatoire dans l’Antiquité

Thèse pour obtenir le grade de docteur de l’École Pratique des Hautes Études, Mention Réligions et Systèmes de Pensée

Présentée et soutenue par Adrian Mihai, le 2 juillet 2021

Sous la direction de : Pierre Bonnechere (UdM) et Philippe Hoffmann (EPHE)

Membres du jury : Mauro Bonazzi, professeur à l’Università degli studi di Milano (Italie) ; Pierre Bonnechere, professeur à l’Université de Montréal (Canada) ; Jean-Daniel Dubois, directeur d’études, EPHE ; Philippe Hoffmann, directeur d’études, EPHE ; Jean-Michel Roessli, professeur à Concordia University (Canada).

Description

L’objectif de sa thèse a été de montrer que l’Hadès ouranien, comme un des lieux de l’au-delà, durant la période hellénistique et romaine, était surtout un lieu purgatoire, et n’a aucun rapport avec le soi-disant « Enfer céleste » duquel les spécialistes nous parlent depuis presqu’un siècle. Sa thèse, structurée en quatre parties, présente deux parties qui nous intéressent particulièrement : la troisième partie, consacrée à la doctrine du Purgatoire selon Cicéron et Virgile et chez leurs interprètes néoplatoniciens, ainsi que dans l’hermétisme et le gnosticisme ; et la quatrième partie, où il est abordé la doctrine du Purgatoire dans le Oracles chaldaïques et dans les écrits de Proclus, particulièrement dans son Commentaire sur la République de Platon.

(Texte de l’auteur) 

Lien

 Position_de_thèse_Mihai

Ancient Mediterranean Philosophy

An Introduction

Stephen Clark, London: Bloomsbury, 2013

Description

Although the Greeks were responsible for the first systematic philosophy of which we have any record, they were not alone in the Mediterranean world and were happy to draw inspiration from other traditions; traditions that are now largely neglected by philosophers and scholars. This book tells the story of ‘Greek Philosophy’, paying due attention to its historical context and the contributions made by Egyptians, Hebrews, Persians and even barbarians from northern Europe. Stephen Clark provides a narrative history of the philosophical traditions that took shape over several centuries in the Mediterranean world and offers a comprehensive survey of this crucial period in the history of philosophy. The book includes a thorough historical and philosophical overview of all the key thinkers, events and ideas that characterized the period and explores in detail central themes such as the contest of gods and giants, the contrast between the reality and appearance, and the idea of the philosopher. Ideal for undergraduate students, this concise and accessible book provides a comprehensive guide to a fascinating period in the history of philosophy.

(Text from the publisher)

Table of contents

Preface

Acknowledgements

Map

1. Beginnings

2. Influence from Outside

3. Inspired Thinkers

4. Travellers and Stay-at-Homes

5. Divine Plato

6. The Aristotelian Synthesis

7. Living the Philosophical Life

8. Ordinary and Supernatural Lives

9. Late Antiquity

10. An End and a Beginning

Endnotes

Recommended Reading

Works Cited

Index

Link

https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/ancient-mediterranean-philosophy-9781441123596/

CNRS

Plotin et les Gnostiques

Description et organisation

Direction du programme : Jean-Daniel DUBOIS et Philippe HOFFMANN

Co-organisation: Luciana Gabriela Soares Santoprete et Anna Van den Kerchove

Le programme de recherche « Plotin et les gnostiques » s’inscrit dans ces recherches, avec comme double originalité de partir de la polémique de Plotin contre les gnostiques et d’être un lieu de formation doctorale.

Réunissant des spécialistes de la philosophie de l’Antiquité tardive et de la gnose, le programme a pour but de croiser leurs regards sur les traités de Plotin et des textes gnostiques afin de mieux comprendre les relations entre le philosophe égyptien et les gnostiques. Celles-ci sont de plusieurs ordres : polémique, influence, points de contact ou appartenance à une culture commune. Le point de départ est le traité 32 de Plotin, dont Luciana Gabriela Soares Santoprete, doctorante de Philippe Hoffmann, a la charge pour une traduction et un commentaire pour les éditions du Cerf. L’étude minutieuse de ce traité intitulé « Contre les gnostiques » par Porphyre, disciple de Plotin, constitue le fil conducteur de l’ensemble du programme.

(Texte des organisateurs)

Lien

https://lem-umr8584.cnrs.fr/?Plotin-et-les-gnostiques&lang=fr