Introducing Gnosis: Journal of Gnostic Studies

gnosis: journal of gnostic studies 1 (2016) 1–3

brill.com/gnos

April D. DeConick and Lautaro Roig Lanzillotta

The creation of Gnosis: Journal of Gnostic Studies represents a historic moment for the fields of biblical studies, early Jewish and Christian studies, and religious studies. It represents a shift in the fields to take seriously religious tradi- tions and texts, ideas and practices that have been neglected and marginalized for hundreds of years. The discovery of the Nag Hammadi codices was a watershed, helping to reorient scholarship to study texts that had been char- acterized for centuries as heresy and the underbelly of ‘real’ philosophy and religion. This discovery and reorientation has led to a reevaluation of earlier ‘found’ codices, including the Berlin, Askew, and Bruce codices. This has been further complimented by the publication of the Tchacos codex in 2006 and the ongoing editing and publication of Manichaean documents from Turfan and Kellis, and Mandaean sources. At this time, the Berlin, Askew, Bruce, Nag Hammadi and Tchacos codices all have been edited, translated, and commented on. There are in fact three series of editions of the Nag Hammadi codices. Those published in the ‘Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies’ series (Leiden: Brill) are complete. The series ‘Bibliothéque copte de Nag Hammadi’ (Quebec: Presses de Université Laval/ Leuven and Paris: Éditions Peeters) and the series ‘Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchrislichen Literatur’ (Berlin: De Gruyter) are in various stages of completion. Approximately fifty percent of known Manichaean texts have been published. It is unknown how many Mandaean texts remain unpublished, but there is an ongoing effort to pursue new editions of the main religious texts. This wealth of literature has generated renewed interest in the study of gnosis and gnostics, as scholars have tried to come to terms with these new materials and integrate them into our histories of early Judaism and Christianity. Just as the study of Paul has taken on a ‘new perspective’ as his letters began to be read outside the context of Protestant apology, so too the study of gnostics and gnosticism has taken on a ‘new perspective’ as it has moved outside the context of heresiological polemics that supported orthodox apology for centuries. This New Perspective on Gnostics has raised awareness about how we use categories like ‘gnostic’ and ‘gnosticism,’ as we have come to recognize that

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��6 | doi 10.1163/2451859X-12340001 2 DeConick and Roig Lanzillotta the polemical perspectives of the heresiologists who sought to empower the emerging catholics have continued to color contemporary academic analyses. The New Perspective on Gnostics is generating ambitious historical analyses, which are offering thick descriptions of individual texts and synchronic analyses within biblical studies and the early Jewish and Christian narrative contexts. While this historical and synchronic perspective provides excellent insights into the materials, it also runs the risk of domesticating gnostic currents and identities by absorbing them within the conventional categories and narratives of Judaism and Christianity. When we domesticate the literature reflective of gnostic currents, and the movements related to them, we jeopar- dize the opportunities to study the emergence of countercultural movements and the formation of multiple religious identities in the margins of the conventional religions. We run the risk of erasing the critiques and challenges that gnostics pose to conventional western religions and eastern religions (as is the case with Manichaeanism and Mandaeism at least), as well as the unique contributions they have made to the formation of different and unique religious sensibilities. So it is quite significant that the premier volume of Gnosis: Journal of Gnostic Studies features a collection of papers from a conference held at Rice University in 2015 to investigate links between the gnostic and the countercultural. Gnosis: Journal of Gnostic Studies recognizes that gnosis and its corollaries are not just historically located and entrenched within the contexts of early Judaism and Christianity. They are also phenomenological aspects of religion, which can be studied diachronically as well as comparatively. This diachronic and comparative study is essential because, despite unofficial and officially sanctioned prohibitions, persecutions and outright destruction of gnostics and their property in different locales and time periods, gnostic spirituality, identities and worldviews have managed to live on. They have emerged in various guises in the Orient and Occident during the Medieval period, Renaissance and modernity. We have yet to successfully theorize, for instance, how the gnosticism of Paulicians in Armenia and Byzantium (7th–9th centuries), the Bogomils in Bulgaria (10th–12th centuries), and the Cathars in Southern Europe (12th–14th centuries) emerges in spontaneous, independent and isolated movements. Might their gnosticism represent a religious sensibil- ity that is carried on outside the boundaries of church institutions? And what are we to make of the Pietist and Puritan movements or the reception of gnosticism in modern philosophy and literature with their search for “the inner light” or “the god in us”? Where does the modern New Age and the Spiritual- But-Not-Religious movements stand within this gnostic network?

gnosis: journal of gnostic studies 1 (2016) 1–3