Cosmology and fate in gnosticism and Graeco-Roman antiquity : under pitiless skies / / by Nicola Denzey Lewis.

• Author: Lewis, Nicola Denzey, 1966-
• Year of Publication: 2013
• Language: English
• Series: Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies 81.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (220 p.)
• Notes: Title from PDF title page (viewed on May 14, 2013).
• Other title: Front Matter /; Introduction /; Were the Gnostics Cosmic Pessimists? /; Nag Hammadi and the Providential Cosmos /; ‘This Body of Death’: Cosmic Malevolence and Enslavement to Sin in Pauline Exegesis /; Heimarmene at Nag Hammadi: The Apocryphon of John and On the Origin of the World /; Middle Platonism, Heimarmene, and the Corpus Hermeticum /; Ways Out I: Interventions of the Savior God /; Ways Out II: Baptism and Cosmic Freedom: A New Genesis /; Astral ‘Determinism’ in the Gospel of Judas /; Conclusions, and a New Way Forward /; Selected Bibliography /; Subject Index /
• Bibliography: Includes bibliographical references and index.
• ISBN: 9004245766
• ISSN: 0929-2470
• Hierarchical level: Monograph
• Statement of Responsibility: by Nicola Denzey Lewis.

In Cosmology and Fate in Gnosticism and Graeco-Roman Antiquity , Nicola Denzey Lewis dismisses Hans Jonas' mischaracterization of second-century Gnosticism as a philosophically-oriented religious movement built on the perception of the cosmos as negative or enslaving. A focused study on the concept of astrological fate in “Gnostic” writings including the Apocryphon of John, the recently-discovered Gospel of Judas, Trimorphic Protennoia, and the Pistis Sophia, this book reexamines their language of “enslavement to fate (Gk: heimarmene)” from its origins in Greek Stoicism, its deployment by the apostle Paul, to its later use by a variety of second-century intellectuals (both Christian and non-Christian). Denzey Lewis thus offers an informed and revisionist conceptual map of the ancient cosmos, its influence, and all those who claimed to be free of its potentially pernicious effects.