The Body as/at the Boundary of Gnosis
This essay explores the poetics of the divine body in the so-called Untitled Treatise in the Bruce Codex and uses that body and its text to examine two boundaries, both boundaries of Gnosis. First, modern scholars debate whether and how to draw a boundary around the phenomenon that is sometimes call...
| Published in: | Journal of early Christian studies |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Johns Hopkins Univ. Press
2009
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| In: |
Journal of early Christian studies
Year: 2009, Volume: 17, Issue: 2, Pages: 195-214 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Parallel Edition: | Non-electronic
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| Summary: | This essay explores the poetics of the divine body in the so-called Untitled Treatise in the Bruce Codex and uses that body and its text to examine two boundaries, both boundaries of Gnosis. First, modern scholars debate whether and how to draw a boundary around the phenomenon that is sometimes called "Gnosticism." Such scholarly boundary-making can be productive, and here the Untitled Treatise belongs, along with On the Origin of the World, outside the boundary of Gnostic Christianity and dates most likely to the fourth century. Second, in his elaborate description of the Human Being or City, the author has drawn on several currents, especially in Valentinian thought, to use the human body as the guiding metaphor for what human beings can and cannot know of the divine. The Untitled Treatise participates in a wider late ancient conversation about the value and limits of knowing through the body, a conversation that Patricia Cox Miller's recent work has helped to bring vividly to life. The paper argues that, when it comes to Gnosis, boundaries can be productive and bodies can be productive means of thinking about boundaries. |
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| ISSN: | 1086-3184 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of early Christian studies
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1353/earl.0.0256 |