CONTENTS

Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. CONTENTS vii
3. FIGURES AND TABLES xi
4. PREFACE xiii
5. ABBREVIATIONS xvii
6. INTRODUCTION 3
7. CHAPTER ONE. What Kind of Thing Do Scholars Mean by “Gnosticism”?. A LOOK AT FOUR CASES 7
8. CHAPTER TWO. “Gnosticism” as a Category 29
9. CHAPTER THREE. Protest Exegesis? or Hermeneutical Problem-Solving? 54
10. CHAPTER FOUR. Parasites? or Innovators? 80
11. CHAPTER FIVE. Anticosmic World-Rejection? or Sociocultural Accommodation? 96
12. CHAPTER SIX. Hatred of the Body? or the Perfection of the Human? 116
13. CHAPTER SEVEN. Asceticism . . . ? 139
14. CHAPTER EIGHT . . . or Libertinism? 163
15. CHAPTER NINE. Deterministic Elitism? or Inclusive Theories of Conversion? 189
16. CHAPTER TEN. Where They Came From . . . 213
17. CHAPTER ELEVEN . . . and What They Left Behind 235
18. CONCLUSION 263
19. NOTES 267
20. MODERN WORKS CITED 311
21. INDEX 329