Christian Gnosis: Christian Religious Philosophy in Its Historical Development
Ebook
Overview
Baur published Die christliche Gnosis in 1835. It was his first great religio-historical study and the most important book on Gnosticism published in the nineteenth century. It is now recognized as having a pivotal status in Baur studies. In it Baur offers a unique thesis about a link between ancient and modern religious philosophy. Gnosis is a type of religious philosophy that contains ideas about the relationship between God, world, and human beings, as expressed in concrete religious traditions and practices. As such, it makes an important contribution to Christian theology. In the first part, Baur develops a concept of gnosis in dialogue with his predecessors and contemporaries. He classifies the gnostic systems in terms of how they conceive the relationship of Christianity to Judaism and paganism, and then describes them in detail (Valentinus, Ophites, Bardesanes, Saturninus, Basilides, Marcion, Pseudo-Clementines). Following transitional sections on the criticism of and reaction to gnosis in church history, the book ends with modern religious philosophy (Boehme, Schelling, Schleiermacher, and Hegel--Baur's first discussion of these major thinkers). This book was written over a hundred years before the manuscript discovery at Nag Hammadi, which awakened a lively interest in Gnosticism that continues to the present day.
“That Baur’s speculative masterpiece, Die christliche
Gnosis (1835), has not been translated into English before now
has always struck me as a scandal. Fortunately, it is a scandal no
more, and, arguably, it was worth the wait to have the eminent
theologian and master scholar of both Hegel and Baur be the
translator. Hodgson’s translation of this difficult and sometimes
meandering text is impeccable. But what is even more impressive is
that in his translation we capture some of the excitement of Baur’s
critical retrieval of ancient forms of thought laid aside in the
emergence of the Catholic Church that has shaped—whether
consciously or unconsciously—a form of modern Protestantism that
moves decisively beyond sola scriptura.”
—Cyril O’Regan, Catherine F. Huisking Professor of Theology, Notre
Dame University
“In Christian Gnosis, Ferdinand Christian Baur set forth
with vigor and surprising clarity what he referred to as the
‘internal coherence’ of the gnostic system, from antiquity to the
thought of his older contemporaries, Schelling, Schleiermacher, and
Hegel. In this beautiful annotated translation, Peter Hodgson and
Robert Brown make this important work accessible to the anglophone
world at last, enabling a new generation of readers to wrestle with
Baur’s provocative synthesis of a perennial theme.”
—David Lincicum, Rev. John A. O’Brien Associate Professor of
Theology, Notre Dame University
Ferdinand Christian Baur (1792–1860) was Professor of Theology
at the University of Tübingen and the greatest historical
theologian of the nineteenth century, writing seminal studies in
the history of religions, New Testament, church history, and
history of doctrine.
Peter C. Hodgson is Charles G. Finney Professor of Theology
Emeritus at the Divinity School of Vanderbilt University. He has
specialized in works by Baur and Hegel, as well as in contemporary
issues of constructive theology.
Robert F. Brown is Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at the
University of Delaware. He has specialized in the history of
philosophy and the philosophy of religion, with a focus on German
idealism.