600 JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES

John D. Turner and Ruth Majercik, editors

Gnosticism and Later Platonism: Themes, Figures, and Texts
Symposium Series 12
Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2000
Pp. xiii + 338. $44.95.

This is a collection of ten papers that were delivered to the Society of Biblical
Literatures Later Platonism Seminar between 199398. The editors state that the
seminars purpose was to bring together a group of well-known scholars with
expertise in the areas of Gnosticism and/or later Platonism . . . who could bring
a diveristy of views and approaches to the issues (vii). Topics include: (1)
Gnostic doctrines of matter; (2) Neoplatonic ritual and theurgy; (3) the Platonic
setting of the Commentary on the Parmenides; (4) the relationship between the
metaphysics of Iamblichus and certain Sethian treatises; (5) Platonic and Gnostic
uses of apophatic theology; (6) providence in Plotinus and the Sethian treatises.
Some of the essays in this collection will appeal mainly to those with a strong
background in Platonic philosophy. Einar Thomasen (The Derivation of
Matter) and Kevin Corrigan (Positive and Negative Matter in Later Platonism:
The Uncovering of Plotinus Dialogue with the Gnostics) explore some of the
more technical and esoteric issues in this collection. Thompson argues that the
Gnostic Valentinus borrowed heavily from Neopythagorean-Platonic metaphys-
ics in constructing an adequate cosmology. Corrigan posits that Plotinus vision
of the inception of evil is anchored in a dialectic of Gnostic and Aristotelian
ideas. In a second essay, Platonism and Gnosticism: The Anonymous Commen-
tary on the Parmenides: Middle or Neoplatonic? Corrigan addresses the
problem of dating the Platonic Commentary on Parmenides. The importance of
this arcane issue is glimpsed only in the second part of the essay (which
unfortunately is an abridgement of his original paper), where Corrigan concludes
that Sethian Gnosticism was indeed dependent upon the Parmenides document.
Thankfully, there are essays that will appeal to those whose interests lie more
broadly in Gnosticism and/or the early church. John D. Turner (The Setting of
the Platonizing Sethian Treatises in Middle Platonism) and John Finamore
(Iamblichus, The Sethians, and Marsenes) debate the degree to which Sethian
Gnosticism interacted with Middle and Neoplatonic thought.
Turners second essay (Ritual in Gnosticism) examines the nature, function,
and meaning of worship ceremonies practiced by second- and third-century
Gnostics. Turner finds certain parallels to orthodox worship practices, but he is
quick to point out differences as well. In a similar vein, Gregory Shaw (After
Aporia: Theurgy in Later Platonism) investigates the use of theurgic rituals
(theourgiaexperience of the divine in human existence) by the Platonist
philosopher Iamblichus (d. ca. 330 a.d.). Shaw shows that for both Iamblichus
and Gnostics, the individuals experience of the divine is driven principally by
aporia (questioning, puzzlement) and an innate yearning for the Good.
Those interested in Gnostic uses of apophatic (apophasisdenial, negation)
reasoning will find John Peter Kenneys Ancient Apophatic Theology and
Michael Williams Negative Theologies and Demiurgical Myths in Late Antiq-
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uity stimulating. Kenney demonstrates that those Greek philosophers from

Plato on viewed apophasis as essential for developing an adequate notion of
divine transcendence against older Greco-Roman polytheism. Gnostics, on the
other hand, employed it as a way of developing further the monotheism of
Hebrew religion. Williams observes that Gnostic piety has too often been
characterized as the abandonment of rational discourse. Against this notion, he
argues that negative theology is found throughout the ancient world and that via
negationis was just one aspect of a well-rounded methodology involving also via
eminentiae and via analogiae modes of discourse.
Finally, Frederic Shroeder (Aseity and Connectedness in the Plotinian
Philosophy of Providence) contrasts the Gnostic rejection of providence with
Plotinus doctrine of providence. The denial of providence inevitably led
Gnostics to view salvation as deliverance from the material world. Though not
Christian by any means, Plotinus positive doctrine of providence reconciles the
totality of events in the material world to the ontologically independent forms in
the intellect. Thus salvation consists of the persons making free choices, learning
to live in the world with its interconnected causes and effects, and accepting
whatever ill or good comes their way.
The esoteric nature of the discussions in this collection makes its use as an
undergraduate or seminary text doubtful. Its primary audience will be research
libraries and scholars working in these disciplines. However, for patristics
scholars whose knowledge of Gnosticism has been gained primarily through
reading the Christian heresiologists or standard contemporary works, some of
these essays will surely prove beneficial.
Neil D. Anderson, Asbury College

Rick Rogers
Theophilus of Antioch: The Life and Thought of a
Second-Century Bishop
Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2000
Pp. 192. $55.00.

It must first be said that Rick Rogers, who teaches at Eastern Michigan
University, has done us all a favor by providing a book-length study of
Theophilus of Antioch. The bibliography itself reveals the scanty treatment given
by scholarship to this relatively unknown second-century bishop. Clearly Rogers
likes his subject: Theophilus is truly a remarkable personality. This second-
century bishop from Syrian Antioch was an apologist, a biblical exegete, a
chronologist, an evangelist, an heresiologist, a teacher and a theologian (3).
That is a lot to say about a virtual unknown. And Rogers discusses this life in six
pages, doing what he can to glean inferences from the two short notices by
Eusebius and Jerome and the few, wholly oblique self-references in the Ad
Autolycum, the only remains we have from Theophilus. There is not much to go
on. Part 1 of the book also includes a second chapter in which Rogers very