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Lecturer(s)
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Krappmann Joerg, doc. Mgr. Ph.D.
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Course content
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Gnosis as Religion and a Way of Thinking Gnosis emerged in the second century as a religious and intellectual movement at the intersection of Judaism and early, not yet codified Christianity. It was an elite movement that largely operated underground and only exceptionally achieved institutional status as a religion (for example, among the Mandaeans). As a result, Gnostic movements display considerable diversity, yet they can be reduced to four core elements that can be traced through to the present day. The introductory part of the lecture presents these four core characteristics of Gnosis in the light of current scholarship. It then follows the influence of Gnosis on the intellectual history of the Western world in chronological order: 1. Late Antiquity (the Pauline Epistles, the Apocryphal Gospels, the Book of Ecclesiastes), 2. the Middle Ages (including the Cathars, the Knights Templar, and Gnosis and Islam), 3. the Early Modern period (the Rosicrucians and Freemasonry), 4. Modernity (including Anthroposophy and Waldorf education, the George Kreis, and Heidegger). The final third of the lecture focuses on Gnostic elements in selected works of world literature (including Beckett, Hesse, Melville, and Saint-Exupéry) as well as on contemporary religious (the Mormons, Gnostic communities in Syria and Iraq) and political receptions of Gnosis (including the MAGA movement and selected political currents represented in the European Parliament).
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Learning activities and teaching methods
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Lecture
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Learning outcomes
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Gnosis as Religion and a Way of Thinking The lecture aims to introduce a mode of thought and intellectual attitude that remained active over a long period of history while continuously evolving. Gnosis serves as the central paradigm, having emerged in Late Antiquity and persisted through its religious forms in the Middle Ages as well as its secularised variants during the Enlightenment and the modern period, remaining influential up to the present as a philosophical and political current of thought. Given the complexity and remarkable linguistic diversity of the source texts, the lecture also provides an introduction to the principles of editing historical sources, their significance, and the translation-related challenges involved in preparing scholarly editions.
Methods and problems of Interdisciplinarity, Analytic reasoning
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Prerequisites
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No specific prerequisites.
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Assessment methods and criteria
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Written exam
Successful completion of an written examination assessing the knowledge acquired during the lecture.
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Recommended literature
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Jonas, Hans. (2000). Gnosis. Die Botschaft des fremden Gottes. Frankfurt/Main.
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Koslowski, Peter (Hrsg.). (1987). Gnosis und Mystik in der Geschichte der Philosophie. Zürich.
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Markschies, Christoph. Die Gnosis. München. 2024.
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Pauen, Michael. (1994). Dithyrambiker des Untergangs. Gnostizismus in Ästhetik und Philosophie der Moderne. Berlin.
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Rudolph, Kurt. (1977). Die Gnosis. Leipzig.
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Sloterdijk/Macho. (1993). Weltrevolution der Seele. Zürich.
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Sonnenschmidt, Reinhard W. (2001). Politische Gnosis. München.
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Styfhals, Willem. (2019). No Spiritual Investment in the World. Gnosticism and Postwar German Philosophy. Ithaca.
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Tröger, Karl-Wolfgang. (2001). Die Gnosis. Heilslehre und Ketzerglaube. Freiburg.
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