– The Tree of Gnosis: Gnostic Mythology from Early Christianity to Modern Nihilism (1992)
If the starting point of gnostic myth is the exegesis of the Book of Genesis, it is not an innocent exegesis. On the contrary, this exegesis reverses, constantly and systematically, the received and accepted interpretations of the Bible. “Inverse exegesis” may be singled out as the main hermeneutical principle of the gnostics.
It appears to us as reversed. In reality, gnostics would see it as “restored.” They proceed toward this operation of restoration from a single rule that produces an illimitable number of solutions: The god of Genesis is not the supreme God of the Platonic tradition. This conclusion was revolutionary yet perhaps not surprising; Middle Platonists like Numenius had occasionally contemplated a similar distinction between God and Demiurge. Philo had exorcised such radical interpretation in his doctrine of the Logos, yet at the same time he had opened the door to it by calling the Logos Second God. A short presentation of Philo’s Logos-Sophia theology is indispensable at this point.
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