PROGRAMME AND ABSTRACTS - Università degli Studi di Messina

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present and future – influence the lived religion of ordinary practitioners. As a case example I
use my research on the religion of elderly Orthodox Karelian women in Finland.
Tue 15 th , 15.20, Classroom 5
Jann Lahe, University of Tallinn, Estonia
Gnosticism and Mistery Religions
The issue of the religious history of Gnosticism has been a topic of debate in science, and no
satisfactory solution has been found to the question to this day. At the appearance of
Gnosticism, the effect of various religions, including ancient mystery religions, has been taken
into account.Gnosticism has several contact points with many ancient mystery religions. Both
Gnosticism and mystery religions are redemption religions, characterised by the idea that
redemption is for the chosen ones only. In addition to general similarities, there are also points
of contact between Gnosticism and specific mystery religions as well. Thus, the Orphic
treatment of people, the soul and its redemption reminds one of the respective approaches in
Gnosticism. The descending of the soul through planetary spheres, a teaching acknowledged in
the Mithraic cult, finds many parallels in Gnostic writings. The rituals of the Ophite sects,
described by Epihpanius (Pan 37,5,6-8), in which the serpent was significant, can be found in
the cult of Sabazios. In some Hermetic tractates (CH I, IV and XIII), parallels can also be
found with Gnostic images and ideas. The contacts between Gnosticism and mystery religions
raise the question whether there is reason to talk about the effect of mystery religions on the
appearance of Gnosticism. If the main ideas of Gnosticism are proceeded from (divine element
in a person and its entity of unity with a higher deity; distinction between a higher deity and
lower, divine creatures who have created the world; specific Gnostic redemption teaching,
etc.), certain similarities between Gnosticism and Orphism can be talked about, but the direct
effect of Orphism on Gnostic ideas cannot be proved. The teaching of the journey of the soul
through different heavenly spheres, found both in Mithraism and Gnosticism, is a topos widely
spread in the Late Antiquity and it cannot be proved that the Gnostics have borrowed this idea
from Mithraism. On the basis of the comparison of the main ideas of Gnosticism and mystery
religions, it can be stated that the position, according to which the roots of Gnosticism lie in
mystery religions, is highly unlikely. However, it must be considered that some Gnostic groups
(Ophites) have taken examples for the establishment of their rituals from mystery religions and
in the case of the so-called Hermetic Gnosticism found in Hermetic tractates, it is a special case
– a peculiar synthesis of Gnosticism and the spirituality of mystery religions. If the general
similarities between Gnosticism and mystery religions can be explained by the fact that both
Gnosticism and mystery religions appeared and spread in the same cultural space – in the
Mediterranean area – and they phenomenologically represent one and the same religion type
(redemption religions), then Ophites and Hermetic Gnosticism are good examples of how the
Gnostics adapted the rites and ideas of the existing religions for their own use.
Alberto Latorre, University of Verona, Italy
Tue 15 th , 11.20, Classroom Aula Magna
La Storia delle Religioni tra «ragioni di prudenza» e ragion di Stato. Uno spaccato della
ricerca storico-religiosa al tempo del fascismo e della reazione anti-modernista nella
corrispondenza di Israel Zoller con Raffaele Pettazzoni.
Per circa trent’anni il Rabbino Capo e semitista, professore di Ebraico e lingue semitiche
comparate, Israel Zoller, fu uno degli abituali corrispondenti di Raffale Pettazzoni, assiduo