Hidden Wisdom: Esoteric Traditions and the Roots of Christian Mysticism.

• Author: REEVES, JOHN C.
• Position: Review

Hidden Wisdom: Esoteric Traditions and the Roots of Christian Mysticism. By GUY G. STROUMSA. Studies in the History of Religions (Numen book series), vol. 70. Leiden: E. J. BRILL, 1996. Pp. xii + 183. HFI 110, $71.

At first glance Prof. Stroumsa's new book would appear to be simply a convenient anthology of ten of his previously or concurrently published essays on diverse facets of esotericism in early Christian literature. Assembling this collection, if such were the actual intention, would possess value in its own right, given the importance of the author's contributions to the study of Near Eastern religiosity in late antiquity. However, a more careful perusal of the book's contents reveals that the essays have been specially selected, slightly adjusted, and then artfully arranged to advocate a unifying thesis.

According to Stroumsa, a number of literary hints point to the existence and sustained vitality of an esoteric tradition of interpretation accompanying the transmission of Christian doctrines during the first four centuries of the Common Era. This tradition was predominantly oral in form, and the mode of its expression was carefully guarded, although some echoes reverberate in the extant apocryphal apocalypses and revelatory discourses--"secret" books--produced among certain Christian groups. This esoteric dimension within nascent Christianity was firmly rooted in the apocalyptic and visionary milieu of first-century Judaism. These secret traditions moreover were adopted and further developed and enriched by gnostic circles, wherein they formed the basis of a distinctive "gnostic mythology." A reaction against Christian esotericism ensued, resulting in the eventual disappearance of this dimension as an active force from classical Christianity by the fifth century. Nevertheless the language and mythemic lexic on of Christian esotericism continued to survive, thanks to its appropriation, redefinition, and metaphorization, in what became Christian...