Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

List of Abbreviations

Introduction

 1 The Structure of the Present Study

 2 Who Were the Valentinians?

 3 The Myth in TriTrac and the Ethics in Storytelling

 4 Previous Research on TriTrac and the Historical Setting of the Text

 5 Early Christian Ethics and the Bad Reputation of Determinism

 6 Notes on Translation and Transcription



Part 1: Theoretical Framework for Ethics

1 The Ontological and Epistemological Foundations for Ethics

 1 Knowledge in TriTrac and Ancient Epistemology

 2 Phantasms, Likenesses, and Images: the Ontology of TriTrac and the Question of Logos

 3 Remembering (and) the Nature of Virtue

 4 The Individual and the Collective

 5 Mixing and Blending, Truth and Falsehood

 6 Conclusion: Ontology, Epistemology and Ethics



2 Emotions, Demons, and Moral Ability

 1 Emotions and Cognitive Theory in Ancient Thought

 2 Emotions and the Creation Narrative

 3 The Logos’ First Movement and Ancient Cognitive Theory

 4 Good Emotions

 5 Negative Passions as “Mixed” Heavenly Powers and their Influence on Humans

 6 Apatheia, Therapeia, and Eleutheria

 7 Femaleness and the Sickness of Emotions

 8 Conclusion



3 Free Will and the Configuration of the Human Mind

 1 Will and Ethics in Ancient Thought

 2 Christian Free Will, the Configuration of God, and the Creation of the Cosmos

 3 Free Will and Moral Accountability in TriTrac

 4 TriTrac’s Anthropology in Context: Origen’s Christian Opponents



Part 2: Ethics in Practice

4 Natural Human Categories and Moral Progress

 1 The Three Classes of Humans in TriTrac

 2 The Pedagogical Purpose of the Logos’ Organization and the Composition of Humans

 3 Three Categories of Humans According to TriTrac’s Epistemology and Theory of Passions

 4 Restricted Choice in Practice

 5 Fixed, Fluid, or in Flux? The Advantages of a Fixed Anthropology

 6 Conclusions



5 School or Church? Teaching, Learning, and the Community Structure

 1 On the Community Structure Behind TriTrac in Light of the Term “Church”

 2 The Cosmos as a “School” in TriTrac and its Early Christian Context

 3 The “School of Conduct” in the Pleroma and the Gaining of Form

 4 The Cosmic School: an Imperfect Reflection of the Heavens

 5 Silent and Oral Instruction: Formation, Baptism and Education

 6 The Duty of the Pneumatic Moral Expert and the Formation of Psychic Christians

 7 The Category of the ‘School of Valentinus’ in Early Christian Scholarship

 8 Conclusions: the Dual Structure of the Community Behind TriTrac



6 Honor and Attitudes Toward Social and Political Involvement

 1 TriTrac and Early Christian Attitudes Toward Involvement in Society

 2 Cosmogony as Political Commentary

 3 The Pursuit of Honor

 4 Psychic Humans and their Political Involvement

 5 Conclusion: the Character of Psychic Christians and Attitudes Toward Social and Ecclesiastical Involvement



Part 3: Conclusions and Implications

7 Summary: the Nature of Early Christian Determinism

 1 TriTrac’s Alexandrian Context



Appendix: Implications and Suggestions for Further Studies

Bibliography

 Ancient Authors and Texts

 Secondary Literature

Index

About the Author

Paul Linjamaa, Ph.D. (2018), is a postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for Theology and Religious Studies at Lund University, Sweden. He has previously published a monograph on Valentinianism and is the author of several articles on the Nag Hammadi texts and early Christianity.