Abstract

The first edition of the first volume of Jonas’ legendary Gnosis und spätantiker Geist appeared just over half a century ago. Since then, the publication of the second volume, which was to cover Philo, Origen, Plotinus, and Euagrius Ponticus, has been eagerly awaited. In 1954, the wait came to an end—at least partially. Immediately after the Second World War, which had violently interrupted Jonas’ work and forced him, a Jew, to leave Germany in 1933, he heard that the printing plates of the second volume still existed. And though another ten years went by, the first part of that volume, From Mythology to Mystical Philosophy, eventually appeared covering Philo and Origen. The third edition appeared roughly ten years later in 1963 and was enhanced by a fourth chapter containing new material from the Nag-Hammadi Library, material which, as Jonas emphasized, confirmed the central thesis of the first edition in a surprising manner. But still the Plotinus chapter was missing. And especially this chapter was of interest to scholars of Neoplatonism, since Jonas’ main hypothesis that Plotinian thought also has to be included in the so-called Gnostic Age, seemed to contradict Plotinus’ express dissociation of himself from the Gnostics. Although Jonas was constantly concerned with that chapter, he did not find himself in a position to finish it. We thus have Kurt Rudolph to thank for his endeavor, with Jonas’ assistance, to prepare and arrange the missing chapter on the basis of Jonas’ other publications and also of still unpublished manuscripts, material which now constitutes chapters 6 and 7 in volume II. Jonas died unexpectedly on February 5, 1993, shortly before its publication, so that he could not witness this new, “complete,” and yet still fragmentary edition of his Gnosis and spätantiker Geist.