Zostrianos
Home > Gnostics > Zostrianos Zostrianos At a Glance Treatise Genre: (5/5) ***** Reliability of Dating: (5/5) ***** Length of Text: Greek Original Language: Ancient Translations: Modern Translations: Estimated Range of Dating: 200-230 A.D. Chronological List of Early Christian Writings Discuss this text on the Early Writings forum. Text Zostrianos Offsite Links Translation by John D. Turner French Translation Coptic Text with German Commentary Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia: Zostrianus Coptic Eschatology and Christian Platonism in the Sethian Gnostic Apocalypses Marsanes, Zostrianos, and Allogenes The Apocalypse of Zostrianos and Iolaosa The Gnostic Bible Immovability in Zostrianos The Gnostics The Nag Hammadi Texts in the History of Religions Plato's Parmenides and Its Heritage Books Bentley Layton, The Gnostic Scriptures: A New Translation With Annotations and Introductions (Doubleday 1987) Marvin Meyer, ed., The Nag Hammadi Scriptures (HarperOne 2009) Birger A.
Pearson, Ancient Gnosticism: Traditions And Literature (Fortress Press 2007) Recommended Books for the Study of Early Christian Writings Information on Zostrianos John D. Turner writes, "Zostrianos contains a pseudonymous account of the otherworldly journeys of Zostrianos, legendary son of Yolaos and father of Armenios, said by Plato (Republic X 614b) to be the father of Er the Pamphylian, who was later assimilated with Zoroaster (cf. Clement of Alexandria Miscellanies 5.14.103.2). Probably originally composed in Greek in late second- or early third-century Alexandria, it reflects a non-Christian form of Gnostic Sethianism that had thoroughly reinterpreted its ritual and mythological traditions by means of a massive fund of second-century Neopythagorean and Middle Platonic metaphysical speculation whose originality had commended Zostrianos and its sister treatise Allogenes the Stranger to the critical attention of Plotinus and his circle in third-century Rome.
Those two treatises and the Three Steles of Seth and Marsanes are all sufficiently heavily indebted to Platonism as to merit the designation 'Platonizing Sethian treatises.'" (The Nag Hammadi Scriptures, p. 537) Bentley Layton writes, "The theory of the soul's progress from higher to higher abstraction toward a mystical leap to gnosis had been laid down by Plato in a much-studied passage of the Symposium (210a-212a), and it was a standard element in the teaching of Platonism in the second century A.D. The mystical ascent is not, therefore, the final and decisive ascent of the soul after death, but rather a means of gaining nondiscursive knowledge or gnosis ('acquaintance').
Once it has achieved its goal, the soul must descend back through the same levels it passed before, in reverse order. Zostrianos thus narrates the intellectual voyage of the mystic. In accordance with a convention of apocalyptic literature, the voyager is accompanied by a series of revealing angels who explain the various levels of abstraction and incidentally mention other details of the gnostic myth." (The Gnostic Scriptures, p. 121) Birger A. Pearson writes, "There are no identifiably Christian elements in Zostrianos. The Platonizing elements predominate, but there are also indications of Jewish influence. Zostriano's experience of being assimilated to 'the glories' in each of the levels of heaven he traverses (5,15-20) resembles very much the experience of Enoch in the Second Book of Enoch, an apocalypse composed in Greek, probably in first-century Alexandria, depicting the ascent of Enoch to the tenth heaven.
Enoch reports that he had 'become like one of the glorious ones' (2 Enoch 22:10). Another indication of possible influence from 2 Enoch occurs toward the end of Zostrianos. At the conclusion of his visionary experience, Zostrianos is told that he has 'heard all these things of which the gods are ignorant and that are undefined for angels' (128,15-18). Enoch is told by God, 'not even to my angels have I explained my secrets ... as I am making them known to you today' (2 Enoch 24:3)." (Ancient Gnosticism, p. 88) Bentley Layton writes, "The limited scope of Zostrianos does not allow for reference to the history of Israel or the foundation of Christianity, and the pseudepigraphic frame story and its main character imply a setting in pre-Christian Persia.