Podcast Episodes Themed "Esoteric Christianity"

Ammonius, Origen, and Plotinus: Exploring an Enigma

We discuss the unbelievably-baffling evidence concerning the identity of Origen, student of Ammonius, and his relationship with Plotinus. Two Ammoniuses and two Origens? One Ammonius, two Origens? Or one of each, meaning that the famous father of Christian esotericism was in fact the philosophic colleague of the greatest Platonist of antiquity? We try to present the main evidence and let the gentle listener decide (or decide that we can't decide).

Listen to this episode

Was Plotinus a Platonist? Lineage, Identity, and Scholarship

We talk about how Plotinus defined himself and his lineage, versus how modern scholars tend to define these things. We discuss Plotinus' unusual esoteric perennialism, his allegiance to the Ancients, and why, though he may have been a Platonist, he didn't think so.

Listen to this episode

Episode 99: Total War: Polemical Esotericism in the Contra Celsum

We explore the polemics and counter-polemics of Origen's Contra Celsum, with a particular eye toward the use (and abuse) of the esoteric as a strategy of tradition-building, exclusion, and totalising interpretation.

Listen to episode 99

Episode 98: The True Account: Celsus, Origen, and Ideological Esotericism in Late Antiquity

An almost-unknown Middle Platonist philosopher named Celsus wrote the first-known anti-Christian polemical pamphlet some time in the later second century. This is The True Account. It is esoteric.

Listen to episode 98

Aron Reppmann on Origen: Castration, Rejection, and Redemption

Professor Reppmann delves into Origen's self-castration (yes, really), anathematisation, and reappearance as the quintessential Christian esotericist.

Listen to this episode

Episode 96: From Word to Silence: The Rise of the Apophatic in Late Antiquity

As antiquity progressed, certain esoteric religious thinkers and philosophers came increasingly to doubt whether the nature of the highest reality could be expressed in words. They developed a new form of language to deal with the problem of talking about the ineffable: apophasis. We discuss speaking the silence in late antiquity.

Listen to episode 96

Episode 94: Becoming Gods: Divinisation and Angelomorphic Transformation in Clement

We discuss Clement's endgame, where the Gnostic encounters god face-to-face after a lengthy transformative evolution into higher and higher spiritual forms. Things get seriously esoteric.

Listen to episode 94

Storytime: Exploring Book V of the Stromateis, Part I

In the first of a two-part episode, we read through Book V of Clement's Stromateis, which contains, among other things, perhaps the fullest surviving exposition on types of esoteric discourse from antiquity. Come for the ainigmata and symbola, stay for Abraham the astrologer.

Listen to this episode

Episode 92: Lifting the Veil: Esoteric Reading in Clement’s Stromateis

Clement stays esoteric. We examine the esoteric wisdom-lineages constructed by Clement, how he reads them, in the context of how he hides his reading of them. Plus, there seems to have been some genuine, contemporary esotericism going on in early Christianity.

Listen to episode 92

Episode 91: Mystagogic Patchwork: Esoteric Writing in Clement’s Stromateis

We explore the esoteric writing methodologies of Clement's Stromateis – the innovative ‘public secrecy’, the reasons for Clement's esotericism, and the evocation of the mysteries and of the ineffable as aspects of esoteric rhetoric.

Listen to episode 91

The Writings of Clement of Alexandria

The surviving oeuvre of Clement of Alexandria hides some complicated textual issues. In this episode, not for the fainthearted, we discuss the various lost works, fragments, and alleged forgeries.

Listen to this episode

Episode 90: The Orthodox Gnostic: Introducing Clement of Alexandria

We introduce the life and thought of Orthodox Christianity's favourite in-house Gnostic, the great Clement of Alexandria. Come for the philosophical, esoteric Christianity, stay for the progressive postmortem deification.

Listen to episode 90

Episode 84: Other Gospels and Alien Gods: Marcion of Sinope

We look at Marcion of Sinope, the final arch-heretic in our ‘unholy trinity’. Marcion compiled the first Christian textual canon – he wrote the first Bible – but this was not your grandma's Bible. Demiurgy, transcendence, and some interesting questions of textual hermeneutics abound.

Listen to episode 84

Geoffrey Smith Valentinicates Further

In a further conversation with Geoffrey Smith we try to imagine what Valentinus' circle at Rome might have looked like, we discuss the esoteric in early Christianity, and we delve into the further horizons of future research on Valentinianism.

Listen to this episode

Episode 83: Geoffrey Smith on Valentinus and Valentinianism

Under the expert guidance of Geoffrey Smith, we explore the world-view of Valentinus – an elite intellectual Christian thinker of the second century – and his legacy – a reputation for the blackest heresy and a demiurgical Christian movement known nowadays as Valentinianism.

Listen to episode 83

Episode 82: I Got Soul, And I’m Super Bad: Basilides of Alexandria

Basilides of Alexandria, one of the first Christian philosophers and scriptural exegetes, is known as one of the great Gnostic heresiarchs of the second century. But what did he actually teach? It's mind-blowing and it's esoteric.

Listen to episode 82

Approaches to the Question of Early Christian Esotericism

We get deeper into the whole question of ‘What's so esoteric about the Gnostics and other esoteric groupings within early Christianity?’, and argue that the esoteric is always there within Christianity. Irenæus was right, heresy is permanent. And that's a good thing.

Listen to this episode

The Ascension of Isaiah and the Second-Century Christian Esoteric

We examine the Ascension of Isaiah, an important Jewish-Christian apocalypse of the second century with a long history in later esoteric Christianities. The text gives us important insights into the struggles within the early church for authority between visionary, prophetic inspiration and hierarchical canonicity, and the ways in which the early church dealt with the inconvenient fact that the Rapture hadn't happened according to schedule. It also presents a deluxe terrain of angelic palaces and thrones, themes of descent and ascent, and some juicy details relating to ascent as a spiritual practice in antiquity.

Listen to this episode

Episode 81: Warfaring Strangers: Prolegomena to Second-Century Christianity

We take a deep breath before diving into detailed discussions of early esoteric Christianities to consider a few key terms and their historical development. What was orthodoxy? What was heresy? Who were the heresiologists, and what were they doing?

Listen to episode 81

Michael Williams on Early Christian Heterodoxies

We put a number of impossible-to-answer questions about ancient demiurgic traditions in proto-Christianity to Professor Williams, and receive some fascinating answers.

Listen to this episode

All text and podcast content is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

Creative Commons License

0
Your Cart is Empty!

It looks like you haven't added any items to your cart yet.

Visit the SHWEP shop