ABSTRACT
Providing an analysis of and possible answers for the question of the existence of a pre-Christian "Gnosticism" in the ancient world is fraught with the difficulties from the outset. While questioning the validity of the representative terms "Gnosticism" and "proto-orthodoxy" in the ancient world, David Brakke has rejected the conclusion that the scholarly task is reduced to "microstudies". Brakke contends that scholarship might find it profitable, following the period of critical reflection on terminology, to "rehabilitate 'Gnosticism' fruitfully" to depict what he has isolated as a unique approach in related literature to divine providence, that is, the divine care of humans and the cosmos. Michel Desjardins has alleged that pre-Holocaust scholarship may have been impacted by bias and fabrication as Judaic influence on the earliest Christianity was minimized and other origins for Christianity and pre-Christian "Gnosticism" were sought and embraced.
