Valentinian Ethics and Paraenetic Discourse

Philip L. Tite, Ph.D. (2005) in Religious Studies, McGill University, is Visiting Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Willamette University, Salem Oregon. He is the author of Compositional Transitions in 1 Peter (International Scholars, 1997), Conceiving Peace and Violence (UPA, 2004), and co-editor of Religion, Terror and Violence (Routledge, 2008). His research and teaching center on the social and rhetorical aspects of early Christianity and Gnosticism.

• AbbreviationsAcknowledgements1. Introduction2 Constructing Social Identity Through Discourse: A Socio-Rhetorical Approach for the Study of Valentinian Paraenesis3. Defining Paraenesis I: Historical Phases within the Academic Study of Paraenesis4. Defining Paraenesis II: Towards a Functional Understanding of Paraenesis5. Literary Aspects of Paraenesis: Indicators of Moral Exhortation from the Greco-Roman World within Valentinianism6. Two Schools and the Call to Reconciliation: Literary and Social Aspects of Moral Exhortation in the Interpretation of Knowledge7. Existing in Error: Literary and Social Aspects of Moral Exhortation in the Gospel of Truth8. Conclusion BibliographyIndex

"Tite’s book rightly underscores the importance of ethics in Valentinian Christianity" – Birger A. Pearson, in: Religious Studies Review 26/1 (March 2010)"This monograph makes an important contribution to the scholarly understanding of moral exhortation in Valentinian teaching." – Paul Foster, School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh