L’allegoria gnostica: note sul significato e sull’uso dell’interpretazione allegorica nello gnosticismo antico

This essay starts by presenting the Judaic, Christian and philosophical context within which the allegorical interpretation was developed in Gnostic environments during the 2nd century AD. Its most relevant sources, mainly of heresiological derivation, are illustrated. By analyzing their allegorical technique, it is then shown how the gnostic masters, especially the Valentinians, were rather flexible in adopting literal interpretations and allegorical ones both “horizontally” (i.e., in a physical, psychological and historical sense) and “vertically” (i.e., in a spiritual sense). Gnostic authors preferred the latter, and this was their major point of contention with the adopters of the “horizontal” typological practice, favored around the same time within the Great Church. Allegory was the ideal match for the exoteric character of the Gnostic tradition, since it allowed for the appearance of countless hidden meanings and it did properly fit the Gnostic claim that truth is at hand inasmuch as those who seek it are consubstantial with that divine from which truth comes.