Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism
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Subject: Religious Studies
Edited by: Wouter J. Hanegraaff, in collaboration with Antoine Faivre, Roelof van den Broek and Jean-Pierre Brach
Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism Online is the comprehensive reference work to cover the entire domain of “Gnosis and Western Esotericism” from the period of Late Antiquity to the present. Containing around 400 articles by over 180 international specialists, Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism Online provides critical overviews discussing the nature and historical development of all its important currents and manifestations, from Gnosticism and Hermetism to Astrology, Alchemy and Magic, from the Hermetic Tradition of the Renaissance to Rosicrucianism and Christian Theosophy, and from Freemasonry and Illuminism to 19thcentury Occultism and the contemporary New Age movement. Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism Online also contains articles about the life and work of all the major personalities in the history of Gnosis and Western Esotericism, discussing their ideas, significance, and historical influence.
Subscriptions: see brill.com
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Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism Online is the comprehensive reference work to cover the entire domain of “Gnosis and Western Esotericism” from the period of Late Antiquity to the present. Containing around 400 articles by over 180 international specialists, Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism Online provides critical overviews discussing the nature and historical development of all its important currents and manifestations, from Gnosticism and Hermetism to Astrology, Alchemy and Magic, from the Hermetic Tradition of the Renaissance to Rosicrucianism and Christian Theosophy, and from Freemasonry and Illuminism to 19thcentury Occultism and the contemporary New Age movement. Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism Online also contains articles about the life and work of all the major personalities in the history of Gnosis and Western Esotericism, discussing their ideas, significance, and historical influence.
Subscriptions: see brill.com
Monoimus
(848 words)
Monoimus,, 2nd cent. Monoimus was a Gnostic teacher [→ Gnosticism] of whose life and career nothing is known. Hippolytus (ca. 230), who has left us a summary of his teachings, including a fragment of one of his letters (
Refutatio, VIII, 12-15; X, 17, 5) calls him ‘the Arab’, which means that he came from the Roman province of Arabia. According to Monoimus, there is a twofold principle of the All, Man and the Son of Man, of whom the former is unborn and immortal and the latter born, albeit independently of time, will or plan. For just as a fire and the l…
More, Henry
(1,581 words)
More, Henry, * October 1614 (Grantham), † 1687 (Cambridge) More was born in Grantham, Lincolnshire, the son of Alexander More, Alderman and Mayor (1617) of Grantham, and his wife Anne (née Lacy). He was educated at Grantham Grammar School and Eton College. In 1631 he entered Christ's College, in the University of Cambridge, where Robert Gell was his tutor. He graduated BA in 1636 and MA 1639 and was elected fellow of Christ's College in place of Gell in 1641. In the same year he was ordained, and his unc…
Morley, Daniel of
(508 words)
Morley, Daniel of, * ca. 1140 (Norfolk), † ca. 1210 (place of death unknown) Living one generation after the masters of Chartres and Tours, Daniel demonstrated an interest similar to theirs in naturalistic Platonism. Unfortunately, regarding scientific subjects the Latin philosophers of his time offered him neither clarity nor certainty. Paris was mainly interested in Law and Theology. Daniel therefore went to Toledo to study the “teachings of the Arabs” (
doctrina arabum) and joined the circle of translators gathered around Gerard of Cremona. Deriving strength from…
Moses
(1,543 words)
Moses In the syncretistic religious climate of Ptolemaic Alexandria Moses was identified with the Egyptian god Thot-Hermes [→ Hermes Trismegistus]. The only direct source for this equation is the third fragment of a book
On the Jews written by a certain Artapanus (ca. 100 B.C.E.), preserved in Eusebius,
Praeparatio Evangelica IX, 27, 1-37. It tells us, mainly in 27, 1-10, that Moses or “Moysos”, as Artapanos calls him, invented all kinds of utensils for the Egyptians, such as ships, instruments for hoisting stones, weapons, and inundation and …
Mouravieff, Boris
(1,550 words)
Mouravieff, Boris, * 8 Mar 1890 (Cronstadt (Russia)), † 28 Sep 1969 (Geneva) Early in his life, Mouravieff came under the spiritual influence of his great uncle Andrei Mouravieff, the founder of an important orthodox monastery at Mount Athos. He became an officer in the Higher Military School in 1910 and in this capacity served in the Russian Imperial Navy during World War I. After the abdication of the tsar in March 1917, he became part of the Cabinet of Minister Alexandre Kerensky until October 1918. From …
Music
(8,288 words)
Music I: Antiquity Music was a highly developed art in the ancient world. From very early texts and a number of musical scores, from representations in visual art and actual instruments that have been found in excavations, a whole spectrum of musical practice and theory has been recovered for virtually every ancient culture. Given the aural nature of music, it is almost impossible to reconstruct the sounds of antiquity, but much progress has been made in reconstructing both the technical aspects of…