[German Version]

(Apr 2, 1861, Breslau – Mar 23, 1931, Göttingen), classical philologist and historian of religion who became a Privatdozent in Breslau in 1888 and, from 1889 onward, professor in Rostock, Giessen, Strasbourg, Freiburg im Breisgau, and, from 1914, in Göttingen. As a representative of the history-of-religions school, Reitzenstein published pioneering but methodologically insecure studies of ancient syncretism, Gnosticism (Gnosis), and Manichaeism. Reitzenstein was largely responsible for the “oriental” ¶ derivation model of Gnosticism; this culminate…