This volume brings together fifteen studies on Hellenistic and Graeco-Roman religion, as well as on Gnosticism, and will be of interest to scholars and students working on religious thought in Classical Antiquity, Christianity and comparative religion.

Written by a recognized authority in the field, it presents the results of some twenty years of research and teaching by the author. While some articles have been reprinted with revisions, others are published here for the first time.

Subjects dealt with include Hermocles’ Ithyphallus for Demetrius, the Sator Arepo square, the Gospel of Thoma, the Essenes, Naassenes, Peratae, Sethians, Justin, Basilides, and Pythagoras.

After a teaching career in Europe and America, Miroslav Marcovich is currently Professor of Classics and Senior Scholar at the University of Illinois. He is also founding editor of Illinois Classical Studies, and has been a Guggenheim Fellow in 1981 and 1984. His publications comprise twenty books and 300 articles dealing with Greek and Latin literature, Patristic and Byzantine studies.