| List of Figures and Tables | |
| Preface | |
| Abbreviations | |
| Introduction | 3 |
| Ch. 1 | What Kind of Thing Do Scholars Mean by "Gnosticism"?: A Look at Four Cases | 7 |
| Ch. 2 | "Gnosticism" as a Category | 29 |
| Ch. 3 | Protest Exegesis? or Hermeneutical Problem-Solving? | 54 |
| Ch. 4 | Parasites? or Innovators? | 80 |
| Ch. 5 | Anticosmic World-Rejection? or Sociocultural Accommodation? | 96 |
| Ch. 6 | Hatred of the Body? or the Perfection of the Human? | 116 |
| Ch. 7 | Asceticism...? | 139 |
| Ch. 8 | ...or Libertinism? | 163 |
| Ch. 9 | Deterministic Elitism? or Inclusive Theories of Conversion? | 189 |
| Ch. 10 | Where They Came From... | 213 |
| Ch. 11 | ...and What They Left Behind | 235 |
| Conclusion | 263 |
| Notes | 267 |
| Modern Works Cited | 311 |
| Index | 329 |
