Alessandria d’Egitto e i gruppi “gnostici”: annotazioni preliminari a margine di tre volumi recenti

By reviewing three recent books dealing with Alexandrian Christianity and ‘Gnostic’ groups, the article tries to sketch a new agenda for the study of the latter as integral part of the multifaceted early Christian movement in the Egyptian metropolis. Three points are underscored as pivotal to the project: the creation of a dossier of Jewish and early Christian texts actually circulating in the city; the inclusion of all the available sources in the process of historical reconstruction; the downplaying of the classical ‘history of ideas’ approach in favor of a more critical and deep-ranging sociological perspective, focused as it is on the interlace of ideology and social practices, conflict and identity formation