Contents -- Preface -- Abbreviations -- 1. Imagining "Gnosticism" and Early Christianities -- 2. Identifying the Gnostics and Their Literature -- 3. The Myth and Rituals of the Gnostic School of Thought -- 4. Unity and Diversity in Second-Century Rome -- 5. Strategies of Self-Differentiation -- Notes -- Selected Bibliography of Primary Sources in Translation -- Index.