A truly fascinating read from G. R. S. Mead, this book is one of the best about Gnosticism. Even though this was written before the Nag Hammadi discoveries, it explains a great deal about what we knew about the Gnostics at the turn of the twentieth century. Mead draws on information provided both by the Early Church Fathers hostile to Gnosticism, and the available corpus of actual Gnostic documents at the time. He includes excerpts from previously untranslated manuscripts, and extensive summaries of the Pistis Sophia and the writings of the critics of Gnosticism. This book is required reading for anyone who wants to understand Gnosticism and the development of early Christianity. Includes some nice illustrations at the beginning of the main chapters.