Richard August Reitzenstein

Richard August Reitzenstein (2 April 1861, in Breslau – 23 March 1931, in Göttingen) was a German classical philologist and scholar of Ancient Greek religion, hermetism and Gnosticism.

He is described by Kurt Rudolph[1] as “one of the most stimulating Gnostic scholars.” With Wilhelm Bousset, he was one of the major figures of the Religionsgeschichtliche Schule (history of religions school).

[2] His Poimandres: Studien zur Griechisch-Ägyptischen und frühchristlichen Literatur of 1904 was a pioneer scholarly study of the Poimandres, which he compared to the Shepherd of Hermas.

[3] In collaboration with the German Egyptologist Wilhelm Spiegelberg, Richard August Reitzenstein founded a famous collection of Greek and Egyptian papyri, purchased during an expedition in Egypt in 1898/99.

Modern scholars now reject these theories, while acknowledging that many of the features of later Christian gnosticism can be drawn from pre-Christian Jewish and Hellenistic roots.