© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2013 DOI: 10.1163/15685276-12341253 Numen 60 (2013) 71–102 brill.com/nu A Way of Salvation: Becoming Like God in Nag Hammadi Lautaro Roig Lanzillotta University of Groningen Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies Department of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Origins Oude Boteringestraat 38 9712 GK Groningen, The Netherlands f.l.roig.lanzillotta@rug.nl Abstract Contrary to general belief, ethical progress as a means to attain the divine and thereby achieve salvation occupies a central place in the Nag Hammadi writings. Plato’s con- ception of the homoiosis theo or “likeness to god” ijits very well this dynamic view of man, since it optimistically claims the possibility of human development and progress. Plato’s dialogues are far from offering a univocal exposition of how this progress was fulijilled, but later Platonists show a rather systematizing tendency. The present paper provides an overview of the homoiosis theo in the Platonic dialogues and evaluates its appropriation by both Middle Platonism and the world of Gnosis. It also offers an expo- sition and analysis of those Nag Hammadi writings that may allow a proper under- standing of the meaning and goal of the homoiosis theo in this collection of texts. Keywords assimilation/likeness to God, ethics, middle Platonism, Nag Hammadi, Plato Readers acquainted with the so-called Gnostic worldview through the testimony of anti-heretical writers or through manuals of a more or less general character will probably be astonished to ijind in the following pages an assessment of the homoiosis theo or “likeness to god” as a central motif in the Nag Hammadi texts. On the one hand, the likeness to god might be described as an optimistic conception that claims the possibil- ity of human development and progress; on the other, the traditional