Jean Borella is a retired Professor of Ancient and Medieval Philosophy at the University of Nancy II. He is the author of many books, including most recently, Le sens du surnaturel, Symbolisme et réalité, and Ésotérisme guénonien et mystère chrétien. G. John Champoux has also translated Jean Borella's The Sense of the Supernatural.

"A noted French professor of Christian theology, Borella combines careful historical scholarship with traditionalist (largely Guenonian) metaphysics to produce a series of poetically charged meditations on the Christian mysteries, which together constitute a kind of 'esoteric systematic theology.' This is unlike any other work I know. There are, of course, many other systematic approaches to doctrine, other sensitive analyses of fundamental religious symbols, and other claims to uncovering the esoteric essence of the Christian tradition. But this book combines them all, in a way that is consistently fresh and yet always thoughtfully grounded." — James S. Cutsinger, author of Advice to the Serious Seeker: Meditations on the Teaching of Frithjof Schuon"By showing that authentic gnosticism is an example of the esoteric current found in all religion, this book balances many superficial judgments about gnosticism. It is an exceptionally penetrating view of a fascinating and widely misunderstood subject." — Jacob Needleman, author of Time and the Soul and coeditor of Modern Esoteric Spirituality

• ForewordPrefaceAcknowledgments PrologueThe Gnosis with a True Name The First Stage Contemplating God through His Vestiges in the Universe 1. Trinity and Creation The Second Stage Contemplating God in His Vestiges in the Sense World 2. The Inevitable "Failure" of Nicholas of Cusa3. The Essence of the Symbol The Third Stage Contemplating God through His Image Stamped upon Our Natural Powers 4. The Constitution of Man According to the New Testament The Fourth Stage Contemplating God in His Image Reformed by the Gifts of Grace 5. Love and Gnosis in the Crucified Mediator6. The Human Ternary and the Opening of the Heart in the Old Testament The Fifth Stage Contemplating the Divine Unity through Its Primary Name which Is Being 7. Love of Self and Love of God The Sixth Stage Contemplating the Most Blessed Trinity in Its Name which is Good 8. The Trinitarian Functions of the Hypostases The Seventh Stage The Sabbath of Rest and Ecstasy 9. The Essence and Forms of the "Body of Christ"10. The "Body of Christ" and the Work of Salvation11. The Metaphysics of the Eternal Exposition EndnotesSelect BibliographyName and Theme IndexScriptural Index