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Gnosticism (from Ancient Greek: γνωστικός, romanized: gnōstikós, Koine Greek: [ɣnostiˈkos], 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems that coalesced in the late 1st century AD among early Christian sects. These diverse groups emphasized personal spiritual knowledge (gnosis) above the proto-orthodox teachings, traditions, and authority of religious institutions. Gnostic cosmogony generally presents a distinction between a supreme, hidden God and a malevolent lesser divinity (sometimes associated with the Hebrew Bible deity Yahweh)[1] who is responsible for creating the material universe. Consequently, Gnostics considered material existence flawed or evil, and held the principal element of salvation to be direct knowledge of the hidden divinity, attained via mystical or esoteric insight. Many Gnostic texts deal not in concepts of sin and repentance, but with illusion and enlightenment.[2]

Gnostic writings flourished among certain Christian groups in the Mediterranean world around the second century, when the Early Church Fathers denounced them as heresy.[3] Efforts to destroy these texts proved largely successful, resulting in the survival of very little writing by Gnostic theologians.[4] Nonetheless, early Gnostic teachers such as Valentinus saw themselves as Christians. In the Gnostic Christian tradition, Christ is seen as a divine being which has taken human form in order to lead humanity back to recognition of its own divine nature. However, Gnosticism is not a single standardized system, and the emphasis on direct experience allows for a wide variety of teachings, including distinct currents such as Valentinianism and Sethianism. In the Persian Empire, Gnostic ideas spread as far as China via the related movement Manichaeism, while Mandaeism, which is the only surviving Gnostic religion from antiquity, is found in Iraq, Iran and diaspora communities.[5] Jorunn Buckley posits that the early Mandaeans may have been among the first to formulate what would go on to become Gnosticism within the community of early followers of Jesus.[6]

For centuries, most scholarly knowledge about Gnosticism was limited to the anti-heretical writings of early Christian figures such as Irenaeus of Lyons and Hippolytus of Rome. There was a renewed interest in Gnosticism after the 1945 discovery of Egypt's Nag Hammadi library, a collection of rare early Christian and Gnostic texts, including the Gospel of Thomas and the Apocryphon of John. Some scholars say Gnosticism may contain historical information about Jesus from the Gnostic viewpoint,[7] though the majority predominantly conclude that apocryphal sources, Gnostic or not, are later than the canonical ones and many, such as the Gospel of Thomas, depend upon or use the Synoptic Gospels.[8][9][10] Elaine Pagels has noted the influence of sources from Hellenistic Judaism, Zoroastrianism, and Middle Platonism on the Nag Hammadi texts.[4]

Since the 1990s, the category of "Gnosticism" has come under increasing scrutiny from scholars. One such issue is whether Gnosticism ought to be considered one form of early Christianity, an interreligious phenomenon, or an independent religion. Going further than this, other contemporary scholars such as Michael Allen Williams,[11] Karen Leigh King,[12] and David G. Robertson[13] contest whether "Gnosticism" is a valid or useful historical term, or if it was an artificial category framed by proto-orthodox theologians to target miscellaneous Christian heretics.

Etymology
Main article: Gnosis
Gnosis is a feminine Greek noun which means "knowledge" or "awareness."[14] It and the associated verb are often used for personal knowledge, as compared with intellectual knowledge (Greek verb εἴδειν eídein). A related term is the adjective gnostikos, "of or for knowledge",[15] a reasonably common adjective in Classical Greek.[16]

By the Hellenistic period, it began also to be associated with Greco-Roman mysteries, becoming synonymous with the Greek term mysterion. Consequentially, Gnosis often refers to knowledge based on personal experience or perception.[citation needed] In a religious context, gnosis is mystical or esoteric knowledge based on direct participation with the divine. In most Gnostic systems, the sufficient cause of salvation is this "knowledge of" ("acquaintance with") the divine. It is an inward "knowing", comparable to that encouraged by Plotinus (neoplatonism), and differs from proto-orthodox Christian views.[17] Gnostics are "those who are oriented toward knowledge and understanding – or perception and learning – as a particular modality for living".[18] The usual meaning of gnostikos in Classical Greek texts is "learned" or "intellectual", such as used by Plato in the comparison of "practical" (praktikos) and "intellectual" (gnostikos).[note 1][subnote 1] Plato's use of "learned" is fairly typical of Classical texts.[note 2]

Sometimes employed in the Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible, the adjective is not used in the New Testament, but Clement of Alexandria[note 3] who speaks of the "learned" (gnostikos) Christian quite often, uses it in complimentary terms.[19] The use of gnostikos in relation to heresy originates with interpreters of Irenaeus. Some scholars[note 4] consider that Irenaeus sometimes uses gnostikos to simply mean "intellectual",[note 5] whereas his mention of "the intellectual sect"[note 6] is a specific designation.[21][note 7][note 8][note 9] The term "Gnosticism" does not appear in ancient sources,[23][note 10] and was first coined in the 17th century by Henry More in a commentary on the seven letters of the Book of Revelation, where More used the term "Gnosticisme" to describe the heresy in Thyatira.[24][note 11] The term Gnosticism was derived from the use of the Greek adjective gnostikos (Greek γνωστικός, "learned", "intellectual") by St. Irenaeus (c. 185 AD) to describe the school of Valentinus as he legomene gnostike haeresis "the heresy called Learned (gnostic)".[25][note 12]

Origins
The origins of Gnosticism are obscure and still disputed. Alexandria was of central importance for the birth of Gnosticism. Gnosticism is strongly influenced by Middle Platonism and its theory of forms.[27][28][29] Elaine Pagels has noted the influence of sources from Hellenistic Judaism, Zoroastrianism, and Middle Platonism on the Nag Hammadi texts.[4] The Christian ecclesia (i. e. congregation, church) was of Jewish–Christian origin, but also attracted Greek members, and various strands of thought were available, such as "Judaic apocalypticism, speculation on divine wisdom, Greek philosophy, and Hellenistic mystery religions."[30] The proto-orthodox Christian groups called Gnostics a heresy of Christianity.[note 13][32]

While rejecting the underlying framing that proto-orthodox Christianity is the 'original' and 'true' Christianity from which Gnosticism and other 'heresies' then deviated, scholars such as Simone Pétrement[33] and David Brakke[34] have argued that Gnosticism originated as an intra-Christian movement, being one of several responses to the life, death, and presumed resurrection of Jesus, with Pétrement tracing it specifically to tendencies in the letters of Paul and the Gospel of John.[35] Within early Christianity, the teachings of Paul the Apostle and John the Evangelist may have been a starting point for Gnostic ideas, with a growing emphasis on the opposition between flesh and spirit, the value of charisma, and the disqualification of the Jewish law. The mortal body belonged to the world of inferior, worldly powers (the archons), and only the spirit or soul could be saved. The term gnostikos may have acquired a deeper significance here.[30]

Other modern scholars hold that Gnosticism arose within Judaism and later incorporated stories about Jesus into pre-existing speculation about a cosmic Savior and Philo's Jewish interpretation of Middle Platonic thought about the demiurge and the logos.[36][37][38][39][40][note 14][41] A small minority of scholars debate Gnosticism's origins as having roots in Buddhism, due to similarities in beliefs.[42]

Some scholars prefer to speak of "gnosis" when referring to first-century ideas that later developed into Gnosticism, and to reserve the term "Gnosticism" for the synthesis of these ideas into a coherent movement in the second century.[43][44] According to James M. Robinson, no Gnostic texts clearly pre-date Christianity,[note 15] and "pre-Christian Gnosticism as such is hardly attested in a way to settle the debate once and for all."[45]