Gnosticism

Gnosticism. A complex religious movement which in its Christian form came into prominence in the 2nd cent. In Christianity, Gnosticism first appeared as a school (or schools) of thought within the Church, but by the end of the 2nd cent. the Gnostics had mostly become separate sects. Different forms were developed by particular teachers, such as Valentinus, Basilides, and Marcion, but some features are common to the movement as a whole. A central importance was attached to ‘gnosis’, the supposedly revealed knowledge of God and of the origin and destiny of mankind, by means of which the spiritual element in man could receive redemption. The source of this special ‘gnosis’ was held to be either the Apostles, from whom it was derived by a secret tradition, or a direct revelation given to the founder of the sect. Gnostic teaching distinguished between the Demiurge or ‘creator god’ and the supreme and unknowable Divine Being. From the latter the Demiurge was derived by a series of emanations or ‘aeons’. It was he who was the immediate source of creation and ruled the world, which was therefore imperfect and antagonistic to what was truly spiritual. But into the constitution of some men there had entered a seed or spark of Divine spiritual substance, and through ‘gnosis’ and the rites associated with it this spiritual element might be rescued from its evil material environment. The function of Christ was to come as the emissary of the supreme God, bringing ‘gnosis’. As a Divine Being He neither assumed a properly human body nor died, but either temporarily inhabited a human being, Jesus, or assumed a phantasmal human appearance.

Gnosticism in various forms long persisted. The sect of the Manichees, founded by Mani in the 3rd cent., survived until the 13th; meanwhile the possibly related sects of Albigensians and Cathars had appeared in France, Germany, and Italy. The Mandaeans still survive. See also NAG HAMMADI.