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Page from the Gospel of Judas Mandaean Beth Manda in Nasiriyah, southern Iraq, in 2016, a contemporary-style mandi. 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.
Gnosticism in modern times (or Neo-Gnosticism) includes a variety of contemporary religious movements, stemming from Gnostic ideas and systems from ancient Roman society. Gnosticism is an ancient name for a variety of religious ideas and systems, originating in Jewish-Christian milieux in the first and second century CE.
Gnostics identified the God of the Hebrew Bible as this demiurge. Secret knowledge (gnosis) was said to liberate one's soul to return to the true God in the realm of light. Valentinus and other Christian gnostics identified Jesus as the Savior, a spirit sent from the true God into the material world to liberate the souls trapped there.
In the Gnostic Christian tradition, Christ is seen as a wholly divine being which has taken human form in order to lead humanity back to the Light. [2] The Cathars of medieval Europe also shared the belief in the divine spark. [3] They saw this idea expressed most powerfully in the opening words of the Gospel of St John.
In it, Irenaeus identifies and describes several schools of Gnosticism, and other schools of Christian thought, whose beliefs he rejects as heresy. He contrasts them with orthodox Christianity. Until the discovery of the Library of Nag Hammadi in 1945, Against Heresies was the best surviving contemporary description of Gnosticism.
In Gnosticism, Sophia is a feminine figure, analogous to the human soul but also simultaneously one of the feminine aspects of God. Gnostics held that she was the syzygy , or female twin, of Jesus , i.e. the Bride of Christ , and the Holy Spirit of the Trinity .
The Carpocratians were Gnostics, [1] believing in a dualism of evil matter and good spirit, and pursuing gnosis, the esoteric knowledge needed for salvation. [2] As others of the belief system, they believed all beings in the world strove towards Monas, the Supreme Principle or Primal Being, [3] whom Carpocratians called the Father of All, or the One Beginning. [4]
Gnosticism refers to a collection of religious groups originating in Jewish religiosity in Alexandria in the first few centuries AD. [1] Neoplatonism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy that took shape in the 3rd century, based on the teachings of Plato and some of his early followers.