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A common position in the early 21st century was that Gnosticism has Jewish Christian origins, originating in the late first century AD in nonrabbinical Jewish sects and early Christian sects. [45] [38] [39] [note 14] Ethel S. Drower adds, "heterodox Judaism in Galilee and Samaria appears to have taken shape in the form we now call Gnostic, and ...
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Sethianism was a 2nd-century Gnostic movement that believed in a supreme God, Sophia, the Demiurge, and gnosis as the path to salvation. [12] Basilideanism: Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodox Churches, mainline Protestantism: Basilideanism was a Gnostic Christian sect founded by Basilides of Alexandria.
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.
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]
According to the Christian scholar Epiphanius of Salamis, he was born in Egypt and schooled in Alexandria, where the Gnostic Basilides was teaching. However, Clement of Alexandria (c. 150 – c. 215), another Christian scholar and teacher, reports that Valentinus was taught by Theudas , a disciple of the apostle Paul . [ 5 ]
A Christian denomination is a distinct religious body within Christianity, identified by traits such as a name, organization and doctrine.Individual bodies, however, may use alternative terms to describe themselves, such as church, convention, communion, assembly, house, union, network, or sometimes fellowship.
The most successful Christian Gnostic was the priest Valentinus (c. 100 – c. 160), who founded a Gnostic church in Rome and developed an elaborate cosmology. Gnostics considered the material world to be a prison created by a fallen or evil spirit, the god of the material world (called the demiurge ).