Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
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.
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 ]
Gnosticism teaches that the natural or material world will and should be destroyed (total annihilation) by the true spiritual God in order to free mankind from the reign of the false God or Demiurge. A common misperception is caused by the fact that, in the past, "Gnostic" had a similar meaning to the current usage of the word mystic.
Widely regarded as the founder of modern academic study of the Kabbalah, Scholem produced the hypothesis that the source of the 13th century Kabbalah (such as the Zohar) was Jewish gnosticism that preceded Christian gnosticism. For example, in the title of his 1960's Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism, and the Talmudic Tradition.
Valentinianism is the name for the school of gnostic philosophy tracing back to Valentinus. It was one of the major gnostic movements, having widespread following throughout the Roman Empire and provoking voluminous writings by Christian heresiologists. Notable Valentinians included Heracleon, Ptolemy, Florinus, Marcus and Axionicus of Antioch.
Gnosticism used a number of religious texts that are preserved, in part or whole, in ancient manuscripts, or lost but mentioned critically in Patristic writings. There is significant scholarly debate around what Gnosticism is, and therefore what qualifies as a "Gnostic text."
In the Sahih Muslim Hadith, the Prophet Muhammad is reported to have said: “You will not enter paradise until you believe, and you will not believe until you love to the other muslim what you love to your self.” Muslims are directed by Allah ('God') in the ways to become close to Him and how to gain His love. God loves those who: do good.
On the other hand, Vanderbilt Professor Kathy L. Gaca (The Making of Fornication: Eros, Ethics, and Political Reform in Greek Philosophy and Early Christianity, University of California Press, 2003) promotes a view of Epiphanes as one of the voices in early Christianity who held a positive and liberationist view of sexual pleasure, and who was ...