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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.
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 ]
The Naassenes (Greek Naasseni, possibly from Hebrew נָחָשׁ naḥaš, snake) [1] were a Christian Gnostic sect known only through the accounts in the books known as the Philosophumena or the Refutation of all Heresies (which have been attributed to Hippolytus of Rome but may in fact not be by him).
In Gnosticism, the divine spark is the portion of God that resides within each human being. [1]The purpose of life is to enable the Divine Spark to be released from its captivity in matter and reestablish its connection with, or simply return to, God, who is perceived as being the source of the Divine Light.
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.
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.
Gnosticism was one strain of early Christianity that competed in this period, although "gnosticism" itself is an umbrella term for many separate sects that might have considered themselves as having little in common with other sects called gnostic by later church historians. Later Orthodox writers sharply condemned Gnostics, and Gnosticism ...
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."