Gnosticism is a contested category, not the name of one coherent ancient religion.
Imported citation, not independently checked: Karen L. King, What Is Gnosticism? (2003)
religion · Shared topic · Revision 0
What Is Gnosticism?
What Is Gnosticism?
The current answer
A divine spark trapped in a botched world, and a label modern scholars aren't sure they should keep
What remains uncertain
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Much of what people "know" about Gnostics comes from hostile witnesses: Irenaeus of Lyons, writing Against Heresies around 180 CE to refute them.
Imported citation, not independently checked: Irenaeus, Against Heresies (c. 180)
Elaine Pagels, in The Gnostic Gospels (1979), stressed that Valentinians attended the same liturgies as other Christians while reading them on a second level.
Imported citation, not independently checked: Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels (1979)
The caricature held that Gnostics hated the body merely to license either asceticism or libertinism; Williams (1996) showed the surviving texts rarely fit that lurid frame.
Imported citation, not independently checked: Michael A. Williams, Rethinking Gnosticism (1996)
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