1. Term, History, and Definition

The Gk. noun gnōsis originally meant knowledge of things and objects that the knower could apprehend ¶ by understanding (nous) and reason (logos)—that is, rationally (Epistemology).

Along with the basic epistemological sense a qualitatively new meaning developed from the first century b.c. that separated the object and act of knowledge from rational experience and transferred it to t…