Gnosticism, a category which is often applied very inconsistently, mostly designates the Gnosis rejected by the early Church (sometimes called “Christian Gnosticism” and often summed up by the misleading term of “Christian Gnosis”). Gnosticism is sometimes used for early forms of Gnostic thinking, including then very often the pagan Hellenistic Gnosis which had remained apart from Christianity. The term is even used at times to designate the whole phenomenon of the Gnosis of late antiquity. Stru…