Sacramentum Mundi Online

1. Definition and typology. Gnosis designates both an essentially non-Christian religion of redemption in late antiquity, represented in various associations, and the central concept of that religion, which appeared more or less at the same time as primitive Christianity and spread over Samaria, Syria, Asia Minor, Egypt, Italy, North Africa, etc.. Gnosis soon came in contact with Christianity, and made use of its doctrines in strange exaggerations and distortions. This form of Gnosis, beside which …

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…