GNOSTICISM, nos'ti-sIzm (Gr. yvexne, knowledge; ymartKoc, devoted to knowledge), the teaching of various sects in the first Chris tian century, who hovered on the border land between Christianity and heathen thought. The systems they founded attempted to grapple with the most profound problems of philosophy, such as the creation of the world and the origin of evil. They taught that a series of divine emanations connected the Supreme Being with the visible universe; that human nature was dual and that the acts of the body had no in fluence on the spirit. They blent their ideas of Christian truth with pagan and Jewish elements, or even with those received from the common belief in magic. They taught that the earthly life of Christ was unreal, that is, He was a phantom and incorporeal, and they held that knowledge (yvtratc), as they possessed it, was superior to faith.
Thus there was a general tendency to trace the same religious idea through different mythologies (which were held to be the popular expression of religious ideas originally re vealed), and the new religion which aimed at the redemption of the whole world was eagerly seized on as the embodiment of their unifying principle. Christianity was believed to be the full revelation of the deeper truth embedded in all the nature-religions. By adapting their_pres entation of Christianity to the form of the ancient mysteries the Gnostic teachers the more easily fastened themselves upon the Christian congregations, and succeeded in taking up a position within them as specially initiated per sons, for which they found a natural support in the prevalent ascetic views and the powerful in fluence of free prophecy. But these were in time forced to separate themselves and form sects, whose great diversity becoming the more apparent greatly counteracted, the influence of the Gnostic leaven in the Christian communi ties. To maintain their theories in the face of the traditional doctrine of the churches they had recourse to the sources of that doctrine. They claimed to have special traditions from certain of Christ's disciples, and applied their exegetical skill to the allegorical interpretation of the writ ten monuments of the apostolic age. Marcion (about 150), believing himself to be a consistent follower of Paul, rejected the authority of the earliest apostles, as well as the gospels ema nating from the circles of their influence, and professed to hold "the gospel" known to Paul only. His collection of 10 epistles of Paul was the first attempt to fix the canon of the apostolic Scriptures. Such arbitrary treatment of the Scriptures led the Church to resort to a more thorough study of the historical tradition. In the struggle with Gnosticism it obtained a firm hold of the principle that that alone is .to be held true Christianity which can be shown to be historically derived from Christ and His apostles, and it found the only means to check the license of Gnostic speculation in the de velopment of a Christian theology in accord ance with the positive character of historical Christianity.
The general principles of Gnostic thought may be here summarized, as fuller accounts of the principal schools are given under their own names or under those of their founders. For the practical doctrine of the redemption of men's souls from sin by Jesus Christ the Gnostics substituted a speculative doctrine of the redemption of the human spirit from matter by religious knowledge. The realistic eschatology of the primitive Church they entirely set aside.
The evangelic element in their teaching was obscured by a cloud of heathen mythologies and philosophic subtleties. The Divine Demiurgos and Lawgiver of the Old Testament was dis tinguished from the Supreme Being, and the Hebrew idea of creation was superseded by that of a continuous process of emanations from the divine first cause. The present world was be lieved to be the result of a catastrophe in which the spirit fell under the power of matter, or of an original destiny that powers hostile to God should bring into existence a world in which the spirit born of God should be held in un willing estrangement from Him. All the Gnostic systems are more or less dualistic. In these dualistic theories a philosophical foundation was secured which was by the Gnostics developed to an extreme. The highest duty of man was to become united to the First Source of Spirit through gnosis and the absolute alienation of the human spirit from the body. Others, like Carpocrates and his son Epiphanes, expressed their contempt for the flesh and the ordinances of the Demiurgos in unbridled license. The contrasts of the flesh and the spirit and of the world and the kingdom of God are interpreted as the physical conflict of vast cosmic forces, and are thereby stripped of their moral and re ligious significance. The intervention of Christ is the crisis, not only of the religious history of mankind, but of the whole development of the universe. As the final and perfect iEon, He is distinguished from His visible manifestation. This is held to be: (1) a real human life with which He was connected for a time, or (2) a heavenly or "psychical" creation, or (3) a mere phantasm. Men are divided into two classes: the Pneumatic or "spiritual," who are constitutionally receptive of Christ's revelation and life everlasting, and the Hylic or "material" who are doomed to perish. Valentinians and others add a third, or intermediate class, the Psychical, or men of "soul," who are not capa ble of apprehending a divine revelation, but only of the popular faith (pistis), yet thereby may attain to a degree of knowledge and salva tion.
The (Pistis Sophia,' edited by Schwartze and Petermann (Berlin 1853), is the only Gnostic work that has come down to us in a complete form, except those apocryphal Gospels and Acts of the Apostles which show a Gnostic tendency. Much of the system's tenets is learned from the writings and sermons of Irenmus, Hippolytus, Tertullian, Ignatius and Justin Martyr. Tatian's (Diatessaron) was used •in the Syrian Church down to the 5th century. The Gnostic Bardesanes of Edessa, one of the last of the Syrian Gnostics, was the founder of Syrian hymnology. See Bousset, 'Haupt probleme der Gnosis) (Gottingen 1911) ; Coxe, 'Ante-Nicene Fathers) (10 vols., New York 1885-96); Faye, (Gnostiques et Gnosti cisme> (Paris 1913) ; Mansell, 'Gnostic Heresis); Neander, Entwickelung der vor Nehmsten gnostischen Systeme> (1818) ; Moller, Vol. I (1889); Renan, du Christianisme) ; King, The Gnostics and their Remains) (1887) ; Hilgenfeldt, (Ketzergeschichte des Urchristen thums' (Leipzig 1884) ; Harnack-Preuschen, der altchristlichen Litteratur' (ib., 1893) ; Mead, Sophia,' translation (Lon don 1896) ; Harnack, (History of (Vol. I, London 1894) ; Rainy, The Ancient Catholic Church' (New York 1902) : Schmidt, C., (Coptish-gnostische Schriften' (Leipzig 1905) ; Schultz, W., der Gnosis) (Jena 1910).