>>560119
>wait, so there are some Gnostic who dont believe what you said?
Ok to kinda clear it up:
"Gnostic" is a term for a group of mystery religions that existed (and some still exist) in the mediterranean back in the 2nd century.
The key defining feature of gnostic religions was that they were essentially syncretic religious neoplatonism. Typically you end up with a god who represents plato's form of "the good", who lives in the realm of forms, which is the real world.
The material world, on the other hand, is a dim reflection of the world of the forms, fashioned by an artificing figure (demiurge in greek – it means "artificer").
"Gnosis" is the "secret knowledge" in the religion that you need in order to transcend the material illusion and return to the land of the forms to be one with "the good".
So that's kind of the basics of what you'll see in any given gnostic religion. In this sense, just treat gnostic as an adjective, just like we treat things like "apostolic" or "protestant" or "dharmic" as adjectives.
Consequently, the most commonly known/discussed forms of gnosticism are 2 sects, both of which were syncretic with christianity:
1) valentinianism - which is treated by St. Irenaeus in his Against Heresies (probably the most commonly discussed)
2) Sethians - who's works were mixed in with the nag hammadi works (some of which were valentinian – alot of their beliefs overlapped).
This is where you get all of the hyper-specific "muh sophia", "muh abrasax" and "muh archons" shit people always bring up when they talk about "gnosticism". Those were specific beliefs within valentinian and sethian gnosticism.
because they're the most talked about types, the word "gnostic" has kinda jumbled up with them in meaning.
valentinians and sethians weren't the only gnostics, though, nor were all gnostics syncretic with christianity. For example, the mandaeans are gnostics who exist to this day and openly hate jesus, thinking him a false prophet.
In addition to the mandaeans, you have:
- manichaeans (who augustine joined for a time and were zoroastrian-syncretists)
- bogomils
- cathars
- simoniacs (not people who sell sacraments, but the legit religion founded by simon magus in syria)
- ebionites (hyper-judaizers who smoked too much philo of alexandria)
- marcionites
- neo-platonic followers of plotinus
all of these were "gnostics", not all of them were even "christian", and few of them shared beliefs beyond what could have been derived from platonism.
>>560122
>so could there be a "gnostic" that follows almost all doctrine, but just rejects the church in favor of trying to have just a one on one relationship with god?
In order to be a gnostic, you have to reject one of god's first thoughts in christian doctrine: that the creation is good. being rooted in platonism, all gnostics believe the material world is either benignly deficient or even evil.