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Gnosticism: Terms
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Gnosticism is a general term like "humanism" or "mysticism." Many different religions have had gnostic sensibilities - a radical dualism, a suspicion of the body, an interest in secret knowledge. The church rejected gnosticism for several reasons. Gnosticism is anti materialistic and devolved into tight-knit, secretive communities.
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The term Gnosticism comes from the Greek word gnosis meaning "ultimate knowledge". Today, more people than ever before are interested in Gnosticism. S.M. Romanov examines the Gnostic message and its hidden meaning.
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In What Is Gnosticism?, Ms. King undermined the term by tracing the history of its use to the present day. In essence, she says, she intended the book to "clean the slate" for a radical rethinking of how to interpret the writings and the beliefs of those who wrote and read them.
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When all is said and done, approaching Gnosticism involves an act of faith, but not blind faith in received doctrines and supernatural agencies. There is another kind of faith, indicated by Gnostics by the term Pistis Sophia, “confidence in the indwelling wisdom.”
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Despite a fluidity within Gnosticism... Jonas identifies two basic patterns or structures of Gnostic thought. Both are mythological structures which seek to explain the problem of evil in terms of its relationship to the process of creation.
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The parasite metaphor is problematic on many levels not the least of which is the portrayal of Gnosticism or any of the collective groups that are used to construct the category as something less than a full blown religion. The use of the ‘parasite’ or ‘virus’ metaphor serves as an all inclusive category that attempts to capture certain aspects of the collective phenomena known as Gnosticism and describe them in terms that are free of association with any particular ‘host’ religion as well as reinforcing its transhistorical nature rather than individuating these groups in terms of particularities. “The metaphors mentioned are therefore reaching for the transtraditional character of ‘gnosticism.’ But these metaphors, and especially the parasite metaphor, are ... aimed at something else, and that is the dependence of ‘gnosticism’ on its host traditions
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