Gnosticism

Abstract

The term “Gnosticism” can be utilized broadly, to characterize any religious movement based on an internal, individualized recognition (“Gnosis”) of one’s divine inner “spark” that links an individual with a higher divine force. In this sense, moments of “Gnosticism” have emerged at various historical periods. In a more narrow sense, however, most scholars of Gnosticism presently consider it a phenomenon that peaked in the 2nd century of the Common Era in the Roman Empire and that characterized one side of a division in the formative early Christian movement. Beyond that, there is currently no consensus concerning what “Gnosticism” was, how we might define its parameters, and whether it is correct to identify it as an ancient religious mentality at all. European scholarship—with significant academic centers studying Gnosticism in Scandinavia, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy—tends to be more positivist, employing the term “Gnosticism” or “Gnosis” without apparent apprehension. In the United States, many scholars have been more reticent about employing the term, often placing it within quotation marks to signal a profound discomfort with a term that reifies a field of study largely invented in the early modern period. However, attempts to replace the term “Gnosticism” with something more accurate have so far not produced satisfactory results. A second issue in the field has been the question of primary sources. Up to the mid-20th century, studies of Gnosticism were hampered by the paucity of original texts from “Gnostics” themselves. The greatest source for reconstructing Gnosticism was the work of their opponents, Christian heresiologists. In 1945, however, the global study of Gnosticism was set on a new path by the discovery of a set of twelve 4th-century codices near Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt. These texts, known as the Nag Hammadi Library or the Nag Hammadi Codices, contained approximately fifty-two documents, some of which were previously known, and some of which had until that point, been entirely lost. Although not all of the Nag Hammadi documents are “Gnostic” as such, many of them were ascribed to Gnostic authors in our extant heresiological writings. The translation and study of the Nag Hammadi documents has dominated scholarship since that time, largely replacing any attention to the work of Christian heresiologists. A concerted effort has been made at international collaboration and the expeditious production of critical translations of the codices, producing impressive results. However, the scholarship that has been produced remains largely highly specialized and technical, making teaching Gnosticism at the undergraduate level more challenging.