Christian Gnosticism

The term Gnosticism is used by scholars with a wide variety of meanings and levels of specificity. Sometimes the term refers only to those Sethians who used the term gnostikoi to describe themselves. Sometimes it is used more broadly to include Valentinians, followers of Basilides, and others. Likewise, one scholar may consider Simon Magus a gnostic, where another considers him a proto-gnostic. Some early Church fathers, such as Irenaeus, seemed to think that all heresies were Gnosticism at root, and thus that any heretic was in a sense a Gnostic.

Gnostics considered many pre-Christian characters to be important religious figures. Adam and his son Seth were especially important. Several figures appear in Gnostic versions of Old Testament stories who do not appear in canonical versions, such as Norea, who saves the Gnostics from the flood in the time of Noah. The three companions of Daniel are called by many names in Gnostic texts, and often invoked. Eugnostos is a proto-Sethian writer of the Nag Hammadi text of the same name, and may have lived as early as the 1st century BC. John the Baptist is sometimes claimed as an early Gnostic leader — for example, by the Mandaeans. Other figures are more difficult to locate in time, such as the Prophets Barcoph and Barkabbas, mentioned by Basilides and Epiphanius.

Likewise, it may not have been unusual for even Christian Gnostics to consider a variety of pre-Christian people as important religious figures. Irenaeus claims that followers of Carpocrates honored images of Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle along with images of Jesus Christ. Philo of Alexandria, Zoroaster, and Hermes Trismegistus may have occupied similar roles among other early Christian gnostics.

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