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Is Gnosticism a Religion?
Mar. 7th, 2019 10:32 pmMy short answer would be No.
According to my knowledge on the matter thus far, Gnosticism is merely a worldview or metaphysical attitude. It's the simple idea that the material realm/world/reality is a flawed creation and that it is the ultimate spiritual mission of every human being to transcend the material state and attain an immortal state in the higher realms of spirit. The more extreme dualist Gnostics have claimed the material realm to be a malevolent creation of an evil being. When "Gnostic" is uttered in casual conversation, the latter attitude usually comes to mind first.
They may be no religion we can call Gnosticism, but there were and are Gnostic versions of various religions. The most obvious example is Gnostic Christianity. But even that is not a religion, but rather a common theme found across many variants of early heterodox Christianity. The Valentinian church would be an example of a Gnostic Christian religion. We also can reference truly cosmopolitan Gnostic religions like Manichaeism, which came about as a syncretism of nearly every major world religious current of its time (3rd century CE). Mazdakism was probably a Gnostic version of Zoroastrianism. Kabbalah is arguably a Gnostic doctrine but many self-professed Gnotics today (not to mention Kabbalah-practicing Jews) would probably disagree with that distinction; it's only really true if we also consider the rather wide umbrella known as Hermeticism to be a Gnostic system. And finally, we can consider various Eastern religions and spiritual systems to be Gnostic.
According to my knowledge on the matter thus far, Gnosticism is merely a worldview or metaphysical attitude. It's the simple idea that the material realm/world/reality is a flawed creation and that it is the ultimate spiritual mission of every human being to transcend the material state and attain an immortal state in the higher realms of spirit. The more extreme dualist Gnostics have claimed the material realm to be a malevolent creation of an evil being. When "Gnostic" is uttered in casual conversation, the latter attitude usually comes to mind first.
They may be no religion we can call Gnosticism, but there were and are Gnostic versions of various religions. The most obvious example is Gnostic Christianity. But even that is not a religion, but rather a common theme found across many variants of early heterodox Christianity. The Valentinian church would be an example of a Gnostic Christian religion. We also can reference truly cosmopolitan Gnostic religions like Manichaeism, which came about as a syncretism of nearly every major world religious current of its time (3rd century CE). Mazdakism was probably a Gnostic version of Zoroastrianism. Kabbalah is arguably a Gnostic doctrine but many self-professed Gnotics today (not to mention Kabbalah-practicing Jews) would probably disagree with that distinction; it's only really true if we also consider the rather wide umbrella known as Hermeticism to be a Gnostic system. And finally, we can consider various Eastern religions and spiritual systems to be Gnostic.
