Gnosticism ...
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Here's some key information from The Encyclopedia
Britannica, related directly or indirectly to Gnosticism ...

Gnosticism
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=37862
Excerpt: "The designation Gnosticism, derived from the
Greek gnostikos (one who has gnosis, or "secret knowledge"),
is a term of modern scholarship.

Evidence for the Gnostic phenomenon, found in the Church
Fathers who opposed Gnostic teachings (Irenaeus, c. 185;
Hippolytus, c. 230; Epiphanius, c. 375) and in the Gnostic
writings themselves, reveals a diversity in theology, ethics,
and ritual that defies strict classification.

Yet Gnostic sects appear to have shared an emphasis on the
redemptive power of esoteric knowledge, acquired not by
learning or empirical observation but by divine revelation. ..."

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Archon
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=9409
Excerpt: "In Gnosticism, any of a number of world-governing
powers that were created with the material world by a subordinate
deity called the Demiurge (Creator).

The Gnostics were religious dualists who held that matter is
evil and the spirit good and that salvation is attained by esoteric
knowledge, or gnosis.

Because the Gnostics of the 2nd and 3rd centuries, who
generally originated within Christianity, regarded the material
world as outright evil or as the product of error, Archons were
viewed as maleficent forces. ..."

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Dualism - Greece and the Hellenistic World
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=117389&tocid=38187#38187.toc
Excerpt: "... In Gnosticism, a Hellenistic religious movement
that entered original Christianity from earlier pagan sources,
and which viewed matter as evil and spirit as good, dualism
manifested itself in a more dramatic way.

Gnostic dualism cannot be understood without reference
to both Judaism and Christianity, and perhaps even to
Zoroastrianism, since Gnostic eschatological characteristics
were derived from them.

Gnosticism was also connected with certain principles of
Orphism and Platonism; reflecting the Orphic body-tomb
doctrine, for example, Gnosticism adopted a firmly anti-
somatic stance (against the body), and similarly adopted
the concept of the divine soul--the pneumatic, or spiritual,
soul, as the Gnostic would say, of the same substance as
the divinity--that is destined to free itself from the tyranny
of a material, cosmic demiurge (or subordinate deity).

Certain Gnostics, moreover, developed a radical anticos-
mism, in which they registered their animosity against the
material universe by cursing the stars--which brought them
bitter reproach from Plotinus (c. AD 205-269/270), the
founder of Neoplatonism.

As viewed by the Gnostic Ophite sect, which venerated
the ophis (or "snake") as a symbol of knowledge, the
cosmos comprises three parts: the superior world, the
inferior world (material and chaotic), and the intermediate
world, or logos ("word" or "reason")--the logos being
depicted as a snake that impresses spiritual forms into
the chaotic matter.

These forms--life, soul, vital masculine substance--are
later freed again, a liberation that completely empties the
material world.

Such Gnostic views are of two types: Iranian and Syrian-
Egyptian. Iranian Gnosticism is characterized by an absolute,
radical dualism: light and darkness, pneuma ("spirit") and
chaotic formless matter, oppose each other from eternity.

Syrian-Egyptian Gnosticism is characterized by a dualism
that is mitigated (as earlier defined) but also drastic: the
inferior world, the chaotic darkness, begins to exist only
at a special moment owing to an accident in the divine
world; and this accident is usually also identified with an
"audacity," a defect in one of the "aeons," or divine entities."

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Egyptian Religion
Influence on Other Religions
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=119918&tocid=68292#68292.toc
Excerpt: "... Egypt also was an influential setting for
other religious and philosophical developments of late
antiquity such as Gnosticism, Manicheism, Hermetism,
and Neoplatonism, some of which show traces of
traditional Egyptian beliefs. Some of these religions
became important in the intellectual culture of the
Renaissance. ..."

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Hellenistic Religion
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=40747
Excerpt: "... Most Hellenistic religions offered a highly
dualistic cosmology in which the earthly realm in all its
aspects--from despotic rulers to one's own body--con-
stituted the imprisoning power of evil over the soul.

Liberation was attainable through cultic activity, secret
knowledge (gnosis), and divine intervention (see Gnosti-
cism). ..."

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Hellenistic Religion - The Gods
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=119814&tocid=65533#65533.toc
Excerpt: "In the Greco-Roman world during the Hellenistic
period, archaic deities were transformed in part because of
the new spirit of the age and in part by foreign influences.

A number of the old chthonic (underworld) and agricultural
(fertility) gods and the old agricultural mysteries (corporate
renewal religions related to fertility concepts) fundamentally
altered their character.

Rather than an expression of the alternation of life and death,
of fertility and sterility, and a celebration of the promise of
renewal for the land and the people, the seasonal drama was
homologized to a soteriology (salvation concept) concerning
the destiny, fortune, and salvation of the individual after death.

The collective agricultural rite became a mystery, a salvific
experience reserved for the elect (such as the Greek mystery
religion of Eleusis).

Other traditions even more radically reinterpreted the ancient
figures.

The cosmic or seasonal drama was interiorized to refer to the
divine soul within man that must be liberated.

Such cults were dualistic mysteries distinguishing sharply
between the body and soul.

They taught that it is the soul alone that was initiated by passing
through death or the Underworld, or by being dismembered
so that it might be freed from the body and regain its rightful
mode of spiritual existence (such as the Orphic--mystical--rein-
terpretation of the role of the agricultural god Dionysus).

In the gnostic mysteries (the esoteric dualistic cults that viewed
matter as evil and the spirit as good), this process was carried
further through the identification of the experiences of the soul
that was to be saved with the vicissitudes of a divine but fallen
soul, which had to be redeemed by cultic activity and divine
intervention. This view is illustrated in the concept of the para-
doxical figure of the saved saviour, salvator salvandus. ..."

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Patristic Literature - The Gnostic Writers
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=108315&tocid=67678#67678.toc
Excerpt: "Hardly had the church thrown off its early Jewish-
Christian idiosyncrasies when it found itself confronted by
the amorphous but pervasive philosophical-religious movement
known as Gnosticism.

This movement made a strong bid to absorb Christianity in the
2nd century, and a number of Christian Gnostic sects flourished
and contributed richly to Christian literature.

Although the church eventually maintained its identity intact, the
confrontation forced it to clarify its ideas on vital issues on which
it differed sharply from the Gnostics.

Chief among these were the Gnostics' distinction between the
unknown supreme God and the Demiurge (identified with the
God of the Old Testament) who created this world; their dualist
disparagement of the material order and insistence that the
Redeemer became incarnate in appearance only; their belief
in salvation by esoteric knowledge; and their division of
humanity into a spiritual elite able to achieve salvation and,
below this elite, "psychics" capable of a modified form of
salvation and "material" people cut off from salvation. ..."

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Christianity - Early Heretical Movements
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=108295&tocid=67425#67425.toc
Excerpt: "Gnosticism was the greatest threat to Christianity
before 150 and somewhat thereafter.

Gnostics taught that there is total opposition between this
evil world and God.

Redemption was viewed as liberation from the chaos of
a creation derived from either incompetent or malevolent
powers, a world in which the elect are alien prisoners.

The method of salvation was to discover the Kingdom of
God within one's elect soul and to learn how to pass the
hostile powers barring the soul's ascent to bliss.

Gnosticism destroyed the notion of a historical disclosure
of God.

Its pessimism and dualism (in which matter was viewed as
evil and spirit good) had disturbing moral consequences,
involving both asceticism and libertinism.

Its claims to a totally transcendent revelation were antira-
tional, allowed for no natural goodness in the created order,
and eliminated individual responsibility.

Both the orthodox theologians and the pagan 3rd-century
philosopher Plotinus dismissed Gnosticism as a preten-
tious but dangerous mumbo jumbo for misleading the half-
educated. ..."

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Religious Syncretism
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=64747
Excerpt: "The fusion of diverse religious beliefs and practices.

Instances of religious syncretism--as, for example, Gnosticism
(a religious dualistic system that incorporated elements from
the Oriental mystery religions), Judaism, Christianity, and Greek
religious philosophical concepts--were particularly prevalent
during the Hellenistic period (c. 300 BC-c. AD 300).

The fusion of cultures that was effected by the conquest of
Alexander the Great (4th century BC), his successors, and
the Roman Empire tended to bring together a variety of
religious and philosophical views that resulted in a strong
tendency toward religious syncretism. ..."

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Salvation - Basic Context - The Cosmic Situation
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=117211&tocid=33986
Excerpt: "... In Gnosticism and Hermeticism--esoteric
theosophical and mystical movements in the Greco-Roman
world--and the teaching of St. Paul deliverance was sought
primarily from the planetary powers that were believed to
control human destiny in the sublunar world."

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Worship
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=117411&tocid=66223
Excerpt: "... Exclusive corporate worship is worship that
belongs to the group alone.

Such exclusive groups may understand their distinct status
over against other groups on the basis of a divine mission
in the world (e.g., Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), of clan,
social, or initiatory distinctions (e.g., totemic societies,
Gnostic groups), or by reference to certain ritual or ethical
commitments and practices (e.g., Seventh-day Adventists)
characteristic of the group.

Study of contemporary religious groups discloses many
similarities of belief among these exclusive communities,
and distinctions considered unique by the group may not
be unique at all--but they are perceived to be unique.

Among the exclusive types, the mystery religions (e.g.,
Eleusinian) of the Mediterranean world are particularly well-
known.

The worship of such communities (also including Gnostic
sects--i.e., Christian dualistic heretical groups) centred in
the sharing of secret knowledge concerning the origin of
the world, the true nature of mankind, and man's proper
vocation and destiny.

An elaborate system of initiation brought the new member
into the community.

The community maintained its exclusiveness through the
passing on of the secret lore to new members through rites
designed to free the devotee from the hold of the material
world and thus prepare the way for his ascent to the realm
of the divine, from which he had been separated. ..."

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Christianity - History of Christian Mysticism
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=108307&tocid=67548#67548.toc
Excerpt: "... In the early Christian centuries the mystical
trend found expression not only in the stream of Pauline
and Johannine Christianity (as in the writings of Ignatius
of Antioch and Irenaeus of Lyon) but also in the Gnostics
(early Christian heretics who viewed matter as evil and the
spirit as good).

Scholars still debate the origins of Gnosticism, but most
Gnostics thought of themselves as followers of Christ,
albeit a Christ who was pure spirit.

The mysticism of the Gnostics can be seen in the religion
of Valentinus, who was excommunicated in about AD 150.

He believed that human beings are alienated from God
because of their spiritual ignorance; Christ brings them into
the gnosis (esoteric revelatory knowledge) that is union with
God.

Valentinus held that all human beings come from God and
that all will in the end return to God.

Other Gnostic groups held that there were three types of
people--"spiritual," "psychic," and "material"--and that only
the first two can be saved.

The Pistis Sophia (3rd century) is preoccupied with the
question of who finally will be saved. Those who are saved
must renounce the world completely and follow the pure
ethic of love and compassion. They will then be identified
with Jesus and become rays of the divine Light. ..."

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Mystery Religions and Christianity
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=115606&tocid=15869#15869.toc
Excerpt: "... In theology the differences between early Christians,
Gnostics (members--often Christian--of dualistic sects of the 2nd
century AD), and pagan Hermetists were slight.

In the large Gnostic library discovered at Naj'Hammadi, in upper
Egypt, in 1945, Hermetic writings were found sideby-side with
Christian Gnostic texts.

The doctrine of the soul taught in Gnostic communities was
almost identical to that taught in the mysteries: the soul emanated
from the Father, fell into the body, and had to return to its former
home.

The Greeks interpreted the national religions of the Greek Orient
chiefly in terms of Plato's philosophical and religious concepts.

Interpretation in Platonic concepts was also the means by which
the Judeo-Christian set of creeds was thoroughly assimilated to
Greek ideas by the early Christian thinkers Clement of Alexandria
and Origen. ..."

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Christianity - Satan and the Origin of Evil
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=108298&tocid=67473#67473.toc
Excerpt: "As opposed to philanthropia, the love of man
of Christ, who presents himself as an expiatory sacrifice
for the sins of mankind out of love for it, Satan appears
among early church teachers, such as Basil of Caesarea
in the 4th century, as the misanthropos, the hater of
humanity; vis-à-vis the bringer of heavenly beauty, he
is the hater of beauty, the misokalos.

With Gnosticism, dualistic features also penetrated the
Christian sphere of intuitive vision. In the Letter of Barnabas
(early 2nd century) Satan appeared as "the Black One";
according to the 2nd-century apologist Athenagoras he
is "the one entrusted with the administration of matter
and its forms of appearance," "the spirit hovering above
matter."

Under the influence of Gnosticism and Manichaeism (a
syncretistic religion founded by Mani, a 3rd-century
Persian prophet), there also followed--based on their
dualistic aspects--the demonization of the entire realm
of the sexual.

This appears as the special temptational sphere of the
devil; in sexual activity, the role of the instrument of diabolic
enticement devolves upon woman.

Manichaeistic and Gnostic tendencies remained as a
permanent undercurrent in the church and determined,
to a great extent, the understanding of sin and redemption.

Satan remained the prototype of sin as the rebel who does
not come to terms with fulfilling his godlikeness in love to
his original image and Creator but instead desires equality
with God and places love of self over love of God. ..."

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Christianity - Normative Defenses in the Early Church
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=108303&tocid=67504#67504.toc
Excerpt: "Establishment of norms for the church was
necessary because diverse kinds of interpretations of the
Christian message were conceived under the influence of
the religions of late antiquity, especially Gnosticism--a
syncretistic religious dualistic belief system that incor-
porated many Christian motifs and became one of the
strongest heresies of the early church.

In Gnostic interpretations, mixed Christian and pagan ideas
appealed to divine inspiration or claimed to be revelations
of the Resurrected One.

The church erected three defenses against the apparently
uncontrollable prophetic and visionary efficacy of pneumatic
(spiritual) figures as well as against pagan syncretism, which
was represented by a mixing together of many divine images
and expressions: (1) the New Testament canon, (2) the
apostolic "rules of faith," or "creeds," and (3) the apostolic
succession of bishops. The common basis of these three
defenses is the idea of "apostolicity."

The early church never forgot that it was the church that
created, selected the books, and fixed the canon of the
New Testament, especially because of the threat of Gnostic
writings. ..."

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Christianity - Messianic Secrets and the Mysteries of Salvation
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=108308&tocid=67567#67567.toc
Excerpt: "... Groups of Gnostics and heretics who based
their ideas on alternative mythologies of the economy of
Christian salvation furnished exotic Christian myths, legends,
and practices.

In the 2nd and 3rd centuries these groups often subscribed
to theories of dualism: the world of matter created by an
evil god (of the Book of Genesis) and the realm of the
spirit created by a good god (revealed in the New Testa-
ment) were irreconcilably pitted against one another.

The many Gnostic sects--among them the Valentinians,
Basilidians, Ophites, and Simonians--developed a variety
of myths.

Valentinus lived in Rome and Alexandria in the mid-2nd
century.

Valentinian myths describe how the pleroma (spiritual realm)
that existed in the beginning was disrupted by a Fall.

The Creator God of Genesis, aborted from the primordial
world, became a Demiurge and created the material universe.

He deliberately created two kinds of human being and
animated them with his breath: the hylics and the psychics.

Unknown to the Demiurge, however, certain remnants of
pleromic wisdom contained in his breath lodged as spiritual
particles in matter and produced a third group of beings
called pneumatics.

The God of Genesis now tries to prevent Gnostics from
discovering their past origins, present powers, and future
destinies.

Gnostics (the pneumatics) contain within themselves divine
sparks expelled from the pleroma.

Christ was sent from the pleroma to teach Gnostics the
saving knowledge (gnosis) of their true identities and was
crucified when the Demiurge of Genesis discovered that
Christ (the male partner of the feminine Holy Spirit) was
in Jesus. After Christ returned to the pleroma, the Holy
Spirit descended. ..."

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Biblical Literature - Impulse Toward Canonization
From Heretical Movements
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=119712&tocid=73389#73389.toc
Excerpt: "Gnosticism (a religious system with influence
both on Judaism and Christianity) tended to foster specu-
lation, cutting loose from historical revelation.

In defense the orthodox churches stressed the apostolic
tradition by focussing on Gospels and letters from apostolic
lives and distinguished them from Gnostic writings, such as
the Gospel of Truth (mentioned by Irenaeus) and now found
in Coptic translation in a collection of Gnostic writings from
Egypt; it is a Coptic manuscript of a Valentinian Gnostic
speculation from the mid-2nd century--i.e., a work based
on the teachings of Valentinus, a Gnostic teacher from
Alexandria.

In the same collection is the Gospel of Thomas in Coptic,
actually a collection of sayings purporting to be the words
of the risen Christ, the living Lord.

This "gospel" also occurred in Greek (c. 140), and warnings
against it as heretical were made by the Church Fathers in
the 2nd to the 4th centuries. ...

The single most decisive factor in the process of canoniza-
tion was the influence of Marcion (flourished c. 140), who
had Gnostic tendencies and who set up a "canon" that totally
repudiated the Old Testament and anything Jewish.

He viewed the Creator God of the Old Testament as a cruel
God of retribution and the Jewish Law.

His canon consisted of The Gospel, a "cleaned up" Luke
(the least Jewish), and the Apostolikon (ten Pauline letters
with Old Testament references and analogies edited out,
without Hebrews, I and II Timothy, and Titus).

This restrictive canon acted as a catalyst to the formation
of a canon more in line with the thought of the church
catholic (universal). ..."

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Neoplatonism: Its Nature and History
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=115126&tocid=32567#32567.toc
Excerpt: "... Neoplatonism is the modern name given to
the form of Platonism developed by Plotinus in the 3rd
century AD and modified by his successors.

It came to dominate the Greek philosophical schools and
remained predominant until the teaching of philosophy by
pagans ended in the second half of the 6th century AD.

It represents the final form of pagan Greek philosophy.

It was not a mere syncretism (or combination of diverse
beliefs) but a genuine, if one-sided, development of ideas
to be found in Plato and earlier Platonism--though it incor-
porated important Aristotelian and Stoic elements as well.

There is no real evidence for Oriental influence.

A certain Gnostic (relating to intuitive knowledge acquired
by privileged individuals and immune to empirical verifica-
tion) tone or colouring sometimes may be discerned in the
thought of Plotinus. But he was consciously a passionate
opponent of Gnosticism, and in any case there was often
a large element of popular Platonism in the Gnostic systems
then current. ..."

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Heracleon (2nd century A.D.)
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=40945
Excerpt: "Leader of the Italian school of Gnosticism, a
dualistic doctrine of rival deities conceiving of salvation
as an elitist enlightenment by secret knowledge, with
fulfillment in the soul's eventual release from the body. ..."

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Valentinus (2nd century A.D.)
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=76654
Excerpt: "Egyptian religious philosopher, founder of
Roman and Alexandrian schools of Gnosticism, a system
of religious dualism (belief in rival deities of good and
evil) with a doctrine of salvation by gnosis, or esoteric
knowledge.

Valentinian communities, founded by his disciples, pro-
vided the major challenge to 2nd- and 3rd-century Christian
theology. ..."

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Roman Religion - Introduction of Christianity and Mithraism
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=119813&tocid=65514#65514.toc
Excerpt: "By now, however, the humanistic idea that men
could become gods had ceased to have any plausibility.

Plotinus and his Neoplatonism, the dominant philosophy
of the pagan world from the mid-3rd century AD, had
given powerful, mystical shape to the Platonic and Stoic
conception that the universe is governed by a single force.

On the other hand, the greatest religious figure of the
century, the Iranian Mani, who had started to preach in
Mesopotamia c. 240, dramatically preached the opposing
dualistic idea that the world is the creation not only of
a good power but of an evil one as well.

Mani's church, which alarmed Diocletian and for a time
attracted the great Christian theologian St. Augustine,
absorbed many of the innumerable cults of Gnostics
who claimed special knowledge (gnosis) by illumination
and revelation and taught how people can purge the
nonspiritual from within themselves and escape their
earthly prison.

More impressively, the cult of the Persian Mithra blended
the dualism of Mani with the emotional initiations of the
mystery religions (corrected by a much sterner tone of
moral endeavour) and became a strong link between the
cult of the Sun (which appealed to contemporary mono-
theists) and the fashionable revulsion from the senses
that was shortly to lead to Christian monasticism.

Like Christianity, Mithraism had its sacraments; but the
life of Mithra exercised a less far-reaching appeal than
the life of Christ, and Mithra's cult excluded women. ..."

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History of Mesopotamia, The Parthian period
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=115357&tocid=55442#55442.toc
Excerpt: "... Parthian Zoroastrianism reinforced local Zoro-
astrian communities in Mesopotamia left from the time of
the Achaemenians, and one of the Gnostic baptismal religions,
Mandaeanism, which is still in existence, had its beginning at
this time. ...

The earliest contemporary mention of Christians in Meso-
potamia is in the inscriptions of Karter, the chief Zoroastrian
priest after the reign of Shapur I. He mentions both Christians
and Nazareans, possibly two kinds of Christians, Greek-
speaking and Syriac-speaking, or two sects.

It is not known which groups are meant, but it is known that
followers of the Gnostic Christian leaders Bardesanes (Bar
Daisan) and Marcion were active in Mesopotamia. ..."

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Mandaeanism
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=51700
Excerpt: "(From Mandaean mandayya, 'having know-
ledge'), ancient Middle Eastern religion still surviving in
Iraq and Khuzistan (southwest Iran). The religion is
usually treated as a Gnostic sect; it resembles Mani-
chaeism in some respects. ...

The Mandaeans also developed an elaborate cultic
ritual, particularly for baptism, which was not char-
acteristic of any other known Gnostic sect. The
Mandaeans viewed Jesus as a false messiah but
revered John the Baptist, who performed miracles
of healing through baptism, which the Mandaeans
viewed as a magical process giving immortality,
purification, and physical health. ..."

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Middle East, Ancient, Elements of Civilized Culture
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=117312&tocid=52323#52323.toc
Excerpt: "... Even such a heterodox Jewish sect as the
Samaritans exerted disproportionately great influence.

In the first years of the nascent Christian Church a Samar-
itan diviner named Simon, later called "Magus," founded
a new faith known as Gnosticism.

The Gnostics spread rapidly over both the Roman and
Iranian worlds, and by the end of the 3rd century AD they
had subdivided into a multitude of different sects that
covered a wide spectrum of possible combinations
between Judaism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, and
Greco-Roman paganism. ..."

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Also, for details on the interrelationship of Gnosticism
to Christianity/Jesus Christ stories, see
http://prohuman.net/disbelief/jesus_doubt_file.htm