In the Platonic, Neopythagorean, Middle Platonic, and Neoplatonic schools of philosophy, the demiurge is an artisan-like figure responsible for fashioning and maintaining the physical universe. The Gnostics adopted the term demiurge. Although a fashioner, the demiurge is not necessarily the same as the creator figure in the monotheistic sense, because the demiurge itself and the material from which the demiurge fashions the universe are both considered consequences of something else. Depending on the system, they may be considered either uncreated and eternal or the product of some other entity.
Gnosticism is a collection of religious ideas and systems that coalesced in the late 1st century AD among Jewish and early Christian sects. These various groups emphasized personal spiritual knowledge (gnosis) above the proto-orthodox teachings, traditions, and authority of religious institutions.
The concept of an Ogdoad appears in Gnostic systems of the early Christian era, and was further developed by the theologian Valentinus.
Monoimus was an Arab gnostic, who was known only from one account in Theodoret until a lost work of anti-heretical writings by Hippolytus was found. He is known for coining the usage of the word Monad in a Gnostic context. Hippolytus claims that Monoimus was a follower of Tatian, and that his cosmological system was derived from that of the Pythagoreans, which indeed seems probable. But it was also clearly inspired by Christianity, monism and Gnosticism.
The Ophites, also called Ophians, were a Christian Gnostic sect depicted by Hippolytus of Rome (170–235) in a lost work, the Syntagma ("arrangement").
Pistis Sophia is a Gnostic text discovered in 1773, possibly written between the 3rd and 4th centuries AD. The existing manuscript, which some scholars place in the late 4th century, relates one Gnostic group's teachings of the transfigured Jesus to the assembled disciples, including his mother Mary, Mary Magdalene, and Martha. In this text, the risen Jesus had spent eleven years speaking with his disciples, teaching them only the lower mysteries. After eleven years, he receives his true garment and is able to reveal the higher mysteries revered by this group. The prized mysteries relate to complex cosmologies and knowledge necessary for the soul to reach the highest divine realms.
Basilides was an early Christian Gnostic religious teacher in Alexandria, Egypt who taught from 117 to 138 AD, and claimed to have inherited his teachings from the apostle Saint Matthias. He was a pupil of either the Simonian teacher Menander, or a supposed disciple of Peter named Glaucias. The Acts of the Disputation with Manes state that for a time he taught among the Persians. According to Agapius of Hierapolis he appeared in the 15th year of Trajan reign. He is believed to have written over two dozen books of commentary on the Christian Gospel entitled Exegetica, making him one of the earliest Gospel commentators.
The Cainites or Cainians were a Gnostic and antinomian sect known to venerate Cain as the first victim of the Demiurge, the deity of the Old Testament, who was identified by many groups of Gnostics as evil. The sect was relatively small. They were mentioned by Tertullian and Irenaeus as existing in the eastern Roman Empire during the 2nd century. One of their purported religious texts was the Gospel of Judas.
The Monad in Gnosticism is an adaptation of concepts of the Monad in Greek philosophy to Christian gnostic belief systems.
The Basilidians or Basilideans were a Gnostic sect founded by Basilides of Alexandria in the 2nd century. Basilides claimed to have been taught his doctrines by Glaucus, a disciple of St. Peter, though others stated he was a disciple of the Simonian Menander.
The Gospel of Eve is an almost entirely lost text from the New Testament apocrypha, which may be the same as the also lost Gospel of Perfection.
Valentinianism was one of the major Gnostic Christian movements. Founded by Valentinus in the 2nd century AD, its influence spread widely, not just within Rome but also from Northwest Africa to Egypt through to Asia Minor and Syria in the East. Later in the movement's history it broke into an Eastern and a Western school. Disciples of Valentinus continued to be active into the 4th century AD, after the Roman Emperor Theodosius I issued the Edict of Thessalonica, which declared Nicene Christianity as the State church of the Roman Empire.
The Naassenes were a Christian Gnostic sect known only through the accounts in the books known as the Philosophumena or the Refutation of all Heresies.
George Robert Stow Mead was an English historian, writer, editor, translator, and an influential member of the Theosophical Society, as well as the founder of the Quest Society. His works dealt with various religious and philosophical texts and traditions, including Neoplatonism, Hermeticism and Gnosticism.
The Refutation of All Heresies, also called the Elenchus or Philosophumena, is a compendious Christian polemical work of the early third century, whose attribution to Hippolytus of Rome or an unknown "Pseudo-Hippolytus" is disputed. It catalogues both pagan beliefs and 33 gnostic Christian systems deemed heretical by Hippolytus, making it a major source of information on contemporary opponents of Christian orthodoxy as understood today.
The Perates or Peratae were a Gnostic sect from the 2nd century AD. The Philosophumena of Hippolytus is our only real source of information on their origin and beliefs. The founders of the school were a certain Euphrates and Celbes, elsewhere called Acembes and Ademes.
In many Gnostic systems, various emanations of God are known by such names as One, Monad, Aion teleos, Bythos, Arkhe, Proarkhe and as Aeons. In different systems these emanations are differently named, classified, and described. In Basilidian Gnosis they are called sonships ; according to Marcus, they are numbers and sounds; in Valentinianism they form male/female pairs called syzygies.
Sophia is a major theme, along with Knowledge, among many of the early Christian knowledge theologies grouped by the heresiologist Irenaeus as gnostikoi (γνωστικοί), "knowing" or "men that claimed to have deeper wisdom". Gnosticism is a 17th-century term expanding the definition of Irenaeus' groups to include other syncretic faiths and the Greco-Roman mysteries.
Archons, in Gnosticism and religions closely related to it, are the builders of the physical universe. Among the Archontics, Ophites, Sethians and in the writings of Nag Hammadi library, the archons are rulers, each related to one of seven planets; they prevent souls from leaving the material realm. The political connotation of their name reflects rejection of the governmental system, as flawed without chance of true salvation. In Manichaeism, the archons are the rulers of a realm within the "Kingdom of Darkness", who together make up the Prince of Darkness. In The Reality of the Rulers, the physical appearance of Archons is described as hermaphroditic, with their faces being those of beasts.
