Gnose

Definition

“Gnose” or “Gnosis” is a Greek word meaning “knowledge.” “Gnosticism” is a large current that included esoteric religious movements, which flourished mostly in the first three centuries CE, reinterpreting elements of Judaism and Christianity under the influence of Neoplatonism and Persian religions. Regarded as heretic by mainline Judaism and Christianity, and vigorously suppressed by Christian Church Fathers, Gnosticism declined from the late third century CE but influenced later Western Esotericism. “Neo-Gnosticism” defines a set of movements within Western Esotericism that, from the late nineteenth century on, aimed explicitly at reviving the doctrines, and recreating the rituals, of ancient Gnosticism. “Gnostic Churches” is a label identifying the movements within Neo-Gnosticism that adopted an organized ecclesiastical structure, often with “bishops” as their heads. In the late twentieth and in the twenty-first centuries, Gnostic Churches found most of their followers in...