The articles in this section of the site are intended to articulate Gnostic beliefs in a conceptual way, inferring what the Gnostics would have said in this regard based on their own writings. Some degree of “translation” from one idiom to another is required here, because the Gnostics tended to express their beliefs through myth and concrete poetic imagery rather than in abstract, conceptual language. Still, the Gnostics’ writings do present a clear and coherent worldview, such that this task of “translation,” despite its hazards, is something that can be done.
Since the purpose of this site is historical rather than spiritual, these articles don’t present arguments for or against the Gnostics’ beliefs. Instead, they simply try to articulate what those beliefs were as well as is possible two thousand years later with limited source material.
The articles on Gnostic philosophy here are:
• Anticosmicism (Gnostic Dualism)
• Gnosis