|
Gnosis does not mean intellectual knowledge or logical understanding, but is seeing God, mysterious wisdom. The perfect Gnostic is the man who is free from the world and master of himself. He is emancipated from the dead letter and outward symbols of religion, having realized the Truth. Christian Gnosticism was a deliberate effort to fuse Greek and Hindu elements.
Many of the chief features of the Gnosticism are those common to the Upanishads and the mystic traditions of Greece. In the technical sense, the term Gnostic first appears in I Timothy VI. 20.
|