Gnostic means "to know". Get a hold of the Dead Sea Scrolls or the Nag Hammadi Library. Those are considered amongst some of their texts. It gives credence to Jesus, and God but not as the Christians think them to exist.
Gnosticism is the original Christianity. Jesus, Mary M, and Judas were Gnostic's, the others weren't. The evidence is found in the gnostic writings and in the NT which is full of gnosticism.
Gnosticism is basically Christianity without the fantastic Jewish/Roman mythology, miracles, sacrifices, resurrections, etc. If you strip out from the NT all the Judaism and Yahweh, you're left with something close to gnosticism.
What I have learned about Gnosticism is that it has a combination of Judaism, Christianity, and Greek beliefs. It has to do with having knowledge within yourself. The book of Thomas illustrates Gnosticism very well. It is the belief that we all have a divine light in us like Jesus did. We go to God on our own without Christ because we have the same light as Christ had. There may be other variations.
EDIT: In the book of Thomas, Thomas says that Christ told him and other disciples these things (Gnostic ideas) in secret. That is why the early Church (beginning of Catholicism) was against it. It basically taught that everyone was just like Jesus more/less.
Eric Voegelin characterizes Gnostic's with the following: 1. have dissatisfaction with current situation 2. view the world as intrinsically poorly organized 3. believe in salvation from the evil world as possible 4. believe that the order of being will change in a historical process 5. belief that man's actions can and will change the order of being and 6. they develop a formula of nosies and a prophet comes forward.
The term "Gnosticism" mostly referees to an ancient trend among ancient Judaism and Christianity that was disillusioned with the failure of apocalyptic ism and its promise of a divine intervention into the world bringing about the end of the old order and establishing a new order.
Instead of depending on the Messiah to appear in the world and make changes, the Gnostics attempted to escape the material world with their spiritual bodies and enter into the divine world which was distant and separated from the material world. This was achieved through divine knowledge or "nosies" which was divulged from a messianic or savior figure such as Jesus or Manda-d-Hiyya of the Mandaeans.
Gnostics were rejected by the mainstream versions of Judaism and Christianity because gnosticism involves a rejection of conventional wisdom which the mainstream Establishments are founded upon. Thus Gnostic's were considered the utmost spiritual anarchists and Antonin's. For the Gnostic's, conventional wisdom was a false wisdom that only obscured the true origin of the soul and the path that it should take to return.
Of course the mainstream establishments want to maintain their monopoly on the traditions of wisdom and will shun any notion that the path of salvation is a purely individual and personal resposibility.
What is gnosticism? Can you give facts? PLEASE AND THANK YOU!?
