Nostic - The Term "Gnosticism"

The Term "Gnosticism"

The term "Gnosticism" does not appear in ancient sources, and was first coined by Henry More in a commentary on the seven letters of the Book of Revelation, where More used the term "Gnosticisme" to describe the heresy in Thyatira. The term derives from the use of the Greek adjective gnostikos ("learned", "intellectual", Greek γνωστικός) by St. Irenaeus (c. 185 AD) to describe the school of Valentinus as he legomene gnostike haeresis "the heresy called Learned (gnostic)".

This occurs in the context of Irenaeus' work On the Detection and Overthrow of the So-Called Gnosis, (Greek: elenchos kai anatrope tes pseudonymou gnoseos, ἔλεγχος καὶ ἀνατροπὴ τῆς ψευδωνύμου γνώσεως) where the term "knowledge falsely so-called" (pseudonymos gnosis) covers various groups, not just Valentinus, and is a quotation of the apostle Paul's warning against "knowledge falsely so-called" in 1 Timothy 6:20.

The usual meaning of gnostikos in Classical Greek texts is "learned" or "intellectual", such as used in the comparison of "practical" (praktikos) and "intellectual" (gnostikos) in Plato's dialogue between Young Socrates and the Foreigner in his The Statesman (258e). Plato's use of "learned" is fairly typical of Classical texts.

By the Hellenistic period, it began to also be associated with Greco-Roman mysteries, becoming synonymous with the Greek term musterion. The adjective is not used in the New Testament, but Clement of Alexandria in Book 7 of his Stromateis speaks of the "learned" (gnostikos) Christian in complimentary terms. The use of gnostikos in relation to heresy originates with interpreters of Irenaeus. Some scholars, for example A. Rousseau and L. Doutreleau, translators of the French edition (1974), consider that Irenaeus sometimes uses gnostikos to simply mean "intellectual", as in 1.25.6, 1.11.3, 1.11.5, whereas his mention of "the intellectual sect" (Adv. haer. 1.11.1) is a specific designation. Irenaeus' comparative adjective gnostikeron "more learned", evidently cannot mean "more Gnostic" as a name. Of those groups that Irenaeus identifies as "intellectual" (gnostikos), only one, the followers of Marcellina use the term gnostikos of themselves. Later Hippolytus uses "learned" (gnostikos) of Cerinthus and the Ebionites, and Epiphanius applied "learned" (gnostikos) to specific groups.