(2) Therefore, a conceivable first effort to highlight this diversity is an overview of possible
gnostic ideas in the Christian canonical texts, which is one famous corollary from History of Religions Studies in the New Testament framework.
To judge from the extant evidence, not all of the texts and people currently understood as "
gnostic" would have referred to themselves as such (it is not used in the primary sources, and not always used in heresiological literature), or been referred to as such by others.
"
Gnostics think that their explanations can make the entirety of the faith and the Gospel perfectly comprehensible," explains Francis.
The
Gnostic Christians, from the very beginning, considered the teachings of the emerging orthodox Christian Church to be the ones heretical, because they did not conform to the revealed teachings of Christ, especially after his resurrection-secret teachings which were revealed to few of his disciples.
Kahn uses the term "
Gnostic" to refer both to a special inner knowledge arising from directly experienced encounters and to a strategy that organized religion and the secular mainstream have each labelled heretical (p.
The gospel is reproduced in the Berlin
Gnostic Codex and has been translated into English by Karen King, The Gospel of Mary of Magdala: Jesus and the First Woman Apostle, 2003 and by others.
The
Gnostic Apostle Thomas document tells the story of Thomas suddenly appearing before two newlyweds about to consummate their marriage, when Thomas yells, "Abstain from this filthy intercourse!"
Discovering actual sex practices hidden within the writings of the Church's authorities, he reconstructs the lost world of
Gnostic spiritual-erotic experience as taught by initiated masters and mistresses and practiced by Christian couples seeking spiritual freedom from the world.
Written and compiled by Thomax Green, with most of them laid out in the form and format of free verse, "The Shu: The
Gnostic Tao Te Ching" is very highly recommended reading.
The Dead Sea Scrolls are the earliest Christian writings in existence, he opined, and the
Gnostic Gospels frequently mention Mary Magdalene and her marriage to Jesus.
To follow Elaine Pagels: gnosis is "Self-Knowledge as Knowledge of God" (The
Gnostic Gospels, New York: Random House, 1979, 119).
Narbonne offers no general reflections about the degree to which Plotinus is himself animated by a
Gnostic spirit.
Burroughs's space age and, at the same time, Wild West version of the
Gnostic mythos is at all points informed by shamanic praxis, however recuperated by the novelist in twisted, Western terms such as drug addiction with its attendant street cons.
