Originally Posted by
The
Close. "Gnosticism" is a bad word, in my opinion. It wasn;t a unified religion, or anything close to.
It's a term used to apply to a variety of religious and mystical movements in the first century onwards. What LATER became catholicism was one such movement. Most of these movements grew out of a combination of traditions, including eastern mysticical influences, the gospels, both canonical and extracanonical, etc. Essentially in the more pseudo-pre-christian of the movements, they spread by the passing around of one or two gospels and private readings to small audiences. Catholicism gradually picked and chose which of the gospels it accepted as canon. It worked, I suppose, by amalgamating some of the gnostic movements into itself. That's my belief, anyway.[/b]