Gnosticism facts for kids
Gnosticism comes from the [gnosis] Error: {{Lang-xx}}: text has italic markup (help) which means knowledge.
Some religions and sects mostly in the few hundred years before and after Christ are said to be gnostic or practice gnosticism.
This is because these religions believe that there is a special, hidden knowledge that only a few people may have.
There are two problems finding out a lot about believers in gnosticism:
- Most Gnostic teachings were secret or hidden (occult);
- Most of what we know about Gnostics come from attacks written by non-Gnostic Christians.
Beliefs
Gnosticism says that humans are divine souls trapped in the ordinary physical (or material) world. They say that the world was made by an imperfect spirit called the demiurge.
The demiurge is thought to be the same as the God of Abraham. The demiurge may be seen as evil, or sometimes just not perfect but doing the best it can.
The real God who is good, is distant and not easy to know. In order to get free from the material world, a person has to get gnosis. That is the special secret knowledge given only to a few special people.
Some Gnostic groups saw Jesus as sent by the supreme being, to bring gnosis to the Earth.
Images for kids
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Page from the Gospel of Judas
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Mandaean Beth Manda (Mashkhanna) in Nasiriyah, southern Iraq in 2016; place of worship for the only surviving Gnostic religion from antiquity.
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A lion-faced deity found on a Gnostic gem in Bernard de Montfaucon's L'antiquité expliquée et représentée en figures may be a depiction of Yaldabaoth, the Demiurge; however, cf. Mithraic Zervan Akarana
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Mandaeans in prayer during baptism.
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Manicheanism priests writing at their desks, with panel inscription in Sogdian. Manuscript from Khocho, Tarim Basin.
See also
In Spanish: Gnosticismo para niños
