Concepts & History
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Plain-language guides to the world behind the texts — the myth, the schools, the teachers, the discoveries. 26 articles, each opening with a direct answer and naming the sources behind it, so you can check us.
Foundations
The Myth
Sophia in Gnosticism: the Fall of Wisdom, Achamoth and the Logos
Sophia in Gnosticism is Wisdom, the youngest aeon, whose fall begins our world. Sophia Achamoth, Horos, and Logos and Sophia, from Irenaeus and the texts.
The Archons: the Rulers of This World
The Archons are the 'rulers' of gnostic cosmology — seven planetary powers under Yaldabaoth who govern fate, guard the spheres, and try to keep the divine spark asleep. Their names, their animal faces, and how the soul gets past them, from the ancient sources.
The Demiurge: the God Who Didn't Know Better
The Demiurge is the lesser creator god of gnostic myth — called Yaldabaoth, Saklas, and Samael — who fashioned the material world and mistook himself for the only God. What the ancient texts actually say, from the Secret Book of John to the Gospel of Judas.
The Gnostic Creation Myth, Told in Order
The gnostic creation story in order: the unknowable Monad, the Pleroma of aeons, Sophia's fall, Yaldabaoth, the archons, and the light hidden in Adam.
The Monad: the One That Has No Name
The Monad is the unknowable One of gnostic myth — the invisible Spirit, the Depth, the Father — known only by what it is not. And it is not the Demiurge.
The Pleroma and the Aeons
The Pleroma ('fullness') is the complete divine realm of gnostic thought, and the aeons are its living attributes — Depth, Silence, Mind, Truth, Word, Life, arranged in paired emanations. How the map works in Valentinian and Sethian sources, and why Sophia's fall breaks it.
Yaldabaoth: the Lion-Faced Demiurge
Yaldabaoth is the blind creator god of Sethian Gnosticism — Sophia's malformed child, lion-faced and serpent-bodied, who stole divine power, made the material world, and declared himself the only God. Every ancient source, explained.
The Schools
Abraxas: the 365 Heavens and the Rooster-Headed God
Abraxas ruled 365 heavens in the system of Basilides (c. 130 CE) — and his name adds to 365 in Greek. The gems, the sources, and why he isn't a demon.
Sethian vs. Valentinian: the Two Great Schools
The two main currents of ancient Gnosticism side by side: Sethian myth (Yaldabaoth, Barbelo, the seed of Seth) versus the Valentinian school of Valentinus (the Gospel of Truth, the bridal chamber). How to tell them apart when reading the texts.
The Teachers
Marcion of Sinope: the Man Who Forced a Canon
The shipowner who published a Bible in 144 CE — one gospel, ten letters of Paul, no Old Testament — and forced the church to define a canon of its own.
Valentinus: the Gnostic Who Almost Led Rome
Alexandrian teacher, near-bishop of Rome by Tertullian's account, founder of the school behind the Gospel of Truth — what Valentinus actually taught.
History
The Nag Hammadi Discovery
In December 1945, an Egyptian farmer digging for fertilizer near Nag Hammadi unearthed a sealed jar holding 13 papyrus codices — 52 texts including the Gospel of Thomas and Gospel of Philip. The full story of the find, the smuggling, and the publication.
Timeline of Gnosticism
A dated timeline of Gnosticism: Simon Magus in Acts, Valentinus in Rome c. 136, Marcion expelled 144, Athanasius 367, Nag Hammadi 1945, Judas published 2006.
Living Gnosticism
The Directory
People
The Afterlife
The Apocalypse of Peter's Description of Hell
Blasphemers hung by the tongue, usurers to the knees in boiling mire: the second-century Apocalypse of Peter's hell, quoted verbatim from M. R. James.
The Harrowing of Hell: Where the Story Comes From
The creed says he descended into hell. The story — Satan and Hades arguing, the gates of brass broken, Adam led out — comes from the Gospel of Nicodemus.
The Gospel of Thomas
The Sayings
Gospel of Thomas Saying 70: Bring Forth What Is Within You
The line quote sites credit to Jesus — bring forth what is within you — is Gospel of Thomas Saying 70. Here it is verbatim from Nag Hammadi Codex II,2.
Gospel of Thomas Saying 77: “Split a Log; I’m There”
Saying 77 of the Gospel of Thomas — 'I am the All. Split a log; I'm there' — read line by line, with the Greek P.Oxy. 1 variant and the pantheism debate.
The Texts
The Gospel of Peter's Talking Cross and Giant Jesus
In the Gospel of Peter two angels reach heaven, Jesus rises taller still, and the cross walks out of the tomb and answers a voice from the sky. Explained.
The Secret Book of John (Apocryphon of John)
The fullest surviving account of the gnostic myth: creation, fall, and rescue in one text. Four ancient copies survive, and Irenaeus attacked it by 180 CE.
Thunder, Perfect Mind: What It Means and Who Is Speaking
A poem in the voice of a woman who is the whore and the holy one — Nag Hammadi Codex VI,2. Who speaks: Sophia, Barbelo, Eve, Isis? The candidates weighed.
Valentinian Gnosticism
Where to go next
If you want the story rather than the pieces, start with the gnostic creation myth and follow it through Sophia's fall to the creator she accidentally made. If you want vocabulary, the glossary defines the key terms these articles use. If you want the texts themselves, the library is free to read, and the Questions hub answers what people actually ask.