Gnosticism and Early Christian Culture

This website gives information about religious groups of late antiquity that were condemned by the Church Fathers as heretics. Some of them were called "gnostics", and Christian scholars have later labeled the doctrines and myths of these and other similar groups as "Gnosticism". The term derives from the Greek word gnosis, meaning "knowledge".

The website introduces the sensational discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library, including many previously unknown documents written by gnostics themselves; the Coptic language, in which these documents were written; the key features of gnostic thought; the social world reflected in the documents; and the later development and influence of gnostic thinking.

The website is created and maintained by the research project "Gnosticism and the Formation of Christianity" at the University of Helsinki. The text has been translated from Finnish by Geoffrey Moore.