Gnosticism

Gnosticism is a blanket term for various mystical initiatory religions and sects, which were most prominent in the first few centuries CE. It is also applied to modern revivals of these sects and, sometimes, by analogy to all religious movements based on secret knowledge gnosis, thus leading to confusion.

Matter

Some Gnostics, in common with such Neoplatonic philosophers as Plotinus, held matter to be evil, but only as a method of depicting its extreme distance from the monadic source of the universe (which is, of course, supremely good). Thus matter is not evil in and of itself, but only in its distance from and its contrast to its monadic source (compare summum bonum). Many Gnostics also made use of ritual; ritual being the manipulation of material objects in imitation of divine events or occurrences, this presupposes at least the ability of matter to be used for positive effect. Valentinus himself, often referred to as the Gnostic teacher par excellence, only referred to matter as an obscuration of the truth, not as inherently evil.

Related Topics:
Neoplatonic - Plotinus - Monadic - Summum bonum - Ritual - Valentinus

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Nevertheless, the apparently unsubtle characterisation of matter as simply evil is a trait that is commonly used to define gnostic systems, often by those who seek to detract from them, or by those too reliant on heresiological texts for their understanding of them (the two groups aren't mutually exclusive).

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It would be more accurate to characterize the Gnostic relationship with matter as one fraught with ambivalence; their views are an attempt to explain and clarify the divine's relationship with the imperfect universe, and to create a contextual basis for the individual Gnostic's feeling of alienation within that universe.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~