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Marcosian
The Marcosians were a Gnostic sect founded by Marcus (Marcosian), Marcus, active in Lyon, France and southern Europe from the second to the 4th century. Women held special status in the Marcosian communities; they were regarded as prophetesses and participated in administering the Eucharistic rites. Irenaeus accuses Marcus of seducing his followers, and scornfully writes (''On the Detection and Overthrow of the So-Called Gnosis, Adversus Haereses'' I. 13, 4) that the whole sect was an affair of "silly women." The Marcosian system was a variation of that of Valentinus (Gnostic), Valentinus. It retained the 30 Aeon (Gnosticism), Aeons, but called them "Greatnesses" and gave them numerical values. It kept the myth of the fall of Sophia (Gnosticism), Sophia but called it a "Divine Deficiency". Unique to it was the adaptation of the Pythagoreanism, Pythagorean number theory (Isopsephy) to Gnosticism. System Marcus holds his knowledge to be the product of a divine revelation of the bo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marcus (Marcosian)
Marcus was the founder of the Marcosian Gnostic sect in the 2nd century AD. He was a disciple of Valentinus, with whom his system mainly agrees. His doctrines are almost exclusively known to us through a long polemic (i. 13–21) in ''Adversus Haereses'', in which Irenaeus gives an account of his teaching and his school. Clement of Alexandria clearly knew of Marcus and actually used his system of mystical numbers (four, six, eight, ten, twelve, thirty), though without acknowledgement. Life Marcus appears to have been an elder contemporary of Irenaeus, who speaks of him as though still living and teaching. Though we learn from Irenaeus that the Rhone district was a home to the followers of Marcus, it does not appear that Marcus was there himself, and the impression left is that Irenaeus knew the followers of Marcus by personal intercourse, Marcus only by his writings. We are told also of Marcus having seduced the wife of one of the deacons in Asia (διάκονον τινα τῶν ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Valentinus (Gnostic)
Valentinus (also spelled Valentinius; – ) was the best known and, for a time, most successful early Christian Gnostic theologian. He founded his school in Rome. According to Tertullian, Valentinus was a candidate for bishop but started his own group when another was chosen. Valentinus produced a variety of writings, but only fragments survive, largely those quoted in rebuttal arguments in the works of his opponents, not enough to reconstruct his system except in broad outline. His doctrine is known only in the developed and modified form given to it by his disciples, the Valentinians. He taught that there were three kinds of people, the spiritual, psychical, and material; and that only those of a spiritual nature received the '' gnosis'' (knowledge) that allowed them to return to the divine Pleroma, while those of a psychic nature (ordinary Christians) would attain a lesser or uncertain form of salvation, and that those of a material nature were doomed to perish. Valen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
On The Detection And Overthrow Of The So-Called Gnosis
''Against Heresies'' (Ancient Greek: Ἔλεγχος καὶ ἀνατροπὴ τῆς ψευδωνύμου γνώσεως, ''Elenchos kai anatropē tēs pseudōnymou gnōseōs'', "On the Detection and Overthrow of the So-Called Gnosis"), sometimes referred to by its Latin title ''Adversus Haereses'', is a work of Christian theology written in Greek about the year 180 by Irenaeus, the bishop of Lugdunum (now Lyon in France). In it, Irenaeus identifies and describes several schools of Gnosticism, as well as other schools of Christian thought, and contrasts their beliefs with orthodox Christianity. Until the discovery of the Library of Nag Hammadi in 1945, ''Against Heresies'' was the best surviving contemporary description of Gnosticism. Today, the treatise remains historically important as one of the first unambiguous attestations of the canonical gospel texts and some of the Pauline epistles. Irenaeus cites from most of the New Testament canon, as well as the noncanonica ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aeon (Gnosticism)
In many Gnostic systems, various emanations of God are known by such names as One, Monad, ''Aion teleos'' (αἰών τέλεος "The Broadest Aeon"), Bythos (, "depth" or "profundity"), ''Proarkhe'' ("before the beginning", ), ''Arkhe'' ("the beginning", ), and Aeons. In different systems these emanations are differently named, classified, and described, but emanation theory is common to all forms of Gnosticism. In Basilidian Gnosis they are called sonships (υἱότητες ''huiotetes''; sing.: υἱότης ''huiotes''); according to Marcus, they are numbers and sounds; in Valentinianism they form male/female pairs called syzygies (Greek , from σύζυγοι ''syzygoi'', lit. "yokings together"). This source of all being is an Aeon, in which an inner being dwells, known as ''Ennoea'' ("thought, intent", Greek ), ''Charis'' ("grace", Greek ), or ''Sige'' ("silence", Greek ). The split perfect being conceives the second Aeon, ''Nous'' ("mind", Greek Νους), within its ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sophia (Gnosticism)
Sophia ( grc-koi, Σοφíα "Wisdom", cop, ⲧⲥⲟⲫⲓⲁ "the Sophia") is a major theme, along with Knowledge ( ''gnosis'', Coptic ), among many of the early Christian knowledge-theologies grouped by the heresiologist Irenaeus as (), ‘knowing’ or ‘men that claimed to have deeper wisdom’. Gnosticism is a 17th-century term expanding the definition of Irenaeus' groups to include other syncretic and mystery religions. In Gnosticism, Sophia is a feminine figure, analogous to the human soul but also simultaneously one of the feminine aspects of God. Gnostics held that she was the ''syzygy'' (female twin divine Aeon) of Jesus (i.e. the Bride of Christ), and Holy Spirit of the Trinity. She is occasionally referred to by the Hebrew equivalent of (, he, חכמה ) and as (). In the Nag Hammadi texts, Sophia is the lowest Aeon, or anthropic expression of the emanation of the light of God. She is considered to have fallen from grace in some way, in so doing creating or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Isopsephy
Isopsephy (; ''isos'' meaning "equal" and ''psephos'' meaning "pebble") or isopsephism is the practice of adding up the number values of the letters in a word to form a single number. The total number is then used as a metaphorical bridge to other words evaluating the equal number, which satisfies ''isos'' or "equal" in the term. The early Greeks used pebbles arranged in patterns to learn arithmetic and geometry, which corresponds to ''psephos'' or "pebble" and "counting" in the term. Isopsephy is related to gematria: the same practice using the Hebrew alphabet. It is also related to the ancient number systems of many other peoples (for the Arabic alphabet version, see Abjad numerals). A gematria of Latin script languages was also popular in Europe from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, and its legacy remains in code-breaking, numerology, and Masonic symbolism today (see arithmancy). History Until Arabic numerals were adopted and adapted from Indian numerals in the 8t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gnostic
Gnosticism (from grc, γνωστικός, gnōstikós, , 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems which coalesced in the late 1st century AD among Jewish and early Christian sects. These various groups emphasized personal spiritual knowledge ('' gnosis'') above the orthodox teachings, traditions, and authority of religious institutions. Gnostic cosmogony generally presents a distinction between a supreme, hidden God and a malevolent lesser divinity (sometimes associated with the Yahweh of the Old Testament) who is responsible for creating the material universe. Consequently, Gnostics considered material existence flawed or evil, and held the principal element of salvation to be direct knowledge of the hidden divinity, attained via mystical or esoteric insight. Many Gnostic texts deal not in concepts of sin and repentance, but with illusion and enlightenment. Gnostic writings flourished among certain Christian groups in the Mediterranean world ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Irenaeus
Irenaeus (; grc-gre, Εἰρηναῖος ''Eirēnaios''; c. 130 – c. 202 AD) was a Greek bishop noted for his role in guiding and expanding Christian communities in the southern regions of present-day France and, more widely, for the development of Christian theology by combating heterodox or Gnostic interpretations of Scripture as heresy and defining the Catholic and Orthodox doctrines of the Apostolic Churches. Originating from Smyrna, he had seen and heard the preaching of Polycarp, who in turn was said to have heard John the Evangelist, and thus was the last-known living connection with the Apostles. Chosen as bishop of Lugdunum, now Lyon, his best-known work is '' Against Heresies'', often cited as ''Adversus Haereses'', a refutation of gnosticism, in particular that of Valentinus. To counter the doctrines of the gnostic sects claiming secret wisdom, he offered three pillars of orthodoxy: the scriptures, the tradition handed down from the apostles, and th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pi (letter)
Pi (uppercase Π, lowercase π and ϖ; el, πι ) is the sixteenth letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the voiceless bilabial plosive . In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 80. It was derived from the Phoenician letter Pe (). Letters that arose from pi include Latin P, Cyrillic Pe (П, п), Coptic pi (Ⲡ, ⲡ), and Gothic pairthra (𐍀). Uppercase Pi The uppercase letter Π is used as a symbol for: * In textual criticism, '' Codex Petropolitanus'', a 9th-century uncial codex of the Gospels, now located in St. Petersburg, Russia. * In legal shorthand, it represents a plaintiff. In science and engineering: * The product operator in mathematics, indicated with capital pi notation (in analogy to the use of the capital Sigma as summation symbol). * The osmotic pressure in chemistry. * The viscous stress tensor in continuum mechanics and fluid dynamics. Lowercase Pi The lowercase letter π is used as a symbol for: * The mathematical re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Delta (letter)
Delta (; uppercase Δ, lowercase δ or 𝛿; el, δέλτα, ''délta'', ) is the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 4. It was derived from the Phoenician letter dalet 𐤃. Letters that come from delta include Latin D and Cyrillic Д. A river delta (originally, the delta of the Nile River) is so named because its shape approximates the triangular uppercase letter delta. Contrary to a popular legend, this use of the word ''delta'' was not coined by Herodotus. Pronunciation In Ancient Greek, delta represented a voiced dental plosive . In Modern Greek, it represents a voiced dental fricative , like the "th" in "that" or "this" (while in foreign words is instead commonly transcribed as ντ). Delta is romanized as ''d'' or ''dh''. Uppercase The uppercase letter Δ is used to denote: * Change of any changeable quantity, in mathematics and the sciences (more specifically, the difference operator); for example, in:\ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kappa
Kappa (uppercase Κ, lowercase κ or cursive ; el, κάππα, ''káppa'') is the 10th letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the voiceless velar plosive sound in Ancient and Modern Greek. In the system of Greek numerals, has a value of 20. It was derived from the Phoenician letter kaph . Letters that arose from kappa include the Roman K and Cyrillic К. The uppercase form is identical to the Latin K. Greek proper names and placenames containing kappa are often written in English with "c" due to the Romans' transliterations into the Latin alphabet: Constantinople, Corinth, Crete. All formal modern romanizations of Greek now use the letter "k", however. The cursive form is generally a simple font variant of lower-case kappa, but it is encoded separately in Unicode for occasions where it is used as a separate symbol in math and science. In mathematics, the kappa curve is named after this letter; the tangents of this curve were first calculated by Isaac Barro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iota
Iota (; uppercase: Ι, lowercase: ι; ) is the ninth letter of the Greek alphabet. It was derived from the Phoenician letter Yodh. Letters that arose from this letter include the Latin I and J, the Cyrillic І (І, і), Yi (Ї, ї), and Je (Ј, ј), and iotated letters (e.g. Yu (Ю, ю)). In the system of Greek numerals, iota has a value of 10. Iota represents the close front unrounded vowel . In early forms of ancient Greek, it occurred in both long and short versions, but this distinction was lost in Koine Greek. Iota participated as the second element in falling diphthongs, with both long and short vowels as the first element. Where the first element was long, the iota was lost in pronunciation at an early date, and was written in polytonic orthography as iota subscript, in other words as a very small ι under the main vowel. Examples include ᾼ ᾳ ῌ ῃ ῼ ῳ. The former diphthongs became digraphs for simple vowels in Koine Greek.see Koine Greek phonology T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
