24Ancient
Gnostic Traditions
A highest divine reality, and in many systems a lesser maker of the material world. Schools differ.
Architecture
Fullness above a lower cosmos
Fullness above. In many systems a demiurge and archons below. A divine element in the human seeks return by gnosis.
- 01
Highest reality
Not identical with the maker of matter in the systems that distinguish them.
- 02
Fullness and cosmos
Layers are school-specific.
- 03
Aeons, archons, demiurge
Present in many elaborate myths. Not in every short text.
- 04
Human with a divine element
A common anthropology, not a universal one.
- 05
Escape, not a shared heaven
Some texts add repeated embodiment. Some do not.
- Time
- Fall and hoped-for return. Not a civic flood story.
- Agents
- Whoever the text names above and below. Do not standardize the names.
- Human slot
- Often a stranger in the cosmos. The end is return of what is divine, differently described.
- Break
- The lower rulers, where the myth has them. Not every Gnostic text is that myth.
Recorded claims
An evidence label is shown only where the kind of source is already established. No label means unclassified. A label is not a judgment. Source Needed means no source is attached yet. It does not mean the claim is false, weak, or disproven.
Origin / Reality
A highest divine reality, and in many systems a lesser maker of the material world. Schools differ.
Source NeededHuman Nature
In many tellings, a divine element in a body and a lower cosmos. Not every text uses that anthropology.
Source NeededDeath / Afterlife
Release of what is divine from the cosmos. Not one shared afterlife map.
Source NeededRebirth
Some texts describe repeated embodiment until escape. Not every school’s center.
Source NeededOther Beings
Aeons, archons, and a demiurge appear in many systems. Names and ranks differ.
Source NeededOther Realms
A fullness above the material cosmos. The layers are school-specific.
Source NeededWorld Structure / Axis
The material world is commonly a lower construction. Not a Meru.
Source NeededDestruction / Reset
The lower order is to be escaped or undone for the spiritual. Not one flood of a civilization.
Source NeededHow Truth Is Known
Revealed gnosis and contested scriptures. Not one canon.
Source Needed
Sources & EvidenceShowHideNo source is attached yet. Source Needed is a research gap, not a judgment.
The tradition or source
What that source says. Not a scholar’s retelling, and not a SCARC inference.
None attached.
A modern researcher
What a scholar or other modern writer says about the source. Not the source’s own words.
None attached.
SCARC
What this project infers or sets beside the records. Not what the source said.
None attached.
How we know
Where the evidence comes from, and how far it is from the people it describes. The labels are not a score. They do not rank traditions. A manuscript year, a tradition’s own claim, and a date from the ground are kept apart on the timeline.
The earliest extended reports are hostile outside accounts, especially Irenaeus, around 180 CE. The Nag Hammadi codices are Coptic books of the 4th century, copies of translations of Greek works that are mostly lost.
We often have a critic’s summary, or a translation of a copy, and not the author’s manuscript. “Gnosticism” as one religion is a modern scholarly label, and it is contested. Texts grouped under it do not share one myth. The gap is not filled by picking the most famous demiurge story and assigning it to all of them.
Original evidence → transmission / copy → translation / documentation → modern interpretation
01
Original evidence
Outside account
Heresiological reports are evidence for what a critic said a group taught. They are not that group’s book.
02
Transmission / copy
Later copy of earlier text
Nag Hammadi is a 4th-century Coptic library. It preserves some works otherwise unknown. It is not an autograph collection from the 2nd century.
03
Translation / documentation
Modern scholarly reconstruction
Modern translations from Coptic, and reconstructions of lost Greek, are documentation. A reconstructed Greek sentence is a hypothesis when the Greek is gone.
04
Modern interpretation
Modern scholarly reconstruction
The category “Gnostic” is itself an interpretation. Using it on this chart is a filing choice, not a name all the texts claim. The cells say the schools differ for that reason.
The twenty-one questions
Asked of every system. Gaps are recorded as gaps. Nothing here is filled in to make a pattern prettier.
01
Where are we?
In a cosmos that many Gnostic texts treat as lower than the divine fullness. Where that cosmos sits, and who made it, differs by school.
Read every system on this question02
What is reality made of?
In many systems, a material or psychic cosmos made by a lesser power, unlike the spiritual fullness. The inventory of substances changes from text to text.
Read every system on this question03
What is a human being?
In many texts, a spiritual element inside a body that belongs to the lower cosmos. Other texts do not divide the person that way.
Read every system on this question04
What is consciousness?
In the systems that speak this way, knowing is the point: the divine element recognizes its origin. That is not a psychology shared by every text.
Read every system on this question05
Where did humanity come from?
In many myths, humanity is the work of lower powers, with a divine element from above. The myth is not shared verbatim.
Read every system on this question06
What happens at death?
What is spiritual is meant to leave the rulers of the cosmos. Body and soul are not always the same thing in these texts, and the route is school-specific.
Read every system on this question07
Does consciousness return to embodiment?
Some texts say embodiment repeats until gnosis. Others focus on one escape. Do not treat both as the same doctrine.
Read every system on this question08
Where is consciousness between lives?
Some myths describe the soul passing hostile powers. That passage is an escape, not a neutral lobby, and it is not in every text.
Read every system on this question09
Are there nonhuman intelligent beings?
Yes in the elaborate systems: aeons in the fullness, and archons or a demiurge below. Shorter texts may not list them.
Read every system on this question10
Can those beings become human or appear human?
In many Christian-related texts a revealer appears in human form. The body is often not what is saved. Texts without that revealer exist.
Read every system on this question11
Are there multiple realms or worlds?
Yes in the systematic texts: fullness above, cosmos below, often with several heavens ruled by archons.
Read every system on this question12
Is there a central mountain, tree, pillar, axis, heart, or sacred center?
No Meru and no world-tree. The ‘center’ that matters in these systems is the fullness, not a mountain on earth.
Read every system on this question13
Is the world itself alive?
The cosmos is commonly the opposite of the highest life: a construction to leave. Some texts are less hostile. It is not a living Meru.
Read every system on this question14
Has civilization or the world been destroyed or reset before?
The lower world is not the true beginning and is not meant to be home. A flood-reset of cities is not the usual plot.
Read every system on this question15
Does history operate linearly or cyclically?
A fall into the cosmos and a hoped-for return. Not an endless wheel as the good news, and not one chronology.
Read every system on this question16
Is there an opposing positive/negative force?
In many systems, yes: the maker of the world and the archons stand against the highest God. Not every text called Gnostic has that cast.
Read every system on this question17
What is humanity supposed to become?
In the classic systems, what is divine in the person returns to the fullness. What ‘the person’ includes at the end is disputed between schools.
Read every system on this question18
Is reincarnation a destination, punishment, school, growth process, or something else?
In the texts that have it, repeated embodiment is captivity in the cosmos, ended by knowledge. Other texts do not use it.
Read every system on this question19
What lies beyond the visible world?
The fullness, and the rulers one does not see. The unseen is not automatically good: some of it is the prison.
Read every system on this question20
How does this tradition claim humans can know any of this?
Revelation and gnosis, through texts and teachers that rival churches did not accept as one bible.
Read every system on this question21
Does the structure or motion of the heavens correspond to events, conditions, or consciousness within the human realm?
In many systems the planets are archons of fate. Correspondence here is often a bondage to escape, not a craft of prediction. Some texts lack it.
Read every system on this question22
Why did humanity forget?
The filed lines say that, in many texts, a divine element is in a lower cosmos, and that knowing is recognition of its origin. They do not say why humanity forgot.
Read every system on this question
Structures where this record appears
- Axis, mountain, tree, heartIs there a central mountain, tree, pillar, axis, heart, or sacred center?
- Flood, judgment, cycle, endingHas civilization or the world been destroyed or reset before?
- Return, resurrection, renewalDoes consciousness return to embodiment?
- Nonhuman intelligencesAre there nonhuman intelligent beings?
- Realms and worldsAre there multiple realms or worlds?
- Is the world itself alive?Is the world itself alive?
- Line or wheelDoes history operate linearly or cyclically?
- Do the heavens correspond?Does the structure or motion of the heavens correspond to events, conditions, or consciousness within the human realm?
- How truth is claimedHow does this tradition claim humans can know any of this?