The Gnostics, with their various systems, taught that the creator of the material world (therefore the God of the Old Testament) was in fact an inferior and malevolent god, the abortive offspring ...

At U.S. presidential inaugurations, prayers often reflect national identity as much as faith. From New York Cardinal Timothy ...

the “demiurge,” and the highest “god” were separate beings, and the rest of the gnostic beliefs flowed out of that idea.

Yet to know oneself, at the deepest level, is simultaneously to know God; this is the secret of gnosis. Another gnostic teacher, Monoimus, says: Abandon the search for God and the creation and ...