ABSTRACT
Christianity has emerged in history as a community of learners, disciples of a Teacher, Jesus Christ, and his successors, the apostles. More a philosophical school than a religious movement, from the outset Christianity has focused on the teaching and wisdom of the Founder, which it construed as “the way” to knowledge and perfection. Gnosis, the knowledge revealed by the Teacher and explained by his successors, was interwoven with the practical life, or the virtuous and spiritual experience, and so inherent to Christianity. Holistically understood, the gnostic dimension was nevertheless central for many theologians, from the second to at least the eighth Christian century. Herein I offer glimpses of their elaborations, pointers to a phenomenon whose breadth and complexity far exceed the parameters of this chapter.
