Gnosis

Gnosis is the common Greek noun for knowledge (in the nominative case γνῶσις f.).^[1]

It generally signifies a dualistic knowledge in the sense of mystical enlightenment or "insight".^[2]

Gnosis taught the deliverance of man from the constraints of earthly existence through insight into an essential relationship, as soul or spirit, with a supramundane place of freedom.^[3]

The term is used in the context of ancient religions and philosophies, aspects of Judeo-Christian beliefs, particularly to the ideas that emerged during early Christian and Greco-Roman interaction during the 2nd century.^[3][2]

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Gnosis is a feminine Greek noun which means "knowledge".^[4]

It is often used for personal knowledge compared with intellectual knowledge (εἶδειν eídein), as with the French connaitre compared with savoir, or the German kennen rather than wissen.^[5]

Latin drops the Greek g so gno- becomes no- as in noscō meaning "I know", noscentia meaning "knowledge" and notus meaning "known". The g remains in the Latin co-gni-tio meaning "knowledge" and i-gno-tus and i-gna-rus meaning "unknown" and from which comes the word i-gno-rant, and a-gno-stic which means "not knowing" and once again this reflects the Sanskrit jna which means "to know", "to perceive" or "to understand".

The Neoplatonic philosophers, including Plotinus, rejected the gnostics as being un-Hellenistic and anti-Plato due to their vilification of Plato's creator of the universe (the demiurge),^[10] arriving at dystheism as the solution to the problem of evil, taking all their truths over from Plato.^[11] Plotinus did express that gnosis, via contemplation, was the highest goal of the philosopher toward henosis.