Dear seeker, use this glossary as a reading companion. Definitions are brief and oriented toward the texts commonly collected in a Gnostic reader. Spellings vary across translations, and common alternatives appear in parentheses.
- Aeon (plural: Aeons)
- An eternal divine being or emanation within the Pleroma. Aeons often appear in male-female pairs, called syzygies, and represent aspects of the divine mind rather than separate gods.
- Anthropos
- “Man” or “Human.” In many systems, the heavenly Human or primordial Man after whom the earthly human is patterned. Sometimes identified with the divine image that the Archons try, and fail, to copy.
- Apocryphon
- “Secret book.” A title for revelatory texts presented as hidden teaching, such as the Apocryphon of John.
- Archon (plural: Archons)
- “Ruler.” Cosmic authorities who govern the material world, often ignorant or hostile to the true God. They imprison divine sparks in bodies and try to keep souls from ascending. They may also be read psychologically as inner powers of fear, forgetfulness, and domination.
- Autogenes
- “Self-begotten.” A title for a divine figure, often Christ or a high Aeon, generated from the Father without a lower creator.
- Barbelo
- In Sethian texts, the first thought or forethought of the Invisible Father, a high feminine principle from whom further emanations proceed. Closely associated with Pronoia, or Forethought.
- Bridal Chamber
- A Valentinian sacrament or mystery of union. It symbolizes restoration of the divided soul with its angelic counterpart and reunion with the Pleroma. It is not merely a wedding rite, but an image of completed gnosis.
- Bythos
- “Depth.” A name for the ultimate, unknowable Father in some Valentinian systems.
- Demiurge
- The craftsman-god who fashions the material cosmos. In Gnostic myth, he is usually ignorant of the higher God, often identified with the God of Genesis as read through the Archons. Common names include Yaldabaoth, Saklas, meaning “fool,” and Samael, meaning “blind god.”
- Docetism
- The view that Christ’s bodily appearance or suffering was seeming rather than fully material. Some Gnostic texts lean this way, while others do not. Distinguish text by text.
- Ennoia
- “Thought” or “Intention.” A divine faculty or Aeon, sometimes the first movement of the Father toward self-reflection.
- Gnosis
- “Knowledge.” Not information or belief, but direct, saving recognition of one’s origin in the divine and of the true nature of the cosmos. It is the heart of Gnostic wisdom.
- Gnostic
- One who possesses or seeks gnosis. Historically, this refers to a family of early Christian and related movements from the second to fourth centuries and later, not a single church.
- Hebdomad
- The realm of seven, often the seven planetary Archons or the lower heavens under the Demiurge.
- Horos (Limit)
- In Valentinian myth, the boundary that keeps the Pleroma from being disordered by Sophia’s passion and that separates fullness from deficiency.
- Hylic (also Sarkic)
- “Material” or “fleshly.” The lowest class of humanity in some Valentinian schemes: those bound to matter and appetite, lacking the spark that can awaken.
- Kenoma
- “Emptiness” or “deficiency.” The realm outside the Pleroma, the created world of lack, contrasted with fullness.
- Logos
- “Word” or “Reason.” The divine utterance or intermediary through whom revelation and order come. In Christian Gnostic texts, it is often identified with Christ as Revealer.
- Monad
- The One, the simple ungenerated source beyond all names and pairs.
- Nag Hammadi
- The 1945 discovery in Upper Egypt of thirteen Coptic codices containing most of the surviving Gnostic library used in modern collections.
- Ogdoad
- The realm of eight, often the eighth heaven above the seven planetary spheres. It may be associated with rest, Sophia restored, or the threshold of the Pleroma.
- Pleroma
- “Fullness.” The divine realm of the Father and the Aeons, the true home of the spark. Contrasted with the Kenoma.
- Pneumatic
- “Spiritual.” Those in whom the divine spark is awake or can be awakened, the highest of the three human types in Valentinian anthropology.
- Pronoia
- “Forethought” or “Providence.” A saving feminine power who descends to awaken humanity, prominent in the Apocryphon of John.
- Psychic
- “Soulish.” The middle class, capable of faith and moral life but not yet of full gnosis. In Valentinian polemic, this is often associated with ordinary church believers.
- Sethian
- A major Gnostic tradition that honors Seth as a heavenly revealer and ancestor of the spiritual race. It includes the Apocryphon of John, Hypostasis of the Archons, and related texts.
- Sophia
- “Wisdom.” A high Aeon whose passion, error, or unauthorized act leads to the birth of the Demiurge and the flawed cosmos. Her restoration is central to many myths. She is distinct from, but sometimes overlaps with, biblical Wisdom.
- Spark (divine spark)
- The fragment of the Pleroma buried in the human being. Salvation is remembering and freeing this spark.
- Syzygy
- A paired Aeon, with male and female aspects. Harmony of syzygies is fullness; rupture produces deficiency.
- Valentinian
- The school associated with Valentinus in the second century. It is more church-like in organization, rich in the myth of Sophia and the bridal chamber, and often more willing to read the New Testament allegorically.
- Yaldabaoth (Ialdabaoth)
- The most common proper name of the Demiurge in Sethian texts: lion-faced, ignorant, and boastful, claiming, “I am God and there is no other.”