The scholarly study of th
The scholarly study of this movement dates back to Johann Lorenz von Mosheim, who postulated a theory of this movement's spread in his work "Institutiones christianae maiores." The doctrines of this movement were attacked in the work Adversus Haereses by the Bishop Irenaeus, and Gerschom Scholem linked one branch of this movement to the merkavah, or "chariot" on which God is said to sit in Ezekiel 1:26. Leaders of major groups of this religious movement included Basilides and the poet Valentinus, and one scholar of this movement hypothesized that it may have had its origins in the thought of St. Paul, whose supposed letter was one of a set of documents discovered along with the Apocryphon of James and the Gospel of Truth in a cache at Nag Hammadi. The figure of Sophia, or "wisdom," played a prominent role in this religious movement, which was the subject of a treatise by Elaine Pagels. For 10 points, identify this religious movement which produced works like the Gospel of Thomas and Gospel of Judas and believed in an imperfect demiurge, whose name comes from the Greek for "knowledge."
The scholarly study of this movement dates back to Johann Lorenz von Mosheim, who postulated a theory of this movement's spread in his work "Institutiones christianae maiores.
Gnosticism