Hermetic, Platonic and Middle Platonic Origins of Gnosticism

Gnosticism is one of the most important and influential religious- mystical schools of thought in pre- and post- Christian centuries, which considers salvation on the basis of the divine wisdom, containing some of the deepest epistemological and philosophical ideas of that period in theology, cosmology, anthropology and eschatology. It refers to a number of ancient schools of thought, which has widely spread in Western Asia as a theological and mysteical discipline, under the influence of Hellenism or Greco-Hellenic, Hermetic, Platonic and Middle Platonic schools, as well as religions such as Judaism, Christianity and Zoroasterianism. Because of the widespread exchange of ideas and concepts, these religions and schools of thought had mutual influences on each other and displayed various common features in their beliefs. This paper examines the essence and origins of Gnostic worldview by assessing the main principles and foundations of the Hermetic, Platonic and Middle Platonic ideologies in various topics such as divinity; existential dualism; fate of the world; man and his relation to God; and descent along with return of the spirit, in order to uncover the similarities and differences of these systems of thought.