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Schaff, Philip. History of the Christian Church (The Complete Eight Volumes in One). Amazon Kindle Edition, 2014.
Volume 2, Ante-Nicene Christianity A.D. 100-325, “Chapter 11. The Heresies of the Ante-Nicene Age” Sections 112-136, Loc. 17655-18757.
§ 115. Gnosticism. The Literature.
Schaff provides a bibliography regarding Gnosticism. His annotations are useful in discerning the context of some of the writings. Interestingly, Schaff says these “were the religious novels of the early church” (Schaff 2014, Loc. 17872). The controversy surrounding Gnosticism becomes apparent when we notice that, in many cases, we have both the heretical writings and the orthodox responses. Many scholars have written about Gnosticism over the years. This has been spurred on by the fact that Gnostic ideas have persisted in many different contexts.