text: what does it mean to be gnostic?   i'll add a little bit here, just in case you want to know some of the characteristics of gnostic christians in the early church.  of course one could write several books on this subject but i will keep it short.  let's start with creation.  gnostic christians did not believe that the god who created this world, the god of the old testament, was the supreme being worthy of worship.  rather, he was a lesser diety, but he did not know this.  therefore many christian gnostics would throw out the old testament.  gnostics also believe the material world is evil, and our goal is to escape this world and return to the heavenly realm we came from.  combine this with their belief about the creator god above, and you get a very interesting twist on the creation story.  some gnostic christians viewed the serpent in the adam and eve story as jesus.  why?  because the lesser creator god wanted to trap adam and eve in the evil material world.  the serpent wanted adam and eve to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge, and that knowledge would free them from being foreve trapped in this world.  christian gnostics also had their own creation story that is very different from genesis and is too detailed to go into here.  these beliefs also changed their views on jesus.  they had a docetic christology, which means they believed that jesus only appeared to be human, because the supreme god would never contaminate himself by putting himself into an evil material body.  jesus came to give us the gnosis, or knowledge, of how to get to heaven, and there were at least a few who did not believe that jesus died on the cross.  after all, if he only appeared to be human, how could he die.  hope you find this helpful.