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There are numerous references to the Gnostics in second century proto-orthodox literature. Most of what we know about them is from the polemic thrown at them by the early Church Fathers.<ref>http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/gnostics.html</ref>
There are numerous references to the Gnostics in second century proto-orthodox literature. Most of what we know about them is from the polemic thrown at them by the early Church Fathers.<ref>http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/gnostics.html</ref>
[[Marcion]] was the most famous of the Gnostics, and he established a "canon" of the Pauline epistles that did not include the pastorals and a "mutilated" Luke. [[Justin Martyr]] mentioned Marcion c. 150 CE, and [[Irenaeus]] and [[Tertullian]] wrote against him extensively in the late second century (in ''Against Heresy'' and ''Against Marcion'', respectively).<ref>ibid.</ref>
[[Marcion]] was the most famous of the Gnostics, and he established a "canon" of the Pauline epistles that did not include the pastorals and a "mutilated" Luke. [[Justin Martyr]] mentioned Marcion c. 150 CE, and [[Irenaeus]] and [[Tertullian]] wrote against him extensively in the late second century (in ''Against Heresy'' and ''Against Marcion'', respectively).<ref>ibid.</ref>
Literary critic Harold Bloom distinguishes Gnosticism from Christianity and Judaism in his book Agon:
"Gnosticism polemically is decidedly not a faith, whether in the Christian sense, pisits, a believing that something was, is, and will be so; or in the Hebraic sense, emunah, a trusting in the Covenant. If religion is a binding, then Gnosticism is an unbinding, but not for the sake of things or persons merely as they are. Gnostic freedom is a freedom for knowledge, knowledge of what in the self, not in the psyche or soul, is Godlike, and knowledge of God beyond the cosmos. But also it is a freedom to be known, to be known by God, by what is alien to everything created, by what is alien to and beyond the stars and the cosmic system and our earth."
==References==
==References==