The Gnostics were followers of a variety of religious movements which stressed salvation through gnōsis, or “knowledge,” that is, of one’s origins. Cosmological dualism was an essential feature of Gnosticism—an opposition between the spiritual world and the evil, material world. Gnosticism was attacked in the writings of the church fathers, who regarded the various gnostic groups as heretical perversions of Christianity. Modern scholars believe that Gnosticism was a religious