gnosticism a dualistic religious and philosophical movement in the early centuries of the Christian church, especially important in the second century under the leadership of Valentinus and Basilides. They taught that matter was evil, the result of a cosmic disruption in which an evil archon (often associated with the god of the Old Testament, Yahweh) rebelled against the heavenly pleroma (the complete spiritual world). In the process divine sparks were unleashed from the pleroma and lodged in material human bodies. Jesus was a high-ranking archon (Logos) sent to restore those souls with divine sparks to the pleroma by imparting esoteric knowledge (gnosis) to them. Gnosticism influenced and threatened the orthodox church from within and without. Non- Christian gnostic sects rivaled Christianity, and Christian gnostics threatened orthodoxy by emphasizing salvation by knowledge rather than by faith. Theologians like Clement of Alexandria and his pupil Origen held that there were two roads to salvation, the way of faith for the masses and the way of esoteric or mystical knowledge for the philosophers. Gnosticism profoundly influenced the early church, causing it to define its scriptural canon and to develop a set of creeds and an episcopal organization. See also CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA , ORI- GE. L.P.P.