Summary: Gnosticism was a belief system associated with early Christianity. Gnostics believed that a special hidden knowledge, or gnosis, would enable them to escape the evils of the physical world and reach the higher spiritual realm. The Gnostics were regarded as heretics by most of the early Church Fathers, but their influence was important in defining the course of Christianity. Melvyn Bragg is joined by Martin Palmer, Director of the International Consultancy on Religion, Education, and Culture; Caroline Humfress, Reader in History at Birkbeck College, University of London and Alastair Logan, Honorary University Fellow of the Department of Theology and Religion at the University of Exeter.
