The diversity of Gnostic traditions reflects the movement's fundamental character: salvation through inner knowledge, not institutional membership, produced communities that felt free to develop their own cosmologies, texts, and practices. The result was a spectrum from the tightly systematic Valentinians to the more mythologically exuberant Sethians to the radically dualist Marcionites.
Each tradition is covered with its core beliefs, key texts, key figures, and relationship to the others. Articles for all 9 listed traditions are coming — check back as the section builds out.