What is Gnosticism?

Gnosticism was a heretical system of the early Christian period (1st century). A compound of Christianity, Hellenic philosophy, and Eastern mysticism, it was concerned mainly with the origin of Evil and the nature of the Absolute. The Creator of the world, the Old Testament God, was not the true God, who was a being far removed from him. Evil comes in the process of creation, which is not immediately the work of the true God.