Editing Panentheism (section)

=== Gnosticism ===
{{main|Gnosticism}}

[[Manichaeists]], being of another gnostic sect, preached a very different doctrine in positioning the true Manichaean God against matter as well as other deities, that it described as enmeshed with the world, namely the gods of Jews, Christians, and pagans.<ref>"Now, he who spoke with Moses, the Jews, and the priests he says is the archont of Darkness, and the Christians, Jews, and pagans (ethnic) are one and the same, as they revere the same god. For in his aspirations he seduces them, as he is not the god of truth. And so therefore all those who put their hope in the god who spoke with Moses and the prophets have (this in store for themselves, namely) to be bound with him, because they did not put their hope in the god of truth. For that one spoke with them (only) according to their own aspirations." And elsewhere: "Now God has no part in this cosmos nor does he rejoice over it." ''Classical Texts: Acta Archelai'', p. 76. (www.fas.harvard.edu/~iranian/Manicheism/Manicheism_II_Texts.pdf).</ref> Nevertheless, this dualistic teaching included an elaborate cosmological myth that narrates the defeat of primal man by the powers of darkness that devoured and imprisoned the particles of light.<ref>"But the blessed One ... sent, through his beneficent Spirit and his great mercy, a helper to Adam, luminous [[Epinoia]] which comes out of him, who is called Life. ... And the luminous Epinoia was hidden in Adam, in order that the archons might not know her, but that the Epinoia might be a correction of the deficiency of the mother. And the man came forth because of the shadow of the light which is in him. ... And they took counsel with the whole array of archons and angels. ... And they brought him (Adam) into the shadow of death, in order that they might form (him) again from earth ... This is the tomb of the newly-formed body with which the robbers had clothed the man, the bond of forgetfulness; and he became a mortal man. ... But the Epinoia of the light which was in him, she is the one who was to awaken his thinking. ([http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/apocjn.html]).</ref>

[[Valentinianism]] taught that matter came about through [[Emanationism|emanations]] of the supreme being, even if, to some, this event is held to be more accidental than intentional.<ref>{{cite web |title=Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy |url=https://www.iep.utm.edu/gnostic/ }}</ref> To other gnostics, these emanations were akin to the [[''Sephirot'']] of the Kabbalists and deliberate manifestations of a transcendent God through a complex system of intermediaries.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lewis |first1=James R. and Murphy Pizza |title=Handbook of contemporary Paganism |date=2008 |publisher=Brill |location=Boston |isbn=978-90-04-16373-7 |pages=15–16 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rwzttsI9-NwC |access-date=10 July 2020}}</ref>