Christ was viewed as a divine messenger who came to earth to impart secret spiritual knowledge, or gnosis, rather than to atone for human sin.
• Divine Revealer: Gnostics believed Christ came from the spiritual realm (the Pleroma) to awaken humanity to its hidden, divine nature. • Secret Knowledge: Instead of offering salvation through faith or grace, Christ shared esoteric teachings meant to free the spiritual self from the corrupt material world. • Docetism: Many Gnostic sects held that Christ only appeared to have a physical human body and did not actually suffer or die on the cross in a physical sense.
