The category problem · does "Gnosticism" exist?

Williams (1996) and King (2003) argue that "Gnosticism" is a modern construction assembled from the heresiologists' sorting plus Reformation polemic plus nineteenth-century German scholarship — and that the texts collected under it do not share a common doctrine, a common practice, or a common attitude to the body.

It is the live methodological question in the field, and it applies directly to this pack: an atlas named for a category that may not exist should say so on its own front page. This node is that page.