Sethian Gnosticism — The Children of Seth
Sethian Gnosticism is the oldest and most distinctive Gnostic tradition — centered on Seth (Adam and Eve's third son) as the ancestor of the pneumatic race and the transmitter of divine knowledge.
Sethian Gnosticism (so named by scholars in the 20th century based on the prominence of Seth as the primordial Gnostic ancestor) represents the oldest stratum of Gnostic tradition, pre-dating Valentinus and showing clear connections to Jewish mystical traditions (particularly Merkavah mysticism). Key Sethian texts include: the Apocryphon of John, the Gospel of the Egyptians, the Hypostasis of the Archons, the Three Steles of Seth, Allogenes, Marsanes, and Zostrianos. The Sethian tradition identifies the pneumatic race as 'the seed of Seth' — those who, like Seth (the 'blessed, pure race' according to Genesis 4:26 LXX), carry the divine light within them. Christ/Jesus is understood as a new manifestation of Seth — the divine revealer who appears periodically to awaken the sleeping Sethians. The Sethian cosmology (developed most fully in the Apocryphon of John) became the template from which most subsequent Gnostic systems derived their basic structure.
The perfect race is Seth's race — they alone carry the light that the Archons cannot destroy.
Scholar John Turner (Sethian Gnosticism and the Platonic Tradition) traced Sethian Gnosticism's complex development from its origins in Jewish apocalyptic mysticism through its encounter with Platonism in the 2nd century — one of the most comprehensive genealogical analyses of a Gnostic tradition in modern scholarship.
Nag Hammadi Library