Carpocratian

Carpocratian, follower of Carpocrates, a 2nd-century Christian Gnostic, i.e., a religious dualist who believed that matter was evil and the spirit good and that salvation was gained through esoteric knowledge, or gnosis. The sect flourished in Alexandria. Carpocratians revered Jesus not as a redeemer but as an ordinary man whose uniqueness flowed from the fact that his soul had not forgotten that its origin and true home was within the sphere of the unknown perfect...