Gnostic “religion”

As William Cavanaugh details ( The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict ), the concept of religion is an invention of the late medieval and early modern West.  In the theory of religion as developed by Deists and Freethinkers, there was an original, generic, universal religion distinct from the dogmatic and liturgical particulars of Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, etc.  Particular dogmas and liturgical forms, concocted by priests, corrupted the original purity of religion and produced what Kant called “ecclesiastical faiths” instead.

Cavanaugh’s formulation of this theory highlights its assumptions: “Any particular doctrines and rites that arise in positive religions are a dilution of the original purity of the natural instinct as it becomes weighed down by the body and the material world.”

Which is to say: Religion is pure until it is touched by time and matter.  ”Gnostic” is not here a particular type of religion; rather, the very idea of “religion” is gnostic.