From Gnostic Cosmology:
Not all Gnostics considered themselves Christians and Gnosticism seems to have originated apart from Christianity, but those who did synthesize the two movements considered Jesus the divine being who delivered the gnosis that redeems humanity. As the messenger from the divine realm, though, Jesus had to be completely spirit; the divine could inhabit material flesh. So Gnostics had to explain why Jesus appeared human. One solution was to claim just that-he only appeared human. Referred to as docetism [5], this view held that Jesus put on act of seeming to hunger, to eat, to thirst, to bleed, to die, as he taught his disciples the saving gnosis. The insight was only for the elect who carried the divine spark and so Jesus feigned humanity-as Paul says, Christ came ?in the likeness of sinful flesh? (Romans 8:3)-to conceal the revelation from the non-Gnostics (Ehrman 167). For the same reason Jesus taught in parables, concluded them by saying ?Let he who has ears to hear, hear,? referring to the hidden truth that the elect could find in the parable; and later explained the meaning of the parables to his disciples in private. The parables themselves often depicted the ?kingdom of heaven? as something, such as yeast or a treasure, which one hides [6]. As the anti-Gnostic writings of ecclesiastics including Ireneaus and Tertullian reveal, proto-orthodox Christianity, which would eventually win-in terms of numbers of followers-the intense and polemical theological battles of the second and third centuries, defined much of its theology through conflict with other Christian groups (Filoramo 4). And it declared docetism a heresy at the Council of Chalcedon in 423, deciding that Christ was ?fully human, fully divine.?
God is Open 
Good article Christopher.
You may enjoy looking at this web site
https://konekrusoskronos.wordpress.com/2017/03/11/manichaeism-an-ontological-dualistic-view-on-the-nature-of-existence/
Looks like there is a lot of good stuff here.
Yes – I especially took note of the reference to ONTOLOGICAL DUALISM in Gnosticism.
For me this clicks for Calvinism because in that system of dualism – good and evil are Co-equal, Co-necessary, and Co-complimentary. And this I think is why we observe – so many Calvinist concepts appear in the form of GOOD-EVIL pairs.
Augustine
-quote
“And because this orderly arrangement maintains the harmony of the universe by this very contrast, it comes about that evil things must NEED BE. In this way, the beauty of all things is in a manner configured, as it were, from antitheses, that is, from opposites: this is pleasing to us even in discourse”. (ord 1.7.19)
Jonathon Edwards similarly expresses that without evil
-quote
“the shining forth of Gods glory would be very imperfect….nay they could scarcely shine forth at all” (The Works of Edwards).
I think when main-stream Christians come in contact with Calvinism they often become disturbed by the form they find – in which evil appears in it. I don’t think the average Christian even stops to wonder if aspect of Calvinism is a derivative of Gnosticism.
I haven’t been able to confirm this yet – but I believe this aspect of Calvinist cosmology in the secular world is today called the principle of “yin-yang” which is eastern.
And that would make sense since Manichaeism was the mixing of Buddhism and Zoroastrianism into Christianity.
Augustine held evil as absence of good, while Calvin saw it as an active element.
Very interesting on Calvin. Do we have any quotes from him on that?
Thanks.
Here is a link to a spreadsheet I made
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wG11EDeVqU9IgytN6D0nsE0oEo8H-6tfvOX4adk6Qsc/edit?usp=drivesdk
Thanks!
I’ll look at this. :-]