To a large extent Gnosticism in antiquity and later is part of a discourse meant to determine "the other" as "heretic" for the sake of shaping an identity for the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic orthodoxies. Hence, when discussing Gnosticism in any period of the history of religions, it must be kept in mind that one is dealing with the construction of a worldview that always served to emphasize "difference" in order to exclude individuals and groups from the "legitimate." Since late antiquity, certain forms of thought and, in particular, combinations of certain forms of thought, have been perceived as undesirable and therefore heretical. The undesirable elements that made up Gnostic heresies were the division of the world and humankind into a realm of light and a realm of darkness, individual (i.e. not church-controlled...