THE ATTEMPTS OF THE GNOSTICS TO CREATE AN APOSTOLIC DOGMATIC, AND A
CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY; OR, THE ACUTE SECULARISING OF CHRISTIANITY.
§ 1. _The Conditions for the Rise of Gnosticism._
The Christian communities were originally unions for a holy life, on the
ground of a common hope, which rested on the belief that the God who has
spoken by the Prophets has sent his Son Jesus Christ, and through him
revealed eternal life, and will shortly make it manifest. Christianity
had its roots in certain facts and utterances, and the foundation of the
Christian union was the common hope, the holy life in the Spirit
according to the law of God, and the holding fast to those facts and
utterances. There was, as the foregoing chapter will have shewn, no
fixed Didache beyond that.[300] There was abundance of fancies, ideas,
and knowledge, but these had not yet the value of being the religion
itself. Yet the belief that Christianity guarantees the perfect
knowledge, and leads from one degree of clearness to another, was in
operation from the very beginning. This conviction had to be immediately
tested by the Old Testament, that is, the task was imposed on the
majority of thinking Christians, by the circumstances in which the
Gospel had been proclaimed to them, of making the Old Testament
intelligible to themselves, in other words, of using this book as a
Christian book, and of finding the means by which they might be able to
repel the Jewish claim to it, and refute the Jewish interpretation of
it. This task would not have been imposed, far less solved, if the
Christian communities in the Empire had not entered into the inheritance
of the Jewish propaganda, which had already been greatly influenced by
foreign religions (Babylonian and Persian, see the Jewish Apocalypses),
and in which an extensive spiritualising of the Old Testament religion
had already taken place. This spiritualising was the result of a
philosophic view of religion, and this philosophic view was the outcome
of a lasting influence of Greek philosophy and of the Greek spirit
generally on Judaism. In consequence of this view, all facts and sayings
of the Old Testament in which one could not find his way, were
allegorised. "Nothing was what it seemed, but was only the symbol of
something invisible. The history of the Old Testament was here
sublimated to a history of the emancipation of reason from passion." It
describes, however, the beginning of the historical development of
Christianity, that as soon as it wished to give account of itself, or to
turn to advantage the documents of revelation which were in its
possession, it had to adopt the methods of that fantastic syncretism. We
have seen above that those writers who made a diligent use of the Old
Testament, had no hesitation in making use of the allegorical method.
That was required not only by the inability to understand the verbal
sense of the Old Testament, presenting diverging moral and religious
opinions, but, above all, by the conviction, that on every page of that
book Christ and the Christian Church must be found. How could this
conviction have been maintained, unless the definite concrete meaning of
the documents had been already obliterated by the Jewish philosophic
view of the Old Testament?
This necessary allegorical interpretation, however, brought into the
communities an intellectual philosophic element, a _gnosis_, which was
perfectly distinct from the Apocalyptic dreams, in which were beheld
angel hosts on white horses, Christ with eyes as a flame of fire,
hellish beasts, conflict and victory.[301] In this [Greek: gnôsis],
which attached itself to the Old Testament, many began to see the
specific blessing which was promised to mature faith, and through which
it was to attain perfection. What a wealth of relations, hints, and
intuitions seemed to disclose itself, as soon as the Old Testament was
considered allegorically, and to what extent had the way been prepared
here by the Jewish philosophic teachers! From the simple narratives of
the Old Testament had already been developed a theosophy, in which the
most abstract ideas had acquired reality, and from which sounded forth
the Hellenic canticle of the power of the Spirit over matter and
sensuality, and of the true home of the soul. Whatever in this great
adaptation still remained obscure and unnoticed, was now lighted up by
the history of Jesus, his birth, his life, his sufferings and triumph.
The view of the Old Testament as a document of the deepest wisdom,
transmitted to those who knew how to read it as such, unfettered the
intellectual interest which would not rest until it had entirely
transferred the new religion from the world of feelings, actions and
hopes, into the world of Hellenic conceptions, and transformed it into a
metaphysic. In that exposition of the Old Testament which we find, for
example, in the so-called Barnabas, there is already concealed an
important philosophic, Hellenic element, and in that sermon which bears
the name of Clement (the so-called second Epistle of Clement),
conceptions such as that of the Church, have already assumed a bodily
form and been joined in marvellous connections, while, on the contrary,
things concrete have been transformed into things invisible.
But once the intellectual interest was unfettered, and the new religion
had approximated to the Hellenic spirit by means of a philosophic view
of the Old Testament, how could that spirit be prevented from taking
complete and immediate possession of it, and where, in the first
instance, could the power be found that was able to decide whether this
or that opinion was incompatible with Christianity? This Christianity,
as it was, unequivocally excluded all polytheism, and all national
religions existing in the Empire. It opposed to them the one God, the
Saviour Jesus, and a spiritual worship of God. But, at the same time, it
summoned all thoughtful men to knowledge, by declaring itself to be the
only true religion, while it appeared to be only a variety of Judaism.
It seemed to put no limits to the character and extent of the knowledge,
least of all to such knowledge as was able to allow all that was
transmitted to remain, and at the same time, abolish it by transforming
it into mysterious symbols. That really was the method which every one
must and did apply who wished to get from Christianity more than
practical motives and super-earthly hopes. But where was the limit of
the application? Was not the next step to see in the Evangelic records
also new material for spiritual interpretations, and to illustrate from
the narratives there, as from The Old Testament, the conflict of the
spirit with matter, of reason with sensuality? Was not the conception
that the traditional deeds of Christ were really the last act in the
struggle of those mighty spiritual powers whose conflict is delineated
in the Old Testament, at least as evident as the other, that those deeds
were the fulfilment of mysterious promises? Was it not in keeping with
the consciousness possessed by the new religion of being the universal
religion, that one should not be satisfied with mere beginnings of a new
knowledge, or with fragments of it, but should seek to set up such
knowledge in a complete and systematic form, and so to exhibit the best
and universal system of life as also the best and universal system of
knowledge of the world? Finally, did not the free and yet so rigid forms
in which the Christian communities were organised, the union of the
mysterious with a wonderful publicity, of the spiritual with significant
rites (baptism and the Lord's Supper), invite men to find here the
realisation of the ideal which the Hellenic religious spirit was at that
time seeking, viz., a communion which in virtue of a Divine revelation,
is in possession of the highest knowledge, and therefore leads the
holiest life, a communion which does not communicate this knowledge by
discourse, but by mysterious efficacious consecrations, and by revealed
dogmas? These questions are thrown out here in accordance with the
direction which the historical progress of Christianity took. The
phenomenon called Gnosticism gives the answer to them.[302]
§ 2. _The Nature of Gnosticism._
The Catholic Church afterwards claimed as her own those writers of the
first century (60-160) who were content with turning speculation to
account only as a means of spiritualising the Old Testament, without,
however, attempting a systematic reconstruction of tradition. But all
those who in the first century undertook to furnish Christian practice
with the foundation of a complete systematic knowledge, she declared
false Christians, Christians only in name. Historical enquiry cannot
accept this judgment. On the contrary, it sees in Gnosticism a series of
undertakings, which in a certain way is analogous to the Catholic
embodiment of Christianity, in doctrine, morals, and worship. The great
distinction here consists essentially in the fact that the Gnostic
systems represent the acute secularising or hellenising of Christianity,
with the rejection of the Old Testament,[303] while the Catholic system,
on the other hand, represents a gradual process of the same kind with
the conservation of the Old Testament. The traditional religion on
being, as it were, suddenly required to recognise itself in a picture
foreign to it, was yet vigorous enough to reject that picture; but to
the gradual, and one might say indulgent remodelling to which it was
subjected, it offered but little resistance, nay, as a rule, it was
never conscious of it. It is therefore no paradox to say that
Gnosticism, which is just Hellenism, has in Catholicism obtained half a
victory. We have, at least, the same justification for that
assertion--the parallel may be permitted--as we have for recognising a
triumph of 18th century ideas in the first Empire, and a continuance,
though with reservations, of the old regime.
From this point of view the position to be assigned to the Gnostics in
the history of dogma, which has hitherto been always misunderstood, is
obvious. _They were, in short, the Theologians of the first
century._[304] They were the first to transform Christianity into a
system of doctrines (dogmas). They were the first to work up tradition
systematically. They undertook to present Christianity as the absolute
religion, and therefore placed it in definite opposition to the other
religions, even to Judaism. But to them the absolute religion, viewed in
its contents, was identical with the result of the philosophy of
religion for which the support of a revelation was to be sought. They
are therefore those Christians who, in a swift advance, attempted to
capture Christianity for Hellenic culture, and Hellenic culture for
Christianity, and who gave up the Old Testament in order to facilitate
the conclusion of the covenant between the two powers, and make it
possible to assert the absoluteness of Christianity.--But the
significance of the Old Testament in the religious history of the world,
lies just in this, that, in order to be maintained at all, it required
the application of the allegoric method, that is, a definite proportion
of Greek ideas, and that, on the other hand, it opposed the strongest
barrier to the complete hellenising of Christianity. Neither the sayings
of Jesus, nor Christian hopes, were at first capable of forming such a
barrier. If, now, the majority of Gnostics could make the attempt to
disregard the Old Testament, that is a proof that, in wide circles of
Christendom, people were at first satisfied with an abbreviated form of
the Gospel, containing the preaching of the one God, of the resurrection
and of continence, a law and an ideal of practical life.[305] In this
form, as it was realised in life, the Christianity which dispensed with
"doctrines" seemed capable of union with every form of thoughtful and
earnest philosophy, because the Jewish foundation did not make its
appearance here at all. But the majority of Gnostic undertakings may
also be viewed as attempts to transform Christianity into a theosophy,
that is, into a revealed metaphysic and philosophy of history, with a
complete disregard of the Jewish Old Testament soil on which it
originated, through the use of Pauline ideas,[306] and under the
influence of the Platonic spirit. Moreover, comparison is possible
between writers such as Barnabas and Ignatius, and the so-called
Gnostics, to the effect of making the latter appear in possession of a
completed theory, to which fragmentary ideas in the former exhibit a
striking affinity.
We have hitherto tacitly presupposed that in Gnosticism the Hellenic
spirit desired to make itself master of Christianity, or more correctly
of the Christian communities. This conception may be, and really is
still contested. For according to the accounts of later opponents, and
on these we are almost exclusively dependent here, the main thing with
the Gnostics seems to have been the reproduction of Asiatic
Mythologoumena of all kinds, so that we should rather have to see in
Gnosticism a union of Christianity with the most remote Oriental cults
and their wisdom. But with regard to the most important Gnostic systems
the words hold true, "The hands are the hands of Esau, but the voice is
the voice of Jacob." There can be no doubt of the fact, that the
Gnosticism which has become a factor in the movement of the history of
dogma, was ruled in the main by the Greek spirit, and determined by the
interests and doctrines of the Greek philosophy of religion,[307] which
doubtless had already assumed a syncretistic character. This fact is
certainly concealed by the circumstance that the material of the
speculations was taken now from this, and now from that Oriental
religious philosophy, from astrology and the Semitic cosmologies. But
that is only in keeping with the stage which the religious development
had reached among the Greeks and Romans of that time.[308] The cultured,
and these primarily come into consideration here, no longer had a
religion in the sense of a national religion, but a philosophy of
religion. They were, however, in search of a religion, that is, a firm
basis for the results of their speculations, and they hoped to obtain it
by turning themselves towards the very old Oriental cults, and seeking
to fill them with the religious and moral knowledge which had been
gained by the Schools of Plato and of Zeno. The union of the traditions
and rites of the Oriental religions, viewed as mysteries, with the
spirit of Greek philosophy is the characteristic of the epoch. The
needs, which asserted themselves with equal strength, of a complete
knowledge of the All, of a spiritual God, a sure, and therefore very old
revelation, atonement and immortality, were thus to be satisfied at one
and the same time. The most sublimated spiritualism enters here into the
strangest union with a crass superstition based on Oriental cults. This
superstition was supposed to insure and communicate the spiritual
blessings. These complicated tendencies now entered into Christianity.
We have accordingly to ascertain and distinguish in the prominent
Gnostic schools, which, in the second century on Greek soil, became an
important factor in the history of the Church, the Semitic-cosmological
foundations, the Hellenic philosophic mode of thought, and the
recognition of the redemption of the world by Jesus Christ. Further, we
have to take note of the three elements of Gnosticism, viz., the
speculative and philosophical, the mystic element connection with
worship, and the practical, ascetic. The close connection in which these
three elements appear,[309] the total transformation of all ethical into
cosmological problems, the upbuilding of a philosophy of God and the
world on the basis of a combination of popular Mythologies, physical
observations belonging to the Oriental (Babylonian) religious
philosophy, and historical events, as well as the idea that the history
of religion is the last act in the drama-like history of the Cosmos--all
this is not peculiar to Gnosticism, but rather corresponds to a definite
stage of the general development. It may, however, be asserted that
Gnosticism anticipated the general development, and that not only with
regard to Catholicism, but also with regard to Neo-platonism, which
represents the last stage in the inner history of Hellenism.[310] The
Valentinians have already got as far as Jamblichus.
The name Gnosis, Gnostics, describes excellently the aims of Gnosticism,
in so far as its adherents boasted of the absolute knowledge, and faith
in the Gospel was transformed into a knowledge of God, nature and
history. This knowledge, however, was not regarded as natural, but in
the view of the Gnostics was based on revelation, was communicated and
guaranteed by holy consecrations, and was accordingly cultivated by
reflection supported by fancy. A mythology of ideas was created out of
the sensuous mythology of any Oriental religion, by the conversion of
concrete forms into speculative and moral ideas, such as "Abyss,"
"Silence," "Logos," "Wisdom," "Life," while the mutual relation and
number of these abstract ideas were determined by the data supplied by
the corresponding concretes. Thus arose a philosophic dramatic poem,
similar to the Platonic, but much more complicated, and therefore more
fantastic, in which mighty powers, the spiritual and good, appear in an
unholy union with the material and wicked, but from which the spiritual
is finally delivered by the aid of those kindred powers which are too
exalted to be ever drawn down into the common. The good and heavenly
which has been drawn down into the material, and therefore really
non-existing, is the human spirit, and the exalted power who delivers it
is Christ. The Evangelic history as handed down is not the history of
Christ, but a collection of allegoric representations of the great
history of God and the world. Christ has really no history. His
appearance in this world of mixture and confusion is his deed, and the
enlightenment of the spirit about itself is the result which springs out
of that deed. This enlightenment itself is life. But the enlightenment
is dependent on revelation, asceticism and surrender to those mysteries
which Christ founded, in which one enters into communion with a _præsens
numen_, and which in mysterious ways promote the process of raising the
spirit above the sensual. This rising above the sensual is, however, to
be actively practised. Abstinence therefore, as a rule, is the
watchword. Christianity thus appears here as a speculative philosophy
which redeems the spirit by enlightening it, consecrating it, and
instructing it in the right conduct of life. The Gnosis is free from the
rationalistic interest in the sense of natural religion. Because the
riddles about the world which it desires to solve are not properly
intellectual, but practical, because it desires to be in the end [Greek:
gnôsis sôtêrías], it removes into the region of the suprarational the
powers which are supposed to confer vigour and life on the human spirit.
Only a [Greek: mathêsis], however, united with [Greek: mystagogía],
resting on revelation, leads thither, not an exact philosophy. Gnosis
starts from the great problem of this world, but occupies itself with a
higher world, and does not wish to be an exact philosophy, but a
philosophy of religion. Its fundamental philosophic doctrines are the
following: (1) The indefinable, infinite nature of the Divine primeval
Being exalted above all thought. (2) Matter as opposed to the Divine
Being, and therefore having no real being, the ground of evil. (3) The
fulness of divine potencies, Æons, which are thought of partly as
powers, partly as real ideas, partly as relatively independent beings,
presenting in gradation the unfolding and revelation of the Godhead, but
at the same time rendering possible the transition of the higher to the
lower. (4) The Cosmos as a mixture of matter with divine sparks, which
has arisen from a descent of the latter into the former, or, as some
say, from the perverse, or, at least, merely permitted undertaking of a
subordinate spirit. The Demiurge, therefore, is an evil, intermediate,
or weak, but penitent being; the best thing therefore in the world is
aspiration. (5) The deliverance of the spiritual element from its union
with matter, or the separation of the good from the world of sensuality
by the Spirit of Christ which operates through knowledge, asceticism,
and holy consecration: thus originates the perfect Gnostic, the man who
is free from the world, and master of himself, who lives in God and
prepares himself for eternity. All these are ideas for which we find the
way prepared in the philosophy of the time, anticipated by Philo, and
represented in Neoplatonism as the great final result of Greek
philosophy. It lies in the nature of the case that only some men are
able to appropriate the Christianity that is comprehended in these
ideas, viz., just as many as are capable of entering into this kind of
Christianity, those who are spiritual. The others must be considered as
non-partakers of the Spirit from the beginning, and therefore excluded
from knowledge as the _profanum vulgus_. Yet some, the Valentinians, for
example, made a distinction in this _vulgus_, which can only be
discussed later on, because it is connected with the position of the
Gnostics towards Jewish Christian tradition.
The later opponents of Gnosticism preferred to bring out the fantastic
details of the Gnostic systems, and thereby created the prejudice that
the essence of the matter lay in these. They have thus occasioned modern
expounders to speculate about the Gnostic speculations in a manner that
is marked by still greater strangeness. Four observations shew how
unhistorical and unjust such a view is, at least with regard to the
chief systems. (1) The great Gnostic schools, wherever they could,
sought to spread their opinions. But it is simply incredible that they
should have expected of all their disciples, male and female, an
accurate knowledge of the details of their system. On the contrary, it
may be shewn that they often contented themselves with imparting
consecration, with regulating the practical life of their adherents, and
instructing them in the general features of their system.[311] (2) We
see how in one and the same school, for example, the Valentinian, the
details of the religious metaphysic were very various and changing. (3)
We hear but little of conflicts between the various schools. On the
contrary, we learn that the books of doctrine and edification passed
from one school to another.[312] (4) The fragments of Gnostic writings
which have been preserved, and this is the most important consideration
of the four, shew that the Gnostics devoted their main strength to the
working out of those religious, moral, philosophical and historical
problems, which must engage the thoughtful of all times.[313] We only
need to read some actual Gnostic document, such as the Epistle of
Ptolemæus to Flora, or certain paragraphs of the Pistis Sophia, in order
to see that the fantastic details of the philosophic poem can only, in
the case of the Gnostics themselves, have had the value of liturgical
apparatus, the construction of which was not of course a matter of
indifference, but hardly formed the principal interest. The things to be
proved, and to be confirmed by the aid of this or that very old
religious philosophy, were certain religious and moral fundamental
convictions, and a correct conception of God, of the sensible, of the
creator of the world, of Christ, of the Old Testament, and the evangelic
tradition. Here were actual dogmas. But how the grand fantastic union of
all the factors was to be brought about, was, as the Valentinian school
shews, a problem whose solution was ever and again subjected to new
attempts.[314] No one to-day can in all respects distinguish what to
those thinkers was image and what reality, or in what degree they were
at all able to distinguish image from reality, and in how far the magic
formulæ of their mysteries were really objects of their meditation. But
the final aim of their endeavours, the faith and knowledge of their own
hearts which they instilled into their disciples, the practical rules
which they wished to give them, and the view of Christ which they wished
to confirm them in, stand out with perfect clearness. Like Plato, they
made their explanation of the world start from the contradiction between
sense and reason, which the thoughtful man observes in himself. The
cheerful asceticism, the powers of the spiritual and the good which were
seen in the Christian communities, attracted them and seemed to require
the addition of theory to practice. Theory without being followed by
practice had long been in existence, but here was the as yet rare
phenomenon of a moral practice which seemed to dispense with that which
was regarded as indispensable, viz., theory. The philosophic life was
already there; how could the philosophic doctrine be wanting, and after
what other model could the latent doctrine be reproduced than that of
the Greek religious philosophy?[315] That the Hellenic spirit in
Gnosticism turned with such eagerness to the Christian communities and
was ready even to believe in Christ in order to appropriate the moral
powers which it saw operative in them, is a convincing proof of the
extraordinary impression which these communities made. For what other
peculiarities and attractions had they to offer to that spirit than the
certainty of their conviction (of eternal life), and the purity of their
life? We hear of no similar edifice being erected in the second century
on the basis of any other Oriental cult--even the Mithras cult is
scarcely to be mentioned here--as the Gnostic was on the foundation of
the Christian.[316] The Christian communities, however, together with
their worship of Christ, formed the real solid basis of the greater
number and the most important of the Gnostic systems, and in this fact
we have, on the very threshold of the great conflict, a triumph of
Christianity over Hellenism. The triumph lay in the recognition of what
Christianity had already performed as a moral and social power. This
recognition found expression in bringing the highest that one possessed
as a gift to be consecrated by the new religion, a philosophy of
religion whose end was plain and simple, but whose means were mysterious
and complicated.
§ 3. _History of Gnosticism and the forms in which it appeared._
In the previous section we have been contemplating Gnosticism as it
reached its prime in the great schools of Basilides and Valentinus, and
those related to them,[317] at the close of the period we are now
considering, and became an important factor in the history of dogma. But
this Gnosticism had (1) preliminary stages, and (2) was always
accompanied by a great number of sects, schools and undertakings which
were only in part related to it, and yet, reasonably enough, were
grouped together with it.
To begin with the second point, the great Gnostic schools were flanked
on the right and left by a motley series of groups which at their
extremities can hardly be distinguished from popular Christianity on the
one hand, and from the Hellenic and the common world on the other.[318]
On the right were communities such as the Encratites, which put all
stress on a strict asceticism, in support of which they urged the
example of Christ, but which here and there fell into dualistic
ideas.[319] There were further, whole communities which, for decennia,
drew their views of Christ from books which represented him as a
heavenly spirit who had merely assumed an apparent body.[320] There were
also individual teachers who brought forward peculiar opinions without
thereby causing any immediate stir in the Churches.[321] On the left
there were schools such as the Carpocratians, in which the philosophy
and communism of Plato were taught, the son of the founder and second
teacher Epiphanes honoured as a God (at Cephallenia), as Epicurus was in
his school, and the image of Jesus crowned along with those of
Pythagoras, Plato and Aristotle.[322] On this left flank are, further,
swindlers who take their own way, like Alexander of Abonoteichus,
magicians, soothsayers, sharpers and jugglers, under the sign-board of
Christianity, deceivers and hypocrites who appear using mighty words
with a host of unintelligible formulæ, and take up with scandalous
ceremonies, in order to rob men of their money and women of their
honour.[323] All this was afterwards called "Heresy" and "Gnosticism,"
and is still so called.[324] And these names may be retained, if we will
understand by them nothing else than the world taken into Christianity,
all the manifold formations which resulted from the first contact of the
new religion with the society into which it entered. To prove the
existence of that left wing of Gnosticism is of the greatest interest
for the history of dogma, but the details are of no consequence. On the
other hand, in the aims and undertakings of the Gnostic right, it is
just the details that are of greatest significance, because they shew
that there was no fixed boundary between what one may call common
Christian and Gnostic Christian. But as Gnosticism, in its contents,
extended itself from the Encratites and the philosophic interpretation
of certain articles of the Christian proclamation, as brought forward
without offence by individual teachers in the communities, to the
complete dissolution of the Christian element by philosophy, or the
religious charlatanry of the age, so it exhibits itself formally also in
a long series of groups which comprised all imaginable forms of unions.
There were churches, ascetic associations, mystery cults, strictly
private philosophic schools,[325] free unions for edification,
entertainments by Christian charlatans and deceived deceivers, who
appeared as magicians and prophets, attempts at founding new religions
after the model and under the influence of the Christian, etc. But,
finally, the thesis that Gnosticism is identical with an acute
secularising of Christianity, in the widest sense of the word, is
confirmed by the study of its own literature. The early Christian
production of Gospel and Apocalypses was indeed continued in Gnosticism
yet so that the class of "Acts of the Apostles" was added to them, and
that didactic, biographic and "belles lettres," elements were received
into them, and claimed a very important place. If this makes the Gnostic
literature approximate to the profane, that is much more the case with
the scientific theological literature which Gnosticism first produced.
Dogmatico-philosophic tracts, theologico-critical treatises, historical
investigations and scientific commentaries on the sacred books, were,
for the first time in Christendom, composed by the Gnostics, who in part
occupied the foremost place in the scientific knowledge, religious
earnestness and ardour of the age. They form, in every respect, the
counterpart to the scientific works which proceeded from the
contemporary philosophic schools. Moreover, we possess sufficient
knowledge of Gnostic hymns and odes, songs for public worship, didactic
poems, magic formulæ, magic books, etc., to assure us that Christian
Gnosticism took possession of a whole region of the secular life in its
full breadth, and thereby often transformed the original forms of
Christian literature into secular.[326] If, however, we bear in mind how
all this at a later period was gradually legitimised in the Catholic
Church, philosophy, the science of the sacred books, criticism and
exegesis, the ascetic associations, the theological schools, the
mysteries, the sacred formulæ, the superstition, the charlatanism, all
kinds of profane literature, etc., it seems to prove the thesis that the
victorious epoch of the gradual hellenising of Christianity followed the
abortive attempts at an acute hellenising.
The traditional question as to the origin and development of Gnosticism,
as well as that about the classification of the Gnostic systems, will
have to be modified in accordance with the foregoing discussion. As the
different Gnostic systems might be contemporary, and in part were
undoubtedly contemporary, and as a graduated relation holds good only
between some few groups, we must, in the classification, limit ourselves
essentially to the features which have been specified in the foregoing
paragraph, and which coincide with the position of the different groups
to the early Christian tradition in its connection with the Old
Testament religion, both as a rule of practical life, and of the common
cultus.[327]
As to the origin of Gnosticism, we see how, even in the earliest period,
all possible ideas and principles foreign to Christianity force their
way into it, that is, are brought in under Christian rules, and find
entrance, especially in the consideration of the Old Testament.[328] We
might be satisfied with the observation that the manifold Gnostic
systems were produced by the increase of this tendency. In point of fact
we must admit that in the present state of our sources, we can reach no
sure knowledge beyond that. These sources, however, give certain
indications which should not be left unnoticed. If we leave out of
account the two assertions of opponents, that Gnosticism was produced by
demons[329] and--this, however, was said at a comparatively late
period--that it originated in ambition and resistance to the
ecclesiastical office, the episcopate, we find in Hegesippus, one of the
earliest writers on the subject, the statement that the whole of the
heretical schools sprang out of Judaism or the Jewish sects; in the
later writers, Irenæus, Tertullian and Hippolytus, that these schools
owe most to the doctrines of Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Zeno,
etc.[330] But they all agree in this, that a definite personality, viz.,
Simon the Magician, must be regarded as the original source of the
heresy. If we try it by these statements of the Church Fathers, we must
see at once that the problem in this case is limited--certainly in a
proper way. For after Gnosticism is seen to be the acute secularising of
Christianity the only question that remains is, how are we to account
for the origin of the great Gnostic schools, that is, whether it is
possible to indicate their preliminary stages. The following may be
asserted here with some confidence: Long before the appearance of
Christianity, combinations of religion had taken place in Syria and
Palestine,[331] especially in Samaria, in so far, on the one hand, as
the Assyrian and Babylonian religious philosophy, together with its
myths, as well as the Greek popular religion, with its manifold
interpretations, had penetrated as far as the eastern shore of the
Mediterranean, and been accepted even by the Jews, and, on the other
hand, the Jewish Messianic idea had spread and called forth various
movements.[332] The result of every mixing of national religions,
however, is to break through the traditional, legal and particular
forms.[333] For the Jewish religion syncretism signified the shaking of
the authority of the Old Testament by a qualitative distinction of its
different parts, as also doubt as to the identity of the supreme God
with the national God. These ferments were once more set in motion by
Christianity. We know that in the Apostolic age there were attempts in
Samaria to found new religions, which were in all probability influenced
by the tradition and preaching concerning Jesus. Dositheus, Simon Magus,
Cleobius, and Menander appeared as Messiahs or bearers of the Godhead,
and proclaimed a doctrine in which the Jewish faith was strangely and
grotesquely mixed with Babylonian myths, together with some Greek
additions. The mysterious worship, the breaking up of Jewish
particularism, the criticism of the Old Testament, which for long had
had great difficulty in retaining its authority in many circles, in
consequence of the widened horizon and the deepening of religious
feeling, finally, the wild syncretism, whose aim, however, was a
universal religion, all contributed to gain adherents for Simon.[334]
His enterprise appeared to the Christians as a diabolical caricature of
their own religion, and the impression made by the success which
Simonianism gained by a vigorous propaganda even beyond Palestine into
the West, supported this idea.[335] We can therefore understand how,
afterwards, all heresies were traced back to Simon. To this must be
added that we can actually trace in many Gnostic systems the same
elements which were prominent in the religion proclaimed by Simon (the
Babylonian and Syrian), and that the new religion of the Simonians, just
like Christianity, had afterwards to submit to be transformed into a
philosophic, scholastic doctrine.[336] The formal parallel to the
Gnostic doctrines was therewith established. But even apart from these
attempts at founding new religions, Christianity in Syria, under the
influence of foreign religions and speculation on the philosophy of
religion, gave a powerful impulse to the criticism of the law and the
prophets which had already been awakened. In consequence of this, there
appeared, about the transition of the first century to the second, a
series of teachers, who, under the impression of the Gospel, sought to
make the Old Testament capable of furthering the tendency to a universal
religion, not by allegorical interpretation, but by a sifting criticism.
These attempts were of very different kinds. Teachers such as Cerinthus,
clung to the notion that the universal religion revealed by Christ was
identical with undefined Mosaism, and therefore maintained even such
articles as circumcision and the Sabbath commandment, as well as the
earthly kingdom of the future. But they rejected certain parts of the
law, especially, as a rule, the sacrificial precepts, which were no
longer in keeping with the spiritual conception of religion. They
conceived the creator of the world as a subordinate being distinct from
the supreme God, which is always the mark of a syncretism with a
dualistic tendency; introduced speculations about Æons and angelic
powers, among whom they placed Christ, and recommended a strict
asceticism. When, in their Christology, they denied the miraculous
birth, and saw in Jesus a chosen man on whom the Christ, that is, the
Holy Spirit, descended at the baptism, they were not creating any
innovation, but only following the earliest Palestinian tradition. Their
rejection of the authority of Paul is explained by their efforts to
secure the Old Testament as far as possible for the universal
religion.[337] There were others who rejected all ceremonial
commandments as proceeding from the devil, or from some intermediate
being, but yet always held firmly that the God of the Jews was the
supreme God. But alongside of these stood also decidedly anti-Jewish
groups, who seem to have been influenced in part by the preaching of
Paul. They advanced much further in the criticism of the Old Testament
and perceived the impossibility of saving it for the Christian universal
religion. They rather connected this religion with the cultus-wisdom of
Babylon and Syria, which seemed more adapted for allegorical
interpretations, and opposed this formation to the Old Testament
religion. The God of the Old Testament appears here at best as a
subordinate Angel of limited power, wisdom and goodness. In so far as he
was identified with the creator of the world, and the creation of the
world itself was regarded as an imperfect or an abortive undertaking,
expression was given both to the anti-Judaism and to that religious
temper of the time, which could only value spiritual blessing in
contrast with the world and the sensuous. These systems appeared more or
less strictly dualistic, in proportion as they did or did not accept a
slight co-operation of the supreme God in the creation of man; and the
way in which the character and power of the world-creating God of the
Jews was conceived, serves as a measure of how far the several schools
were from the Jewish religion and the Monism that ruled it. All possible
conceptions of the God of the Jews, from the assumption that he is a
being supported in his undertakings by the supreme God, to his
identification with Satan, seem to have been exhausted in these schools.
Accordingly, in the former case, the Old Testament was regarded as the
revelation of a subordinate God, in the latter as the manifestation of
Satan, and therefore the ethic--with occasional use of Pauline
formula--always assumed an antinomian form, compared with the Jewish
law, in some cases antinomian even in the sense of libertinism.
Correspondingly, the anthropology exhibits man as bipartite, or even
tripartite, and the Christology is strictly docetic and anti-Jewish. The
redemption by Christ is always, as a matter of course, related only to
that element in humanity which has an affinity with the Godhead.[338]
It is uncertain whether we should think of the spread of these doctrines
in Syria in the form of a school, or of a cultus; probably it was both.
From the great Gnostic systems as formed by Basilides and Valentinus
they are distinguished by the fact, that they lack the peculiar
philosophic, that is Hellenic element, the speculative conversion of
angels and Æons into real ideas, etc. We have almost no knowledge of
their effect. This Gnosticism has never directly been a historical
factor of striking importance, and the great question is whether it was
so indirectly.[339] That is to say, we do not know whether this Syrian
Gnosticism was, in the strict sense, the preparatory stage of the great
Gnostic schools, so that these schools should be regarded as an actual
reconstruction of it. But there can be no doubt that the appearance of
the great Gnostic schools in the Empire, from Egypt to Gaul, is
contemporaneous with the vigorous projection of Syrian cults westwards,
and therefore the assumption is suggested, that the Syrian Christian
syncretism was also spread in connection with that projection, and
underwent a change corresponding to the new conditions. We know
definitely that the Syrian Gnostic, Cerdo, came to Rome, wrought there,
and exercised an influence on Marcion. But no less probable is the
assumption that the great Hellenic Gnostic schools arose spontaneously,
in the sense of having been independently developed out of the elements
to which undoubtedly the Asiatic cults also belonged, without being
influenced in any way by Syrian syncretistic efforts. The conditions for
the growth of such formations were nearly the same in all parts of the
Empire. The great advance lies in the fact that the religious material
as contained in the Gospel, the Old Testament, and the wisdom connected
with the old cults, was philosophically, that is, scientifically,
manipulated by means of allegory, and the aggregate of mythological
powers translated into an aggregate of ideas. The Pythagorean and
Platonic, more rarely the Stoic philosophy, were compelled to do service
here. Great Gnostic schools, which were at the same time unions for
worship, first enter into the clear light of history in this form, (see
previous section), and on the conflict with these, surrounded as they
were by a multitude of dissimilar and related formations, depends the
progress of the development.[340]
We are no longer able to form a perfectly clear picture of how these
schools came into being, or how they were related to the Churches. It
lay in the nature of the case that the heads of the schools, like the
early itinerant heretical teachers, devoted attention chiefly, if not
exclusively, to those who were already Christian, that is, to the
Christian communities.[341] From the Ignatian Epistles, the Shepherd of
Hermas (Vis. III. 7. 1; Sim. VIII. 6. 5; IX. 19. and especially 22) and
the Didache (XI. 1. 2) we see that those teachers who boasted of a
special knowledge, and sought to introduce "strange" doctrines, aimed at
gaining the entire churches. The beginning, as a rule, was necessarily
the formation of conventicles. In the first period therefore, when there
was no really fixed standard for warding off the foreign
doctrines--Hermas is unable even to characterise the false
doctrines--the warnings were commonly exhausted in the exhortation:
[Greek: kollasthe tois hagiois, hoti hoi kollômenoi autois
hagiasthêsontai] ["connect yourselves with the saints, because those who
are connected with them shall be sanctified"]. As a rule, the doctrines
may really have crept in unobserved, and those gained over to them may
for long have taken part in a two-fold worship, the public worship of
the churches, and the new consecration. Those teachers must of course
have assumed a more aggressive attitude who rejected the Old Testament.
The attitude of the Church, when it enjoyed competent guidance, was one
of decided opposition towards unmasked or recognised false teachers. Yet
Irenæus' account of Cerdo in Rome shews us how difficult it was at the
beginning to get rid of a false teacher.[342] For Justin, about the year
150, the Marcionites, Valentinians, Basilideans and Saturninians, are
groups outside the communities, and undeserving of the name
"Christians."[343] There must therefore have been at that time, in Rome
and Asia Minor at least, a really perfect separation of those schools
from the Churches (it was different in Alexandria). Notwithstanding,
this continued to be the region from which those schools obtained their
adherents. For the Valentinians recognised that the common Christians
were much better than the heathen, that they occupied a middle position
between the "pneumatic" and the "hylic", and might look forward to a
kind of salvation. This admission, as well as their conforming to the
common Christian tradition, enabled them to spread their views in a
remarkable way, and they may not have had any objection in many cases,
to their converts remaining in the great Church. But can this community
have perceived everywhere and at once, that the Valentinian distinction
of "psychic" and "pneumatic" is not identical with the scriptural
distinction of children and men in understanding? Where the organisation
of the school (the union for worship) required a long time of probation,
where degrees of connection with it were distinguished, and a strict
asceticism demanded of the perfect, it followed of course that those on
the lower stage should not be urged to a speedy break with the
Church.[344] But after the creation of the catholic confederation of
churches, existence was made more and more difficult for these schools.
Some of them lived on somewhat like our freemason-unions, some, as in
the East, became actual sects (confessions), in which the wise and the
simple now found a place, as they were propagated by families. In both
cases they ceased to be what they had been at the beginning. From about
210, they ceased to be a factor of the historical development, though
the Church of Constantine and Theodosius was alone really able to
suppress them.
4. _The most important Gnostic Doctrines._
We have still to measure and compare with the earliest tradition those
Gnostic doctrines which, partly at once and partly in the following
period, became important. Once more, however, we must expressly refer to
the fact, that the epoch-making significance of Gnosticism for the
history of dogma, must not be sought chiefly in the particular
doctrines, but rather in the whole way in which Christianity is here
conceived and transformed. The decisive thing is the conversion of the
Gospel into a doctrine, into an absolute philosophy of religion, the
transforming of the _disciplina Evangelii_ into an asceticism based on a
dualistic conception, and into a practice of mysteries.[345] We have now
briefly to shew, with due regard to the earliest tradition, how far this
transformation was of positive or negative significance for the
following period, that is, in what respects the following development
was anticipated by Gnosticism, and in what respects Gnosticism was
disavowed by this development.[346]
(1) Christianity, which is the only true and absolute religion, embraces
a revealed system of doctrine (positive).
(2) This doctrine contains mysterious powers, which are communicated to
men by initiation (mysteries).
(3) The revealer is Christ (positive), but Christ alone, and only in his
historical appearance--no Old Testament Christ (negative); this
appearance is itself redemption: the doctrine is the announcement of it
and of its presuppositions (positive).[347]
(4) Christian doctrine is to be drawn from the Apostolic tradition,
critically examined. This tradition lies before us in a series of
Apostolic writings, and in a secret doctrine derived from the Apostles,
(positive).[348] As exoteric it is comprehended in the _regula fidei_
(positive),[349] as esoteric it is propagated by chosen teachers.[350]
(5) The documents of revelation (Apostolic writings), just because they
are such, must be interpreted by means of allegory, that is, their
deeper meaning must be extracted in this way (positive).[351]
(6) The following may be noted as the main points in the Gnostic
conception of the several parts of the _regula fidei_.
(a) The difference between the supreme God and the creator of the world,
and therewith the opposing of redemption and creation, and therefore the
separation of the Mediator of revelation from the Mediator of
creation.[352]
(b) The separation of the supreme God from the God of the Old Testament,
and therewith the rejection of the Old Testament, or the assertion that
the Old Testament contains no revelations of the supreme God, or at
least only in certain parts.[353]
(c) The doctrine of the independence and eternity of matter.
(d) The assertion that the present world sprang from a fall of man, or
from an undertaking hostile to God, and is therefore the product of an
evil or intermediate being.[354]
(e) The doctrine, that evil is inherent in matter, and therefore is a
physical potence.[355]
(f) The assumption of Æons, that is, real powers and heavenly persons in
whom is unfolded the absoluteness of the Godhead.[356]
(g) The assertion that Christ revealed a God hitherto unknown.
(h) The doctrine that in the person of Jesus Christ--the Gnostics saw in
it redemption, but they reduced the person to the physical nature--the
heavenly Æon, Christ, and the human appearance of that Æon must be
clearly distinguished, and a "distincte agere" ascribed to each.
Accordingly, there were some, such as Basilides, who acknowledged no
real union between Christ and the man Jesus, whom, besides, they
regarded as an earthly man. Others, e.g., part of the Valentinians,
among whom the greatest differences prevailed--see Tertull. adv. Valent.
39--taught that the body of Jesus was a heavenly psychical formation,
and sprang from the womb of Mary only in appearance. Finally, a third
party, such as Saturninus, declared that the whole visible appearance of
Christ was a phantom, and therefore denied the birth of Christ.[357]
Christ separates that which is unnaturally united, and thus leads
everything back again to himself; in this redemption consists (full
contrast to the notion of the [Greek: anakephalaiôsis]).
(i) The conversion of the [Greek: ekklêsia] (it was no innovation to
regard the heavenly Church as an Æon) into the college of the pneumatic,
who alone, in virtue of their psychological endowment, are capable of
Gnosis and the divine life, while the others, likewise in virtue of
their constitution, as hylic perish. The Valentinians, and probably many
other Gnostics also, distinguished between pneumatic, psychic and hylic.
They regarded the psychic as capable of a certain blessedness, and of a
corresponding certain knowledge of the supersensible, the latter being
obtained through Pistis, that is, through Christian faith.[358]
(k) The rejection of the entire early Christian eschatology, especially
the second coming of Christ, the resurrection of the body, and Christ's
Kingdom of glory on the earth, and, in connection with this, the
assertion that the deliverance of the spirit from the sensuous can be
expected only from the future, while the spirit enlightened about itself
already possesses immortality, and only awaits its introduction into the
pneumatic pleroma.[359]
In addition to what has been mentioned here, we must finally fix our
attention on the ethics of Gnosticism. Like the ethics of all systems
which are based on the contrast between the sensuous and spiritual
elements of human nature, that of the Gnostics took a twofold direction.
On the one hand, it sought to suppress and uproot the sensuous, and thus
became strictly ascetic (imitation of Christ as motive of
asceticism;[360] Christ and the Apostles represented as ascetics);[361]
on the other hand, it treated the sensuous element as indifferent, and
so became libertine, that is, conformed to the world. The former was
undoubtedly the more common, though there are credible witnesses to the
latter; the _frequentissimum collegium_ in particular, the Valentinians,
in the days of Irenæus and Tertullian, did not vigorously enough
prohibit a lax and world-conforming morality;[362] and among the Syrian
and Egyptian Gnostics there were associations which celebrated the most
revolting orgies.[363] As the early Christian tradition summoned to a
strict renunciation of the world and to self-control, the Gnostic
asceticism could not but make an impression at the first; but the
dualistic basis on which it rested could not fail to excite suspicion as
soon as one was capable of examining it.[364]
_Literature._--The writings of Justin (his syntagma against heresies has
not been preserved), Irenæus, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Clement of
Alexandria, Origen, Epiphanius, Philastrius and Theodoret; cf. Volkmar,
Die Quellen der Ketzergeschichte, 1885.
Lipsius, Zur Quellenkritik des Epiphanios, 1875; also Die Quellen der
ältesten Ketzergeschichte, 1875.
Harnack, Zur Quellenkritik d. Gesch. d. Gnostic, 1873 (continued i. D.
Ztschr. f. d. hist. Theol. 1874, and in Der Schrift de Apellis gnosi
monarch. 1874).
Of Gnostic writings we possess the book Pistis Sophia, the writings
contained in the Coptic Cod. Brucianus, and the Epistle of Ptolemy to
Flora; also numerous fragments, in connection with which Hilgenfeld
especially deserves thanks, but which still require a more complete
selecting and a more thorough discussion (see Grabe, Spicilegium T. I.
II. 1700. Heinrici, Die Valentin. Gnosis, u. d. H. Schrift, 1871).
On the (Gnostic) Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, see Zahn, Acta Joh.
1880, and the great work of Lipsius, Die apokryphen Apostelgeschichten,
I. Vol., 1883; II. Vol., 1887. (See also Lipsius, Quellen d. röm.
Petrussage, 1872).
Neander, Genet. Entw. d. vornehmsten gnostischen Systeme, 1818.
Matter, Hist. crit. du gnosticisme, 2 Vols., 1828.
Baur, Die Christl. Gnosis, 1835.
Lipsius, Der Gnosticismus, in Ersch. und Gruber's Allg. Encykl. 71 Bd.
1860.
Moeller, Geschichte d. Kosmologie i. d. Griech. K. his auf Origenes.
1860.
King, The Gnostics and their remains, 1873.
Mansel, The Gnostic heresies, 1875.
Jacobi, Art. "Gnosis" in Herzog's Real Encykl. 2nd Edit.
Hilgenfeld, Die Ketzergeschichte des Urchristenthums, 1884, where the
more recent, special literature concerning individual Gnostics is
quoted.
Lipsius, Art. "Valentinus" in Smith's Dictionary of Christian Biography.
Harnack, Art. "Valentinus" in the Encycl. Brit.
Harnack, Pistis Sophia in the Texte und Unters. VII. 2.
Carl Schmidt, Gnostische Schriften in koptischer Sprache aus dem Codex
Brucianus (Texte und Unters. VIII. 1. 2).
Joël, Blicke in die Religionsgeschichte zu Anfang des 2 Christl.
Jahrhunderts, 2 parts, 1880, 1883.
Renan, History of the Origins of Christianity. Vols. V. VI. VII.
[Footnote 300: We may consider here once more the articles which are
embraced in the first ten chapters of the recently discovered [Greek:
Didachê tôn apostolôn], after enumerating and describing which, the
author continues (II. 1): [Greek: hos an oun elthôn didachêi umas tauta
panta ta proeirêmena, dexasthe auton].]
[Footnote 301: It is a good tradition, which designates the so-called
Gnosticism, simply as Gnosis, and yet uses this word also for the
speculations of non-Gnostic teachers of antiquity (e.g., of Barnabas).
But the inferences which follow have not been drawn. Origen says truly
(c. Celsus III. 12) "As men, not only the labouring and serving classes,
but also many from the cultured classes of Greece, came to see something
honourable in Christianity, sects could not fail to arise, not simply
from the desire for controversy and contradiction, but because several
scholars endeavoured to penetrate deeper into the truth of Christianity.
In this way sects arose, which received their names from men who indeed
admired Christianity in its essence, but from many different causes had
arrived at different conceptions of it."]
[Footnote 302: The majority of Christians in the second century belonged
no doubt to the uncultured classes, and did not seek abstract knowledge,
nay, were distrustful of it; see the [Greek: logos alêthês] of Celsus,
especially III. 44, and the writings of the Apologists. Yet we may infer
from the treatise of Origen against Celsus that the number of
"Christiani rudes" who cut themselves off from theological and
philosophic knowledge, was about the year 240 a very large one; and
Tertullian says (Adv. Prax. 3): "Simplices quique, ne dixerim
imprudentes et idiotæ, quæ major semper credentium pars est," cf. de
jejun. 11: "Major pars imperitorum apud gloriosissimam multitudinem
psychicorum."]
[Footnote 303: Overbeck (Stud. z. Gesch. d. alten Kirche. p. 184) has the
merit of having first given convincing expression to this view of
Gnosticism.]
[Footnote 304: The ability of the prominent Gnostic teachers has been
recognised by the Church Fathers: see Hieron. Comm in Osee. II. 10, Opp.
VI. i: "Nullus potest haeresim struere, nisi qui ardens ingenii est et
habet dona naturæ quæ a deo artifice sunt creata: talis fuit Valentinus,
tails Marcion, quos doctissimos legimus, talis Bardesanes, cujus etiam
philosophi admirantur ingenium." It is still more important to see how
the Alexandrian theologians (Clement and Origen) estimated the exegetic
labours of the Gnostics, and took account of them. Origen undoubtedly
recognised Herakleon as a prominent exegete, and treats him most
respectfully even where he feels compelled to differ from him. All
Gnostics cannot, of course, be regarded as theologians. In their
totality they form the Greek society with a Christian name.]
[Footnote 305: Otherwise the rise of Gnosticism cannot at all be
explained.]
[Footnote 306: Cf. Bigg, "The Christian Platonists of Alexandria," p.
83: "Gnosticism was in one respect distorted Paulinism."]
[Footnote 307: Joel, "Blick in die Religionsgesch." Vol. I. pp. 101-170,
has justly emphasised the Greek character of Gnosis, and insisted on the
significance of Platonism for it. "The Oriental element did not always
in the case of the Gnostics, originate at first hand, but had already
passed through a Greek channel."]
[Footnote 308: The age of the Antonines was the flourishing period of
Gnosticism. Marquardt (Römische Staatsverwaltung Vol. 3, p. 81) says of
this age: "With the Antonines begins the last period of the Roman
religious development in which two new elements enter into it. These are
the Syrian and Persian deities, whose worship at this time was prevalent
not only in the city of Rome, but in the whole empire, and, at the same
time, Christianity, which entered into conflict with all ancient
tradition, and in this conflict exercised a certain influence even on
the Oriental forms of worship."]
[Footnote 309: It is a special merit of Weingarten (Histor. Ztschr. Bd
45. 1881. p. 441 f.) and Koffmane (Die Gnosis nach ihrer Tendenz und
Organisation, 1881) to have strongly emphasised the mystery character of
Gnosis, and in connection with that, its practical aims. Koffmane,
especially, has collected abundant material for proving that the
tendency of the Gnostics was the same as that of the ancient mysteries,
and that they thence borrowed their organisation and discipline. This
fact proves the proposition that Gnosticism was an acute hellenising of
Christianity. Koffmane has, however, undervalued the union of the
practical and speculative tendency in the Gnostics, and, in the effort
to obtain recognition for the mystery character of the Gnostic
communities, has overlooked the fact that they were also schools. The
union of mystery-cultus and school is just, however, their
characteristic. In this also they prove themselves the forerunners of
Neoplatonism and the Catholic Church. Moehler in his programme of 1831
(Urspr. d. Gnosticismus Tubingen), vigorously emphasised the practical
tendency of Gnosticism, though not in a convincing way. Hackenschmidt
(Anfange des katholischen Kirchenbegriffs, p. 83 f.) has judged
correctly.]
[Footnote 310: We have also evidence of the methods by which ecstatic
visions were obtained among the Gnostics, see the Pistis Sophia, and the
important rôle which prophets and Apocalypses played in several
important Gnostic communities (Barcoph and Barcabbas, prophets of the
Basilideans; Martiades and Marsanes among the Ophites; Philumene in the
case of Apelles; Valentinian prophecies, Apocalypses of Zostrian,
Zoroaster, etc.) Apocalypses were also used by some under the names of
Old Testament men of God and Apostles.]
[Footnote 311: See Koftmane, before-mentioned work, p. 5 f.]