FOOTNOTES:

[1] There is no authority for calling the latter Via Egnatia.

[2] H. Swinburne, _Travels in the Two Sicilies_ (London, 1790), ii.

15, mentions the walls as being 8 yds. thick and 16 courses high.

GNEISENAU, AUGUST WILHELM ANTON, COUNT NEITHARDT VON (1760-1831),

Prussian field marshal, was the son of a Saxon officer named Neithardt.

Born in 1760 at Schildau, near Torgau, he was brought up in great

poverty there, and subsequently at Wurzburg and Erfurt. In 1777 he

entered Erfurt university; but two years later joined an Austrian

regiment there quartered. In 1782 taking the additional name of

Gneisenau from some lost estates of his family in Austria, he entered as

an officer the service of the margrave of Baireuth-Anspach. With one of

that prince's mercenary regiments in English pay he saw active service

and gained valuable experience in the War of American Independence, and

returning in 1786, applied for Prussian service. Frederick the Great

gave him a commission as first lieutenant in the infantry. Made

_Stabskapitan_ in 1790, Gneisenau served in Poland, 1793-1794, and,

subsequently to this, ten years of quiet garrison life in Jauer enabled

him to undertake a wide range of military studies. In 1796 he married

Caroline von Kottwitz. In 1806 he was one of Hohenlohe's staff-officers,

fought at Jena, and a little later commanded a provisional infantry

brigade which fought under Lestocq in the Lithuanian campaign. Early in

1807 Major von Gneisenau was sent as commandant to Colberg, which, small

and ill-protected as it was, succeeded in holding out until the peace of

Tilsit. The commandant received the much-prized order "pour le merite,"

and was promoted lieutenant-colonel.

A wider sphere of work was now opened to him. As chief of engineers, and

a member of the reorganizing committee, he played a great part, along

with Scharnhorst, in the work of reconstructing the Prussian army. A

colonel in 1809, he soon drew upon himself, by his energy, the suspicion

of the dominant French, and Stein's fall was soon followed by Gneisenau's

retirement. But, after visiting Russia, Sweden and England, he returned

to Berlin and resumed his place as a leader of the patriotic party. In

open military work and secret machinations his energy and patriotism were

equally tested, and with the outbreak of the War of Liberation,

Major-General Gneisenau became Blucher's quartermaster-general. Thus

began the connexion between these two soldiers which has furnished

military history with its best example of the harmonious co-operation

between the general and his chief-of-staff. With Blucher, Gneisenau

served to the capture of Paris; his military character was the exact

complement of Blucher's, and under this happy guidance the young troops

of Prussia, often defeated but never discouraged, fought their way into

the heart of France. The plan of the march on Paris, which led directly

to the fall of Napoleon, was specifically the work of the chief-of-staff.

In reward for his distinguished service he was in 1814, along with York,

Kleist and Bulow, made count at the same time as Blucher became prince of

Wahlstatt; an annuity was also assigned to him.

In 1815, once more chief of Blucher's staff, Gneisenau played a very

conspicuous part in the Waterloo campaign (q.v.). Senior generals, such

as York and Kleist, had been set aside in order that the chief-of-staff

should have the command in case of need, and when on the field of Ligny

the old field marshal was disabled, Gneisenau at once assumed the

control of the Prussian army. Even in the light of the evidence that

many years' research has collected, the precise part taken by Gneisenau

in the events which followed is much debated. It is known that Gneisenau

had the deepest distrust of the British commander, who, he considered,

had left the Prussians in the lurch at Ligny, and that to the hour of

victory he had grave doubts as to whether he ought not to fall back on

the Rhine. Blucher, however, soon recovered from his injuries, and, with

Grolmann, the quartermaster-general, he managed to convince Gneisenau.

The relations of the two may be illustrated by Brigadier-General

Hardinge's report. Blucher burst into Hardinge's room at Wavre, saying

"_Gneisenau has given way_, and we are to march at once to your chief."

On the field of Waterloo, however, Gneisenau was quick to realize the

magnitude of the victory, and he carried out the pursuit with a

relentless vigour which has few parallels in history. His reward was

further promotion and the insignia of the "Black Eagle" which had been

taken in Napoleon's coach. In 1816 he was appointed to command the

VIIIth Prussian Corps, but soon retired from the service, both because

of ill-health and for political reasons. For two years he lived in

retirement on his estate, Erdmannsdorf in Silesia, but in 1818 he was

made governor of Berlin in succession to Kalkreuth, and member of the

_Staatsrath_. In 1825 he became general field marshal. In 1831 he was

appointed to the command of the Army of Observation on the Polish

frontier, with Clausewitz as his chief-of-staff. At Posen he was struck

down by cholera and died on the 24th of August 1831, soon followed by

his chief-of staff, who fell a victim to the same disease in November.

As a soldier, Gneisenau was the greatest Prussian general since

Frederick; as a man, his noble character and virtuous life secured him

the affection and reverence, not only of his superiors and subordinates

in the service, but of the whole Prussian nation. A statue by Rauch was

erected in Berlin in 1855, and in memory of the siege of 1807 the

Colberg grenadiers received his name in 1889. One of his sons led a

brigade of the VIIIth Army Corps in the war of 1870.

See G. H. Pertz, _Das Leben des Feldmarschalls Grafen Neithardt von

Gneisenau_, vols. 1-3 (Berlin, 1864-1869); vols. 4 and 5, G. Delbruck

(ib. 1879, 1880), with numerous documents and letters; H. Delbruck,

_Das Leben des G. F. M. Grafen von Gneisenau_ (2 vols., 2nd ed.,

Berlin, 1894), based on Pertz's work, but containing much new

material; Frau von Beguelin, _Denkwurdigkeiten_ (Berlin, 1892);

Hormayr, _Lebensbilder aus den Befreiungskriegen_ (Jena, 1841); Pick,

_Aus dem brieflichen Nachlass Gneisenaus_; also the histories of the

campaigns of 1807 and 1813-15.

GNEISS, a term long used by the miners of the Harz Mountains to

designate the country rock in which the mineral veins occur; it is

believed to be a word of Slavonic origin meaning "rotted" or

"decomposed." It has gradually passed into acceptance as a generic term

signifying a large and varied series of metamorphic rocks, which mostly

consist of quartz and felspar (orthoclase and plagioclase) with

muscovite and biotite, hornblende or augite, iron oxides, zircon and

apatite. There is also a long list of accessory minerals which are

present in gneisses with more or less frequency, but not invariably, as

garnet, sillimanite, cordierite, graphite and graphitoid, epidote,

calcite, orthite, tourmaline and andalusite. The gneisses all possess a

more or less marked parallel structure or foliation, which is the main

feature by which many of them are separated from the granites, a group

of rocks having nearly the same mineralogical composition and closely

allied to many gneisses.

The felspars of the gneisses are predominantly orthoclase (often

perthitic), but microcline is common in the more acid types and

oligoclase occurs also very frequently, especially in certain

sedimentary gneisses, while more basic varieties of plagioclase are

rare. Quartz is very seldom absent and may be blue or milky and

opalescent. Muscovite and biotite may both occur in the same rock; in

other cases only one of them is present. The commonest and most

important types of gneiss are the mica-gneisses. Hornblende is green,

rarely brownish; augite pale green or nearly colourless; enstatite

appears in some granulite-gneisses. Epidote, often with enclosures of

orthite, is by no means rare in gneisses from many different parts of

the world. Sillimanite and andalusite are not infrequent ingredients of

gneiss, and their presence has been accounted for in more than one way.

Cordierite-gneisses are a special group of great interest and possessing

many peculiarities; they are partly, if not entirely, foliated

contact-altered sedimentary rocks. Kyanite and staurolite may also be

mentioned as occasionally occurring.

Many varieties of gneiss have received specific names according to the

minerals they consist of and the structural peculiarities they exhibit.

Muscovite-gneiss, biotite-gneiss and muscovite-biotite-gneiss, more

common perhaps than all the others taken together, are grey or pinkish

rocks according to the colour of their prevalent felspar, not unlike

granites, but on the whole more often fine-grained (though

coarse-grained types occur) and possessing a gneissose or foliated

structure. The latter consists in the arrangement of the flakes of mica

in such a way that their faces are parallel, and hence the rock has the

property of splitting more readily in the direction in which the mica

plates are disposed. This fissility, though usually marked, is not so

great as in the schists or slates, and the split faces are not so smooth

as in these latter rocks. The films of mica may be continuous and are

usually not flat, but irregularly curved. In some gneisses the parallel

flakes of mica are scattered through the quartz and felspar; in others

these minerals form discrete bands, the quartz and felspar being grouped

into lenticles separated by thin films of mica. When large felspars, of

rounded or elliptical form, are visible in the gneiss, it is said to

have augen structure (Ger. _Augen_ = eyes). It should also be remarked

that the essential component minerals of the rocks of this family are

practically always determinable by naked eye inspection or with the aid

of a simple lens. If the rock is too fine grained for this it is

generally relegated to the schists. When the bands of folia are very

fine and tortuous the structure is called helizitic.

In mica-gneisses sillimanite, kyanite, andalusite and garnet may occur.

The significance of these minerals is variously interpreted; they may

indicate that the gneiss consists wholly or in part of sedimentary

material which has been contact-altered, but they have also been

regarded as having been developed by metamorphic action out of biotite

or other primary ingredients of the rock.

Hornblende-gneisses are usually darker in colour and less fissile than

mica-gneisses; they contain more plagioclase, less orthoclase and

microcline, and more sphene and epidote. Many of them are rich in

hornblende and thus form transitions to amphibolites. Pyroxene-gneisses

are less frequent but occur in many parts of both hemispheres. The

"charnockite" series are very closely allied to the pyroxene-gneisses.

Hypersthene and scapolite both may occur in these rocks and they are

sometimes garnetiferous.

In every country where the lowest and oldest rocks have come to the

surface and been exposed by the long continued action of denudation in

stripping away the overlying formations, gneisses are found in great

abundance and of many different kinds. They are in fact the typical

rocks of the Archean (Lewisian, Laurentian, &c.) series. In the Alps,

Harz, Scotland, Norway and Sweden, Canada, South America, Peninsular

India, Himalayas (to mention only a few localities) they occupy wide

areas and exhibit a rich diversity of types. From this it has been

inferred that they are of great geological age, and in fact this can

be definitely proved in many cases, for the oldest known fossiliferous

formations may be seen to rest unconformably on these gneisses and are

made up of their debris. It was for a long time believed that they

represented the primitive crust of the earth, and while this is no

longer generally taught there are still geologists who hold that these

gneisses are necessarily of pre-Cambrian age. Others, while admitting

the general truth of this hypothesis, consider that there are

localities in which typical gneisses can be shown to penetrate into

rocks which may be as recent as the Tertiary period, or to pass into

these rocks so gradually and in such a way as to make it certain that

the gneisses are merely altered states of comparatively recent

sedimentary or igneous rocks. Much controversy has arisen on these

points; but this is certain, that gneisses are far the most common

among Archean rocks, and where their age is not known the presumption

is strong that they are at least pre-Cambrian.

Many gneisses are undoubtedly sedimentary rocks that have been brought

to their present state by such agents of metamorphism as heat,

movement, crushing and recrystallization. This may be demonstrated

partly by their mode of occurrence: they accompany limestones,

graphitic schists, quartzites and other rocks of sedimentary type;

some of them where least altered may even show remains of bedding or

of original pebbly character (conglomerate gneisses). More conclusive,

however, is the chemical composition of these rocks, which often is

such as no igneous masses possess, but resembles that of many impure

argillaceous sediments. These sedimentary gneisses (or paragneisses,

as they are often called) are often rich in biotite and garnet and may

contain kyanite and sillimanite, or less frequently calcite. Some of

them, however, are rich in felspar and quartz, with muscovite and

biotite; others may even contain hornblende and augite, and all these

may bear so close a resemblance to gneisses of igneous origin that by

no single character, chemical or mineralogical, can their original

nature be definitely established. In these cases, however, a careful

study of the relations of the rock in the field and of the different

types which occur together will generally lead to some positive

conclusion.

Other gneisses are igneous (orthogneisses). These have very much the

same composition as acid igneous rocks such as granite, aplite,

hornblende granite, or intermediate rocks such as syenite and quartz

diorite. Many of these orthogneisses are not equally well foliated

throughout, but are massive or granitoid in places. They are sometimes

subdivided into granite gneiss, diorite gneiss, syenite gneiss and so

on. The sedimentary schists into which these rocks have been intruded

may show contact alteration by the development of such minerals as

cordierite, andalusite and sillimanite. In many of these orthogneisses

the foliation is primitive, being an original character of the rock

which was produced either by fluxion movements in a highly viscous,

semi-solid mass injected at great pressure into the surrounding

strata, or by folding stresses acting immediately after consolidation.

That the foliation in other orthogneisses is subsequent or

superinduced, having been occasioned by pressure and deformation of

the solid mass long after it had consolidated and cooled, admits of no

doubt, but it is very difficult to establish criteria by which these

types may be differentiated. Those gneisses in which the minerals have

been crushed and broken by fluxion or injection movements have been

called protoclastic, while those which have attained their gneissose

state by crushing long after consolidation are distinguished as

cataclastic. There are also many examples of gneisses of mixed or

synthetic origin. They may be metamorphosed sediments (granulites and

schists) into which tongues and thin veins of granitic character have

been intruded, following the more or less parallel foliation planes

already present in the country rock. These veinlets produce that

alternation in mineral composition and banded structure which are

essential in gneisses. This intermixture of igneous and sedimentary

material may take place on the finest scale and in the most intricate

manner. Often there has been resorption of the older rocks, whether

sedimentary or igneous, by those which have invaded them, and movement

has gone on both during injection and at a later period, so that the

whole complex becomes amalgamated and its elements are so completely

confused that the geologist can no longer disentangle them.

When we remember that in the earlier stages of the earth's history, to

which most gneisses belong, and in the relatively deep parts of the

earth's crust, where they usually occur, there has been most igneous

injection and greatest frequency of earth movements, it is not

difficult to understand the geological distribution of gneissose

rocks. All the factors which are required for their production, heat,

movement, plutonic intrusions, contact alteration, interstitial

moisture at high temperatures, are found at great depths and have

acted most frequently and with greatest power on the older rock

masses. But locally, where the conditions were favourable, the same

processes may have gone on in comparatively recent times. Hence,

though most gneisses are Archean, all gneisses are not necessarily so.

(J. S. F.)

GNEIST, HEINRICH RUDOLF HERMANN FRIEDRICH VON (1816-1895), German jurist

and politician, was born at Berlin on the 13th of August 1816, the son

of a judge attached to the "Kammergericht" (court of appeal) in that

city. After receiving his school education at the gymnasium at Eisleben

in Prussian Saxony, he entered the university of Berlin in 1833 as a

student of jurisprudence, and became a pupil of the famous Roman law

teacher von Savigny. Proceeding to the degree of _doctor juris_ in 1838,

young Gneist immediately established himself as a _Privatdozent_ in the

faculty of law. He had, however, already chosen the judicial branch of

the legal profession as a career, and having while yet a student acted

as _Auscultator_, was admitted _Assessor_ in 1841. He soon found leisure

and opportunity to fulfil a much-cherished wish, and spent the next few

years on a lengthened tour in Italy, France and England. He utilized his

_Wanderjahre_ for the purposes of comparative study, and on his return

in 1844 was appointed extraordinary professor of Roman law in Berlin

university, and thus began a professorial connexion which ended only

with his death. The first-fruits of his activity as a teacher were seen

in his brilliant work, _Die formellen Vertrage des heutigen romischen

Obligationen-Rechtes_ (Berlin, 1845). _Pari passu_ with his academic

labours he continued his judicial career, and became in due course

successively assistant judge of the superior court and of the supreme

tribunal. But to a mind constituted such as his, the want of elasticity

in the procedure of the courts was galling. "Brought up," he tells, in

the preface to his _Englische Verfassungsgeschichte_, "in the laborious

and rigid school of Prussian judges, at a time when the duty of

formulating the matter in litigation was entailed upon the judge who

personally conducted the pleadings, I became acquainted both with the

advantages possessed by the Prussian bureau system as also with its weak

points." Feeling the necessity for fundamental reforms in legal

procedure, he published, in 1849, his _Trial by Jury_, in which, after

pointing out that the origin of that institution was common to both

Germany and England, and showing in a masterly way the benefits which

had accrued to the latter country through its more extended application,

he pleaded for its freer admission in the tribunals of his own country.

The period of "storm and stress" in 1848 afforded Gneist an opportunity

for which he had yearned, and he threw himself with ardour into the

constitutional struggles of Prussia. Although his candidature for

election to the National Assembly of that year was unsuccessful, he felt

that "the die was cast," and deciding for a political career, retired in

1850 from his judicial position. Entering the ranks of the National

Liberal party, he began both in writing and speeches actively to

champion their cause, now busying himself pre-eminently with the study

of constitutional law and history. In 1853 appeared his _Adel und

Ritterschaft in England_, and in 1857 the _Geschichte und heutige

Gestalt der Amter in England_, a pamphlet primarily written to combat

the Prussian abuses of administration, but for which the author also

claimed that it had not been without its effect in modifying certain

views that had until then ruled in England itself. In 1858 Gneist was

appointed ordinary professor of Roman law, and in the same year

commenced his parliamentary career by his election for Stettin to the

Abgeordnetenhaus (House of Deputies) of the Prussian Landtag, in which

assembly he sat thenceforward uninterruptedly until 1893. Joining the

Left, he at once became one of its leading spokesmen. His chief

oratorical triumphs are associated with the early period of his

membership of the House; two noteworthy occasions being his violent

attack (September 1862) upon the government budget in connexion with the

reorganization of the Prussian army, and his defence (1864) of the

Polish chiefs of the (then) grand-duchy of Posen, who were accused of

high treason. In 1857-1863 was published _Das heutige englische

Verfassungsund Verwaltungsrecht_, a work which, contrasting English and

German constitutional law and administration, aimed at exercising

political pressure upon the government of the day. In 1868 Gneist became

a member of the North German parliament, and acted as a member of the

commission for organizing the federal army, and also of that for the

settlement of ecclesiastical controversial questions. On the

establishment of German unity his mandate was renewed for the Reichstag,

and in this he sat, an active and prominent member of the National

Liberal party, until 1884. In the Kulturkampf he sided with the

government against the attacks of the Clericals, whom he bitterly

denounced, and whose implacable enemy he ever showed himself. In 1879,

together with his colleague, von Hanel, he violently attacked the motion

for the prosecution of certain Socialist members, which as a result of

the vigour of his opposition was almost unanimously rejected. He was

parliamentary reporter for the committees on all great financial and

administrative questions, and his profound acquaintance with

constitutional law caused his advice to be frequently sought, not only

in his own but also in other countries. In Prussia he largely influenced

legislation, the reform of the judicial and penal systems and the new

constitution of the Evangelical Church being largely his work. He was

also consulted by the Japanese government when a constitution was being

introduced into that country. In 1875 he was appointed a member of the

supreme administrative court (_Oberverwaltungsgericht_) of Prussia, but

only held office for two years. In 1882 was published his _Englische

Verfassungsgeschichte_ (trans. _History of the English Constitution_,

London, 1886), which may perhaps be described as his _magnum opus_. It

placed the author at once on the level of such writers on English

constitutional history as Hallam and Stubbs, and supplied English

literature with a text-book almost unrivalled in point of historical

research. In 1888 one of the first acts of the ill-fated emperor

Frederick III., who had always, as crown prince, shown great admiration

for him, was to ennoble Gneist, and attach him as instructor in

constitutional law to his son, the emperor William II., a charge of

which he worthily acquitted himself. The last years of his life were

full of energy, and, in the possession of all his faculties, he

continued his wonted academic labours until a short time before his

death, which occurred at Berlin on the 22nd of July 1895.

As a politician, Gneist's career cannot perhaps be said to have been

entirely successful. In a country where parliamentary institutions are

the living exponents of the popular will he might have risen to a

foremost position in the state; as it was, the party to which he allied

himself could never hope to become more than what it remained, a

parliamentary faction, and the influence it for a time wielded in the

counsels of the state waned as soon as the Social-Democratic party grew

to be a force to be reckoned with. It is as a writer and a teacher that

Gneist is best known to fame. He was a jurist of a special type. To him

law was not mere theory, but living force; and this conception of its

power animates all his schemes of practical reform. As a teacher he

exercised a magnetic influence, not only by reason of the clearness and

cogency of his exposition, but also because of the success with which he

developed the talents and guided the aspirations of his pupils. He was a

man of noble bearing, religious, and imbued with a stern sense of duty.

He was proud of being a "Preussischer Junker" (a member of the Prussian

squirearchy), and throughout his writings, despite their liberal

tendencies, may be perceived the loyalty and affection with which he

clung to monarchical institutions. A great admirer and a true friend of

England, to which country he was attached by many personal ties, he

surpassed all other Germans in his efforts to make her free

institutions, in which he found his ideal, the common heritage of the

two great nations of the Teutonic race.

Gneist was a prolific writer, especially on the subject he had made

peculiarly his own, that of constitutional law and history, and among

his works, other than those above named, may be mentioned the

following: _Budget und Gesetz nach dem constitutionellen Staatsrecht

Englands_ (Berlin, 1867); _Freie Advocatur_ (ib., 1867); _Der

Rechtsstaat_ (ib., 1872, and 2nd edition, 1879); _Zur

Verwaltungsreform in Preussen_ (Leipzig, 1880); _Das englische

Parlament_ (Berlin, 1886); in English translation, _The English

Parliament_ (London, 1886; 3rd edition, 1889); _Die Militar-Vorlage

von 1892 und der preussische Verfassungsconflikt von 1862 bis 1866_

(Berlin, 1893); _Die nationale Rechtsidee von den Standen und das

preussische Dreiklassenwahlsystem_ (ib., 1895); _Die

verfassungsmassige Stellung des preussischen Gesamtministeriums_ (ib.,

1895). See O. Gierke, _Rudolph von Gneist, Gedachtnisrede_ (Berlin,

1895), an In Memoriam address delivered in Berlin. (P. A. A.)

GNESEN (Polish, _Gniezno_), a town of Germany, in the Prussian province

of Posen, in an undulating and fertile country, on the Wrzesnia, 30 m.

E.N.E. of Posen by the railway to Thorn. Pop. (1905) 23,727. Besides the

cathedral, a handsome Gothic edifice with twin towers, which contains

the remains of St Adalbert, there are eight Roman Catholic churches, a

Protestant church, a synagogue, a clerical seminary and a convent of the

Franciscan nuns. Among the industries are cloth and linen weaving,

brewing and distilling. A great horse and cattle market is held here

annually. Gnesen is one of the oldest towns in the former kingdom of

Poland. Its name, _Gniezno_, signifies "nest," and points to early

Polish traditions. The cathedral is believed to have been founded

towards the close of the 9th century, and, having received the bones of

St Adalbert, it was visited in 1000 by the emperor Otto III., who made

it the seat of an archbishop. Here, until 1320, the kings of Poland were

crowned; and the archbishop, since 1416 primate of Poland, acted as

protector pending the appointment of a new king. In 1821 the see of

Posen was founded and the archbishop removed his residence thither,

though its cathedral chapter still remains at Gnesen. After a long

period of decay the town revived after 1815, when it came under the rule

of Prussia.

See S. Karwowski, _Gniezno_ (Posen, 1892).

GNOME, AND GNOMIC POETRY. Sententious maxims, put into verse for the

better aid of the memory, were known by the Greeks as gnomes, [Greek:

gnomai], from [Greek: gnome], an opinion. A gnome is defined by the

Elizabethan critic Henry Peacham (1576?-1643?) as "a saying pertaining

to the manners and common practices of men, which declareth, with an apt

brevity, what in this our life ought to be done, or not done." The

Gnomic Poets of Greece, who flourished in the 6th century B.C., were

those who arranged series of sententious maxims in verse. These were

collected in the 4th century, by Lobon of Argos, an orator, but his

collection has disappeared. The chief gnomic poets were Theognis, Solon,

Phocylides, Simonides of Amorgos, Demodocus, Xenophanes and Euenus. With

the exception of Theognis, whose gnomes were fortunately preserved by

some schoolmaster about 300 B.C., only fragments of the Gnomic Poets

have come down to us. The moral poem attributed to Phocylides, long

supposed to be a masterpiece of the school, is now known to have been

written by a Jew in Alexandria. Of the gnomic movement typified by the

moral works of the poets named above, Prof. Gilbert Murray has remarked

that it receives its special expression in the conception of the Seven

Wise Men, to whom such proverbs as "Know thyself" and "Nothing too much"

were popularly attributed, and whose names differed in different lists.

These gnomes or maxims were extended and put into literary shape by the

poets. Fragments of Solon, Euenus and Mimnermus have been preserved, in

a very confused state, from having been written, for purposes of

comparison, on the margins of the MSS. of Theognis, whence they have

often slipped into the text of that poet. Theognis enshrines his moral

precepts in his elegies, and this was probably the custom of the rest;

it is improbable that there ever existed a species of poetry made up

entirely of successive gnomes. But the title "gnomic" came to be given

to all poetry which dealt in a sententious way with questions of

ethics. It was, unquestionably, the source from which moral philosophy

was directly developed, and theorists upon life and infinity, such as

Pythagoras and Xenophanes, seem to have begun their career as gnomic

poets. By the very nature of things, gnomes, in their literary sense,

belong exclusively to the dawn of literature; their naivete and their

simplicity in moralizing betray it. But it has been observed that many

of the ethical reflections of the great dramatists, and in particular of

Sophocles and Euripides, are gnomic distiches expanded. It would be an

error to suppose that the ancient Greek gnomes are all of a solemn

character; some are voluptuous and some chivalrous; those of Demodocus

of Leros had the reputation of being droll. In modern times, the gnomic

spirit has occasionally been displayed by poets of a homely philosophy,

such as Francis Quarles (1592-1644) in England and Gui de Pibrac

(1529-1584) in France. The once-celebrated _Quatrains_ of the latter,

published in 1574, enjoyed an immense success throughout Europe; they

were composed in deliberate imitation of the Greek gnomic writers of the

6th century B.C. These modern effusions are rarely literature and

perhaps never poetry. With the gnomic writings of Pibrac it was long

customary to bind up those of Antoine Favre (or Faber) (1557-1624) and

of Pierre Mathieu (1563-1621). Gnomes are frequently to be found in the

ancient literatures of Arabia, Persia and India, and in the Icelandic

staves. The _priamel_, a brief, sententious kind of poem, which was in

favour in Germany from the 12th to the 16th century, belonged to the

true gnomic class, and was cultivated with particular success by Hans

Rosenblut, the lyrical goldsmith of Nuremberg, in the 15th century.

(E. G.)

GNOMES (Fr. _gnomes_, Ger. _Gnomen_), in folk-lore, the name now

commonly given to the earth and mountain spirits who are supposed to

watch over veins of precious metals and other hidden treasures. They are

usually pictured as bearded dwarfs clad in brown close-fitting garments

with hoods. The word "gnome" as applied to these is of comparatively

modern and somewhat uncertain origin. By some it is said to have been

coined by Paracelsus (so Hatzfeld and Darmesteter, _Dictionnaire_), who

uses _Gnomi_ as a synonym of _Pygmaei_, from the Greek [Greek: gnome],

intelligence. The _New English Dictionary_, however, suggests a

derivation from _genomus_, i.e. a Greek type [Greek: genomos],

"earth-dweller," on the analogy of [Greek: thalassonomos], "dwelling in

the sea," adding, however, that though there is no evidence that the

term was not used before Paracelsus, it is possibly "a mere arbitrary

invention, like so many others found in Paracelsus" (_N.E.D._ s.v.).

GNOMON, the Greek word for the style of a sundial, or any object,

commonly a vertical column, the shadow of which was observed in former

times in order to learn the altitude of the sun, especially when on the

meridian. The art of constructing a sundial is sometimes termed

_gnomonics_. In geometry, a gnomon is a plane figure formed by removing

a parallelogram from a corner of a larger parallelogram; in the figure

ABCDEFA is a gnomon. Gnomonic projection is a projection of a sphere in

which the centre of sight is the centre of the sphere.

A B

-------------------

/ /

/ /

F /------- E /

/ / /

/ / /

-------------------

D C

GNOSTICISM (Gr. [Greek: gnosis], knowledge), the name generally applied

to that spiritual movement existing side by side with genuine

Christianity, as it gradually crystallized into the old Catholic Church,

which may roughly be defined as a distinct religious syncretism bearing

the strong impress of Christian influences.

I. The term "Gnosis" first appears in a technical sense in 1 Tim. vi. 20

([Greek: he pseudonymos gnosis]). It seems to have at first been applied

exclusively, or at any rate principally, to a particular tendency within

the movement as a whole, i.e. to those sections of (the Syrian) Gnostics

otherwise generally known as Ophites or Naasseni (see Hippolytus,

_Philosophumena_, v. 2: [Greek: Naassenoi ... hoi heautous Gnostikous

apokalountes]; Irenaeus i. 11. 1; Epiphanius, _Haeres._ xxvi. Cf. also

the self-assumed name of the Carpocratiani, Iren. i. 25. 6). But in

Irenaeus the term has already come to designate the whole movement. This

first came into prominence in the opening decades of the 2nd century

A.D., but is certainly older; it reached its height in the second third

of the same century, and began to wane about the 3rd century, and from

the second half of the 3rd century onwards was replaced by the

closely-related and more powerful Manichaean movement. Offshoots of it,

however, continued on into the 4th and 5th centuries. Epiphanius still

had the opportunity of making personal acquaintance with Gnostic sects.

II. Of the actual writings of the Gnostics, which were extraordinarily

numerous,[1] very little has survived; they were sacrificed to the

destructive zeal of their ecclesiastical opponents. Numerous fragments

and extracts from Gnostic writings are to be found in the works of the

Fathers who attacked Gnosticism. Most valuable of all are the long

extracts in the 5th and 6th books of the _Philosophumena_ of Hippolytus.

The most accessible and best critical edition of the fragments which

have been preserved word for word is to be found in Hilgenfeld's

_Ketzergeschichte des Urchristentums_. One of the most important of

these fragments is the letter of Ptolemaeus to Flora, preserved in

Epiphanius, _Haeres_. xxxiii. 3-7 (see on this point Harnack in the

_Sitzungsberichte der Berliner Akademie_, 1902, pp. 507-545). Gnostic

fragments are certainly also preserved for us in the _Acts of Thomas_.

Here we should especially mention the beautiful and much-discussed _Song

of the Pearl_, or _Song of the Soul_, which is generally, though without

absolute clear proof, attributed to the Gnostic Bardesanes (till lately

it was known only in the Syrian text; edited and translated by Bevan,

_Texts and Studies_,[2] v. 3, 1897; Hofmann, _Zeitschrift fur

neutestamentliche Wissenschaft_, iv.; for the newly-found Greek text see

_Acta apostolorum_, ed. Bonnet, ii. 2, c. 108, p. 219). Generally also

much Gnostic matter is contained in the apocryphal histories of the

Apostles. To the school of Bardesanes belongs the "Book of the Laws of

the Lands," which does not, however, contribute much to our knowledge of

Gnosticism. Finally, we should mention in this connexion the text on

which are based the pseudo-Clementine _Homilies_ and _Recognitiones_

(beginning of the 3rd century). It is, of course, already permeated with

the Catholic spirit, but has drawn so largely upon sources of a

Judaeo-Christian Gnostic character that it comes to a great extent

within the category of sources for Gnosticism. Complete original Gnostic

works have unfortunately survived to us only from the period of the

decadence of Gnosticism. Of these we should mention the comprehensive

work called the _Pistis-Sophia_, probably belonging to the second half

of the 3rd century.[3] Further, the Coptic-Gnostic texts of the _Codex

Brucianus_; both the books of Ieu, and an anonymous third work (edited

and translated by C. Schmidt, _Texte und Untersuchungen_, vol. viii.,

1892; and a new translation by the same in _Koptische-gnostische

Schriften_, i.) which, contrary to the opinion of their editor and

translator, the present writer believes to represent, in their existing

form, a still later period and a still more advanced stage in the

decadence of Gnosticism. For other and older Coptic-Gnostic texts, in

one of which is contained the source of Irenaeus's treatises on the

Barbelognostics, but which have unfortunately not yet been made

completely accessible, see C. Schmidt in _Sitzungsberichte der Berl.

Akad._ (1896), p. 839 seq., and "Philotesia," dedicated to Paul Kleinert

(1907); p. 315 seq.

On the whole, then, for an exposition of Gnosticism we are thrown back

upon the polemical writings of the Fathers in their controversy with

heresy. The most ancient of these is Justin, who according to his

_Apol._ i. 26 wrote a _Syntagma_ against all heresies (c. A.D. 150), and

also, probably, a special polemic against Marcion (fragment in Irenaeus

iv. 6. 2). Both these writings are lost. He was followed by Irenaeus,

who, especially in the first book of his treatise _Adversus haereses_

([Greek: elegchou kai anatropes tes pseudonymou gnoseos biblia pente],

c. A.D. 180), gives a detailed account of the Gnostic heresies. He

founds his work upon that of his master Justin, but adds from his own

knowledge among many other things, notably the detailed account of

Valentinianism at the beginning of the book. On Irenaeus, and probably

also on Justin, Hippolytus drew for his _Syntagma_ (beginning of the 3rd

century), a work which is also lost, but can, with great certainty, be

reconstructed from three recensions of it: in the _Panarion_ of

Epiphanius (after 374), in Philaster of Brescia, _Adversus haereses_,

and the Pseudo-Tertullian, _Liber adversus omnes haereses_. A second

work of Hippolytus [Greek: Kata pason haipeseov elegchos] is preserved

in the so-called _Philosophumena_ which survives under the name of

Origen. Here Hippolytus gave a second exposition supplemented by fresh

Gnostic original sources with which he had become acquainted in the

meanwhile. These sources quoted in Hippolytus have lately met with very

unfavourable criticisms. The opinion has been advanced that Hippolytus

has here fallen a victim to the mystification of a forger. The truth of

the matter must be that Hippolytus probably made use of a collection of

Gnostic texts, put together by a Gnostic, in which were already

represented various secondary developments of the genuine Gnostic

schools. It is also possible that the compiler has himself attempted

here and there to harmonize to a certain extent the various Gnostic

doctrines, yet in no case is this collection of sources given by

Hippolytus to be passed over; it should rather be considered as

important evidence for the beginnings of the decay of Gnosticism. Very

noteworthy references to Gnosticism are also to be found scattered up

and down the _Stromateis_ of Clement of Alexandria. Especially important

are the _Excerpta ex Theodoto_, the author of which is certainly

Clement, which are verbally extracted from Gnostic writings, and have

almost the value of original sources. The writings of Origen also

contain a wealth of material. In the first place should be mentioned the

treatise _Contra Celsum_, in which the expositions of Gnosticism by both

Origen and Celsus are of interest (see especially v. 61 seq. and vi. 25

seq.). Of Tertullian's works should be mentioned: _De praescriptione

haereticorum_, especially _Adversus Marcionem_, _Adversus Hermogenem_,

and finally _Adversus Valentinianos_ (entirely founded on Irenaeus).

Here must also be mentioned the dialogue of Adamantius with the

Gnostics, _De recta in deum fide_ (beginning of 4th century). Among the

followers of Hippolytus, Epiphanius in his _Panarion_ gives much

independent and valuable information from his own knowledge of

contemporary Gnosticism. But Theodoret of Cyrus (d. 455) is already

entirely dependent on previous works and has nothing new to add. With

the 4th century both Gnosticism and the polemical literature directed

against it die out.[4]

III. If we wish to grasp the peculiar character of the great Gnostic

movement, we must take care not to be led astray by the catchword

"Gnosis." It is a mistake to regard the Gnostics as pre-eminently the

representatives of intellect among Christians, and Gnosticism as an

intellectual tendency chiefly concerned with philosophical speculation,

the reconciliation of religion with philosophy and theology. It is true

that when Gnosticism was at its height it numbered amongst its followers

both theologians and men of science, but that is not its main

characteristic. Among the majority of the followers of the movement

"Gnosis" was understood not as meaning "knowledge" or "understanding,"

in our sense of the word, but "revelation." These little Gnostic sects

and groups all lived in the conviction that they possessed a secret and

mysterious knowledge, in no way accessible to those outside, which was

not to be proved or propagated, but believed in by the initiated, and

anxiously guarded as a secret. This knowledge of theirs was not based on

reflection, on scientific inquiry and proof, but on revelation. It was

derived directly from the times of primitive Christianity; from the

Saviour himself and his disciples and friends, with whom they claimed to

be connected by a secret tradition, or else from later prophets, of whom

many sects boasted. It was laid down in wonderful mystic writings, which

were in the possession of the various circles (Liechtenhahn, _Die

Offenbarung im Gnosticismus_, 1901).

In short, Gnosticism, in all its various sections, its form and its

character, falls under the great category of mystic religions, which

were so characteristic of the religious life of decadent antiquity. In

Gnosticism as in the other mystic religions we find the same contrast of

the initiated and the uninitiated, the same loose organization, the same

kind of petty sectarianism and mystery-mongering. All alike boast a

mystic revelation and a deeply-veiled wisdom. As in many mystical

religions, so in Gnosticism, the ultimate object is individual

salvation, the assurance of a fortunate destiny for the soul after

death. As in the others, so in this the central object of worship is a

redeemer-deity who has already trodden the difficult way which the

faithful have to follow. And finally, as in all mystical religions, so

here too, holy rites and formulas, acts of initiation and consecration,

all those things which we call sacraments, play a very prominent part.

The Gnostic religion is full of such sacraments. In the accounts of the

Fathers we find less about them; yet here Irenaeus' account of the

Marcosians is of the highest significance (i. 21 seq.). Much more

material is to be found in the original Gnostic writings, especially in

the _Pistis-Sophia_ and the two books of Ieu, and again in the _Excerpta

ex Theodoto_, the _Acts of Thomas_, and here and there also in the

pseudo-Clementine writings. Above all we can see from the original

sources of the Mandaean religion, which also represents a branch of

Gnosticism, how great a part the sacraments played in the Gnostic sects

(Brandt, _Mandaische Religion_, p. 96 seq.). Everywhere we are met with

the most varied forms of holy rites--the various baptisms, by water, by

fire, by the spirit, the baptism for protection against demons,

anointing with oil, sealing and stigmatizing, piercing the ears, leading

into the bridal chamber, partaking of holy food and drink. Finally,

sacred formulas, names and symbols are of the highest importance among

the Gnostic sects. We constantly meet with the idea that the soul, on

leaving the body, finds its path to the highest heaven opposed by the

deities and demons of the lower realms of heaven, and only when it is in

possession of the names of these demons, and can repeat the proper holy

formula, or is prepared with the right symbol, or has been anointed with

the holy oil, finds its way unhindered to the heavenly home. Hence the

Gnostic must above all things learn the names of the demons, and equip

himself with the sacred formulas and symbols, in order to be certain of

a good destiny after death. The exposition of the system of the Ophites

given by Celsus (in Origen vi. 25 seq.), and, in connexion with Celsus,

by Origen, is particularly instructive on this point. The two "Coptic

Ieu" books unfold an immense system of names and symbols. This system

again was simplified, and as the supreme secret was taught in a single

name or a single formula, by means of which the happy possessor was able

to penetrate through all the spaces of heaven (cf. the name "Caulacau"

among the Basilidians; Irenaeus, _Adv. haer._ i. 24. 5, and among other

sects). It was taught that even the redeemer-god, when he once descended

on to this earth, to rise from it again, availed himself of these names

and formulas on his descent and ascent through the world of demons.

Traces of ideas of this kind are to be met with almost everywhere. They

have been most carefully collected by Anz (_Ursprung des Gnosticismus,

Texte und Untersuchungen_ xv. 4 _passim_) who would see in them the

central doctrine of Gnosticism.

IV. All these investigations point clearly to the fact that Gnosticism

belongs to the group of mystical religions. We must now proceed to

define more exactly the peculiar and distinctive character of the

Gnostic system. The basis of the Gnostic religion and world-philosophy

lies in a decided Oriental dualism. In sharp contrast are opposed the

two worlds of the good and of the evil, the divine world and the

material world [Greek: hule], the worlds of light and of darkness. In

many systems there seems to be no attempt to derive the one world from

the other. The true Basilides (q.v.), perhaps also Satornil, Marcion and

a part of his disciples, Bardesanes and others, were frankly dualists.

In the case of other systems, owing to the inexactness of our

information, we are unable to decide; the later systems of Mandaeism and

Manichaeanism, so closely related to Gnosticism, are also based upon a

decided dualism. And even when there is an attempt at reconciliation, it

is still quite clear how strong was the original dualism which has to be

overcome. Thus the Gnostic systems make great use of the idea of a fall

of the Deity himself; by the fall of the Godhead into the world of

matter, this matter, previously insensible, is animated into life and

activity, and then arise the powers, both partly and wholly hostile, who

hold sway over this world. Such figures of fallen divinities, sinking

down into the world of matter are those of Sophia (i.e. Ahamoth) among

the Gnostics (Ophites) in the narrower sense of the word, the Simoniani

(the figure of Helena), the Barbelognostics, and in the system of the

_Pistis-Sophia_ or the Primal Man, among the Naasseni and the sect,

related to them, as described by Hippolytus.[5] A further weakening of

the dualism is indicated when, in the systems of the Valentinian school,

the fall of Sophia takes place within the godhead, and Sophia, inflamed

with love, plunges into the Bythos, the highest divinity, and when the

attempt is thus made genetically to derive the lower world from the

sufferings and passions of fallen divinity. Another attempt at

reconciliation is set forth in the so-called "system of emanations" in

which it is assumed that from the supreme divinity emanated a somewhat

lesser world, from this world a second, and so on, until the divine

element (of life) became so far weakened and attenuated, that the

genesis of a partly, or even wholly, evil world appears both possible

and comprehensible. A system of emanations of this kind, in its purest

form, is set forth in the expositions coming from the school of

Basilides, which are handed down by Irenaeus, while the propositions

which are set forth in the _Philosophumena_ of Hippolytus as being

doctrines of Basilides represent a still closer approach to a monistic

philosophy. Occasionally, too, there is an attempt to establish at any

rate a threefold division of the world, and to assume between the worlds

of light and darkness a middle world connecting the two; this is

clearest among the Sethiani mentioned by Hippolytus (and cf. the

Gnostics in Irenaeus i. 30. 1). Quite peculiar in this connexion are the

accounts in Books xix. and xx. of the Clementine _Homilies_. After a

preliminary examination of all possible different attempts at a solution

of the problem of evil, the attempt is here made to represent the devil

as an instrument of God. Christ and the devil are the two hands of God,

Christ the right hand, and the devil the left, the devil having power

over this world-epoch and Christ over the next. The devil here assumes

very much the characteristics of the punishing and just God of the Old

Testament, and the prospect is even held out of his ultimate pardon. All

these efforts at reconciliation show how clearly the problem of evil was

realized in these Gnostic and half-Gnostic sects, and how deeply they

meditated on the subject; it was not altogether without reason that in

the ranks of its opponents Gnosticism was judged to have arisen out of

the question, [Greek: pothen to kakon].

This dualism had not its origin in Hellenic soil, neither is it related

to that dualism which to a certain extent existed also in late Greek

religion. For the lower and imperfect world, which in that system too is

conceived and assumed, is the nebulous world of the non-existent and the

formless, which is the necessary accompaniment of that which exists, as

shadow is of light.

In Gnosticism, on the contrary, the world of evil is full of active

energy and hostile powers. It is an Oriental (Iranian) dualism which

here finds expression, though in one point, it is true, the mark of

Greek influence is quite clear. When Gnosticism recognizes in this

corporeal and material world the true seat of evil, consistently

treating the bodily existence of mankind as essentially evil and the

separation of the spiritual from the corporeal being as the object of

salvation, this is an outcome of the contrast in Greek dualism between

spirit and matter, soul and body. For in Oriental (Persian) dualism it

is within this material world that the good and evil powers are at war,

and this world beneath the stars is by no means conceived as entirely

subject to the influence of evil. Gnosticism has combined the two, the

Greek opposition between spirit and matter, and the sharp Zoroastrian

dualism, which, where the Greek mind conceived of a higher and a lower

world, saw instead two hostile worlds, standing in contrast to each

other like light and darkness. And out of the combination of these two

dualisms arose the teaching of Gnosticism, with its thoroughgoing

pessimism and fundamental asceticism.

Another characteristic feature of the Gnostic conception of the universe

is the role played in almost all Gnostic systems by the seven

world-creating powers. There are indeed certain exceptions; for

instance, in the systems of the Valentinian schools there is the figure

of the one Demiurge who takes the place of the Seven. But how widespread

was the idea of seven powers, who created this lower material world and

rule over it, has been clearly proved, especially by the systematic

examination of the subject by Anz (_Ursprung des Gnosticismus_). These

Seven, then, are in most systems half-evil, half-hostile powers; they

are frequently characterized as "angels," and are reckoned as the last

and lowest emanations of the Godhead; below them--and frequently

considered as derived from them--comes the world of the actually

devilish powers. On the other hand, among the speculations of the

Mandaeans, we find a different and perhaps more primitive conception of

the Seven, according to which they, together with their mother Namrus

(Ruha) and their father (Ur), belong entirely to the world of darkness.

They and their family are looked upon as captives of the god of light

(Manda-d'hayye, Hibil-Ziva), who pardons them, sets them on chariots of

light, and appoints them as rulers of the world (cf. chiefly Genza, in

_Tractat_. 6 and 8; W. Brandt, _Mandaische Schriften_, 125 seq. and 137

seq.; _Mandaische Religion_, 34 seq., &c.). In the Manichaean system it

is related how the helper of the Primal Man, the spirit of life,

captured the evil _archontes_, and fastened them to the firmament, or

according to another account, flayed them, and formed the firmament from

their skin (F. C. Baur, _Das manichaische Religionssystem_, v. 65), and

this conception is closely related to the other, though in this

tradition the number (seven) of the _archontes_ is lost. Similarly, the

last book of the _Pistis-Sophia_ contains the myth of the capture of the

rebellious _archontes_, whose leaders here appear as five in number

(Schmidt, _Koptisch-gnostische Schriften_, p. 234 seq.).[6] There can

scarcely be any doubt as to the origin of these seven (five) powers;

they are the seven planetary divinities, the sun, moon and five planets.

In the Mandaean speculations the Seven are introduced with the

Babylonian names of the planets. The connexion of the Seven with the

planets is also clearly established by the expositions of Celsus and

Origen (_Contra Celsum_, vi. 22 seq.) and similarly by the above-quoted

passage in the _Pistis-Sophia_, where the _archontes_, who are here

mentioned as five, are identified with the five planets (excluding the

sun and moon). This collective grouping of the seven (five) planetary

divinities is derived from the late Babylonian religion, which can

definitely be indicated as the home of these ideas (Zimmern,

_Keilinschriften in dem alten Testament_, ii. p. 620 seq.; cf.

particularly Diodorus ii. 30). And if in the old sources it is only the

first beginnings of this development that can be traced, we must assume

that at a later period the Babylonian religion centred in the adoration

of the seven planetary deities. Very instructive in this connexion is

the later (Arabian) account of the religion of the Mesopotamian

Sabaeans. The religion of the Sabaeans, evidently a later offshoot from

the stock of the old Babylonian religion, actually consists in the cult

of the seven planets (cf. the great work of Daniel Chwolsohn, _Die

Ssabier u. der Ssabismus_). But this reference to Babylonian religion

does not solve the problem which is here in question. For in the

Babylonian religion the planetary constellations are reckoned as the

supreme deities. And here the question arises, how it came about that in

the Gnostic systems the Seven appear as subordinate, half-daemonic

powers, or even completely as powers of darkness. This can only be

explained on the assumption that some religion hostile to, and stronger

than the Babylonian, has superimposed itself upon this, and has degraded

its principal deities into daemons. Which religion can this have been?

We are at first inclined to think of Christianity itself, but it is

certainly most improbable that at the time of the rise of Christianity

the Babylonian teaching about the seven planet-deities governing the

world should have played so great a part throughout all Syria, Asia

Minor and Egypt, that the most varying sections of syncretic

Christianity should over and over again adopt this doctrine and work it

up into their system. It is far more probable that the combination which

we meet with in Gnosticism is older than Christianity, and was found

already in existence by Christianity and its sects. We must also reject

the theory that this degradation of the planetary deities into daemons

is due to the influence of Hebrew monotheism, for almost all the Gnostic

sects take up a definitely hostile attitude towards the Jewish religion,

and almost always the highest divinity among the Seven is actually the

creator-God of the Old Testament. There remains, then, only one religion

which can be used as an explanation, namely the Persian, which in fact

fulfils all the necessary conditions. The Persian religion was at an

early period brought into contact with the Babylonian, through the

triumphant progress of Persian culture towards the West; at the time of

Alexander the Great it was already the prevailing religion in the

Babylonian plain (cf. F. Cumont, _Textes et monuments rel. aux mysteres

de Mithra_, i. 5, 8-10, 14, 223 seq., 233). It was characterized by a

main belief, tending towards monotheism, in the Light-deity Ahuramazda

and his satellites, who appeared in contrast with him as powers of the

nature of angels.

A combination of the Babylonian with the Persian religion could only be

effected by the degradation of the Babylonian deities into half-divine,

half-daemonic beings, infinitely remote from the supreme God of light

and of heaven, or even into powers of darkness. Even the characteristic

dualism of Gnosticism has already proved to be in part of Iranian

origin; and now it becomes clear how from that mingling of late Greek

and Persian dualism the idea could arise that these seven half-daemonic

powers are the creators or rulers of this material world, which is

separated infinitely from the light-world of the good God. Definite

confirmation of this conjecture is afforded us by later sources of the

Iranian religion, in which we likewise meet with the characteristic

fundamental doctrine of Gnosticism. Thus the _Bundahish_ (iii. 25, v. 1)

is able to inform us that in the primeval strife of Satan against the

light-world, seven hostile powers were captured and set as

constellations in the heavens, where they are guarded by good

star-powers and prevented from doing harm. Five of the evil powers are

the planets, while here the sun and moon are of course not reckoned

among the evil powers--for the obvious reason that in the Persian

official religion they invariably appear as good divinities (cf. similar

ideas in the Arabic treatise on Persian religion _Ulema-i-Islam_,

Vullers, _Fragmente uber die Religion Zoroasters_, p. 49, and in other

later sources for Persian religion, put together in Spiegel, _Eranische

Altertumskunde_, Bd. ii. p. 180). These Persian fancies can hardly be

borrowed from the Christian Gnostic systems, their definiteness and much

more strongly dualistic character recalling the exposition of the

Mandaean (and Manichaean) system, are proofs to the contrary. They are

derived from the same period in which the underlying idea of the

Gnostic systems also originated, namely, the time at which the ideas of

the Persian and Babylonian religions came into contact, the remarkable

results of which have thus partly found their way into the official

documents of Parsiism.

With this fundamental doctrine of Gnosticism is connected, as Anz has

shown in his book which we have so often quoted, a side of their

religious practices to which we have already alluded. Gnosticism is to a

great extent dominated by the idea that it is above all and in the

highest degree important for the Gnostic's soul to be enabled to find

its way back through the lower worlds and spheres of heaven ruled by the

Seven to the kingdom of light of the supreme deity of heaven. Hence, a

principal item in their religious practice consisted in communications

about the being, nature and names of the Seven (or of any other hostile

daemons barring the way to heaven), the formulas with which they must be

addressed, and the symbols which must be shown to them. But names,

symbols and formulas are not efficacious by themselves: the Gnostic must

lead a life having no part in the lower world ruled by these spirits,

and by his knowledge he must raise himself above them to the God of the

world of light. Throughout this mystic religious world it was above all

the influence of the late Greek religion, derived from Plato, that also

continued to operate; it is filled with the echo of the song, the first

note of which was sounded by the Platonists, about the heavenly home of

the soul and the homeward journey of the wise to the higher world of

light.

But the form in which the whole is set forth is Oriental, and it must be

carefully noted that the Mithras mysteries, so closely connected with

the Persian religion, are acquainted with this doctrine of the ascent of

the soul through the planetary spheres (Origen, _Contra Celsum_, vi.

22).

V. We cannot here undertake to set forth and explain in detail all the

complex varieties of the Gnostic systems; but it will be useful to take

a nearer view of certain principal figures which have had an influence

upon at least one series of Gnostic systems, and to examine their

origins in the history of religion. In almost all systems an important

part is played by the Great Mother ([Greek: meter]) who appears under

the most varied forms (cf. GREAT MOTHER OF THE GODS). At an early

period, and notably in the older systems of the Ophites (a fairly exact

account of which has been preserved for us by Epiphanius and

Hippolytus), among the Gnostics in the narrower sense of the word, the

Archontici, the Sethites (there are also traces among the Naasseni, cf.

the _Philosophumena_ of Hippolytus), the [Greek: meter] is the most

prominent figure in the light-world, elevated above the [Greek:

hebdomas], and the great mother of the faithful. The sect of the

Barbelognostics takes its name from the female figure of the Barbelo

(perhaps a corruption of [Greek: Parthenos]; cf. the form [Greek:

Barthenos] for "virgin" in Epiphanius, _Haer._ xxvi. 1). But Gnostic

speculation gives various accounts of the descent or fall of this

goddess of heaven. Thus the "Helena" of the Simoniani descends to this

world in order by means of her beauty to provoke to sensual passion and

mutual strife the angels who rule the world, and thus again to deprive

them of the powers of light, stolen from heaven, by means of which they

rule over the world. She is then held captive by them in extreme

degradation. Similar ideas are to be found among the "Gnostics" of

Epiphanius. The kindred idea of the light-maiden, who, by exciting the

sensual passions of the rulers ([Greek: archontes]), takes from them

those powers of light which still remain to them, has also a central

place in the Manichaean scheme of salvation (F. C. Baur, _Das

manichaische Religionssystem_, pp. 219, 315, 321). The light-maiden also

plays a prominent part in the _Pistis-Sophia_ (cf. the index to the

translation by C. Schmidt). With this figure of the mother-goddess who

descends into the lower world seems to be closely connected the idea of

the fallen Sophia, which is so widespread among the Gnostic systems.

This Sophia then is certainly no longer the dominating figure of the

light-world, she is a lower aeon at the extreme limit of the world of

light, who sinks down into matter (Barbelognostics, the anonymous

Gnostic of Irenaeus, Bardesanes, _Pistis-Sophia_), or turns in

presumptuous love towards the supreme God ([Greek: Buthos]), and thus

brings the Fall into the world of the _aeons_ (Valentinians). This

Sophia then appears as the mother of the "seven" gods (see above).

The origin of this figure is not far to seek. It is certainly not

derived from the Persian religious system, to the spirit of which it is

entirely opposed. Neither would it be correct to identify her entirely

with the great goddess Ishtar of the old Babylonian religion. But there

can hardly be any doubt that the figure of the great mother-goddess or

goddess of heaven, who was worshipped throughout Asia under various

forms and names (Astarte, Beltis, Atargatis, Cybele, the Syrian

Aphrodite), was the prototype of the [Greek: meter] of the Gnostics (cf.

GREAT MOTHER OF THE GODS). The character of the great goddess of heaven

is still in many places fairly exactly preserved in the Gnostic

speculations. Hence we are able to understand how the Gnostic [Greek:

meter], the Sophia, appears as the mother of the Hebdomas ([Greek:

hebdomas]). The great goddess of heaven is the mother of the stars.

Particularly instructive in this connexion is the fact that in those

very sects, in the systems of which the figure of the [Greek: meter]

plays a special part, unbridled prostitution appears as a distinct and

essential part of the cult (cf. the accounts of particular branches of

the Gnostics, Nicolaitans, Philionites, Borborites, &c. in Epiphanius,

_Haer._ xxv., xxvi.). The meaning of this cult is, of course,

reinterpreted in the Gnostic sense: by this unbridled prostitution the

Gnostic sects desired to prevent the sexual propagation of mankind, the

origin of all evil. But the connexion is clear, and hence it also

explained the curious Gnostic myth mentioned above, namely that the

[Greek: meter] (the light-maiden) by appearing to the archontes ([Greek:

archontes]), the lower powers of this world, inflames them to sexual

lusts, in order to take from them that share of light which they have

stolen from the upper world. This is a Gnostic interpretation of the

various myths of the great mother-goddess's many loves and

love-adventures with other gods and heroes. And when the pagan legend of

the Syrian Astarte tells how she lived for ten years in Tyre as a

prostitute, this directly recalls the Gnostic myth of how Simon found

Helena in a brothel in Tyre (Epiphanius, _Ancoratus_, c. 104). From the

same group of myths must be derived the idea of the goddess who descends

to the under-world, and is there taken prisoner against her will by the

lower powers; the direct prototype of this myth is to be found, e.g. in

Ishtar's journey to hell. And finally, just as the mother-goddess of

south-western Asia stands in particularly intimate connexion with the

youthful god of spring (Tammuz, Adonis, Attis), so we ought perhaps to

compare here as a parallel the relation of Sophia with the Soter in

certain Gnostic systems (see below).

Another characteristic figure of Gnosticism is that of the Primal Man

([Greek: protos anthropos]). In many systems, certainly, it has already

been forced quite into the background. But on closer examination we can

clearly see that it has a wide influence on Gnosticism. Thus in the

system of the Naasseni (see Hippolytus, _Philosophumena_), and in

certain related sects there enumerated, the Primal Man has a central and

predominant position. Again, in the text on which are based the

pseudo-Clementine writings (_Recognitions_, i. 16, 32, 45-47, 52, ii.

47; and _Homilies_, iii. 17 seq. xviii. 14), as in the closely related

system of the Ebionites in Epiphanius (_Haer._ xxx. 3-16; cf. liii. 1),

we meet with the man who existed before the world, the prophet who goes

through the world in various forms, and finally reveals himself in

Christ. Among the Barbelognostics (Irenaeus i. 29. 3), the Primal Man

(Adamas, _homo perfectus et verus_) and Gnosis appear as a pair of

aeons, occupying a prominent place in the whole series. In the

Valentinian systems the pair of aeons, Anthropos and Ekklesia, occupy

the third or fourth place within the _Oydoas_, but incidentally we learn

that with some representatives of this school the Anthropos took a still

more prominent place (first or second; Hilgenfeld, _Ketzergeschichte_,

p. 294 seq.). And even in the _Pistis-Sophia_ the Primal Man "Ieu" is

frequently alluded to as the King of the Luminaries (cf. index to C.

Schmidt's translation). We also meet with speculations of this kind

about man in the circles of non-Christian Gnosis. Thus in the

_Poimandres_ of Hermes man is the most prominent figure in the

speculation; numerous pagan and half-pagan parallels (the "Gnostics" of

Plotinus, Zosimus, Bitys) have been collected by Reitzenstein in his

work _Poimandres_ (pp. 81-116). Reitzenstein has shown (p. 81 seq.) that

very probably the system of the Naasseni described by Hippolytus was

originally derived from purely pagan circles, which are probably

connected in some way with the mysteries of the Attis cult. The figure

in the Mandaean system most closely corresponding to the Primal Man,

though this figure also actually occurs in another part of the system

(cf. the figure of Adakas Mana; Brandt, _Mandaische Religion_, p. 36

seq.) is that of Manda d'hayye ([Greek: gnosis tes zoes]; cf. the pair

of aeons, Adamas and Gnosis, among the Barbelognostics, in Irenaeus i.

29. 3). Finally, in the Manichaean system, as is well known, the Primal

Man again assumes the predominant place (Baur, _Manich.

Religionssystem_, 49 seq.).

This figure of the Primal Man can particularly be compared with that of

the Gnostic Sophia. Wherever this figure has not become quite obscure,

it represents that divine power which, whether simply owing to a fall,

or as the hero who makes war on, and is partly vanquished by darkness,

descends into the darkness of the material world, and with whose descent

begins the great drama of the world's development. From this power are

derived those portions of light existing and held prisoner in this lower

world. And as he has raised himself again out of the material world, or

has been set free by higher powers, so shall also the members of the

Primal Man, the portions of light still imprisoned in matter, be set

free.

The question of the derivation of the myth of the Primal Man is still

one of the unsolved problems of religious history. It is worthy of

notice that according to the old Persian myth also, the development of

the world begins with the slaying of the primal man Gayomart by

Angra-Mainyu (Ahriman); further, that the Primal Man ("son of man" =

man) also plays a part in Jewish apocalyptic literature (Daniel, Enoch,

iv. Ezra), whence this figure passes into the Gospels; and again, that

the dogma of Christ's descent into hell is directly connected with this

myth. But these parallels do not carry us much further. Even the Persian

myth is entirely obscure, and has hitherto defied interpretation. It is

certainly true that in some way an essential part in the formation of

the myth has been played by the sun-god, who daily descends into

darkness, to rise from it again victoriously. But how to explain the

combination of the figure of the sun-god with that of the Primal Man is

an unsolved riddle. The meaning of this figure in the Gnostic

speculations is, however, clear. It answers the question: how did the

portions of light to be found in this lower world, among which certainly

belong the souls of the Gnostics, enter into it?

A parallel myth to that of the Primal Man are the accounts to be found

in most of the Gnostic systems of the creation of the first man. In all

these accounts the idea is expressed that so far as his body is

concerned man is the work of the angels who created the world. So e.g.

Satornil relates (Irenaeus i. 24. 1) that a brilliant vision appeared

from above to the world-creating angels; they were unable to hold it

fast, but formed man after its image. And as the man thus formed was

unable to move, but could only crawl like a worm, the supreme Power put

into him a spark of life, and man came into existence. Imaginations of

the same sort are also to be found, e.g. in the genuine fragments of

Valentinus (Hilgenfeld, _Ketzergeschichte_, p. 293), the Gnostics of

Irenaeus i. 30. 6, the Mandaeans (Brandt, _Religion der Mandaer_, p.

36), and the Manichaeans (Baur, _Religionssystem_, p. 118 seq.). The

Naasseni (Hippolytus, _Philosophumena_, v. 7) expressly characterize the

myth as Chaldean (cf. the passage from Zosimus, in Reitzenstein's

_Poimandres_, p. 104). Clearly then the question which the myth of the

Primal Man is intended to answer in relation to the whole universe is

answered in relation to the nature of man by this account of the coming

into being of the first man, which may, moreover, have been influenced

by the account in the Old Testament. That question is: how does it

happen that in this inferior body of man, fallen a prey to corruption,

there dwells a higher spark of the divine Being, or in other words, how

are we to explain the double nature of man?

VI. Of all the fundamental ideas of Gnosticism of which we have so far

treated, it can with some certainty be assumed that they were in

existence before the rise of Christianity and the influence of Christian

ideas on the development of Gnosticism. The main question with which we

have now to deal is that of whether the dominant figure of the Saviour

([Greek: Soter]) in Gnosticism is of specifically Christian derivation,

or whether this can also be explained apart from the assumption of

Christian influence. And here it must be premised that, intimately as

the conception of salvation is bound up with the Gnostic religion, the

idea of salvation accomplished in a definite historical moment to a

certain extent remained foreign to it. Indeed, nearly all the Christian

Gnostic systems clearly exhibit the great difficulty with which they had

to contend in order to reconcile the idea of an historical redeemer,

actually occurring in the form of a definite person, with their

conceptions of salvation. In Gnosticism salvation always lies at the

root of all existence and all history. The fundamental conception varies

greatly. At one time the Primal Man, who sank down into matter, has

freed himself and risen out of it again, and like him his members will

rise out of darkness into the light (_Poimandres_); at another time the

Primal Man who was conquered by the powers of darkness has been saved by

the powers of light, and thus too all his race will be saved

(Manichaeism); at another time the fallen Sophia is purified by her

passions and sorrows and has found her _Syzygos_, the Soter, and wedded

him, and thus all the souls of the Gnostics who still languish in matter

will become the brides of the angels of the _Soter_ (Valentinus). In

fact salvation, as conceived in Gnosticism, is always a myth, a history

of bygone events, an allegory or figure, but not an historical event.

And this decision is not affected by the fact that in certain Gnostic

sects figured historical personages such as Simon Magus and Menander.

The Gnostic ideas of salvation were in the later schools and sects

transferred to these persons whom we must consider as rather obscure

charlatans and miracle-mongers, just as in other cases they were

transferred to the person of Christ. The "Helena" of the Simonian system

was certainly not an historical but a mythical figure. This explains the

laborious and artificial way in which the person of Jesus is connected

in many Gnostic systems with the original Gnostic conception of

redemption. In this patchwork the joins are everywhere still clearly to

be recognized. Thus, e.g. in the Valentinian system, the myth of the

fallen Sophia and the Soter, of their ultimate union, their marriage and

their 70 sons (Irenaeus i. 4. 5; Hippolytus, _Philos._ vi. 34), has

absolutely nothing to do with the Christian conceptions of salvation.

The subject is here that of a high goddess of heaven (she has 70 sons)

whose friend and lover finds her in the misery of deepest degradation,

frees her, and bears her home as his bride. To this myth the idea of

salvation through the earthly Christ can only be attached with

difficulty. And it was openly maintained that the Soter only existed for

the Gnostic, the Saviour Jesus who appeared on earth only for the

"Psychicus" (Irenaeus i. 6. 1).

VII. Thus the essential part of most of the conceptions of what we call

Gnosticism was already in existence and fully developed before the rise

of Christianity. But the fundamental ideas of Gnosticism and of early

Christianity had a kind of magnetic attraction for each other. What drew

these two forces together was the energy exerted by the universal idea

of salvation in both systems. Christian Gnosticism actually introduced

only one new figure into the already existing Gnostic theories, namely

that of the historical Saviour Jesus Christ. This figure afforded, as it

were, a new point of crystallization for the existing Gnostic ideas,

which now grouped themselves round this point in all their manifold

diversity. Thus there came into the fluctuating mass a strong movement

and formative impulse, and the individual systems and sects sprang up

like mushrooms from this soil.

It must now be our task to make plain the position of Gnosticism within

the Christian religion, and its significance for the development of the

latter. Above all the Gnostics represented and developed the distinctly

anti-Jewish tendency in Christianity. Paul was the apostle whom they

reverenced, and his spiritual influence on them is quite unmistakable.

The Gnostic Marcion has been rightly characterized as a direct disciple

of Paul. Paul's battle against the law and the narrow national

conception of Christianity found a willing following in a movement, the

syncretic origin of which directed it towards a universal religion. St

Paul's ideas were here developed to their extremest consequences, and in

an entirely one-sided fashion such as was far from being in his

intention. In nearly all the Gnostic systems the doctrine of the seven

world-creating spirits is given an anti-Jewish tendency, the god of the

Jews and of the Old Testament appearing as the highest of the seven. The

demiurge of the Valentinians always clearly bears the features of the

Old Testament creator-God.

The Old Testament was absolutely rejected by most of the Gnostics. Even

the so-called Judaeo-Christian Gnostics (Cerinthus), the Ebionite

(Essenian) sect of the Pseudo-Clementine writings (the Elkesaites), take

up an inconsistent attitude towards Jewish antiquity and the Old

Testament. In this respect the opposition to Gnosticism led to a

reactionary movement. If the growing Christian Church, in quite a

different fashion from Paul, laid stress on the literal authority of the

Old Testament, interpreted, it is true, allegorically; if it took up a

much more friendly and definite attitude towards the Old Testament, and

gave wider scope to the legal conception of religion, this must be in

part ascribed to the involuntary reaction upon it of Gnosticism.

The attitude of Gnosticism to the Old Testament and to the creator-God

proclaimed in it had its deeper roots, as we have already seen, in the

dualism by which it was dominated. With this dualism and the recognition

of the worthlessness and absolutely vicious nature of the material world

is combined a decided spiritualism. The conception of a resurrection of

the body, of a further existence for the body after death, was

unattainable by almost all of the Gnostics, with the possible exception

of a few Gnostic sects dominated by Judaeo-Christian tendencies. With

the dualistic philosophy is further connected an attitude of absolute

indifference towards this lower and material world, and the practice of

asceticism. Marriage and sexual propagation are considered either as

absolute Evil or as altogether worthless, and carnal pleasure is

frequently looked upon as forbidden. Then again asceticism sometimes

changes into wild libertinism. Here again Gnosticism has exercised an

influence on the development of the Church by way of contrast and

opposition. If here a return was made to the old material view of the

resurrection (the apostolic [Greek: anastasis tes sarkos]), entirely

abandoning the more spiritual conception which had been arrived at as a

compromise by Paul, this is probably the result of a reaction from the

views of Gnosticism. It was just at this point, too, that Gnosticism

started a development which was followed later by the Catholic Church.

In spite of the rejection of the ascetic attitude of the Gnostics, as a

blasphemy against the Creator, a part of this ascetic principle became

at a later date dominant throughout all Christendom. And it is

interesting to observe how, e.g., St Augustine, though desperately

combating the dualism of the Manichaeans, yet afterwards introduced a

number of dualistic ideas into Christianity, which are distinguishable

from those of Manichaeism only by a very keen eye, and even then with

difficulty.

The Gnostic religion also anticipated other tendencies. As we have seen,

it is above all things a religion of sacraments and mysteries. Through

its syncretic origin Gnosticism introduced for the first time into

Christianity a whole mass of sacramental, mystical ideas, which had

hitherto existed in it only in its earliest phases. But in the long run

even genuine Christianity has been unable to free itself from the magic

of the sacraments; and the Eastern Church especially has taken the same

direction as Gnosticism. Gnosticism was also the pioneer of the

Christian Church in the strong emphasis laid on the idea of salvation in

religion. And since the Gnostics were compelled to draw the figure of

the Saviour into a world of quite alien myths, their Christology became

so complicated in character that it frequently recalls the Christology

of the later dogmatic of the Greek Fathers.

Finally, it was Gnosticism which gave the most decided impulse to the

consolidation of the Christian Church as a church. Gnosticism itself is

a free, naturally-growing religion, the religion of isolated minds, of

separate little circles and minute sects. The homogeneity of wide

circles, the sense of responsibility engendered by it, and continuity

with the past are almost entirely lacking in it. It is based upon

revelation, which even at the present time is imparted to the

individual, upon the more or less convincing force of the religious

imagination and speculations of a few leaders, upon the voluntary and

unstable grouping of the schools round the master. Its adherents feel

themselves to be the isolated, the few, the free and the enlightened, as

opposed to the sluggish and inert masses of mankind degraded into

matter, or the initiated as opposed to the uninitiated, the Gnostics as

opposed to the "Hylici" ([Greek: hulikoi]); at most in the later and

more moderate schools a middle place was given to the adherents of the

Church as Psychici ([Greek: psychikoi]).

This freely-growing Gnostic religiosity aroused in the Church an

increasingly strong movement towards unity and a firm and inelastic

organization, towards authority and tradition. An organized hierarchy, a

definitive canon of the Holy Scriptures, a confession of faith and rule

of faith, and unbending doctrinal discipline, these were the means

employed. A part was also played in this movement by a free theology

which arose within the Church, itself a kind of Gnosticism which aimed

at holding fast whatever was good in the Gnostic movement, and obtaining

its recognition within the limits of the Church (Clement of Alexandria,

Origen). But the mightiest forces, to which in the end this theology too

had absolutely to give way, were outward organization and tradition.

It must be considered as an unqualified advantage for the further

development of Christianity, as a universal religion, that at its very

outset it prevailed against the great movement of Gnosticism. In spite

of the fact that in a few of its later representatives Gnosticism

assumed a more refined and spiritual aspect, and even produced blossoms

of a true and beautiful piety, it is fundamentally and essentially an

unstable religious syncretism, a religion in which the determining

forces were a fantastic oriental imagination and a sacramentalism which

degenerated into the wildest superstitions, a weak dualism fluctuating

unsteadily between asceticism and libertinism. Indirectly, however,

Gnosticism was certainly one of the most powerful factors in the

development of Christianity in the 1st century.

VIII. This sketch may be completed by a short review of the various

separate sects and their probable connexion with each other. As a point

of departure for the history of the development of Gnosticism may be

taken the numerous little sects which were apparently first included

under the name of "Gnostics" in the narrower sense. Among these probably

belong the Ophites of Celsus (in Origen), the many little sects included

by Epiphanius under the name of Nicolaitans and Gnostics (_Haer._ 25,

26); the Archontici (Epiphanius, _Haer._ xl.), Sethites (Cainites)

should also here be mentioned, and finally the Carpocratians. Common to

all these is the dominant position assumed by the "Seven" (headed by

Ialdabaoth); the heavenly world lying above the spheres of the Seven is

occupied by comparatively few figures, among which the most important

part is played by the [Greek: meter], who is sometimes enthroned as the

supreme goddess in heaven, but in a few systems has already descended

from there into matter, been taken prisoner, &c. Numerous little groups

are distinguished from the mass, sometimes by one peculiarity, sometimes

by another. On the one hand we have sects with a strongly ascetic

tendency, on the other we find some characterized by unbridled

libertinism; in some the most abandoned prostitution has come to be the

most sacred mystery; in others again appears the worship of serpents,

which here appears to be connected in various and often very loose ways

with the other ideas of these Gnostics--hence the names of the

"Ophites," "Naasseni." To this class also fundamentally belong the

Simoniani, who have included the probably historical figure of Simon

Magus in a system which seems to be closely connected with those we have

mentioned, especially if we look upon the "Helena" of this system as a

mythical figure. A particular branch of the "Gnostic" sects is

represented by those systems in which the figure of Sophia sinking down

into matter already appears. To these belong the Barbelognostics (in the

description given by Irenaeus the figure of the Spirit takes the place

of that of Sophia), and the Gnostics whom Irenaeus (i. 30) describes

(cf. Epiphanius, _Haer._ xxvi.). And here may best be included

Bardesanes, a famous leader of a Gnostic school of the end of the 2nd

century. Most scholars, it is true, following an old tradition, reckon

Bardesanes among the Valentinians. But from the little we know of

Bardesanes, his system bears no trace of relationship with the

complicated Valentinian system, but is rather completely derived from

the ordinary Gnosticism, and is distinguished from it apparently only by

its more strongly dualistic character. The systems of Valentinus and his

disciples must be considered as a further development of what we have

just characterized as the popular Gnosticism, and especially of that

branch of it to which the figure of Sophia is already known. In them

above all the world of the higher aeons is further extended and filled

with a throng of varied figures. They also exhibit a variation from the

characteristic dualism of Gnosticism into monism, in their conception of

the fall of Sophia and their derivation of matter from the passions of

the fallen Sophia. The figures of the Seven have here entirely

disappeared, the remembrance of them being merely preserved in the name

of the [Greek: Demiourgos (hebdomas)]. In general, Valentinianism

displays a particular resemblance to the dominant ideas of the Church,

both in its complicated Christology, its triple division of mankind into

[Greek: pneumatikoi, psychikoi] and [Greek: hulikoi], and its

far-fetched interpretation of texts.[7] A quite different position from

those mentioned above is taken by Basilides (q.v.). From what little we

know of him he was an uncompromising dualist. Both the systems which are

handed down under his name by Irenaeus and Hippolytus, that of

emanations and the monistic-evolutionary system, represent further

developments of his ideas with a tendency away from dualism towards

monism. Characteristically, in these Basilidian systems the figure of

the "Mother" or of Sophia does not appear. This peculiarity the

Basilidian system shares with that of Satornil of Antioch, which has

only come down to us in a very fragmentary state, and in other respects

recalls in many ways the popular Gnosticism. By itself, on the other

hand, stands the system preserved for us by Hippolytus in the

_Philosophumena_ under the name of the Naasseni, with its central figure

of "the Man," which, as we have seen, is very closely related with

certain specifically pagan Gnostic speculations which have come down to

us (in the _Poimandres_, in Zosimus and Plotinus, _Ennead_ ii. 9). With

the Naasseni, moreover, are related also the other sects of which

Hippolytus alone gives us a notice in his _Philosophumena_ (Docetae,

Perates, Sethiani, the adherents of Justin, the Gnostic of Monoimos).

Finally, apart from all other Gnostics stands Marcion. With him, as far

as we are able to conclude from the scanty notices of him, the manifold

Gnostic speculations are reduced essentially to the one problem of the

good and the just God, the God of the Christians and the God of the Old

Testament. Between these two powers Marcion affirms a sharp and, as it

appears, originally irreconcilable dualism which with him rests moreover

on a speculative basis. Thanks to the noble simplicity and specifically

religious character of his ideas, Marcion was able to found not only

schools, but a community, a church of his own, which gave trouble to the

Church longer than any other Gnostic sect. Among his disciples the

speculative and fantastic element of Gnosticism again became more

apparent. As we have already intimated, Gnosticism had such a power of

attraction that it now drew within its limits even Judaeo-Christian

sects. Among these we must mention the Judaeo-Christian Gnostic

Cerinthus, also the Gnostic Ebionites, of whom Epiphanius (_Haer._)

gives us an account, and whose writings are to be found in a recension

in the collected works of the Pseudo-Clementine _Recognitions and

Homilies_; to the same class belong the Elkesaites with their mystical

scripture, the _Elxai_, extracts of which are given by Hippolytus in the

_Philos._ (ix. 13). Later evidence of the decadence of Gnosticism occurs

in the _Pistis-Sophia_ and the Coptic Gnostic writings discovered and

edited by Schmidt. In these confused records of human imagination gone

mad, we possess a veritable herbarium of all possible Gnostic ideas,

which were once active and now rest peacefully side by side. None the

less, the stream of the Gnostic religion is not yet dried up, but

continues on its way; and it is beyond a doubt that the later

Mandaeanism and the great religious movement of Mani are most closely

connected with Gnosticism. These manifestations are all the more

characteristic since in them we meet with a Gnosticism which remained

essentially more untouched by Christian influences than the Gnostic

systems of the 2nd century A.D. Thus these systems throw an important

light on the past, and a true perception of the nature and purpose of

Gnosticism is not to be obtained without taking them into consideration.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--A. Neander, _Genetische Entwicklung d. vornehmsten

gnostischen Systeme_ (Berlin, 1818); F. Chr. Baur, _Die christl.

Gnosis in ihrer geschichtl. Entwicklung_ (Tubingen, 1835); E. W.

Moller, _Gesch. der Kosmologie in der griechischen Kirche bis

Origenes_ (Halle, 1860); R. A. Lipsius, _Der Gnosticismus_ (Leipzig,

1860; originally in Ersch and Gruber's _Encyclopadie_); H. L. Mansel,

_The Gnostic Heresies of the 1st and 2nd Centuries_ (London, 1875); K.

Kepler, _Uber Gnosis und altbabylonische Religion_, a lecture

delivered at the Congress of Orientalists (Berlin, 1881); A.

Hilgenfeld, _Ketzergeschichte des Urchristentums_ (Leipzig, 1884); and

in _Ztschr. fur wissenschaftl. Theol._ 1890, i. "Der Gnosticismus"; A.

Harnack, _Dogmengeschichte_, i. 271 seq. (cf. the corresponding

sections of the _Dogmengeschichten_ of Loofs and Seeberg); W. Anz,

"Zur Frage nach dem Ursprung des Gnosticismus," _Texte u.

Untersuchungen_, xv. 4 (Leipzig, 1897); R. Liechtenhahn, _Die

Offenbarung im Gnosticismus_ (Gottingen, 1901); C. Schmidt, "Plotins

Stellung zum Gnosticismus u. kirchl. Christentum" _Texte u.

Untersuch._ xx. 4 (1902); E. de Faye, _Introduction a l'etude du

Gnosticisme_ (Paris, 1903); R. Reitzenstein, _Poimandres_ (Leipzig,

1904); G. Kruger, article "Gnosticismus" in Herzog-Hauck's

_Realencyklopadie_ (3rd ed.) vi. 728 ff.; Bousset, "Hauptprobleme der

Gnosis," _Forschungen z. Relig. u. Lit. d. alten u. neuen Testaments_,

10 (1907); T. Wendland, _Hellenistisch-romische Kultur in ihren

Beziehungen zu Judentum und Christentum_ (1907), p. 161 seq. See

further among important monographs on the individual Gnostic systems,

R. A. Lipsius, "Die ophitischen Systeme," _Ztschr. f. wissensch.

Theologie_ (1863); G. Heinrici, _Die valentinianische Gnosis u. d.

Heilige Schrift_ (Berlin, 1871); A. Merx, _Bardesanes von Edessa_

(Halle, 1863); A. Hilgenfeld, _Bardesanes, der letzte Gnostiker_

(Leipzig, 1864); A. Harnack, "Uber das gnostische Buch Pistis-Sophia,"

_Texte u. Untersuch._ vii. 2; C. Schmidt, "Gnostische Schriften,"

_Texte u. Untersuch._ viii. 1, 2; and also the works mentioned under S

II. of this article. (W. Bo.)