Chapter II: Danger to the Church From Pagan and Jewish (1)

ELEMENTS WITHIN ITS OWN PALE.

§ 26. GNOSTICISM IN GENERAL.[38]

The Judaism and paganism imported into the church proved more dangerous to it than the storm of persecution raging against it from without. Ebionism (§ 28) was the result of the attempt to incorporate into Christianity the narrow particularism of Judaism; Heretical Gnosis or Gnosticism was the result of the attempt to blend with Christianity the religious notions of pagan mythology, mysteriology, theosophy and philosophy. These two tendencies, moreover, were combined in a Gnostic Ebionism, in the direction of which Essenism may be regarded as a transitional stage (§ 8, 4). In many respects Manichæism (§ 29), which sprang up at a later period, is related to the Gnosticism of Gentile Christianity, but also in character and tendency widely different from it. The church had to employ all her powers to preserve herself from this medley of religious fancies and to purify her fields from the weeds that were being sown on every side. In regard to Ebionism and its gnosticizing developments this was a comparatively easy task. The Gnosticism of Gentile Christianity was much more difficult to deal with, and although the church succeeded in overcoming the weed in her fields, yet many of its seeds continued hidden for centuries, from which sprouts grew up now and again quite unexpectedly (§§ 54, 71, 108). This struggle has nevertheless led to the furtherance of the church in many ways, awakening in it a sense of scientific requirements, stirring it up to more vigorous battling for the truth, and endowing it with a more generous and liberal spirit. It had learnt to put a Christian gnosis in the place of the heretical, a right and wholesome use of speculation and philosophy, of poetry and art, in place of their misuse, and thus enabled Christianity to realise its universal destination.

§ 26.1. =Gnosticism= was deeply rooted in a powerful and
characteristic intellectual tendency of the first century. A
persistent conviction that the ancient world had exhausted itself
and was no longer able to resist its threatened overthrow, now
prevailed and drove the deepest thinkers to adopt the boldest and
grandest Syncretism the world has ever beheld, in the blending of
all the previously isolated and heterogeneous elements of culture
as a final attempt at the rejuvenating of that which had become
old (§ 25). Even within the borders of the church this Syncretism
favoured by the prevailing spirit of the age influenced those of
superior culture, to whom the church doctrine of that age did not
seem to make enough of theosophical principles and speculative
thought, while the worship of the church seemed dry and barren.
Out of the fusing of cosmological myths and philosophemes of
oriental and Greek paganism with Christian historical elements in
the crucible of its own speculation, there arose numerous systems
of a higher fantastic sort of religious philosophy, which were
included under the common name of Gnosticism. The pagan element
is upon the whole the prevailing one, inasmuch as in most Gnostic
systems Christianity is not represented as the conclusion and
completion of the development of salvation given in the Old
Testament, but often merely as the continuation and climax of
the pagan religion of nature and the pagan mystery worship.
The attitude of this heretical gnosis toward holy scripture was
various. By means of allegorical interpretation some endeavoured
to prove their system from it; others preferred to depreciate the
Apostles as falsifiers of the original purely gnostic doctrine
of Christ, or to remodel the apostolic writings in accordance
with their own views, or even to produce a bible of their own
after the principles of their own schools in the form of gnostic
pseudepigraphs. With them, however, for the most part the
tradition of ancient wisdom as the communicated secret doctrine
stood higher than holy scripture. Over against the heretical
gnosis, an ecclesiastical gnosis was developed, especially in the
Alexandrian school of theology (Clement and Origen, § 31, 4, 5),
which, according to 1 Cor. xii. 8, 9; xiii. 2, was esteemed
and striven after as, in contradistinction to faith, a higher
stage in the development of the religious consciousness. The
essential distinction between the two consisted in this, that
the latter was determined, inspired and governed by the believing
consciousness of the universal church, as gradually formulated in
the church confession, whereas the former, completely emancipated
therefrom, disported itself in the unrestricted arbitrariness of
fantastic speculation.

§ 26.2. =The Problems of Gnostic Speculation= are: the origin
of the world and of evil, as well as the task, means and end of
the world’s development. In solving these problems the Gnostics
borrowed mostly from paganism the theory of the world’s origin,
and from Christianity the idea of redemption. At the basis
of almost all Gnostic systems there lies the dualism of God
and matter (ὕλη); only that matter is regarded sometimes in a
Platonic sense as non-essential and non-substantial (=μὴ ὄν)
and hence without hostile opposition to the godhead, sometimes
more in the Parsee sense as inspired and dominated by an evil
principle, and hence in violent opposition to the good God.
In working out the theosophical and cosmological process it is
mainly the idea of emanation (προβολή) that is called into play,
whereby from the hidden God is derived a long series of divine
essences (αἰῶνες), whose inherent divine power diminishes in
proportion as they are removed to a distance from the original
source of being. These æons then make their appearance as
intermediaries in the creation, development and redemption of the
world. The substratum out of which the world is created consists
in a mixture of the elements of the world of light (πλήρωμα)
with the elements of matter (κένωμα) by means of nature, chance
or conflict. One of the least and weakest of the æons, who is
usually designated Δημιουργός, after the example of Plato in
the _Timæus_, is brought forward as the creator of the world.
Creation is the first step toward redemption. But the Demiurge
cannot or will not carry it out, and so finally there appears in
the fulness of the times one of the highest æons as redeemer, in
order to secure perfect emancipation to the imprisoned elements
of light by the communication of the γνῶσις. Seeing that matter
is derived from the evil, he appears in a seeming body or at
baptism identifies himself with the psychical Messiah sent by
the Demiurge. The death on the cross is either only an optical
illusion, or the heavenly Christ, returning to the pleroma,
quits the man Jesus, or gives His form to some other man
(Simon of Cyrene, Matt. xxvii. 32) so that he is crucified
instead of Him (Docetism). The souls of men, according as the
pleromatic or hylic predominates in them, are in their nature,
either _Pneumatic_, which alone are capable of the γνῶσις, or
_Psychical_, which can only aspire to πίστις, or finally, _Hylic_
(χοϊκοί, σαρκικοί), to which class the great majority belongs,
which, subject to Satanic influences, serve only their lower
desires. Redemption consists in the conquest and exclusion
of matter, and is accomplished through knowledge (γνῶσις) and
asceticism. It is therefore a chemical, rather than an ethical
process. Seeing that the original seat of evil is in matter,
sanctification is driven from the ethical domain into the
physical, and consists in battling with matter and withholding
from material enjoyments. The Gnostics were thus originally very
strict in their moral discipline, but often they rushed to the
other extreme, to libertinism and antinomianism, in consequence
partly of the depreciation of the law of the Demiurge, partly
of the tendency to rebound from one extreme to the other, and
justified their conduct on the ground of παραχρῆσθαι τῇ σαρκί.

§ 26.3. =Distribution.=--_Gieseler_ groups the Gentile Christian
Gnostics according to their native countries into Egyptian or
Alexandrian, whose emanationist and dualistic theories were
coloured by Platonism, and the Syrian, whose views were affected
by Parseeism.--_Neander_ divides Gnostic systems into Judaistic
and Anti-Jewish, subdividing the latter into such as incline to
Paganism, and such as strive to apprehend Christianity in its
purity and simplicity.--_Hase_ arranges them as Oriental, Greek
and Christian.--_Baur_ classifies the Gnostic systems as those
which endeavour to combine Judaism and paganism with Christianity,
and those which oppose Christianity to these.--_Lipsius_ marks
three stages in the development of Gnosticism: the blending
of Asiatic myths with a Jewish and Christian basis which took
place in Syria; the further addition to this of Greek philosophy
either Stoicism or Platonism which was carried out in Egypt;
and recurrence to the ethical principles of Christianity, the
elevation of πίστις above γνῶσις.--_Hilgenfeld_ arranges his
discussion of these systems in accordance with their place in
the early heresiologies.--But none of these arrangements can
be regarded as in every respect satisfactory, and indeed it
may be impossible to lay down any principle of distribution of
such a kind. There are so many fundamental elements and these
of so diverse a character, that no one scheme of division
may suffice for an adequate classification of all Gnostic
systems. The difficulty was further enhanced by the contradiction,
approximation, and confusion of systems, and by their
construction and reconstruction, of which Rome as the capital
of the world was the great centre.

§ 26.4. =Sources of Information.=--Abundant as the literary
productions were which assumed the name or else without the name
developed the principles of Gnosticism, comparatively little of
this literature has been preserved. We are thus mainly dependent
upon the representations of its catholic opponents, and to them
also we owe the preservation of many authentic fragments. The
first church teacher who _ex professo_ deals with Gnosticism is
Justin Martyr (§ 30, 9), whose controversial treatise, however,
as well as that of Hegesippus (§ 31, 7), has been lost. The most
important of extant treatises of this kind are those of Irenæus
in five books _Adv. hæreses_, and of Hippolytus Ἔλεγχος κατὰ
πασῶν αἱρέσεων, the so-called _Philosophoumena_ (§ 31, 3). The
Σύνταγμα κ. π. αἱρ. of Hippolytus is no longer extant in the
original; a Latin translation of it apparently exists in the
_Libellus adv. omnes hæreses_, which has been attributed to
Tertullian. Together with the work of Irenæus, it formed a
query for the later heresiologists, Epiphanius and Philaster
(§ 47, 10, 14), who were apparently unacquainted with the later
written but more important and complete _Elenchus_. Besides these
should be mentioned the writings of Tertullian (§ 31, 10) and
Theodoret (§ 47, 9) referring to this controversy, the _Stromata_
of Clement of Alexandria, and the published discussions of Origen
(§ 31, 4, 5), especially in his Commentary on John, also the five
Dialogues of the Pseudo-Origen (Adamantius) against the Gnostics
from the beginning of the fourth century;[39] and finally many
notices in the Church History of Eusebius. The still extant
fragments of the Gnostic Apocryphal historian of the Apostles
afford information about the teaching and forms of worship of
the later syncretic vulgar Gnosticism, and also from the very
defective representations of them in the works of their Catholic
opponents.

§ 27. THE GENTILE CHRISTIAN GNOSTICISM.

In the older heretical Gnosticism (§ 18, 3), Jewish, pagan, and Christian elements are found, which are kept distinct, or are amalgamated or after examination are rejected, what remains being developed, consolidated and distributed, but in a confused blending. This is the case with Cerinthus. In Basilides again, who attaches himself to the doctrines of Stoicism, we have Gnosticism developed under the influence of Alexandrian culture; and soon thereafter in Valentinus, who builds on Plato’s philosophy, it attains its richest, most profound and noblest expression. From the blending of Syro-Chaldæan mythology with Greek and Hellenistic-Gnostic theories issue the divers Ophite systems. Antinomian Gnosticism with loose practical morality was an outgrowth from the contempt shown to the Jewish God that created the world and gave the law. The genuinely Syrian Gnosticism with its Parseeist-dualistic ruggedness was most purely represented by Saturninus, while in Marcion and his scholars the exaggeration of the Pauline opposition of law and grace led to a dualistic contrast of the God of the Old Testament and of the New. From the middle of the second century onwards there appears in the historical development of Gnosticism an ever-increasing tendency to come to terms with the doctrine of the church. This is shown by the founders of new sects, Marcion, Tatian, Hermogenes; and also by many elaborators of early systems, by Heracleon, Ptolomæus and Bardesanes who developed the Valentinian system, in the so-called Pistis Sophia, as the exposition of the Ophite system. This tendency to seek reconciliation with the church is also shown in a kind of syncretic popular or vulgar Gnosticism which sought to attach itself more closely to the church by the composition of apocryphal and pseudepigraphic Gospels and Acts of Apostles under biblical names and dates (§ 32, 4-6).--The most brilliant period in the history of Gnosticism was the second century, commencing with the age of Hadrian. At the beginning of the third century there was scarcely one of the more cultured congregations throughout the whole of the Roman empire and beyond this as far as Edessa, that was not affected by it. Yet we never find the numbers of regular Gnostic congregations exceeding that of the Catholic. Soon thereafter the season of decay set in. Its productive power was exhausted, and while, on the one side, it was driven back by the Catholic ecclesiastical reaction, on the other hand, in respect of congregational organization it was outrun and outbidden by Manichæism, and also by Marcionism.

§ 27.1. =Cerinthus=, as Irenæus says, resting on the testimony
of Polycarp, was a younger contemporary of the Apostle John in
Asia Minor; the Apostle meeting the heretic in a bath hastened
out lest the building should fall upon the enemy of the truth.
In his Gnosticism, resting according to Hippolytus on a basis
of Alexandrian-Greek culture, we have the transition from the
Jewish-Christian to a more Gentile than Jewish-Christian Gnostic
standpoint. The continued hold of the former is seen according
to Epiphanius in the maintaining of the necessity of circumcision
and of the observances by Christians of the law given by
disposition of angels, as also, according to Caius of Rome, who
regards him as the author of the New Testament Apocalypse, in
chiliastic expectations. Both of these, however, were probably
intended only in the allegorical and spiritual sense. At the
same time, according to Irenæus and Theodoret, the essentially
Gnostic figure of the Demiurge already appears in his writings,
who without knowing the supreme God is yet useful to Him as
the creator of the world. Even Jesus, the son of Joseph and
Mary, knew him not, until the ἄνω Χριστός descended upon him at
his baptism. Before the crucifixion, which was a merely human
mischance without any redemptive significance, the Christ had
again withdrawn from him.

§ 27.2. =The Gnosticism of Basilides.=--=Basilides= (Βασιλείδης)
was a teacher in Alexandria about A.D. 120-130. He pretends to
derive the gnostic system from the notes of the esoteric teaching
of Christ taken down by the Apostle Matthew and an amanuensis
of Peter called Glaucias. He also made use of John’s Gospel and
Paul’s Epistles to the Romans, Corinthians and Ephesians. He
himself left behind 24 books Ἐξηγητικά and his equally talented
son Isidorus has left a treatise under the title Ἠθικά. Fragments
of both are found in Clement of Alexandria, two passages from
the first are given also in the “Acts of Disputation,” by
Archelaus of Cascar (§ 29, 1). Irenæus, i. 24, who refers to him
as a disciple of Menander (§ 25, 2), and the Pseudo-Tertullian,
c. 41, Epiphanius, 21, and Theodoret, i. 4, describe his system
as grossly dualistic and decidedly emanationist. Hippolytus,
vii. 14 ff., on the other hand, with whom Clement seems
to agree, describes it as a thoroughly monistic system, in
which the theogony is developed not by emanation from above
downwards but by evolution from below upwards. This latter view
which undoubtedly presents this system in a more favourable
light,--according to Baur, Uhlhorn, Jacobi, Möller, Funk, etc.,
its original form: according to Hilgenfeld, Lipsius, Volkmar,
etc., a later form influenced by later interpolations of Greek
pantheistic ideas,--makes the development of God and the world
begin with pure nothing: ἦν ὅτε ἦν οὐδέν. The principle of all
development is ὁ οὐκ ὢν θεός, who out of Himself (ἐξ οὐκ ὄντων)
calls chaos into being. This chaos was still itself an οὐκ ὄν,
but yet also the πανσπερμία τοῦ κόσμου upon which now the οὐκ ὢν
θεός as ἀκίνητος κινητής operated attractively by his beauty. The
pneumatic element in the newly created chaos is represented in a
threefold sonship (υἱότης τριμερής) of which the first and most
perfect immediately after creation with the swiftness of thought
takes its flight to the happy realm of non-existence, the Pleroma.
The second less perfect sonship struggles after the first (hence
called, μιμητική), but must, on reaching the borders of the
happy realm, cast aside the less perfect part of its being, which
now as the Holy Spirit (μεθόριον πνεῦμα) forms the vestibule
(στερέωμα) or boundary line between the Pleroma (τὰ ὑπερκόσμια)
and the cosmos, and although severed from the sonship, still,
like a vessel out of which sweet ointment has been taken, it
bears to this lower world some of the perfume adhering to it.
The third sonship being in need of purifying must still remain in
the Panspermia, and is as such the subject of future redemption.
On the other hand, the greatest archon as the most complete
concentration of all wisdom, might and glory which was found
in the psychical elements of chaos, flew up to the firmament as
ἀῤῥητῶν ἀῤῥητότερος. He now fancied himself to be the Supreme God
and ruler of all things, and begot a son, who according to the
predetermination of the non-existing excelled him in insight and
wisdom. For himself and Son, having with them besides six other
unnamed principalities, he founded the higher heavens, the so-
called Ogdoas. After him there arose of chaos a second inferior
Archon with the predicate ἄῤῥητος, who likewise begat a son
mightier than himself, and founded a lower heavenly realm,
the so-called Hebdomas, the planetary heavens. The rest of the
Panspermia was the developed κατὰ φύσιν, that is, in accordance
with the natural principle implanted in it by the non-existent
“at our stage” (τὸ διάστημα τὸ καθ’ ἡμᾶς). As the time drew near
for the manifestation of the children of God, that is, of men
whose pneumatical endowment was derived from the third sonship,
the son of the great Archon through the mediation of the μεθόριον
πνεῦμα first devised the saving plan of the Pleroma. With fear
and trembling now the great Archon too acknowledged his error,
repented of this self-exaltation and with the whole Ogdoas
rejoiced in the scheme of salvation. Through him also the son of
the second Archon is enlightened, and he instructs his father,
who now as the God of the Old Testament prepares the way for the
development of salvation by the law and prophecy. The beginning
is made by Jesus, son of the virgin Mary, who first himself
absorbed the ray of the higher light, and as “the firstborn
of the children of God” became also the Saviour (σωτήρ) of
his brethren. His sufferings were necessary for removing the
psychical and somatical elements of the Panspermia adhering to
him. They were therefore actual, not mere seeming sufferings. His
bodily part returned to the formlessness out of which it sprang;
his psychical part arose from the grave, but in his ascension
returned into the Hebdomas, while his pneumatic being belonging
to the third sonship went up to the happy seat of the οὐκ ὢν θεός.
And as he, the firstborn, so also all the children of God, have
afterwards to perform their task of securing the highest possible
development and perfection of the groaning creation (Rom. viii.
19), that is, of all souls which by their nature are eternally
bound “to our stage.” Then finally, God will pour over all
ranks of being beginning from the lowest the great ignorance
(τὴν μεγάλην ἄγνοιαν) so that no one may be disturbed in their
blessedness by the knowledge of a higher. Thus the restitution of
all things is accomplished.--The mild spirit which pervades this
dogmatic system preserved from extravagances of a rigoristic or
libertine sort the ethical system resulting from it. Marriage was
honoured and regarded as holy, though celibacy was admitted to be
helpful in freeing the soul from the thraldom of fleshly lusts.

§ 27.3. The system set forth by Irenæus and others, as that of
Basilides, represents the Supreme God as _Pater innatus_ or θεὸς
ἄῤῥητος. From him emanates the Νοῦς, from this again the Λόγος,
from this the Φρόνησις, who brings forth Σοφία and Δύναμις. From
the two last named spring the Ἀρχαί, Ἐξουσίαι and Ἄγγελοι, who
with number seven of the higher gods, the primal father, at their
head, constitute the highest heaven. From this as its ἀντίτυπος
radiates forth a second spiritual world, and the emanation
continues in this way, until it is completed and exhausts itself
in the number of 365 spiritual worlds or heavens under the mystic
name Ἀβραξάς or Ἀβρασάξ which has in its letters the numerical
value referred to. This last and most imperfect of these
spiritual worlds with its seven planet spirits forms the heaven
visible to us. Through this three hundred and sixty-five times
repeated emanation the Pleroma approaches the borders of the hyle,
a seething mass of forces wildly tossing against one another.
These rush wildly against it, snatch from it fragments of light
and imprison them in matter. From this mixture the Archon of the
lowest heaven in fellowship with his companions creates the earth,
and to each of them apportions by lot a nation, reserving to
himself the Jewish nation which he seeks to raise above all other
nations, and so introduces envy and ambition into heaven, and
war and bloodshed upon earth. Finally, the Supreme God sends his
First-born, the Νοῦς, in order to deliver men from the power of
the angel that created the world. He assumes the appearance of a
body, and does many miracles. The Jews determined upon his death;
nevertheless they crucified instead of him Simon the Cyrenian,
who assumed his shape. He himself returned to his Father. By
means of the Gnosis which he taught men’s souls are redeemed,
while their bodies perish.--The development of one of these
systems into the other might be most simply explained by assuming
that the one described in the _Elenchus_ of Hippolytus is the
original and that its reconstruction was brought about by the
overpowering intrusion of current dualistic, emanationistic,
and docetic ideas. All that had there been said about the great
Archon must now be attributed to the Supreme God, the _Pater
innatus_, while the inferior archon might keep his place as ruler
of the lowest planetary heaven. The 365 spiritual worlds had
perhaps in the other system a place between the two Archons, for
even Hippolytus, vii. 26, mentions in addition the 365 heavens
to which also he gives the name of the great Archon Abrasax.--It
is a fact of special importance that even Irenæus and Epiphanius
distinguish from the genuine disciples of Basilides the so-called
=Pseudo-Basilideans= as representing a later development, easily
deducible from the second but hardly traceable from the first
account of the system. That with their Gnosis they blended magic,
witchcraft and fantastic superstition appears from the importance
which they attached to mystic numbers and letters. Their
libertine practice can be derived from their antinomian contempt
of Judaism as well as from the theory that their bodies are
doomed to perish. So, too, their axiom that to suffer martyrdom
for the crucified, who was not indeed the real Christ, is foolish,
may be deduced from the Docetism of their system. Abrasax gems
which are still to be met with in great numbers and in great
variety are to be attributed to these Basilideans; but these
found favour and were used as talismans not only among other
Gnostic sects but also among the Alchymists of the Middle Ages.

§ 27.4. =Valentinian Gnosticism.=--=Valentinus=, the most
profound, talented and imaginative of all the Gnostics, was
educated in Alexandria, and went to Rome about A.D. 140, where,
during a residence of more than twenty years, he presided over an
influential school, and exercised also a powerful influence upon
other systems. He drew the materials for his system partly from
holy scripture, especially from the Gospel of John, partly from
the esoteric doctrine of a pretended disciple of Paul, Theodades.
Of his own voluminous writings, in the form of discourses,
epistles and poems, only a few fragments are extant. The
reporters of his teaching, Irenæus, Hippolytus, Tertullian,
Epiphanius, differ greatly from one another in details, and leave
us in doubt as to what really belongs to his own doctrine and
what to its development by his disciples--The fundamental idea of
his system rests on the notion that according to a law founded in
the depths of the divine nature the æons by emanation come into
being as pairs, male and female. The pairing of these æons in
a holy marriage is called a Syzygy. With this is joined another
characteristic notion, that in the historical development of
the Pleroma the original types of the three great crises of the
earthly history, Creation, the Fall, and Redemption, are met with.
On the basis of this he develops the most magnificently poetic
epic of a Christian mythological Theogony and Cosmogony. From the
Βυθός or Αὐτοπάτωρ and its Ἔννοια or Σιγή, evolving his thought
hitherto only in silent contemplation of his own perfection,
emanates the first and highest pair of æons, the Νοῦς or
Μονογενής who alone of all æons can bear to look into the depths
of the perfection of the Father of all, and beside him his bride
Ἀλήθεια. From them spring the Λόγος and Ζωή as the second pair,
and from this pair again Ἄνθρωπος and Ἐκκλησία as the third pair.
The Αὐτοπάτωρ and his Ennoia, with the first and highest pair
of æons emanating for them, and these together with the second
Tetras, form the Ogdoas. The Logos then begets a further removed
circle of five pairs, the Decas, and finally the Anthropos begets
the last series of six pairs, the Dodecas. Therewith the =Pleroma=
attains a preliminary completion. A final boundary is fixed for
it by the Ὅρος emanating from the Father of all, who, being alone
raised above the operation of the law of the Syzygy, is endowed
with a twofold ἐνεργεία, an ἐνεργεία διοριστική, by means of
which he wards off all from without that would hurt, and an
ἐνεργεία ἑδραστική, the symbol of which is the cross, with which
he maintains inward harmony and order. How necessary this was is
soon made apparent. For the Σοφία, the last and least member of
the fourteen æon pairs, impelled by burning desire, tears herself
away from her partner, and seeks to plunge into the Bythos
in order to embrace the Father of All himself. She is indeed
prevented from this by the Horos; but the breach in the Pleroma
has been made. In order to restore the harmony that has thus been
broken, the Monogenes begets with Aletheia a new æon pair, the
Ἄνω Χριστός and the Πνεῦμα ἅγιον which emancipates the Sophia
from her disorderly, passionate nature (Ἐνθύμησις), cuts out this
latter from the Pleroma, but unites again the purified Sophia
with her husband, and teaches all the æons about the Father’s
unapproachable and incomprehensible essence, and about the reason
and end of the Syzygies. Then they all, amid hymns of praise
and thanksgiving, present an offering to the Father, each one of
the best that he has, and form thereof an indescribably glorious
æon-being, the Ἄνω Σωτήρ, and for his service myriads of august
angels, who bow in worship before him.--The basis for the
origination of the =sensible world=, the Ὑστέρημα, consist of
the Enthymesis ejected from the Pleroma into the desert, void
and substanceless Kenoma, which is by it for the first time
filled and vitalized. It is an ἔκτρωμα, an abortion, which however
retains still the æon nature of its divine present, and as such
bears the name of Ἔξω (κάτω) Σοφία or Ἀχαμώθ (הַחָכְמוֹת). Hence even
the blessed spirits of the Pleroma can never forsake her. They
all suffer with the unfortunate, until she who had sprung from
the Pleroma is restored to it purified and matured. Hence they
espouse her, the Ektroma of the last and least of the æons, to
the Ano-Soter, the noblest, most glorious and most perfect being
in the æon-heaven, as her redeemer and future husband. He begins
by comforting the despondent and casting out from her the baser
affections. Among the worst, fear, sorrow, doubt, etc., is found
the basis of the hylic stage of existence; among the better,
repentance, desire, hope, etc., that of the psychic stage of
existence (φύσεις). Over the beings issuing forth from the former
presides Satan; over the psychical forms of being, as their
highest development, presides the Demiurge, who prepares as
his dwelling-place the seven lower heavens, the Hebdomas.
But Achamoth had retired with the pneumatic substratum still
remaining in her into the Τόπος τῆς μεσότητος, between the
Pleroma and the lower world, whence she, inspired by the
Ano-Soter, operates upon the Demiurge, who, knowing nothing of
her existence, has no anticipation thereof. From the dust of the
earth and pneumatic seed, which unobserved she conveys into it,
he formed man, breathed into him his own psychical breath of
life, and set him in paradise, that is, in the third of his seven
heavens, but banished him to earth, when he disobeyed his command,
and instead of his first ethereal garment clothed him in a
material body. When men had spread upon the earth, they developed
these different natures: _Pneumatical_, which free from the
bondage of every outward law and not subject to the impulses of
the senses, a law unto themselves, travel toward the Pleroma;
next, the _Hylic_, which, hostile to all spirit and law, and
the sport of all lusts and passions, are doomed to irremediable
destruction; and finally, the _Psychical_, which under the
discipline of outward law attain not indeed to a perfect divine
life, but yet to outward righteousness, while on the other hand
they may sink down to the rank and condition of the Hylic natures.
The _Psychical_ natures were particularly numerous among the
Jews. Therefore the Demiurge chose them as his own, and gave
them a strict law and through his prophets promised them a
future Messiah. The _Hylic_ natures which were found mostly among
the heathens, were utterly hateful to him. The _Pneumatical_
natures with their innate longing after the Pleroma, he did not
understand and therefore disregarded; but yet, without knowing
or designing it, he chose many of them for kings, priests, and
prophets of his people, and to his amazement heard from their
lips prophecies of a higher soul, which originated from Achamoth,
and which he did not understand. When the time was fulfilled,
he sent his Messiah in the person of Jesus. When he was baptized
by John, the heaven opened over him and the Ano-Soter descended
upon him. The Demiurge saw it and was astonished, but submitted
himself awe-stricken to the will of the superior deities. The
Soter remained then a year upon the earth. The Jews, refusing to
receive him, nailed his organ, the psychical Messiah, to a cross;
but his sufferings were only apparent sufferings, since the
Demiurge had supplied him in his origin with an ethereal and
only seemingly material body. In consequence of the work of the
Ano-Soter the Pneumatical natures by means of the Gnosis taught
by him, but the Psychical natures by means of Pistis, attain unto
perfection after their kind. When once everything pneumatical and
psychical which was bound up in matter, has been freed from it,
the course of the world has reached its end and the longed-for
time of Achamoth’s marriage will have come. Accompanied by
myriads of his angels, the Soter leads the noble sufferer into
the Pleroma. The pneumatical natures follow her, and as the
Soter is married to Achamoth, the angels are married to them. The
Demiurge goes with his tried and redeemed saints into the Τόπος
τῆς μεσότητος. But from the depths of the Hyle breaks forth a
hidden fire which utterly consumes the Hylic natures and the Hyle
itself.[40]

§ 27.5. According to Hippolytus the Valentinian school split
up into two parties--an Italian party, the leaders of which,
Heracleon and Ptolemæus [Ptolemy], were at Rome, and an Eastern
party to which Axionicus and Bardesanes belonged. =Heracleon= of
Alexandria was a man of a profoundly religious temperament, who
in his speculation inclined considerably toward the doctrine of
the church, and even wrote the first commentary on the Gospel
of John, of which many fragments are preserved in Origen’s
commentary on that gospel. =Ptolemæus= [Ptolemy] drew even
closer than his master to the church doctrine. Epiphanius quotes
a letter of his to his pupil Flora in which, after Marcion’s
example (see § 27, 11), the distinction of the divine and the
demiurgical in the Old Testament, and the relation of the Old
Testament to the New, are discussed. A position midway between
that of the West and of the East is apparently represented
by Marcus and his school. He combined with the doctrine of
Valentinus the Pythagorean and cabbalistic mysticism of numbers
and letters, and joined thereto magical and soothsaying arts.
His followers, the Marcosians, had a form of worship full of
ceremonial observances, with a twofold baptism, a psychical
one in the Kato-Christus for the forgiveness of sins, and a
pneumatical one for affiance with the future heavenly syzygy.
Of the Antiochean Axionicus we know nothing but the name. Of far
greater importance was =Bardesanes=, who flourished according
to Eusebius in the time of Marcus Aurelius, but is assigned by
authentic Syrian documents to the beginning of the third century.
The chief sources of information about his doctrine are the
56 rhyming discourses of Ephraem [Ephraim] against the heretics.
Living at the court and enjoying the favour of the king of Edessa,
he never attacked in his sermons the doctrinal system of the
church, but spread his Gnostic views built upon a Valentinian
basis in lofty hymns of which, besides numerous fragments in
Ephraem [Ephraim], some are preserved in the apocryphal _Acta
Thomae_ (§ 32, 6). Among his voluminous writings there was a
controversial treatise against the Marcionites (see § 27, 11).
In a Dialogue, Περὶ εἱμαρμένης, attributed to him, but probably
belonging to one of his disciples named Philippus, from which
Eusebius (_Præp. Ev._ vi. 10) quotes a passage, the Syrian
original of which, “The Book of the Laws of the Land,” was only
recently discovered,[41] astrology and fatalism are combated
from a Christian standpoint, although the author is still himself
dominated by many Zoroastrian ideas. Harmonius, the highly gifted
son of Bardesanes, distinguished himself by the composition of
hymns in a similar spirit.

§ 27.6. =The Ophites and related Sects.=--The multiform Ophite
Gnosis is in general characterized by fantastic combinations of
Syro-Chaldaic myths and Biblical history with Greek mythology,
philosophy and mysteriosophy. In all its forms the serpent (ὄφις,
נָחָשׁ) plays an important part, sometimes as Kakodemon, sometimes
as Agathodemon. This arose from the place that the serpent
had in the Egyptian and Asiatic cosmology as well as in the
early biblical history. One of the oldest forms of Ophitism is
described by Hippolytus, who gives to its representatives the
name of =Naassenes=, from נָחָשׁ. The formless original essence, ὁ
προών, revealed himself in the first men, Ἀδάμας, Adam, Cadmon,
in whom the pneumatic, psychical and hylic principles were still
present together. As the instrument in creation he is called
Logos or Hermes. The serpent is revered as Agathodemon; it
proceeds from the Logos, transmitting the stream of life to all
creatures. Christ, the redeemer, is the earthly representative of
the first man, and brings peace to all the three stages of life,
because he, by his teaching, directs every one to a mode of life
in accordance with his nature.--The =Sethites=, according to
Hippolytus, taught that there were two principles: an upper one,
τὸ φῶς, an under one, τὸ σκότος, and between these τὸ πνεῦμα, the
atmosphere that moves and causes motion. From a blending of light
with darkness arose chaos, in which the pneuma awakened life.
Then from chaos sprang the soul of the world as a serpent, which
became the Demiurge. Man had a threefold development: hylic or
material in Cain, psychical in Abel, and pneumatical in Seth, who
was the first Gnostic.--The founders of the =Perates=, who were
already known to Clement of Alexandria, are called by Hippolytus
Euphrates and Celbes. Their name implies that they withdrew from
the world of sense in order to secure eternal life here below,
περᾶν τὴν φθοράν. The original divine unity, they taught, had
developed into a Trinity: τὸ ἀγέννητον, ἀυτογενές and γεννητόν,
the Father, the Son, and the Hyle. The Son is the world serpent
that moves and quickens all things (καθολικός ὄφις). It is his
task to restore everything that has sunk down from the two higher
worlds into the lower, and is held fast by its Archon. Sometimes
he turns himself serpent-like to his Father and assumes his
divine attributes, sometimes to the lower world to communicate
them to it. In the shape of a serpent he delivers Eve from the
law of the Archon. All who are outlawed by this Archon, Cain,
Nimrod, etc., belong to him. Moses, too, is an adherent of his,
who erected in the wilderness the healing brazen serpent to
represent him, while the fiery biting serpent of the desert
represent the demons of the Archon. The =Cainites=, spoken of by
Irenæus and Epiphanius, were closely connected with the Perates.
All the men characterized in the Old Testament as godless are
esteemed by them genuine pneumatical beings and martyrs for the
truth. The first who distinguished himself in conflict with the
God of the Jews was Cain; the last who led the struggle on to
victory, by bringing the psychical Messiah through his profound
sagacity to the cross, was Judas Iscariot. The Gnostic =Justin=
is known to us only through Hippolytus, who draws his information
from a _Book of Baruch_. He taught that from the original essence,
ὁ Ἀγαθός or Κύριος, יְהוָֹה, emanated a male principle, Ἐλωείμ, אֱלֹהִים,
which had a pneumatical nature, and a female principle, Ἐδέμ, עֵדֶן,
which was above man (psychical) and below the serpent (hylic).
From the union of this pair sprang twelve ἄγγελοι πατρικοί, who
had in them the father’s nature, and twelve ἄγγελοι μητρικοί,
on whom the mother’s nature was impressed. Together they formed
Paradise, in which Baruch, an angel of Elohim, represented the
tree of life, and Naas, an Edem-angel, represented the tree
of knowledge. The Elohim-angel formed man out of the dust
of Paradise; Edem gave him a soul, Elohim gave him a spirit.
Pressing upward by means of his pneumatical nature Elohim raised
himself to the borders of the realms of light. The Agathos took
him and set him at his right hand. The forsaken Edem avenged
himself by giving power to Naas to grieve the spirit of Elohim
in man. He tempted Eve to commit adultery with him, and got Adam
to commit unnatural vice with him. In order to show the grieved
spirit of man the way to heaven, Elohim sent Baruch first to
Moses and afterwards to other Prophets of the Old Testament;
but Naas frustrated all his efforts. Even from among the heathen
Elohim raised up prophets, such as Hercules whom he sent to fight
against the twelve Edem-angels (his twelve labours), but one of
them named Babel or Aphrodite robbed even this divine hero of his
power (a reminiscence of the story of Omphale). Finally, Elohim
sent Baruch to the peasant boy Jesus, son of Joseph and Mary.
He resisted all the temptations of Naas, who therefore got him
nailed upon the cross. Jesus commended his spirit into the hands
of the Father, into whose heaven he ascended, leaving his body
and soul with Edem. So, after his example, do all the pious.

§ 27.7. The Gnosis of the =Ophites=, described by Irenæus, etc.,
is distinguished from that of the earlier Naasenes [Naassenes]
by its incorporation of Valentinian and dualistic or Saturninian
(see § 27, 9) ideas. From the Bythos who, as the primary being,
is also called the first man, Adam Cadmon, emanates the thought,
ἔννοια, of himself as the second man or son of man, and from
him the Holy Spirit or the Ano-Sophia, who in turn bears the
Ano-Christus and Achamoth. The latter, an imperfect being of
light, who is also called Προύνικος, which according to Epiphanius
means πόρνη, drives about through the dark ocean of chaos, over
which the productive mother, the Holy Spirit, broods, in order
to found for himself in it an independent world of his own. There
dense matter unites with the element of light and darkens it to
such a degree that even the consciousness of its own divine origin
begins to fade away from it. In this condition of estrangement
from God she produces the Demiurge, Jaldabaoth, יַלְדָּא בָּהוּת, son
of chaos; and he, a wicked as well as limited being, full of
arrogance and pride, determines that he himself alone will be
lord and master in the world which he creates. This brings
Achamoth to penitent deliberation. By the vigorous exercise of
all the powers of light dwelling in her, and strengthened by a
gleam of light from above, she succeeds in raising herself from
the realm of chaos into the Τόπος τῆς μεσότητος. Nevertheless
Jaldabaoth brought forth six star spirits or planets after his
own image, and placed himself as the seventh at their head. But
they too think of rebelling. Enraged at this Jaldabaoth glances
wildly upon the deep-lying slime of the Hyle; his frightfully
distorted countenance is mirrored in this refuse of chaos; the
image there comes to life and forms Ophiomorphus or Satan. By
order of Jaldabaoth the star spirits make man; but they produce
only an awkward spiritless being that creeps along the ground. In
order to quicken it and make it stand erect the Demiurge breathes
into it his own breath, but thereby deprives himself of a great
part of that pneumatical element which he had from his mother.
The so-called fall, in which Ophiomorphus or the serpent was only
the unconscious instrument of Achamoth, is in truth the beginning
of the redemption of man, the advance to self-consciousness
and moral freedom. But as a punishment for his disobedience
Jaldabaoth drove him out of the higher material world, Paradise,
into the lower, where he was exposed to the annoyances of
Ophiomorphus, who also brought the majority of mankind, the
heathens, under his authority, while the Jews served Jaldabaoth,
and only a small number of pneumatical natures by the help
of Achamoth kept themselves free from both. The prophets whom
Jaldabaoth sent to his people, were at the same time unconscious
organs of Achamoth, who also sent down the Ano-Christus from the
Pleroma upon the Messiah, whose kingdom is yet to spread among
all nations. Jaldabaoth now let his own Messiah be crucified,
but the Ano-Christus was already withdrawn from him and had
set himself unseen at the right hand of the Demiurge, where he
deprives him and his angels of all the light element which they
still had in them, and gathers round himself the pneumatical
from among mankind, in order to lead them into the Pleroma.--The
latest and at the same time the noblest product of Ophite
Gnosticism is the =Pistis Sophia=,[42] appearing in the middle
of the third century, with a strong tincture of Valentinianism.
It treats mainly of the fall, repentance, and complaint of
Sophia, and of the mysteries that purify for redemption, often
approaching very closely the doctrine of the church.

§ 27.8. =Antinomian and Libertine Sects.=--The later
representatives of Alexandrian Gnosticism on account of the
antinomian tendency of their system fell for the most part into
gross immorality, which excused itself on the ground that the
pneumatical men must throw contempt upon the law of the Demiurge,
ἀντιτάσσεσθαι, (whence they were also called Antitactes), and
that by the practice of fleshly lusts one must weaken and slay
the flesh, παραχρῆσθαι τῇ σαρκί, so as to overcome the powers
of the Hyle. The four following sects may be mentioned as those
which maintained such views.--

a. =The Nicolaitans=, who in order to give themselves the
sanction of primitive Christianity sought to trace their
descent from Nicolaus [Nicolas] the Deacon (Acts vi. 5). But
while they have really no connection with him, they are just
as little to be identified with the Nicolaitans of the
Apocalypse (§ 18, 3).

b. In a similar way the =Simonians= sought to attach themselves
to Simon Magus (§ 25, 2). They gave to the fables associated
with the name of Simon a speculative basis borrowed from
the central idea of the philosophy of Heraclitus, that
the principle of all things (ἡ ἀπέραντος δύναμις) is fire.
From it in three syzygies, νοῦς and ἐπίνοια, φωνή and
ὄνομα, λογισμός and ἐνθύμησις, proceed the six roots of
the supersensible world, and subsequently the corresponding
six roots of the sensible world, Heaven and earth, Sun and
moon, Air and water, in which unlimited force is present
as ὁ ἐστώς, στάς, and στησόμενος. Justin Martyr was already
acquainted with this sect, and also Hippolytus, who quotes
many passages from their chief treatise, entitled, Ἀπόφασις
μεγάλη and reports scandalous things about their foul
worship.

c. =The Carpocratians.= In the system of their founder
Carpocrates, who lived at Alexandria in the first half of
the second century, God is the eternal Mould, the unity
without distinctions, from whom all being flows and to whom
all returns again. From Him the ἄγγελοι κοσμοποιοί revolted.
By the creation of the world they established a distinct
order of existence apart from God and consolidated it by the
law issuing from them and the national religions of Jews and
Gentiles founded by them. Thus true religion or the way of
return for the human spirit into the One and All consists
theoretically in Gnosis, practically in emancipation from
the commands of the Demiurge and in a life κατὰ φύσιν. The
distinction of good and bad actions rests merely on human
opinions. Man is redeemed by faith and love. In order to be
able to overcome the powers that created the world, he is
in need of magic which is intimately connected with Gnosis.
Every human spirit who has not fully attained to this end of
all religious endeavour, is subjected, until he reaches it,
to the assumption of one bodily form after another. Among
the heroes of humanity who with special energy and success
have assailed the kingdom of the Demiurge by contempt
of his law and spread of the true Gnosis, a particularly
conspicuous place is assigned to Jesus, the son of Joseph.
What he was for the Jews, Orpheus, Pythagoras, Plato, etc.,
were for the Gentiles. To the talented son of Carpocrates,
named Epiphanes, who died in his seventeenth year, after
impressing upon his father’s Gnostic system a boundless
communistic and libertine tendency with community of goods
and wives, his followers erected a temple at Cephalonia, in
which they set up for divine honours the statues of Christ
and the Greek philosophers. At the close of their Agapæ,
they indulged in _Concubitus promiscuus_.

d. =The Prodicians= flourished about the time of Clement of
Alexandria, and were connected, perhaps, through their
founder Prodicus, with the Carpocratians. In order to prove
their dominion over the sensible world they were wont to
appear in their assemblies naked, and hence are also called
=Adamites=. So soon as they succeeded in thus reaching
the state of innocence that had preceded the fall, they
maintained that as pneumatical king’s sons they were raised
above all law and entitled to indulge in unbridled lust.

§ 27.9. =Saturninus=, or Satornilus of Antioch, according to
Irenæus, a disciple of Menander, was one of the oldest Syrian
Gnostics, during the age of Hadrian, and the one in whose system
of Dualism the most decided traces of Parsee colouring is found.
From the θεὸς ἄγνωστος the spirit world of the kingdom of light
emanates in successive stages. On the lowest stage stand the
seven planet spirits, ἄγγελοι κοσμοκράτορες, at their head the
creator of the world and the god of the Jews. But from eternity
over against the realm of light stands the Hyle in violent
opposition under the rule of Satanas. The seven star spirits
think to found therein a kingdom free and independent of the
Pleroma, and for this purpose make an inroad upon the kingdom
of the Hyle, and seize upon a part of it. Therefore they form
the sensible world and create man as keeper thereof after a fair
model sent by the good God of which they had a dim vision. But
they could not give him the upright form. The supreme God then
takes pity upon the wretched creature. He sends down a spark
of light σπινθήρ into it which fills it with pneumatical life
and makes it stand up. But Satanas set a hylic race of men
over against this pneumatical race, and persecuted the latter
incessantly by demons. The Jewish god then plans to redeem the
persecuted by a Messiah, and inspires prophets to announce his
coming. But Satan, too, has his prophets, and the Jewish god is
not powerful enough to make his views prevail over his enemy’s.
Finally the good God sends to the earth the Aeon [Æon] Νοῦς, in
what has the appearance of a body, in order that he as σωτήρ may
teach the pneumatical how to escape, by Gnosis and asceticism,
abstaining from marriage and the eating of flesh, not only the
attacks of Satan, but also the dominion of the Jewish god and his
star spirits, how to emancipate themselves from all connection
with matter, and to raise themselves into the realm of light.

§ 27.10. =Tatian and the Encratites.=--The Assyrian Tatian,
converted to Christianity at Rome by Justin Martyr, makes his
appearance as a zealous apologist of the faith (§ 30, 10). In
his later years, however, just as in the case of Marcion, in
consequence of his exaggeration of the Pauline antithesis of
flesh and spirit, law and grace, he was led to propound a theory
of the dualistic opposition between the god of the law, the
Demiurge, and the god of the gospel, which found expression
in a Gnostic-ascetic system, completely breaking away from the
Catholic church, and reaching its conclusion in the hyperascetic
sect of the Encratites that arose in Rome about A.D. 172. He now
became head and leader of this sect, which, with its fanatical
demand of complete abstinence from marriage, from all eating of
flesh and all spirituous liquors, won his approval, and perhaps
from him received its first dogmatic Gnostic impress. Of Tatian’s
Gnostic writings, Προβλήματα and Περὶ τοῦ κατὰ τὸν σωτῆρα
καταρτισμοῦ, only some fragments, with scanty notices of his
Gnostic system, are preserved. His dualistic opposition of the
god of the Old Testament and the god of the New Testament cannot
have meant a thorough hostility, for he makes the Demiurge
sitting in darkness address himself to the supreme God in
the language of prayer, “Let there be light.” He declares,
however, that Adam, as the author of the fall, is incapable
of redemption.--His followers were also called Ὑδροπαραστάται,
Aquarii, because at the Supper they used water instead of wine.
See Lit. at § 30, 10.