Note 33 — Chapter VII · POST-CHRISTIAN GNOSTICS

Thus Cerinthus, who is made by tradition the opponent of St John, is said to have been a Jew and to have been trained in the doctrines of Philo at Alexandria (Theodoret, Haer. Fab. Bk II. § 3). Cf. Neander, Ch. Hist. (Eng. ed.) vol. II. pp. 42-47. Neander says the same thing about Basilides (op. cit. p. 47 and note) and Valentinus (p. 71), although it is difficult to discover any authority for the statement other than the Jewish features in their doctrines. There is more evidence for the statement regarding Marcus, the heresiarch and magician whom Irenaeus (op. cit. Bk I. c. 7) accuses of the seduction of Christian women, apparently in his own time, since the words of Marcus’ ritual, which the Bishop of Lyons quotes, are in much corrupted Hebrew, and the Jewish Cabala was used by him. Renan’s view (Marc Aurèle, pp. 139 sqq.) that Christianity in Egypt never passed through the Judaeo-Christian stage may in part account for the desire of Jewish converts there to set up schools of their own.