Note 229 — Chapter VIII · POST-CHRISTIAN GNOSTICS: THE OPHITES

I have taken the earliest date for which there is any probability, because it was in Hadrian’s time that most of the great Gnostics taught, and their speculations would therefore have been most likely to come to heathen ears. Keim, Celsus Wahres Wort, Zürich, 1873, however, makes the date of the book 177-178 A.D., and this seems supported by the latest critics. See Patrick, Apology of Origen, 1892, p. 9, where the question is thoroughly examined.