Note 160 — Chapter II

Footnote 160:

(return)

Nearly all Gentile Christian groups that we know, are at one in the detachment of Christianity from empiric Judaism; the "Gnostics," however, included the Old Testament in Judaism, while the greater part of Christians did not. That detachment seemed to be demanded by the claims of Christianity to be the one, true, absolute and therefore oldest religion, foreseen from the beginning. The different estimates of the Old Testament in Gnostic circles have their exact parallels in the different estimates of Judaism among the other Christians; cf. for example, in this respect, the conception stated in the Epistle of Barnabas with the views of Marcion, and Justin with Valentinus. The particulars about the detachment of the Gentile Christians from the Synagogue, which was prepared for by the inner development of Judaism itself, and was required by the fundamental fact that the Messiah, crucified and rejected by his own people, was recognised as Saviour by those who were not Jews, cannot be given in the frame-work of a history of dogma; though, see Chaps. III. IV. VI. On the other hand, the turning away from Judaism is also the result of the mass of things which were held in common with it, even in Gnostic circles. Christianity made its appearance in the Empire in the Jewish propaganda. By the preaching of Jesus Christ who brought the gift of eternal life, mediated the full knowledge of God, and assembled round him in these last days a community, the imperfect and hybrid creations of the Jewish propaganda in the empire were converted into independent formations. These formations were far superior to the synagogue in power of attraction, and from the nature of the case would very soon be directed with the utmost vigour against the synagogue.