Note 313 — Chapter IV

Footnote 313:

(return)

See the collection, certainly not complete, of Gnostic fragments by Grabe (Spicileg.) and Hilgenfeld (Ketzergeschichte). Our books on the history of Gnosticism take far too little notice of these fragments as presented to us, above all, by Clement and Origen, and prefer to keep to the doleful accounts of the Fathers about the "Systems", (better in Heinrici: Valent. Gnosis, 1871). The vigorous efforts of the Gnostics to understand the Pauline and Johannine ideas, and their in part surprisingly rational and ingenious solutions of intellectual problems, have never yet been systematically estimated. Who would guess, for example, from what is currently known of the system of Basilides, that, according to Clement, the following proceeds from him, (Strom. IV. 12. 18): 'ως αυτος φησιν 'ο Βασιλειδης, εν μερος εκ του λεγομενου θεληματος του θεου 'υπειληφαμεν, το ηγαπηκεναι 'απαντα. 'οτι λογον αποσωζουσι προς το παν 'απαντα; 'ετερον δε το μηδενος επιθυμειν, και το τριτον μισειν μηδε 'εν, and where do we find, in the period before Clement of Alexandria, faith in Christ united with such spiritual maturity and inner freedom as in Valentinians, Ptolemæus and Heracleon?