Note 349 — Chapter IV

Footnote 349:

(return)

Here also we have a point of unusual historical importance. As we first find a new Canon among the Gnostics so also among them (and in Marcion) we first meet with the traditional complex of the Christian Kerygma as a doctrinal confession (regula fidei), that is, as a confession which, because it is fundamental, needs a speculative exposition, but is set forth by this exposition as the summary of all wisdom. The hesitancy about the details of the Kerygma, only shews the general uncertainty which at that time prevailed. But again, we see that the later Valentinians completely accommodated themselves to the later development in the Church (Tertull. adv. Valent. I: communem fidem adfirmant) that is attached themselves, probably even from the first, to the existing forms, while in the Marcionite Church a peculiar regula was set up by a criticism of the tradition. The regula as a matter of course, was regarded as Apostolic. On Gnostic regulæ see Iren. I. 21. 5, 31. 3, II. præf. II. 19. 8, III. II. 3, III. 16. 1, 5, Ptolem. ap Epiph. h. 33. 7, Tertull. adv Valent. I. 4, de præscr. 42, adv Marc. I. 1, IV. 5, 17, Ep. Petri ad Jacob in Clem. Hom. c. 1. We still possess in great part verbatim the regula of Apelles, in Epiphan II. 44, 2 Irenæus (I. 7. 2) and Tertull (de carne. 20) state that the Valentinian regula contained the formula, 'γεννηθεντα δια Μαριας', see on this p. 203. In noting that the two points so decisive for Catholicism the Canon of the New Testament and the Apostolic regula were first, in the strict sense, set up by the Gnostics on the basis of a definite fixing and systematising of the oldest tradition we may see that the weakness of Gnosticism here consisted in its inability to exhibit the publicity of tradition and to place its propagation in close connection with the organisation of the churches.