Note 351 — Chapter IV
Neil Buchanan translation
Footnote 351:
(return)
The Gnostics transferred to the Evangelic writings, and demanded as simply necessary, the methods which Barnabas and others used in expounding the Old Testament (see the samples of their exposition in Irenæus and Clement. Heinrici, l. c.). In this way, of course, all the specialties of the systems may be found in the documents. The Church at first condemned this method (Tertull. de præscr. 17-19. 39; Iren. I. 8. 9), but applied it herself from the moment in which she had adopted a New Testament Canon of equal authority with that of the Old Testament. However, the distinction always remained, that in the confrontation of the two Testaments with the views of getting proofs from prophecy, the history of Jesus described in the Gospels was not at first allegorised. Yet afterwards, the Christological dogmas of the third and following centuries demanded a docetic explanation of many points in that history.