Note (return) — Chapter IV

In addition to what has been mentioned here, we must finally fix our attention on the ethics of Gnosticism. Like the ethics of all systems which are based on the contrast between the sensuous and spiritual elements of human nature, that of the Gnostics took a twofold direction. On the one hand, it sought to suppress and uproot the sensuous, and thus became strictly ascetic (imitation of Christ as motive of asceticism;360 Christ and the Apostles represented as ascetics);361 on the other hand, it treated the sensuous element as indifferent, and so became libertine, that is, conformed to the world. The former was undoubtedly the more common, though there are credible witnesses to the latter; the frequentissimum collegium in particular, the Valentinians, in the days of Irenæus and Tertullian, did not vigorously enough prohibit a lax and world-conforming morality;362 and among the Syrian and Egyptian Gnostics there were associations which celebrated the most revolting orgies.363 As the early Christian tradition summoned to a strict renunciation of the world and to self-control, the Gnostic asceticism could not but make an impression at the first; but the dualistic basis on which it rested could not fail to excite suspicion as soon as one was capable of examining it.364