Note 461 — Chapter V

Footnote 461:

(return)

The following exposition will show how much Irenæus and the later old Catholic teachers learned from the Gnostics. As a matter of fact the theology of Irenæus remains a riddle so long as we try to explain it merely from the Apologists and only consider its antithetical relations to Gnosis. Little as we can understand modern orthodox theology from a historical point of view—if the comparison be here allowed—without keeping in mind what it has adopted from Schleiermacher and Hegel, we can just as little understand the theology of Irenæus without taking into account the schools of Valentinus and Marcion.