Note 334 — II. THE COLOSSIAN HERESY.

Iren. i. 26. 1, Hippol. Hær. vii. 33, x. 21, Epiphan. Hær. xxviii. 1, Theodoret. H. F. ii. 3. The arguments by which Lipsius (Gnosticismus pp. 245, 258, in Ersch u. Gruber; Quellenkritik des Epiphanios p. 118 sq.) attempts to show that Cerinthus did not separate the Christ from Jesus, and that Irenæus (and subsequent authors copying him) have wrongly attributed to this heretic the theories of later Gnostics, seem insufficient to outweigh these direct statements. It is more probable that the system of Cerinthus should have admitted some foreign elements not very consistent with his Judaic standing point, than that these writers should have been misinformed. Inconsistency was a necessary condition of Judaic Gnosticism. The point however is comparatively unimportant as affecting my main purpose.