Note 236 — II. THE COLOSSIAN HERESY.

This question will require closer investigation when I come to discuss the genuineness of the Epistle to the Colossians. Meanwhile I content myself with referring to Baur Christliche Gnosis p. 29 sq. and Lipsius Gnosticismus p. 230 sq. Both these writers concede, and indeed insist upon, the non-Christian basis of Gnosticism, at least so far as I have maintained it in the text. Thus for instance Baur says (p. 52), ‘Though Christian gnosis is the completion of gnosis, yet the Christian element in gnosis is not so essential as that gnosis cannot still be gnosis even without this element. But just as we can abstract it from the Christian element, so can we also go still further and regard even the Jewish as not strictly an essential element of gnosis.’ In another work (Die drei ersten Jahrhunderte, p. 167, 1st ed.) he expresses himself still more strongly to the same effect, but the expressions are modified in the second edition.