Note 1012 — Chapter II · THE ROMAN EMPIRE UNDER ANASTASIUS: THE INHERITANCE OF JUSTINIAN (continued 2)

Mansel’s Gnostic Heresies (1875) supersedes to a great extent the larger treatises of Matter and others, as it embodies a discussion of details more recently derived from Hippolytus, etc. Their sects increased rapidly in number, from the thirty-seven dealt with by Irenaeus (c. 185), to the eighty refuted by Epiphanius (c. 350). There were two main schools of Gnostics, the Syrian and the Alexandrian. The former was frankly dualistic, but the Egyptian assimilated Buddhistic notions, which saw in matter the essence of evil; only, however, when vitalized by the celestial emanations after they had become impoverished, as the result of their descent to an infinite distance from the throne of light. In general the attitude of Gnostics towards Christianity was rejection of the Jewish creator as an evil demiurge, and the acceptance of Jesus as an emissary from the god of love to rescue the world from sin and darkness. Their Christology was docetic; that is, the Saviour was merely a phantom who appeared suddenly on the banks of the Jordan, in the semblance of a man of mature age. Their greatest leader, though not a pure Gnostic, was Marcion of Pontus. His bible consisted of the Pauline Epistles, and a Gospel said to be Luke mutilated, but more justly recognized as an independent redaction of the primitive tradition. Marcion’s Jesus said, “I come not to fulfil the law, but to destroy it”; see Tertullian, Adv. Marcion, iv, 7, 9. The modern Christian might imagine that his faith is dualistic, owing to the power and prominence given to the devil, but such a view would be inexpiable heresy. Satan and his crew are merely rebellious angels, whose relations to Jehovah are similar to that of sinful men in general, so much so that some of the Fathers in the early Church held that Christ would descend into Hell to be crucified there a second time for the salvation of devils; see Origen, De Principiis, I, vi, 2, 3; Labbe, Concil. (1759), ix, 533, can. 7, etc.