Note 66 — VIII. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA. DIED 220 (?) A.D.

This celebrated term distinguished the superiority of knowledge (gnosis) of “the most polite, the most learned, and the most wealthy of the Christian name.” During the first three or four centuries the Gnostics formed an extremely numerous as well as influential section of the Church. They sub-divided themselves into more than fifty particular sects, of whom the followers of Marcion and the Manicheans are the most celebrated. Holding opinions regarding the Jewish sacred scriptures and their authority the opposite to those of the Ebionites or Jewish Christians, they agreed, at least a large proportion of them, with the latter on the question of kreophagy.