Practically Gnosticism influenced the lives of its adherents in two totally distinct ways: according to the view they took of the•nature and office of the Hyle and Demiurgos. The Hellenizing Gnostics, striving to free themselves as much as in them lay for their stupid and degrading bonds, become ascetics, austere, rigid, and uncom promising. The oriental view, however, of the dualistic and antagonistic powers of light and darkness, good and evil, which was adopted by the other portion of the Gnostics, led them, on the other hand, to the practice of the grossest sensuality, in token, they said, of contempt for matter, and still more for the Demiurgos— body, and its enjoyments; everything terrestrial, in short, had as little to do with their mind, which was one with the Supreme Deity, as had matter with God. Transgression there because there was no law; there could be no law for them who were better even than the angels—who were subject to none; a distortion of a dictum in the marl rash, that " the law was not given to angels, but to mortal men," and was therefore to be adMinistered leniently. They, indeed, knew not how to express to the full their utter contempt for this Jewish Jehovah, or Demiurgos. There were others among them who called themselves after the serpent (ophites), which by tempting Eve brought into the world the blessing of knowledge, and had thus became its greatest benefactor. Others took the name of Cainites (Batantites), contending that Cain had been the primeval representative of Gnosis, as opposed to the Pistis, or blind unreasoning faith of Abel, the representative of the Psychikoi (the Jews)--Seth being the type of the Pneumatikoi. Another class, of similar tendencies, styled themselves simply antitacts, (opponents to the law), a name indicative of their readiness to take under their especial protection, not only all those persons condemned in the Biblical records, but all the offenses prilhibited in them.
It is as hopeless a task to follow the development of this metaphysical and unique abnormity called Gnosticism, of which we have attempted here to give a faint outline, through the bewildering maze of its ramifications from its beginning in history to its final disappearance, as it would be to fully trace its component parts to their original sources. It sprang up in the first c:, it ha.d spread over the whole civilized world in the second, and it was fiercely and unremittingly combated from the second to the sixth c. by Judaism, Platonism, Neo-Platonism, and, above all, by Christianity. With respect to the relation of the Gnostics to the orthodox church, however, we must observe that they all the while feigned a nat,ve surprise at not being sully recognized as most faithful followers of Christianity, and members of the large Christian body. All they aspired to, they said, vas to be allowed to form a small central circle within the large outer circle, to be a kind of theosophic community, consisting of the more advanced members of the church; indeed, they not only adhered, for the most part, to the outward forms of ChriStian worship, but occasionally even surpassed it in pomp and splendor. And
such was the fascination Gnosticism exercised over the minds, that, had it not been for the innumerable schisms in its own camp, which prevented its alliance with the political power of the day, it would have stood its ground much longer. On its influence upon the Judaism of its time, as it is recognizable in many passages of contemporaneous Jewish literature; on its lasting influence upon Christianity; and on its frequent revivals in the middle andmodern centuries,..we can as little dwell here as on its embodiment in many philosophical systems, ancient and modern.
We can only take, m conclusion, a cursory glance over some of its principal schools, in giving a brief list of their founders (of whom, and their chief doctrines, special notices will be found), and the places where they flourished, without attempting to divide them minutely, as has been done in different ways, by Neander, Gieseler. Matter, Baur, Schaff, into Judaizing.and Christiauizing; speculative, practical, and antinomian ; dualistic and emanationistie; or to classify them strictly by origin and locality. Suffice it to mention, that among the precursors of Gnosticism are recorded some half-mythical personages, such as Euphrates, mentioned cursorily by Origen; Simon Magus, whose history, as-given in the Acts, has been made the groundwork of innumerable legends; Menander, his successor; Cerinthus, the apostle of the Millennium; and Nicolaus, the father of the immoral sect of the Nicolaitans. Founders of special schools were, in Syria, Saturniuus of Antioch, about 125 A.D. under Hadrian; Bardesanes of Edessa, 161 A.D., the author of many hymns, and who looked upon the Holy Ghost as at once wife and sister of Christ; Harmodius and Marinus, his disciples; Tatian of Rome, the founder of the Encratites, who wrote a still to the Greeks. Of Egyptian founders of Gnostic schools we may mention Basilides of Alexandria (125-140), who assumed 365 teons or circles of creation, two Deniiurgi, and a threefold Christ, and whose mystic use of numbers and names reminds us most strikingly of the Cabalistic Geometria; his no less famous son and follower, Isidorus, the author of a system of ethics; and Valentiuus of Rome, who died 160 A.D. at Cyprus, a Jew—as indeed was Markos his disciple, and, very likely, Basilides and Jaherninus. Of Valentin's successors who founded schools of their own, are mentioned besides Markos, Secundus, Ptolemy; Colarbasus, Heracleon, Theodorus, and Alexander. • To the Syrians may also be reck oned the Ophites, Cainites, and Sethites (see above). In Asia Minor, we have Mareion about the middle of the second c., who is rather remarkable for his consistency in scorn fully rejecting the whole of the Old Testament and all apostolic authority save Paid. His school flourished up to a very late period. Among non-localized Gnostics may be enumerated the schools of Carpoerates and Epiplianes, the Bortonians, Antitacts (see above), Phibionites, Arebontics, and a great many others.