The problem of redemption for the Gnostics was to restore the lost cosmic order, to remedy the evil caused by the weak and erring "Eon, to liberate those sparks of Deity which had become entangled in the meshes of evil matter and in man. Christ is an instrument in the accom plishment of this task—Himself an "Eon indeed, who was apparently joined with Jesus of Naz areth from the time of His baptism to His cru cifixion. This union was docetic, that is, only a seeming. The heavenly Christ did not in fact suffer or die, but left the man Jesus before His death on the cross. (See Docurx.) Christ's office, so far as men are concerned, was to teach the true 'knowledge,' to make Gnostics, to impart the secrets of that system to which He Himself belonged. The redeemed are those who can re ceive this esoteric teaching, and become free from the flesh. Their salvation is only an incident in the vast process of restoring the lost harmony of the Pleroma—a very different matter from the Christian idea of being saved from sin.
According to the ethical system of the Gnostics, all men are divided into three classes, according as they have, or have not, elements of deity within them: spiritual or pneumatic men (rpevparucol) ; animal or psychic men (1,Gvxisol) ; and carnal or physical men (eapKisol, crawaraKol). The Gnostics themselves constitute the members of the first group; they will be saved through their knowledge of the esoteric system and through their ascetic life. The third group are wholly material and cannot be saved, for their nature is evil; they have no single spark of the divine within them. In the intermediate class ordinary Christians are found, persons who have not the higher knowledge, yet who may possibly —at least some of them—be saved through faith (Tiara ), which is vastly inferior to In the practical relations of life the Gnostics ap plied their principles in one of two ways. Al though these seem diametrically opposed to each other, yet each was supported by an appeal to the logic of their principle that matter is essen tially evil. Some said: The body, being composed of evil matter, should be denied in its every ten dency and impulse—whence resulted asceticism. Others said: It may be indulged in every physical gratification and even abused through over-use whence resulted libertinism and sensuality. All the nobler Gnostics adopted the ascetic life, and some of them pushed it to an extreme (as e.g.
the Eneratites). The opposite theory of self indulgence was advocated and practiced by such sects as the Carpocratians and Marcosians.
The traces of Christian teaching in this sys tem are manifest. But not less evident is the influence of Hellenic and Oriental speculation. Harnack has coined a phrase which is already proverbial (the 'acute Hellenizing of Christian ity'), to describe the progress of Gnosticism, whereby, almost at a bound, it arrived at posi tions respecting the Church and the sacraments which it took the Church at large a long time to reach. In their ritual and in the conceptions which accompanied it the Gnostics anticipated some of the ideas of ancient Catholicism. The highly developed character of certain of their ceremonies may be studied in Irennus (Adv.
i., 21) and Eusebius (Hist. Eccles., iv., 11). But aside from this partial anticipation of Catholicism—about which, it should be added, there is a difference of opinion—there are Gnostic tenets which stand opposed to what contemporary Christianity generally held. Among such views are the denial' of the resurrection of the flesh ; extremes of asceticism; libertinism; the final restoration of all things; the hopeless exclusion of large numbers of the human race from the benefits of redemption; and the docetic doctrine of the person of Christ.
In the course of the Gnostic controversy the Church developed her theory of the ancient Cath olic standards, as the tests of orthodoxy, viz. the rule of faith, the canon of Scripture, and the episcopate, each of these being regarded as of apostolic origin and authority. Upon them she relied not only for vindicating the truth of her doctrine and the sole validity of her practice, but also for proving the falsity of her opponents' position. NNith these standards once generally recognized, the Gnostics, who were in the minor ity, could be, and were, shut out from Christian fellowship—whereby the Church became 'Cath olic' in the technical meaning of that term, viz. exclusive, not any longer `catholic' in the ety mological sense of all-embracing or co-extensive with the world. This development was under way long before the close of the second century, and was practically complete in the age of Cyprian (c.250 A.D.), when Gnosticism had al ready become a negligible factor.