sages, much disagreement. One statement in Tertullian shews
that the confessors had special claims to be considered in the choice of
a bishop (adv. Valent. 4: "Speraverat Episcopatum Valentinus, quia et
ingenio poterat et eloquio. Sed alium ex martyrii praerogativa loci
potitum indignatus de ecclesia authenticae regulae abrupit"). This
statement is strengthened by other passages; see Tertull. de fuga; 11.
"Hoc sentire et facere omnem servum dei oportet, etiam minoris loci, ut
maioris fieri possit, si quem gradum in persecutionis tolerantia
ascenderit"; see Hippol in the Arab. canons, and also Achelis, Texte u.
Unters VI. 4. pp. 67, 220; Cypr. Epp. 38. 39. The way in which
confessors and ascetics, from the end of the second century, attempted
to have their say in the leading of the Churches, and the respectful way
in which it was sought to set their claims aside, shew that a special
relation to the Lord, and therefore a special right with regard to the
community, was early acknowledged to these people, on account of their
achievements. On the transition of the old prophets and teachers into
wandering ascetics, later into monks, see the Syriac Pseudo-Clementine
Epistles, "de virginitate," and my Abhandl i d. Sitzungsberichten d. K.
Pr. Akad. d. Wissensch. 1891, p. 361 ff.]

[Footnote 299: See Weizsaecker, Goett Gel. Anz. 1886, No. 21, whose
statements I can almost entirely make my own.]

CHAPTER IV

THE ATTEMPTS OF THE GNOSTICS TO CREATE AN APOSTOLIC DOGMATIC, AND A
CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY; OR, THE ACUTE SECULARISING OF CHRISTIANITY.

Sec. 1. _The Conditions for the Rise of Gnosticism._

The Christian communities were originally unions for a holy life, on the
ground of a common hope, which rested on the belief that the God who has
spoken by the Prophets has sent his Son Jesus Christ, and through him
revealed eternal life, and will shortly make it manifest. Christianity
had its roots in certain facts and utterances, and the foundation of the
Christian union was the common hope, the holy life in the Spirit
according to the law of God, and the holding fast to those facts and
utterances. There was, as the foregoing chapter will have shewn, no
fixed Didache beyond that.[300] There was abundance of fancies, ideas,
and knowledge, but these had not yet the value of being the religion
itself. Yet the belief that Christianity guarantees the perfect
knowledge, and leads from one degree of clearness to another, was in
operati