ng the Old Testament, without,
however, attempting a systematic reconstruction of tradition. But all
those who in the first century undertook to furnish Christian practice
with the foundation of a complete systematic knowledge, she declared
false Christians, Christians only in name. Historical enquiry cannot
accept this judgment. On the contrary, it sees in Gnosticism a series of
undertakings, which in a certain way is analogous to the Catholic
embodiment of Christianity, in doctrine, morals, and worship. The great
distinction here consists essentially in the fact that the Gnostic
systems represent the acute secularising or hellenising of Christianity,
with the rejection of the Old Testament,[303] while the Catholic system,
on the other hand, represents a gradual process of the same kind with
the conservation of the Old Testament. The traditional religion on
being, as it were, suddenly required to recognise itself in a picture
foreign to it, was yet vigorous enough to reject that picture; but to
the gradual, and one might say indulgent remodelling to which it was
subjected, it offered but little resistance, nay, as a rule, it was
never conscious of it. It is therefore no paradox to say that
Gnosticism, which is just Hellenism, has in Catholicism obtained half a
victory. We have, at least, the same justification for that
assertion--the parallel may be permitted--as we have for recognising a
triumph of 18th century ideas in the first Empire, and a continuance,
though with reservations, of the old regime.

From this point of view the position to be assigned to the Gnostics in
the history of dogma, which has hitherto been always misunderstood, is
obvious. _They were, in short, the Theologians of the first
century._[304] They were the first to transform Christianity into a
system of doctrines (dogmas). They were the first to work up tradition
systematically. They undertook to present Christianity as the absolute
religion, and therefore placed it in definite opposition to the other
religions, even to Judaism. But to them the absolute religion, viewed in
its contents, was identical with the result of the philosophy of
religion for which the support of a revelation was to be sought. They
are therefore those Christians who, in a swift advance, attempted to
capture Christianity for Hellenic culture, and Hellenic culture for
Christianity, and who gave up the Old Testament in order to facilitate
the conclusion of the covenant betwe