act, that the
Gnosticism which has become a factor in the movement of the history of
dogma, was ruled in the main by the Greek spirit, and determined by the
interests and doctrines of the Greek philosophy of religion,[307] which
doubtless had already assumed a syncretistic character. This fact is
certainly concealed by the circumstance that the material of the
speculations was taken now from this, and now from that Oriental
religious philosophy, from astrology and the Semitic cosmologies. But
that is only in keeping with the stage which the religious development
had reached among the Greeks and Romans of that time.[308] The cultured,
and these primarily come into consideration here, no longer had a
religion in the sense of a national religion, but a philosophy of
religion. They were, however, in search of a religion, that is, a firm
basis for the results of their speculations, and they hoped to obtain it
by turning themselves towards the very old Oriental cults, and seeking
to fill them with the religious and moral knowledge which had been
gained by the Schools of Plato and of Zeno. The union of the traditions
and rites of the Oriental religions, viewed as mysteries, with the
spirit of Greek philosophy is the characteristic of the epoch. The
needs, which asserted themselves with equal strength, of a complete
knowledge of the All, of a spiritual God, a sure, and therefore very old
revelation, atonement and immortality, were thus to be satisfied at one
and the same time. The most sublimated spiritualism enters here into the
strangest union with a crass superstition based on Oriental cults. This
superstition was supposed to insure and communicate the spiritual
blessings. These complicated tendencies now entered into Christianity.

We have accordingly to ascertain and distinguish in the prominent
Gnostic schools, which, in the second century on Greek soil, became an
important factor in the history of the Church, the Semitic-cosmological
foundations, the Hellenic philosophic mode of thought, and the
recognition of the redemption of the world by Jesus Christ. Further, we
have to take note of the three elements of Gnosticism, viz., the
speculative and philosophical, the mystic element connection with
worship, and the practical, ascetic. The close connection in which these
three elements appear,[309] the total transformation of all ethical into
cosmological problems, the upbuilding of a philosophy of God and the
world on the ba