those mysteries
which Christ founded, in which one enters into communion with a _praesens
numen_, and which in mysterious ways promote the process of raising the
spirit above the sensual. This rising above the sensual is, however, to
be actively practised. Abstinence therefore, as a rule, is the
watchword. Christianity thus appears here as a speculative philosophy
which redeems the spirit by enlightening it, consecrating it, and
instructing it in the right conduct of life. The Gnosis is free from the
rationalistic interest in the sense of natural religion. Because the
riddles about the world which it desires to solve are not properly
intellectual, but practical, because it desires to be in the end [Greek:
gnosis soterias], it removes into the region of the suprarational the
powers which are supposed to confer vigour and life on the human spirit.
Only a [Greek: mathesis], however, united with [Greek: mystagogia],
resting on revelation, leads thither, not an exact philosophy. Gnosis
starts from the great problem of this world, but occupies itself with a
higher world, and does not wish to be an exact philosophy, but a
philosophy of religion. Its fundamental philosophic doctrines are the
following: (1) The indefinable, infinite nature of the Divine primeval
Being exalted above all thought. (2) Matter as opposed to the Divine
Being, and therefore having no real being, the ground of evil. (3) The
fulness of divine potencies, AEons, which are thought of partly as
powers, partly as real ideas, partly as relatively independent beings,
presenting in gradation the unfolding and revelation of the Godhead, but
at the same time rendering possible the transition of the higher to the
lower. (4) The Cosmos as a mixture of matter with divine sparks, which
has arisen from a descent of the latter into the former, or, as some
say, from the perverse, or, at least, merely permitted undertaking of a
subordinate spirit. The Demiurge, therefore, is an evil, intermediate,
or weak, but penitent being; the best thing therefore in the world is
aspiration. (5) The deliverance of the spiritual element from its union
with matter, or the separation of the good from the world of sensuality
by the Spirit of Christ which operates through knowledge, asceticism,
and holy consecration: thus originates the perfect Gnostic, the man who
is free from the world, and master of himself, who lives in God and
prepares himself for eternity. All these are ideas for which