e sensuous and spiritual
elements of human nature, that of the Gnostics took a twofold direction.
On the one hand, it sought to suppress and uproot the sensuous, and thus
became strictly ascetic (imitation of Christ as motive of
asceticism;[360] Christ and the Apostles represented as ascetics);[361]
on the other hand, it treated the sensuous element as indifferent, and
so became libertine, that is, conformed to the world. The former was
undoubtedly the more common, though there are credible witnesses to the
latter; the _frequentissimum collegium_ in particular, the Valentinians,
in the days of Irenaeus and Tertullian, did not vigorously enough
prohibit a lax and world-conforming morality;[362] and among the Syrian
and Egyptian Gnostics there were associations which celebrated the most
revolting orgies.[363] As the early Christian tradition summoned to a
strict renunciation of the world and to self-control, the Gnostic
asceticism could not but make an impression at the first; but the
dualistic basis on which it rested could not fail to excite suspicion as
soon as one was capable of examining it.[364]

_Literature._--The writings of Justin (his syntagma against heresies has
not been preserved), Irenaeus, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Clement of
Alexandria, Origen, Epiphanius, Philastrius and Theodoret; cf. Volkmar,
Die Quellen der Ketzergeschichte, 1885.

Lipsius, Zur Quellenkritik des Epiphanios, 1875; also Die Quellen der
aeltesten Ketzergeschichte, 1875.

Harnack, Zur Quellenkritik d. Gesch. d. Gnostic, 1873 (continued i. D.
Ztschr. f. d. hist. Theol. 1874, and in Der Schrift de Apellis gnosi
monarch. 1874).

Of Gnostic writings we possess the book Pistis Sophia, the writings
contained in the Coptic Cod. Brucianus, and the Epistle of Ptolemy to
Flora; also numerous fragments, in connection with which Hilgenfeld
especially deserves thanks, but which still require a more complete
selecting and a more thorough discussion (see Grabe, Spicilegium T. I.
II. 1700. Heinrici, Die Valentin. Gnosis, u. d. H. Schrift, 1871).

On the (Gnostic) Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, see Zahn, Acta Joh.
1880, and the great work of Lipsius, Die apokryphen Apostelgeschichten,
I. Vol., 1883; II. Vol., 1887. (See also Lipsius, Quellen d. roem.
Petrussage, 1872).

Neander, Genet. Entw. d. vornehmsten gnostischen Systeme, 1818.

Matter, Hist. crit. du gnosticisme, 2 Vols., 1828.

Baur, Die Christl. Gnosis, 1835.

Lipsius, Der Gnosticismus,