collection, certainly not complete, of Gnostic
fragments by Grabe (Spicileg.) and Hilgenfeld (Ketzergeschichte). Our
books on the history of Gnosticism take far too little notice of these
fragments as presented to us, above all, by Clement and Origen, and
prefer to keep to the doleful accounts of the Fathers about the
"Systems", (better in Heinrici: Valent. Gnosis, 1871). The vigorous
efforts of the Gnostics to understand the Pauline and Johannine ideas,
and their in part surprisingly rational and ingenious solutions of
intellectual problems, have never yet been systematically estimated. Who
would guess, for example, from what is currently known of the system of
Basilides, that, according to Clement, the following proceeds from him,
(Strom. IV. 12. 18): [Greek: hos autos phesin ho Basileides, en meros ek
tou legomenou thelematos tou theou hupeilephamen, to egapekenai hapanta.
hoti logon aposozousi pros to pan hapanta; heteron de to medenos
epithumein, kai to triton misein mede hen], and where do we find, in the
period before Clement of Alexandria, faith in Christ united with such
spiritual maturity and inner freedom as in Valentinians, Ptolemaeus and
Heracleon?]

[Footnote 314: Testament of Tertullian (adv. Valent. 4) shews the
difference between the solution of Valentinus, for example, and his
disciple Ptolemaeus. "Ptolemaeus nomina et numeros AEonum distinxit in
personales substantias, sed extra deum determinatas, quas Valentinus in
ipsa summa divinitatis ut sensus et affectus motus incluserat." It is,
moreover, important that Tertullian himself should distinguish this so
clearly.]

[Footnote 315: There is nothing here more instructive than to hear the
judgments of the cultured Greeks and Romans about Christianity, as soon
as they have given up the current gross prejudices. They shew with
admirable clearness, the way in which Gnosticism originated. Galen says
(quoted by Gieseler, Church Hist. 1. 1. 41): "Hominum plerique orationem
demonstrativam continuam mente assequi nequeunt, quare indigent, ut
instituantur parabolis. Veluti nostro tempore videmus, homines illos,
qui Christian! vocantur, fidem suam e parabolis petiisse. Hi tamen
interdum talia faciunt, qualia qui vere philosophantur. Nam quod mortem
contemnunt, id quidem omnes ante oculos habemus; item quod verecundia
quadam ducti ab usu rerum venerearum abhorrent. Sunt enim inter eos
feminae et viri, qui per totam vitam a concubitu abstinuerint; sunt etiam
qui i