f the union of men with each other.
Christ was to them, therefore, a philosophic Genius like Plato, see
Irenaeus I. 25. 5: "Gnosticos autem se vocant, etiam imagines, quasdam
quidem depictas, quasdam autem et de reliqua materia fabricatas
habent..... et has coronant, et proponent eas cum imaginibus mundi
philosophorum, videlicet cum imagine Pythagorae et Platonis et
Aristotelis et reliquorum, et reliquam observationem circa eas similiter
ut gentes faciunt."]

[Footnote 323: See the "Gnostics" of Hermas, especially the false
prophet whom he portrays, Mand. XI., Lucian's Peregrinus, and the
Marcus, of whose doings Irenaeus (I. 13. ff.) gives such an abominable
picture. To understand how such people were able to obtain a following
so quickly in the Churches, we must remember the respect in which the
"prophets" were held (see Didache XI.). If one had once given the
impression that he had the Spirit, he could win belief for the strangest
things, and could allow himself all things possible (see the
delineations of Celsus in Orig. c. Cels. VII. 9. 11). We hear frequently
of Gnostic prophets and prophetesses, see my notes on Herm. Mand. XI. 1
and Didache XI. 7. If an early Christian element is here preserved by
the Gnostic schools, it has undoubtedly been hellenised and secularised
as the reports shew. But that the prophets altogether were in danger of
being secularised is shewn in Didache XI. In the case of the Gnostics
the process is again only hastened.]

[Footnote 324: The name Gnostic originally attached to schools which had
so named themselves. To these belonged, above all, the so-called
Ophites, but not the Valentinians or Basilideans.]

[Footnote 325: Special attention should be given to this form, as it
became in later times of the very greatest importance for the general
development of doctrine in the Church. The sect of Carpocrates was a
school. Of Tatian Irenaeus says (I. 28. 1): [Greek: Tatianos Ioustinou
acroates gegonais ... meta de ten ekeinou marturian apostas tes
ekklesias, oiemati didaskalon epartheis ... idion charakter didaskaleiou
sunestesato]. Rhodon (in Euseb. H. E. V. 13. 4) speaks of a Marcionite
[Greek: didaskaleion]. Other names were, "Collegium" (Tertull. ad Valen
1), "Secta", the word had not always a bad meaning, [Greek: hairesis,
ekklesia] (Clem. Strom. VII. 16. 98, on the other hand, VII. 15. 92:
Tertull. de praescr. 42: plerique nec Ecclesias habent), [Greek: thiasos]
(Iren. I. 13. 4, for th