ts with the views of getting proofs from prophecy, the
history of Jesus described in the Gospels was not at first allegorised.
Yet afterwards, the Christological dogmas of the third and following
centuries demanded a docetic explanation of many points in that
history.]

[Footnote 352: In the Valentinian, as well as in all systems not
coarsely dualistic, the Redeemer Christ has no doubt a certain share in
the constitution of the highest class of men, but only through
complicated mediations. The significance which is attributed to Christ
in many systems for the production or organisation of the upper world,
may be mentioned. In the Valentinian system there are several mediators.
It may be noted that the abstract conception of the divine primitive
Being seldom called forth a real controversy. As a rule, offence was
taken only at the expression.]

[Footnote 353: The Epistle of Ptolemy to Flora is very instructive here.
If we leave out of account the peculiar Gnostic conception, we have
represented in Ptolemy's criticism the later Catholic view of the Old
Testament, as well as also the beginning of a historical conception of
it. The Gnostics were the first critics of the Old Testament in
Christendom. Their allegorical exposition of the Evangelic writings
should be taken along with their attempts at interpreting the Old
Testament literally and historically. It may be noted, for example, that
the Gnostics were the first to call attention to the significance of the
change of name for God in the Old Testament; see Iren. II. 35.. 3. The
early Christian tradition led to a procedure directly the opposite.
Apelles, in particular, the disciple of Marcion, exercised an
intelligent criticism on the Old Testament, see my treatise, "de Apellis
gnosi." p. 71 sq., and also Texte u. Unters VI. 3. p. 111 ff. Marcion
himself recognised the historical contents of the Old Testament as
reliable, and the criticism of most Gnostics only called in question its
religious value.]

[Footnote 354: Ecclesiastical opponents rightly put no value on the
fact, that some Gnostics advanced to Pan-Satanism with regard to the
conception of the world, while others beheld a certain _justitia
civilis_ ruling in the world. For the standpoint which the Christian
tradition had marked out, this distinction is just as much a matter of
indifference, as the other, whether the Old Testament proceeded from an
evil, or from an intermediate being. The Gnostics attempted t