hat is, from the earliest theologians in Christendom, in
the doctrine of God and the world, but very much in Christology, and who
can maintain that she has ever completely overcome the Gnostic doctrine
of the two natures, nay, even Docetism? Redemption viewed in the
historical person of Jesus, that is, in the appearance of a Divine being
on the earth, but the person divided and the real history of Jesus
explained away and made inoperative, is the signature of the Gnostic
Christology--this, however, is also the danger of the system of Origen
and those systems that are dependent on him (Docetism) as well as, in
another way, the danger of the view of Tertullian and the Westerns
(doctrine of two natures). Finally, it should be noted that the Gnosis
always made a distinction between the supreme God and Christ, but that,
from the religious position, it had no reason for emphasising that
distinction. For to many Gnostics, Christ was in a certain way the
manifestation of the supreme God himself, and therefore in the more
popular writings of the Gnostics (see the Acta Johannis) expressions are
applied to Christ which seem to identify him with God. The same thing is
true of Marcion and also of Valentinus (see his Epistle in Clem., Strom.
II. 20. 114: [Greek: eis de estin agathos. ou parousia he dia tou huiou
phanerosis]). This Gnostic estimate of Christ has undoubtedly had a
mighty influence on the later Church development of Christology. We
might say without hesitation that to most Gnostics Christ was a [Greek:
pneuma homoousion toi patri]. The details of the life, sufferings and
resurrection of Jesus are found in many Gnostics, transformed,
complemented and arranged in the way in which Celsus (Orig., c. Cels. I.
II.) required for an impressive and credible history. Celsus indicates
how everything must have taken place if Christ had been a God in human
form. The Gnostics in part actually narrate it so. What an instructive
coincidence! How strongly the docetic view itself was expressed in the
case of Valentinus, and how the exaltation of Jesus above the earthly
was thereby to be traced back to his moral struggle, is shewn in the
remarkable fragment of a letter (in Clem., Strom. III. 7. 59): [Greek:
Panta hupomeinas egkrates ten theoteta Iesous eirgazeto. esthien gar kai
apien idios ouk apodidous ta bromata, tosaute en autoi tes egkrateias
dunamis, hoste kai me phtharenai ten trophen en autoi epei to
phtheresthai autos ouk eichen].