In this notion, however, there is more
sense and historical meaning than in that of the later ecclesiastical
aphtharto-docetism.]

[Footnote 358: The Gnostic distinction of classes of men was connected
with the old distinction of stages in spiritual understanding, but has
its basis in a law of nature. There were again empirical and
psychological views--they must have been regarded as very important, had
not the Gnostics taken them from the traditions of the philosophic
schools--which made the universalism of the Christian preaching of
salvation, appear unacceptable to the Gnostics. Moreover, the
transformation of religion into a doctrine of the school, or into a
mystery cult, always resulted in the distinction of the knowing from the
_profanum vulgus_. But in the Valentinian assumption that the common
Christians as psychical occupy an intermediate stage, and that they are
saved by faith, we have a compromise which completely lowered the Gnosis
to a scholastic doctrine within Christendom. Whether and in what way the
Catholic Church maintained the significance of Pistis as contrasted with
Gnosis, and in what way the distinction between the knowing (priests)
and the laity was there reached, will be examined in its proper place.
It should be noted, however, that the Valentinian, Ptolemy, ascribes
freedom of will to the psychic (which the pneumatic and hylic lack), and
therefore has sketched by way of by-work a theology for the psychical
beside that for the pneumatic, which exhibits striking harmonies with
the exoteric system of Origen. The denial by Gnosticism of free will,
and therewith of moral responsibility, called forth very decided
contradiction. Gnosticism, that is, the acute hellenising of
Christianity, was wrecked in the Church on free will, the Old Testament
and eschatology.]

[Footnote 359: The greatest deviation of Gnosticism from tradition
appears in eschatology, along with the rejection of the Old Testament
and the separation of the creator of the world from the supreme God.
Upon the whole our sources say very little about the Gnostic
eschatology. This, however, is not astonishing; for the Gnostics had not
much to say on the matter, or what they had to say found expression in
their doctrine of the genesis of the world, and that of redemption
through Christ. We learn that the _regula_ of Apelles closed with the
words: [Greek: anepte eis ouranon hothen kai heke], instead of [Greek:
hothen erchetai krinai zonta