and renounced it.26

Still another doctrine known among the Fathers was the belief that
Christ, when he descended into the under world, saved and led away
in triumph all who were there, Jews, pagans, good, bad, all,
indiscriminately. This is number seventy nine in Augustine's list
of the heresies. And there is now extant among the writings of
Pope Boniface VI, of the ninth century, a letter furiously
assailing a man who had recently maintained this "damnable
doctrine."

The numerous Gnostic sects represented by Valentinus, Cerinthus,
Marcion, Basilides, and other less prominent names, held a system
of speculation copious, complex, and of intensely Oriental
character. That portion of it directly connected with our subject
may be stated in few words. They taught that all souls pre existed
in a world of pure light, but, sinning through the instigation and
craft of demons, they fell, were mixed with darkness and matter,
and bound in bodies. Through sensual lusts and ignorance, they
were doomed to suffer after death in hell for various periods, and
then to be born again. Jehovah was the enemy of the true God, and
was the builder of this world and of hell, wherein he contrives to
keep his victims imprisoned by deceiving them to worship him and
to live in errors and indulgences. Christ came, they said, to
reveal the true God, unmask the infernal character and wiles of
Jehovah, rescue those whom he had cruelly shut up in hell, and
teach men the real way of salvation. Accordingly, Marcion declared
that when Christ descended into the under world he released and
took into his own kingdom Cain, and the Sodomites, and all the

25 Flugge, Geschichte der Lehre vom Zustande des Menschen nach dem
Tode in der Christlichen Kirche, absch. v. ss. 320-352.

26 Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. lib. vi. cap. 37.

Gentiles who had refused to obey the demon worshipped by the Jews,
but left there, unsaved, Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and the other
patriarchs, together with all the prophets.27 The Gnostics agreed
in attributing evil to matter, and made the means of redemption to
consist in fastings and scourgings of the flesh, with denial of
all its cravings, and in lofty spiritual contemplations. Of
course, with one accord they vehemently assailed the dogma of the
resurrection of the flesh. Their views, too, were inconsistent
with the strict eternity of future hell punishments. The
fundamental basis of their system was the same as that of nearly
all