60A
602
GOA
between Adamantius's dialogue and St. Epiphanius's
" Panarion", begun in the year 374. St. Epiphanius,
who in his youth was brought into closest contact with
Gnostic sects in Egypt, and especially the Phibionists,
and perhaps even, as some hold, belonged to this sect
himself, is still a first-class authority. With marvel-
lous industry he gathered information on all sides, but
his injudicious and too credulous acceptance of many
details can hardly be excused. Philastrius of Brescia,
a few years later (383), gave to the Latin Church what
St. Epiphanius had given to the Greek. He counted
and described no fewer than one hundred and twenty-
eight heresies, but took the word in a somewhat wide
and vague sense. Though dependent on the "Syn-
tagma" of Hippolytus, his account is entirely in-
dependent of that of Epiphanius. Another Latin
writer, who probably lived in the middle of the fifth
century in Southern Gaul, and who is probably identi-
cal with Arnobius the Younger, left a work, commonly
called "Pnpdestinatus", consisting of three books, in
the first of which he describes ninety heresies from
Simon Magus to the Prcedestinationists. This work
unfortunately contains many doubtful and fabulous
statements. Some time after the Council of Clialcedon
(451) Theodoret wrote a "Compendium of Heretical
Fables" which is of considerable value for the history
of Gno.sticism, because it gives in a very concise and
objective way the history of the heresies since the time
of Simon Magus. St. Augu.stine's book "De Ha?resi-
bus" (written about 428) is too dependent on Philas-
trius and Epiphanius to be of much value. Amongst
anti-Gnostic writers we must finally mention the neo-
Platonist Plotinus (d. A. d. 270), who wrote a treatise
" Against the Gnostics ". These were evidently schol-
ars who frequented his collegia, but whose Oriental and
fantastic pessimism was irreconcilable with Plotinus's
views.
Conclusion. — The attempt to picture Gnosticism as a mighty movement of the human mind towards the nol)lest and highest truth, a movement in some way parallel to that of Christianity, has completely failed. It has been abandoned by recent unprejudiced schol- ars such as W. Bousset and O. Gruppe, and it is to be regretted that it should have been renewed by an Eng- lish writer, G. R. S. Mead, in "Fragments of aFaith Forgotten", an unseholarly and misleading work, which in English-speaking countries may retard the sober and true appreciation of Gnosticism as it was in historical fact. Gnosticism was not an advance, it was a retrogression. It was born amidst the last throes of expiring cults and civilizations in Western Asia and Egypt. Though hellenized, these countries remained Oriental and Semitic to the core. This Oriental spirit • — Attis of Asia Minor, Istar of Babylonia, Isis of Egypt, with the astrological and cosmogonic lore of the Asiatic world — first sore beset by Ahuramazda in the East, and then overwhelmed by the Divine great- ness of Jesus Christ in the West, called a truce by the fusion of both Parseeism and Christianity with itself. It tried to do for the East what Neo-Platonism tried to do for the West. During at least two centuries it was a real danger to Christianity, though not so great as some modern writers would make us believe, as if the merest breath might have changed the fortunes of Gnostic, as against orthodox, Christianity. Similar things are said of Mithraism and neo-Platonism as against the religion of Jesus Christ. But these say- ings have more piquancy than objective truth. Chris- tianity survived, and not Gnosticism, because the former was the fittest — immeasurably, nay infinitely, BO. Gnosticism died not by chance, but because it lacked vital power within itself; and no amount of theosophistic literature, flooding English and German markets, can give life to that which perished from intrinsic and essr-ntial defects. It is striking that the two earliest chanipicins of Christianity against Gnos- ticism — Ilegesijipus and Ireiueus — brought out so
clearly the method of warfare which alone was possi-
ble, but which also alone sufficed to secure the victory
in the conflict, a method which Tertullian some years
later scientifically explained in his " De Praescrip-
tione". Both Ilegesippus and Iren^us proved that
Gno.stic doctrines did not belong to that deposit of
faith which was taught by the true succession of bish-
ops in the primary sees of Christendom; both in tri-
umphant conclusion drew up a list of the Bishops of
Rome, from Peter to the Roman bishop of their day;
as Gnosticism was not taught by that Church with
which the Christians everywhere must agree, it stood
self-condemned. A just verdict on the Gnostics is
that of O. Gruppe (Ausfuhrungen, p. 162): the cir-
cumstances of the period gave them a certain impor-
tance. But a living force they never were, either in
general history or in the liistory of Christendom.
Gnosticism deserves attention as showing what
mental dispositions Christianity found in existence,
what obstacles it had to overcome to maintain its own
life; but "means of mental progre.ssit never was."
DE Jong, Das antike Mysierieiiwesen (Leipzig. 1909); Dibb- Lirs, Stndien zuT Geschichte der Valentinianer in Zeils. N.-T. Wissensch. (Giessen, 190S-09): Bousset, Hauptprobleme der Gnosis (Gottingen, 1907); Duchesne, Hisioire ancienne de I'Eglise (Paris, 1907), J, xi; Gruppe, Griech. Mythologie u. Religionsgeschidde (2 vols., 1907); Wendland, H etlenistisch- rom. KuUur (Leipzig, 1907), 161 sqq.; Buonaiuti, Lo Gnosti- cisjno (Rome, 1907): Leclercq in Diet, d^archeol. chret. (Paris, 1907), 1268-88; 3003 sqq.; 514sqq.; Idem, L'EspaffneChrelienne (Paris, 1905); Mead, Fragments of a Faith Forgotten (London and Benares, 1906); Idem, Thrice-Greatest Hermes (3 vols.. Lon- don, 1906); Beeson, //e^emOTiiws. Acta Archelai (Berlin, 1906); BiscHOFF, Im Reiche der Gnosis (Leipzig, 1906); Peithmann, Christl. Geheimlehre (A Gnostic Catechism — Leipzig, 1906); Schmidt. Koptisch-Gnostische Schriften (Leipzig, 1905), I; Idem, Ploiin's Sldlung z.Gn.m Texteu. Unters. (Leipzig, 1901); Idem, Ein vorirenaeisch. gn. Originalwerk in Prussian Acad, of Sciences (Berlin, 1896), 837; de Fave, Introduction & Vttude du Gnosli- cisme (Paris, 1903); Idem in Revue de t'hist. d. Relig. (1902); Foakes-Jackson, Christian Difficulties in the Second and Third Cent. (Hulsean Lectures, 1902-3); Rdelle et Poiree. Le chant gnostico-magique (Solesmes, 1901); Liechtenhahn, Untersuch- nngen zur Kopt-gnost. Lit. (Gottingen, 1901); Idem, Apocryph. Liter, d. Gnostiker in Zeits. f. Wissensch. TheoL, XL! V, 236-252; Bardenhewer, Geschichte der alikirchl. Lit. (Freiburg, 1902), I, 315-346; 386-459; 481—195; Brandt, Mandaische Schriften (Gottingen, 1893); Die Mandaische Religion (Leipzig, 1889); Ivessler, Ueber Gnosis u. alt-bab. Religion in Report of the Fifth Congress of Orientalists (Berlin, 1882); Id., Mani (Leipzig, 1SS9), I; Wobbermin, Religionsgesch. Studien (Leipzig, 1896); King, The Gnostics and their Remains (London, 1887); Joel, Blicke in die Religiongesch. Anfang 2ten Jahrh. (Breslau, 1880), I, 103 sqq.; Mansel, The Gnostic Heresies of the first and sec- ond centuries (London, 1875); Lipsius, Zur Quellenkritik des Epiphanios (Vienna, 1865); Die Quellen der altesten Ketzer- geschichle (Leipzig, 1875); Idem, Pistis Sophia in Did. of Christ. Biogr. (London, 1887); Stahelin, Die Gnostischen Quel- len Hippolyts (Leipzig, 1890); Matter, Histoire critique du Gnosticisme (revised ed., 3 vols., Paris, 1843); Harvey, S. Irencd Libri V (2 vols., Cambridge, 1857); Kostlin, Das Gnostische System des Buches Pistis Sophia in Theol. Jahrb. (1854); Heinrici, Die Valentinianische Gnosis u. die H. Schrift (Berlin, 1871); Zahn, Geschichte des N. T. Kanons, I, 718-61.
The best collection of Greek Gnostic fragments is in Stieren, Irenmus, I, 899-971 (Leipzig, 1848). See also Kennedy, Budd- hist Gnosticism: The System of Basilides in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (London, 1902); Waitz, Pseudo-Terlull. Gedicht Adv. Marcion (Darmstadt, 1901)j Preuschen, Apoc. Gnost. Adamschriften aus d. Armen. (Geissen, 1900); Bukkitt, The Hymn of Bardaisan rendered into English (London, 1899); Friedlander, Der vorchristl. jud. Gnosticismus (Gottingen, 189S); Anz, Zur Frage nach dem Ursprung der Gnosis (Leipzig, 1897): Reitzenstein, Poimandres (Leipzig, 1904), vii; Ame- LINEAU, Le nouveau traite gnostique de Turin, 1890; Idem, Notice sur le Papyrus Gnostique Bruce (Paris, 1891); Idem, Essai sur le Gnosticisme igyptien (Paris, 1887); Idem, Pistis Sophia, Ouvrage Gnostique de Valentin (Paris, 1895); Idem, Les traites gnosliques d'Oxford'in Revue de I'hist. d. Religions (Paris, 1890), 1-72; UKRftKCK, Geschichte der altchristl. Literatur iheip- zig, 1893), I, 143 .sqq.; 662 sqq.; II, 1, 537-40 and passim; Idem, History of Dogma (London, 1894), I, 222-65; Idem, Zur Quellenkritik der Gesch. des Gnostiz (Leipzig, 1873); Idem in Zeitschr. f. historisch. Theol. (1874); Hiloenfeld, Ketzerge- schichte des Vrchristentums (Leipzig, 1884); Idem, Judenthum und Christenlhum (Leipzig, 1886); Idem, Der Gnostizismus'm Zeitschr. f. Wissensch. Theol. (1890); Kunze. De hittorice gnostic cismi fatitibus (Leipzig, 1894): Anrich, Das antike Mysterierv' wesen in S. Einfluss a. d. Christenth. (1894) ; Honig, Die Ophiten (Berlin, 1889).
J. P. Arendzen.
6oa, Archdiocese op (Goanen.si8), Patriarchate OF THE East Indies, the chief see of the Portuguese
