[39] Cp. Gieseler, Compendium, i, § 52 (tr. vol. i, p. 162). [↑]

[40] Id. §§ 54, 55, pp. 186–90. [↑]

[41] E. H. 3 Cent. pt. ii, ch. i, §§ 2–4. [↑]

[42] As to the earlier latitudinarianism, cp. Gieseler, as cited, p. 166. [↑]

[43] Gieseler, § 55. [↑]

[44] Mosheim, E. H. 3 Cent. pt. ii, ch. iii, §§ 1–7; Gieseler, as cited, § 53, pp. 162–65; Eusebius, Eccles. Hist. vi, 19; B. Saint-Hilaire, De l’école d’Alexandrie, 1845, p. 7; Baur, Ch. Hist. Eng. tr. ii, 3–8. But cp. Cognat, Clément d’Alexandrie, l. v, ch. v. [↑]

[45] Cp. Mosheim on Origen, Comm. de rebus Christ. ante Const. §§ 27, 28, summarized in Schlegel’s note to Ec. Hist. Reid’s ed. pp. 100–101; Gieseler, § 63; Renan, Marc-Aurèle, pp. 114, 140. Dr. Hatch (Influence of Greek Ideas on the Christian Church, pp. 82–83) notes that the allegorical method, which began in a tendency towards rationalism, came later to be typically orthodox. [↑]

[46] “Gnosis was an attempt to convert Christianity into philosophy; to place it in its widest relation to the universe, and to incorporate with it the ideas and feelings approved by the best intelligence of the times.” Mackay, Rise and Progress of Christianity, p. 109. But cp. the per contra on p. 110: “it was but a philosophy in fetters, an effort of the mind to form for itself a more systematic belief in its own prejudices.” Again (p. 115): “a reaction towards freethought was the essence of Gnosis.” So also Robins, A Defence of the Faith, 1862, pt. i, pp. 4–5, 153. [↑]

[47] This view could be supported by the Platonists from Plato, Laws, bk. x. Cp. Chaignet, La vie et les écrits de Platon, 1871, p. 422; and Milman, Hist. of Christianity, bk. ii, ch. v, ed. Paris, 1840, i, 288. It is explicitly set forth by Plutarch, I. and O., cc. 45–49. [↑]

[48] On the subject in general cp. Mosheim, E. H. 2 Cent. pt. ii, ch. v; also his Commentaries on the Affairs of the Christians before Constantine, Eng. tr. vol. ii; Harnack, Outlines of the Hist. of Dogma, ch. iv; King, The Gnostics and their Remains; Mackay, Rise and Progress of Christianity, pt. iii, §§ 10, 11, 12; Renan, L’Église Chrétienne, chs. ix, x; Milman, Hist. of Christianity, bk. ii, ch. v; Lardner, Hist. of Heretics, in Works, ed. 1835, vol. viii; Baur, Church History, pt. iii; Jeremie, Hist. of the Chr. Church in 2nd and 3rd Cent., ch. v (in Encyc. Metropolitana). [↑]