contained in the essence of the Supreme Principle, a necessary and gradual unfolding of the germ of existence that lay in him. Creation was thus made a necessary process of Nature, to which the Divine Being himself was subjected; in short, an Emanation. They chose many images to illustrate the process of Emanation from God; the development of thoughts from reason and from one another; the light that streams forth in manifold rays from the primeval light; the numbers, that proceed from one highest unity.* Valentine called the products of Emanation άives, because they are representatives

* I add here a few remarks on the principles of Basilides which differ in part from the Gnosis, in which I follow Hippolytus in his λeyxos, vii. 20. A comparison with the statements of Clement Alex. makes it certain that we there have a description agreeing in all essential points with it, and founded on authentic sources. This is demonstrated against Hilgenfeld by Uhlhorn (Das Basilidianische System.: Gött. 1855). See also Hase's Church History, 1854, p. 94. Basilides laboured to avoid all limiting ideas of God. He was not satisfied with calling him the Being, but placed him above all existence by the idea of the OUR v. We find exactly similar language in Plotinus and other Platonists. The influence of Platonism is unmistakeable, though Uhlhorn will not allow it. In his doctrine of Creation, Basilides denies the existence of matter independent of God, as well as an Emanation or Evolution from God; according to him the Biblical representation of a creation by the almighty word of God comes nearest the truth. But the form and expression of the idea of creation, although unavoidably expressed according to the human usus loquendi, must be understood in a superhuman manner. God created first of all a seed of the World (σπέρμα τοῦ κόσμου, πανσπερμία), the potentiality of all being, of which the germ lay therein, chaotic and undeveloped (ovyxvois aρxký). As far as this is not yet the world definite and developed in form, it may be called a non-existent world, and hence Basilides said, that God created the world οὐκ ὧν οὐκ ὄντα ἐξ οὐκ Övrwv. First of all, the most spiritual entities were developed-the viórηs Oεov—in a threefold gradation; then the other created beings on a descending scale. Above all is enthroned the Not-Being (ovx wv), longing after whose infinite beauty all things tend upward from below. The idea of a oжÉρμа той коσμov is probably taken from the Stoics; but it leads to unfounded and forced meanings if, like Uhlhorn, we find nothing in Basilides respecting God, the Creation, and the development of the universe, but the stoical notions of an original unity of God and matter, and of an independent separation of both, clothed in Christian phraseology, and modified in their results by Christian teleology. When Basilides repeatedly says that God has sent forth the seed of the world (τὸ καταβληθὲν ὑπὸ τοῦ οὐκ ὄντος Θεοῦ) by the word of the speaker, it would really be his opinion that the seed of the world had produced God; he held it to be a too physical representation

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of the Eternal. The divine powers appear hypostasized by the Gnostics, while Western thinkers would have described them as attributes of God. They wished to explain the different stages of existence by the stages of Emanation. Many attempted to make it conceivable how personality and consciousness originated, and placed at the head an unconscious principle, from which the personal conscious Spirit first proceeded, the ἐνθύμησις, ἕννοια ἑαυτοῦ. But after all, the origin of the material world was not explained; for it and Spirit appeared to the Gnostics to form a necessary quality, and not to be referrible to a higher Unity. The Existence also of Evil and of Defect, seemed also to require a different explanation. The derivation of Evil from the freedom of the creature did not satisfy them, for in this way they thought it would be ultimately traced back to God. But as they wished to find the source of Evil elsewhere than in God, they fell into Dualism, which under various forms was dominant in that age. How great its power was is strikingly shown in the Gnostic Apelles, a scholar that God should allow beings to emanate from himself, but thought it worthy of God that he should develope himself from chaos. The viórns must be identical with God, who separates himself from matter, since these beings of Light are 9e oμoovσio: and yet it is said that they develope themselves as the first from the Tavoπεрμia, but not God, who rather stands above the whole-has designed beforehand the plan of the universe, and attracts the children of God to himself by overpowering glory-who cannot, indeed be in the full sense ouoovσio with him. because they are not equal among themselves. In the abstract idea of God, and in the contemplation of the Universal Life, we may recognise Pantheistic influences, but they do not occur in the first of these, and in the second only in the Stoical ideas above mentioned. It is far too confidently asserted that Stoicism was the most widely spread philosophy, the vital air of the second century— the century in which Plutarch, Justin, and Clement lived. We cannot recognise in Basilides so much of Pantheism, and so little of Dualism, as Uhlhorn does, though he allows that the latter could not be altogether concealed. Basilides, in his attempt to abolish Dualism, and then relapsing into it, resembles Valentine. He adheres to it when he contemplates πavoπεpμía in the aspect of formlessness, as apoppía; perhaps also in supposing an antagonism between the living, formative light-seed, and the material in the Tavorεpμía, but it appears clearly when he relegates the higher element in the apocatastasis typically described in Christ, ἔπαθεν οὖν τοῦτο ὅπερ ἦν αὐτοῦ σωματικὸν μέρος, καὶ ἀπεκατέστη εἰς τὴν αμορφίαν. Compare J. L. Jacobi, Basilidis philosophi gnostici sustentiæ: Regiom. 1852.--[JACOBI.]

of Marcion, who, when he saw himself compelled to abandon Dualism, admitted that he believed in an original Being, but how he could be, he was unable to comprehend. He could not conceive how there could be one eternal God.* The Gnostics were obliged to join together Dualism and the doctrine of Emanation; they proceeded on the assumption that the Evil Principle had mixed itself with the kingdom of Light, and the Soul with Matter; whence the earthly world originated. Respecting the origin of this mixture, there was ample scope for Speculation and Fancy. Some said that the n sought to penetrate the Kingdom of Light. Others represented the powers of the Kingdom of Light as not able to keep within its boundaries, but sinking down into the Kingdom of Darkness. At the head of this outward World, originating on the ground of Matter, stands the Demiurgos, whose character forms the principal difference in the Gnostic systems-according as they represent him in absolute Antagonism to God, or as only a Being subordinate to him, and an unconscious Organ in the Creation and Government of the World.† The Gnostics of the first class were obliged to admit an absolute contrariety between the earthly World and the highest order of the Universe; whence it followed that Christianity stood in this contrariety to the earthly World, and that a Redemption could never take place in it. Then either pride, or an ascetic contempt of the world, was the result, or the contrariety took a decidedly immoral direction, since it appeared a matter of indifference how men acted. It was thought that the higher life could not find its consummation in these earthly forms. Men must show their contempt of sensuality,-must despise it. Thus a bold Antinomism arose. Other Gnostics were more moderate; they admitted that the germs of divine Ideas had been unconsciously placed in the World by the Demiurgos; but Christianity had first brought the Framer of the World to a consciousness of the Supreme God, and had developed the ideas with clearness. Christianity, therefore, has given the consciousness of the design for which the world was created, and the destiny

*Euseb. Hist. Eccl. v. 18. Hippolyt. λeyx. p. 529.

On the principal attempt at pointing out the differences in the Guostic systems, see the article Gnostiker in Herzog's Real-Encyclopädie für Theologie.—[JACOBI.]

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of the human race. A deep scientific Idea lies at the foundation of these views of the Gnostics, only (according to their peculiar mode of thinking and expression) they represent objectively, as a development of the Demiurgos, what belongs to the Reason and the Mind of Man.

Irenæus opposed the arbitrariness of the Gnostics. If we do not desire to explain everything-since many things are reserved for a higher life-we shall retain our faith; the errors of the Gnostics arise from their wishing to acknowledge no bounds to their speculations.* In opposition to the separation of God and the Demiurgos, he says, "God has formed all things in himself and from himself, that is, according to his own ideas." He also informs us what is the positive meaning of the idea of Creation out of nothing, namely, "that existence is derived from the power and will of God." This cannot be explained according to the analogy of human workmanship. He adheres to the opinion that the world had a beginning, and rejects the subtleties that have been started respecting it; what God had done before he created the World, Holy Writ does not reveal; the answer to such questions must be referred to God.

In the writings of the Platonizing fathers, we recognise a mixture of the Platonic forms. Philo had expressed himself as if he admitted a pre-existent Hyle which received a form from God. Yet it is a question whether Philo deviated so far from Judaism. In a fragment preserved by Eusebius§ he says, that God prepared exactly as much Hyle as he used for the Creation. This appears to contradict the opinion above-mentioned. The Apologists of the Platonic School followed his example. Jus tin Martyr says,|| "God formed all things out of an unorganized matter." Yet according to the connexion of his style of thinking we cannot suppose that he approved of the Platonic Hylozoism. His Scholar Tatian serves to explain his views, for he also

* Adv. Hæres. ii. 28.

Ibid. ii. c. 7, 8.

Ibid. ii. 28, § 3.-Ut puta, si quis interrogat: antequam murdum faceret Deus, quid agebat? dicimus quoniam ista responsio subjacet Deo. Quoniam autem mundus hic factus est apotelestos a Deo, temporale initium accipiens, scripturæ nos docent; quid autem ante hoc Deus sit operatus, nulla scriptura manifestat.

§ Præpar. Evangel. vii. 21.

|| Apol. i. § 10. Πάντα τὴν ἀρχὴν ἀγαθὸν ὄντα δημιουργῆσαι αὐτὸν ἐξ ἀμόρφου ὕλης δι' ἀνθρώπους, δεδιδάγμεθα.

says, all things were fashioned from a formless Hyle, which, however, was first brought forth by God. If a mere formal agreement with Plato is here expressed, yet to this form a view may be attached which perfectly retains the Platonic idea of the Hyle; we find this to be the case with Hermogenes,* a painter who lived in North Africa towards the end of the second century. He rejected both the Gnostic Emanation doctrine, and the Church doctrine of Creation; the former contradicted the unchangeable nature of God, and necessitated attributing to him the Origin of Evil; the latter was contradicted by the nature of this World ;† for if the Creation of the perfect God had been conditioned by nothing, a perfect world must have been the result. Hence he believed that Creation supposed something conditioning, and this he thought must be the Hyle which he received from Platonism into connexion with the Christian system. He did not think that he gave up the doctrine of the movagxía as long as he admitted a ruling all-powerful principle, and ascribed to God such a supremacy over the Hyle. He regarded the Hyle as altogether undetermined, predicateless, in which all the contrarieties which afterwards appeared in the world, were as yet unseparated and undeveloped; neither motion nor rest; neither flowing nor standing still, but an inorganic confusion. It was the receptive; God alone the creative; his formative agency called forth from it determinate existence. But with this organization there was a residuum which withstood the divine formative power. Hence the defective and the offensive in Nature; hence also Evil. Had he been logical he must have admitted a Creation without a beginning; he could not have regarded it as a single and transitive act of God, but as immanent and resulting immediately from the relation of God to Matter. He said, God was always a ruler, consequently he must always have had dominion over Matter.§ This would

* Tertull. adv. Hermogenem. Hippolyt. λeyxos, viii. 17. + Tertull. adv. Hermog. c. 2.

Ibid. c. 28.-Unde ergo compertus est Hermogenes, informem et confusam et inquietam illam fuisse, quæ ut invisibilis latebat ?—c. 35, prima, inquit, facie videtur nobis incorporalis esse materia, exquisita autem ratione recta invenitur neque corporalis neque incorporalis.-c. 41. Inconditus et [in]confusus et turbulentus fuit materiæ motus. Sic enim et ollæ undeque ebullientis similitudinem apponis.

§ Ibid. c. 3.