(3) Demiurge. — As the Gnostic surveyed the world of matter, he found patent traces of law and order ruling it. How did matter, in itself evil and lawless, come to be so orderly ? The Gnostic took the view of Nature which J. S. Mill took, and argued that either the Creator was not all-good or He was not all-powerful. The Gnostic reasoned that the world which with all its order is yet so imperfect cannot be the work of God who is wholly good and all-wise ; it must be the production of
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some far inferior being. The world, then, it was taught, was the work of a Demiurge — a being distinct from God. The character of this Demiurge was variously conceived by different schools ; some, e.g. Cerinthus, made him a being simply ignorant of the highest God. The tendency became strong, however, to make him hostile to God, an enemy of Light and Truth (the blasphemia Creatoris). The God of the Jews was identified with this Demiurge. As to the origin of the Demiurge, some held him to belong ab initio to the realm of evil. But the char- acteristic view was that he was a much-removed em- anation from the Pleroma. This theory of emana- tions is a prominent feature of most of the systems, and it is here that Gnosticism ran into those wild fancies that to some make the . whole system so phantasmagoric. The view was that from God there emanated a series of beings called '.iEons,' each step in the genealogy meaning a diminution of purity ; and the Demiurge was the creation of an .^on far down, indeed the very lowest in the scale. Nature and human nature, then, are produc- tions of a Demiurge either ignorant of, or positively hostile to, the true God. While in a few schools there was only one Demiurge, most spoke of seven as concerned in cosmogony. The origin of this is clear. The seven are the seven astronomical deities of Perso-Babylonian religion. The fusion of Persian and Babylonian views resulted in those deities, originally beneflcent, being conceived of as evil (Orig. c. Cels. vi. 22; Zimmem, KAT^ ii. 620 tf. ).
(4) Redemption. — Christian and Gnostic agree in finding in this world goodness fettered and thwarted by evil. They differ entirely in their conception of the conflict. The familiar Christian view is that into a world of perfect order and goodness a fallen angel brought confusion and evil. The common Gnostic vieAv is that into a world of evil a fallen ^'Eon brought a spark of life and goodness. The fall of this Mon. is variously explained in different systems, as due to weakness (the iEon furthest from God was unable to maintain itself in the Pleroma), or to a sinful passion which induced the yEon to plunge into the Kenoma. Howsoever the Mon fell, it is imprisoned in the Kenoma, and longs for emancipation and return to the Pleroma. With this longing the world of .iEons sympathizes, and the most perfect Mon becomes a Redeemer. The Saviour descends, and after innumerable suffer- ings is able to lead back the fallen .^on to the Pleroma, where He unites with her in a spiritual marriage. Redemption is thus primarily a cosmical thing. But in redeeming the fallen Mon from darkness, the Saviour has made possible a redemp- tion of individual souls. To the Gnostic, the initiated, the Saviour imparts clear knowledge of the ideal world to be striven after, and prompts him so to strive. The soul at all points, before and after deatli, was opposed by hostile spirits, and a great part of Gnostic teaching consisted in instruct- ing the soul as to how those enemies could be over- come. Here comes in the tangle of magico-mjstical teaching, so large an element of the later schools. All sorts of rites, baptisms, stigmatizings, sealing, piercing the ears, holy foods and drinks, etc., were enjoined. It was important also to know tiie names of the spirits, and the words by which they could be mastered. Some systems taught a multitude of such 'words of power'; in other sj\stera3 one master word was given, e.g. caulacau (Iren. I. xxiv. 5).
(5) Christology. — Gnosticism in union with Christianity identified its Saviour, of course, with Jesus. As to the connexion see below. All Cliris- lianized Gnostics held a peculiar Christology. Jesus was a pure Spirit, and it was abhorrent to thouglit that He should come into close contact
with matter, the root of all evil. He had no true body, then, but an appearance which He assumed only to reveal Himself to the sensuous nature of man. Some, like Cerinthus, held that the Saviour united Himself with the man Jesus at the Baptism, and left him again before the Death. Others held that the body was a pure phantom. All agi'eed that the Divine Saviour was neither born nor capable of death. Such a view of Christ's Person is Docetism, the antithesis of Ebionism.
(6) Anthropology. — Man is regarded as a micro- cosm. His tripartite nature (some had only a bipartism) — spirit, soul, body — reflects God, Demi- urge, matter. There are also three classes of man- kind— carnal [vXlkoI), psychic (i/'uxu-o/), spiritual {iTvevixaTtKol). Heathen are hylic, Jews psychic, and Christians spiritual. But within the Christian religion itself the same three classes are found ; the majority are only psychic, the truly spiritual are the Gnostics. They alone are the true Church.