technical terms of speculative theism. St. John, too, in his prologue
and other places, brings the Gospel into relation with current
speculation, and interprets it in philosophical language. The movement
known as Gnosticism, both within and without the Church, was an
attempt to complete this reconciliation between speculative and
revealed religion, by systematising the symbols of transcendental
mystical theosophy.[111] The movement can only be understood as a
premature and unsuccessful attempt to achieve what the school of
Alexandria afterwards partially succeeded in doing. The anticipations
of Neoplatonism among the Gnostics would probably be found to be very
numerous, if the victorious party had thought their writings worth
preserving. But Gnosticism was rotten before it was ripe. Dogma was
still in such a fluid state, that there was nothing to keep
speculation within bounds; and the Oriental element, with its
insoluble dualism, its fantastic mythology and spiritualism, was too
strong for the Hellenic. Gnosticism presents all the features which we
shall find to be characteristic of degenerate Mysticism. Not to speak
of its oscillations between fanatical austerities and scandalous
licence, and its belief in magic and other absurdities, we seem, when
we read Irenæus' description of a Valentinian heretic, to hear the
voice of Luther venting his contempt upon some "_Geisterer_" of the
sixteenth century, such as Carlstadt or Sebastian Frank. "The fellow
is so puffed up," says Irenæus, "that he believes himself to be
neither in heaven nor on earth, but to have entered within the Divine
Pleroma, and to have embraced his guardian angel. On the strength of
which he struts about as proud as a cock. These are the self-styled
'spiritual persons,' who say they have already reached perfection."
The later Platonism could not even graft itself upon any of these
Gnostic systems, and Plotinus rejects them as decisively as Origen.