TBE GNOSTIC CONCEPTION OF THE CROSS. 



99 



Gnostics, The great purpose of redernption ^Yas the freeing of 

 the Divine element from the gross matter with which it had been 

 mingled, so that the Gnostic might be free from, and rise superior 

 to, the material body. All bodily substance being evil, a true 

 Incarnation was an impossibihty in Gnostic behef. The Gnostic 

 Christ was originally a pagan Saviour or Dehverer. When this 

 original pagan Dehverer was identified with the Christ of the 

 Church, the Gnostic evaded Incarnation in different ways. He 

 made his Christ duahstic, possessing a true body with which 

 the Divine ^Eon Christ was temporarily associated, usually 

 from the moment of baptism until just before the Crucifixion. 

 Or the solution was docetic, and that in two separate ways : 

 (a) The body was not material but psychical or dispensational, 

 so that it might appear visible, tangible, and capable of suffering, 

 yet in a different manner from a true human body. It was specially 

 formed in the higher region, and was born of the Virgin, though 

 not of her substance. With it the ^on Christ was united. Or 

 (h) the bodily form in which the Divine Christ appeared was 

 purely phantasmal and had no material substance. 



Similarly, since the Crucifixion, on which the Church based 

 her atonement doctrine, was an historic fact, the Gnostics skil- 

 fully evaded the idea of suffering being attributed to a Divine 

 Being by these means also. They also assumed that the Cruci- 

 fixion was the result of the hostihty of the Demiurge to Christ. 



In the first of these views the bodily Jesus suffered, but His 

 sufferings were a mere episode and had no atoning value ; since 

 the Mon Christ had forsaken Jesus. This was the \dew of 

 Cerinthus, and of certain Ophite groups. 



In the second view, that entertained by Valentinus, the psychic, 

 dispensational body, after being deserted by the ^on Soter, 

 suffered crucifixion, but in a non-human, non-bodily sense. 

 This suffering was in no sense redemptive, but, as we shall see, 

 a symbol of certain heavenly events.* 



In the third view, the body being purely phantasmal, though 

 it was extended on the Cross, could not really suffer. This 

 was the theory of Simon Magus, of Marcion, to some extent, 

 and, in a curious form, of Basilides, or rather of some of his 

 followers, as reported by Irenaeus. According to them, Jesus 

 caused His appearance to be borne by Simon of Cyrene, who was 

 therefore cnicified for Him, Jesus Himself taking Simon's form 



Irenseus, Adv. Haereses (ed. Massuet) i, 7, 1 ; iii, 16, 1. 



H 2 



