100 



CANON J. A. MacCULLOCH, ON 



and deriding His persecutors. " For being an incorporeal 

 power and the ^lind of the unborn Father, He transfigured 

 Himself as He pleased.'"'* Hence it is unnecessary to confess 

 Him Who was crucified,, and he who does so is still a slave to the 

 powers of the world.* 



The system of Basihdes himself, as described by Hippolytus, 

 differs radically from this, and must be considered by itself. 

 Jesus was purely human, with a real body, as well as a psychic 

 and a pneumatic part, corresponding to the three grades of exist- 

 ence in Basihdes' system. Xo ^on descended on Him, for 

 ascent, not descent, is the law of the universe. But enhghten- 

 ment passes from the highest to the lowest spheres, as naphtha 

 is ht by a flame, and thus it reached Jesus. His sufferings were 

 real, not apparent, but not on account of sin committed by Him. 

 He suffered " as the child which seems not to have sinned would 

 suffer.''! The three grades of existence were now separated 

 from each other by His death. Jesus was the first-fruits of this 

 separation. His bodily nature was resolved into formlessness, 

 while the higher elements were restored to their respective 

 spheres at Christ's Ascension. This process is repeated in all 

 spiritual men or Gnostics in their ascent to the Father. This 

 view is nearer the Cathohc atonement doctrine than that of other 

 Gnostics, though differing from it still in essential points. "f 



A true atonement doctrine was unnecessary to the Gnostic, 

 really because of his pecuhar views regarding matter and spirit, 

 ^iews reproduced in the popular Christian Science of to-day, 

 which has been accepted so eagerly by people inexj^erienced in 

 either Christian doctrine or Christian practice. Matter was evil ; 

 spirit was good — a spark of the Divine. Though entangled in 

 matter, it could not be tainted with evil, but yet was alienated 

 from the higher powers, an exile from its true sphere. All 

 that u-as necessary for its recovery was the knowledge {jvcoctk;) 

 of how freedom from matter was to be obtained, of how man 

 could rise superior to it even in this Ufe, and discard it finally 

 at death. That knowledge, enhghtenment, or illumination was 

 the work of the Sa^-iour, but not in any real sense because of 

 His Crucifixion. The Gnostic redemption lay elsewhere : the 

 Cross was a stumbhng-block which, in allying itself with the 



* Irenaeu^, Adv. Haer., i, 24, 4. 



t Clement. Stromateis, iv, 12. 



i Hipi)olvta?, Rejut. omn, haer., vii. 14. 



