ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with the apologists and dogmaticians of the next generation, some of whom borrowed materials that the Gnostics had already hewn, while in others the determination not to make use of such materials shaped the contours of an original system. The Gnostics were accused of making a hybrid of spirit and matter, of subjecting God to the possibility and vicissitude of the lower realm. The blasphemy that Irenaeus has tempered is attributed in his work to a more obscure sect than the Valentinians, not attested in independent sources. Irenaeus believes that the incarnation of the divine Word was ordained from the beginning, as a disclosure of the perfect image and likeness of the Father to the maturing human race. Gnosticism becomes a microcosm of heresy for the modern age, when preaching and theology are hostile to otherworldliness, fearful of singularity in morals and accustomed to identify the historical with the quotidian.
