The opening of VII. POST-CHRISTIAN GNOSTICS
It will be seen, from what has been said in the first volume, that, even at the beginning of the Christian era, there was no lack of αἵρεσις or choice of creeds offered to those peoples of the Levant who had outgrown their national religions; and it may be a surprise to many that more notice was not taken by the Christians of the Apostolic age of these early essays at a universal faith. Some writers, indeed, among whom Bishop Lightfoot is perhaps the most notable, have thought that they could detect allusions to them in the Canonical writings, and that by the “worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which man hath not seen, vainly puffed up by the understanding of his flesh[1]” which St Paul condemns in the Epistle to the Colossians, must be understood the teachings of Gnostic sects already in existence[2]. Others have gone further, and think that the Fourth Gospel was itself written under Gnostic influence[3], and that the Apocalypse attributed to the same author vituperates under the name of the Nicolaitans a Christian sect professing Gnostic tenets[4].