202 NATURE OF JEWISH RELIGIOUS LIFE

professed distinctive doctrines in which orthodox Christian
teachers recognized the germs of those gnostic heresies which
developed in the Church during the second century. From
this it follows that there is nothing rash in attributing to them
a certain share in the birth of Christianity, even if we cannot
tell what it may have been. These sects made their appearance
on the fringe of orthodox Jahwism, just as Christianity did
when it assumed a definite form.

IV

JUDAISM AS A SYNCRETISTIC RELIGION

It has long been acknowledged 1 that in the time of Jesus
Judaism had already become a syncretistic religion. It was
syncretistic in the sense that, even within the framework of
orthodoxy (more elastic than might be supposed), elements had
been admitted and absorbed which were really foreign to its
basic character. It was syncretistic in the further sense that it
recognized, on the confines of its orthodoxy, religious forms char-
acterized and dominated by tendencies even more at variance
with the Torah,

The most powerful and, so to speak, the most fertile of these
tendencies was that which is commonly called gnostic. Gnosis
is divinely revealed knowledge as opposed to knowledge gained
by reason and experience, the product of the human mind. In
other words, gnosis is knowledge per se ; complete and absolute,
liberated from reason and human control.2 With the supreme
revelation of metaphysical Truth it combines cosmological ideas,
speculations concerning matter, and the nature of the forces
(dynamds) which, called it into being and control it, and con-
cerning the origin and destiny of living creatures, especially of
man. Its principal adjunct is mystical astrology.

It is possible that Gnosticism had its origin in Mesopotamia

2 Perception through the senses is called a*ia8r]oig ; knowledge hased
on reason is called srrHrn^rj. In contrast to these, yv&oiq is revelation
vouchsafed from God (yvaxri? Bsov) concerning ways and means neces-
sary for salvation (creoT^i'a). Cf. Corpus Hermeticum, Pom., viii, 1 ff. ;
x, 15 ; xi, 21 : 9} yaQ rslsta xaxla TO dyvoetv TO Qeiov, Asdep., Ixxxi, 8.
It is essentially an illumination (<poog TTJS yv&aews), and does not lend
itself to rational proof, being a mystic gift (loyog ajtoq^o^ at ^crrtxog,
Philos,, Y, 7). Cf. Brandt, Me mand. Eel, 170 /. ; J. Kroll, Lehre d.
Herm., 375. On gnosticism in general, see the clear and concise article,
with full Bibliography, in RGGr, ii, col. 1272 ff.