1 Earliest Rome

12. R E L I G I O U S G R O U P S
Galen, Summary of Plato's Republic ill in Walzer (1949) 15-16
Most people are unable to follow the thread of demonstrative arguments; hence they need
allegories to benefit from (and he means by allegories tales of rewards and
punishments in the next world 1
). Thus we now see the people called Christians, though
they have drawn their faith from mere allegories, sometimes acting like true philosophers.
For their lack of fear of death and of what they will meet thereafter is something we can
see everyday, and likewise their restraint in cohabitation/ For they include not only men
but also women who have refrained from cohabiting all through their lives; and they
include people who, in self-discipline and self-control in matters of food and drink, and in
their keen pursuit of justice, have attained a pitch not inferior to that of true philosophers.
338
1. The Arabic text includes this comment on Galen's writing.
2. On the theme of sexual restraint, see P. Brown (1988) 33-64.
12.7e Pluralism of early Christianity
Early Christianity included a wide diversity of practices and beliefs, as pro­
fessed Christians attempted to think about the relationship between
Christianity and Judaism and Greek gods and philosophy. The nature of these
'heresies' can be gleaned partly from surviving texts written by and for the
widely diverse Christian groups (12.7e(i)). From the middle of the second cen­
tury on there survives an extensive tradition of Christian writings which
attempted explicitly to define some of these beliefs as unacceptable - 'heresies';
though it was not until the reign of Constantine (A.D. 307-37) that the church
had any effective mechanisms for imposing 'orthodoxy' on its members. But,
as these 'heretical' groups were gradually excluded from what was to become
the 'orthodox' Christian tradition, another important source are the treatises
written against them. There follow extracts from two of the major anti-heretical
writers of the second and early third centuries, Irenaeus and Hippolytus,
and from the church historian Eusebius.
See further: Vol. 1, 248, 284-5, 307-8; 12.7a(i), Justin, possibly the first
author of a treatise attacking 'heresies'; 12.7c(iii), another extract from
Hippolytus.
12.7e(i) A Gnostic cosmology
The following complete treatise encapsulates aspects of early Christian think­
ing later deemed 'heretical'. Central to many of its ideas is the notion of gnosis
('knowledge' or, better, 'spiritual insight' or 'redemption of the inner man"
(Irenaeus, Against Heresies 1.21.4)). This word gave rise to the term gnostic'
which was applied to manv of these early Christian groups. The treatise has
four sections: (1) invocation of the fundamental trinity of Father (Adamas), his
first (female) emanation Ennoia ('Thought'; Nous 'Mind' dwelling in the
Heights; First Nous), and their son Upright Nous ('Mind', elsewhere called
Logos 'Word 1
, Autogenes 'Selfborn'). (2) This invocation, now stated to be by