=The Gnostics.= Gnosticism is the name applied to a movement of hostile reconstruction of Old Testament tradition instead of a spiritual interpretation of it. It was a great syncretic movement in the second and third centuries, which sought to form a world religion in which men should be rated on the basis of what they intellectually and morally knew. The Gnostics tried to transform the Christian faith in a large way into knowledge that would still be Christian; and their efforts show how strong the philosophical interest among the Christians was beginning to be. The conditions for the development of such a doctrine as Gnosticism were everywhere present in the empire, yet two principal centres are pointed out: one at Alexandria and the other in Syria. Gnosticism was a most fanciful mixture of Oriental and Occidental cults and mythologies, very much more fantastic than either neo-Pythagoreanism or neo-Platonism. It was a philosophy in which the essential Christian principles were lost under the weight of esoteric knowledge. The Gnostics themselves were steeped in Hellenic culture, and in many localities formed only bands of Mysteries. They finally lost all sympathy with the Christians, and were classed as heretics by the church. The leading Gnostics were Saturninus, Carpocrates (about 130), Basilides, Valentinus (about 160), and Bardesanes (155–225). Only a few fragments of their many writings remain, and about all that we know of their doctrines is what their opponents say of them. Valentinus, the most notable, was born at Rome and died at Cyprus. Bardesanes was born in Mesopotamia. Carpocrates lived at Alexandria and was a contemporary of Basilides, who was a Syrian. The records of their careers are very meagre. The Gnostics were the first philosophers of history.[46] They undertook to make Christianity a world religion by conquering Hellenic culture for Christianity and Christianity for Hellenic culture. The only way they could do this was by dislodging Christianity from its historical anchorage in the Old Testament. The Gnostics were in open hostility to Judaism. They transformed every ethical problem into a cosmological problem, they regarded human history as the continuation of natural history, they viewed the Redemption as the last act in the cosmic drama. This shows how closely related their teaching was to that of Philo and Plotinus and how consistent with the theoretic spirit of the time. Since the salvation of the world by Christ stands as the central point of their philosophy of history, their philosophy of history amounted to a philosophy of Christian history.