The Judaism and paganism imported into the church proved more dangerous to it than the storm of persecution raging against it from without. Ebionism (§ 28) was the result of the attempt to incorporate into Christianity the narrow particularism of Judaism; Heretical Gnosis or Gnosticism was the result of the attempt to blend with Christianity the religious notions of pagan mythology, mysteriology, theosophy and philosophy. These two tendencies, moreover, were combined in a Gnostic Ebionism, in the direction of which Essenism may be regarded as a transitional stage (§ 8, 4). In many respects Manichæism (§ 29), which sprang up at a later period, is related to the Gnosticism of Gentile Christianity, but also in character and tendency widely different from it. The church had to employ all her powers to preserve herself from this medley of religious fancies and to purify her fields from the weeds that were being sown on every side. In regard to Ebionism and its gnosticizing developments this was a comparatively easy task. The Gnosticism of Gentile Christianity was much more difficult to deal with, and although the church succeeded in overcoming the weed in her fields, yet many of its seeds continued hidden for centuries, from which sprouts grew up now and again quite unexpectedly (§§ 54, 71, 108). This struggle has nevertheless led to the furtherance of the church in many ways, awakening in it a sense of scientific requirements, stirring it up to more vigorous battling for the truth, and endowing it with a more generous and liberal spirit. It had learnt to put a Christian gnosis in the place of the heretical, a right and wholesome use of speculation and philosophy, of poetry and art, in place of their misuse, and thus enabled Christianity to realise its universal destination.