§ 26.2. =The Problems of Gnostic Speculation= are: the origin of the world and of evil, as well as the task, means and end of the world’s development. In solving these problems the Gnostics borrowed mostly from paganism the theory of the world’s origin, and from Christianity the idea of redemption. At the basis of almost all Gnostic systems there lies the dualism of God and matter (ὕλη); only that matter is regarded sometimes in a Platonic sense as non-essential and non-substantial (=μὴ ὄν) and hence without hostile opposition to the godhead, sometimes more in the Parsee sense as inspired and dominated by an evil principle, and hence in violent opposition to the good God. In working out the theosophical and cosmological process it is mainly the idea of emanation (προβολή) that is called into play, whereby from the hidden God is derived a long series of divine essences (αἰῶνες), whose inherent divine power diminishes in proportion as they are removed to a distance from the original source of being. These æons then make their appearance as intermediaries in the creation, development and redemption of the world. The substratum out of which the world is created consists in a mixture of the elements of the world of light (πλήρωμα) with the elements of matter (κένωμα) by means of nature, chance or conflict. One of the least and weakest of the æons, who is usually designated Δημιουργός, after the example of Plato in the _Timæus_, is brought forward as the creator of the world. Creation is the first step toward redemption. But the Demiurge cannot or will not carry it out, and so finally there appears in the fulness of the times one of the highest æons as redeemer, in order to secure perfect emancipation to the imprisoned elements of light by the communication of the γνῶσις. Seeing that matter is derived from the evil, he appears in a seeming body or at baptism identifies himself with the psychical Messiah sent by the Demiurge. The death on the cross is either only an optical illusion, or the heavenly Christ, returning to the pleroma, quits the man Jesus, or gives His form to some other man (Simon of Cyrene, Matt. xxvii. 32) so that he is crucified instead of Him (Docetism). The souls of men, according as the pleromatic or hylic predominates in them, are in their nature, either _Pneumatic_, which alone are capable of the γνῶσις, or _Psychical_, which can only aspire to πίστις, or finally, _Hylic_ (χοϊκοί, σαρκικοί), to which class the great majority belongs, which, subject to Satanic influences, serve only their lower desires. Redemption consists in the conquest and exclusion of matter, and is accomplished through knowledge (γνῶσις) and asceticism. It is therefore a chemical, rather than an ethical process. Seeing that the original seat of evil is in matter, sanctification is driven from the ethical domain into the