In the older heretical Gnosticism (§ 18, 3), Jewish, pagan, and Christian elements are found, which are kept distinct, or are amalgamated or after examination are rejected, what remains being developed, consolidated and distributed, but in a confused blending. This is the case with Cerinthus. In Basilides again, who attaches himself to the doctrines of Stoicism, we have Gnosticism developed under the influence of Alexandrian culture; and soon thereafter in Valentinus, who builds on Plato’s philosophy, it attains its richest, most profound and noblest expression. From the blending of Syro-Chaldæan mythology with Greek and Hellenistic-Gnostic theories issue the divers Ophite systems. Antinomian Gnosticism with loose practical morality was an outgrowth from the contempt shown to the Jewish God that created the world and gave the law. The genuinely Syrian Gnosticism with its Parseeist-dualistic ruggedness was most purely represented by Saturninus, while in Marcion and his scholars the exaggeration of the Pauline opposition of law and grace led to a dualistic contrast of the God of the Old Testament and of the New. From the middle of the second century onwards there appears in the historical development of Gnosticism an ever-increasing tendency to come to terms with the doctrine of the church. This is shown by the founders of new sects, Marcion, Tatian, Hermogenes; and also by many elaborators of early systems, by Heracleon, Ptolomæus and Bardesanes who developed the Valentinian system, in the so-called Pistis Sophia, as the exposition of the Ophite system. This tendency to seek reconciliation with the church is also shown in a kind of syncretic popular or vulgar Gnosticism which sought to attach itself more closely to the church by the composition of apocryphal and pseudepigraphic Gospels and Acts of Apostles under biblical names and dates (§ 32, 4-6).--The most brilliant period in the history of Gnosticism was the second century, commencing with the age of Hadrian. At the beginning of the third century there was scarcely one of the more cultured congregations throughout the whole of the Roman empire and beyond this as far as Edessa, that was not affected by it. Yet we never find the numbers of regular Gnostic congregations exceeding that of the Catholic. Soon thereafter the season of decay set in. Its productive power was exhausted, and while, on the one side, it was driven back by the Catholic ecclesiastical reaction, on the other hand, in respect of congregational organization it was outrun and outbidden by Manichæism, and also by Marcionism.