22. The Two Modes of Life to which Gnosticism led.--The Gnostic philosophy led to two widely different methods of life; one extremely ascetic and the other as extremely profligate. Gnostics believed matter to be utterly malignant, the source of all evil, therefore it was recommended by one party that the body should be weakened by fastings and the practice of other austerities, that the spirit might enjoy the greater liberty and be better able to contemplate heavenly things. The other party, on the contrary, maintained that men could safely indulge all their appetites and lustful desires, and that there was no moral difference in human actions. One leader of this persuasion--Carpocrates of Alexandria, who flourished in the second century--not only gave his disciples license to sin, but imposed on them the necessity of sinning, by teaching them the way to eternal salvation was open to those souls only which committed all kinds of enormity and wickedness. Such were the errors that grew out of Gnosticism, and which contributed to the corruption of the gospel soon after it was founded by the preaching of the apostles. 23. The New Platonic Philosophy.--The Eclectic or "New Platonic" philosophy which came into existence in the early Christian centuries, was compounded from all the systems which had preceded it, though following Plato more closely than {169} any other teacher, for which reason its disciples assumed the name of New Platonics. The founders of this philosophy professed simply to follow truth, gathering up whatever was accordant with it, regardless of its source, or in what school it was taught--hence the name eclectic. Still the teachings of Plato formed the basis of their doctrines, and they embraced most of his dogmas concerning God, the human soul and the universe. We shall therefore learn the fundamental principles of the Eclectics by considering what the Athenian sage taught on these subjects.