¹ Henry, P., ‘Why is contemporary scholarship so enamoured of ancient heretics?’, in Livingstone, E. A. (ed.), Proceedings of the eighth international conference on patristic studies, Oxford 1980, 123–6 at p. 125Google Scholar.

² Arguments to the effect that such an advance has taken place need not detain us. Relevant texts would include, for example, Daly, Mary, Beyond God the Father: toward a philosophy of women's liberation, Boston 1973 Google Scholar, and Ruether, Rosemary Radford, Sexism and God-talk: toward a feminist theology, Boston 1983 Google Scholar.

³ Lockwood, Rose, ‘Potens et factiosa femina: women, martyrs and schism in Roman North Africa’, Augustinian Studies xx (1989), 165–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴ Wilken, Robert L., ‘Diversity and unity in early Christianity’, Second Century i (1981), 101–10Google Scholar.

⁵ Christ, Carol, ‘Heretics and outsiders: the struggle over female power in western religion’, Soundings lxi (1978), 260–80Google Scholar.

⁶ Origen, , Contra Celsum iii. 10–12, ed. Borret, Marcel, Paris 1968 Google Scholar.

⁷ Origen, , Contra Celsum v. 61, 59, ed. Borret, Marcel, Paris 1969 Google Scholar.

⁸ In Greek ἔλεγχος καὶ ἀνατροπὴ τῆς ψευδωνόμου γνώσεως as at Eusebius, Historia ecclesiastica (hereinafter cited as HE) v. 7. 1, with Irenaeus, , Against heresies, iv Google Scholar, preface, and v, preface. (The edition of Eusebius used is that by Gustave Bardy, Paris 1952, 1955, 1958; of Irenaeus by Adelin Rousseau, Louis Doutreleau and others, Paris 1965, 1969, 1974, 1979. 1982.)

⁹ Eusebius, , HE ii. 13. 5Google Scholar; iii. 18. 2; iii. 28. 6; iv. 11. 2; iv. 18. 9; iv. 29. 1; v. 5. 9. Cf. Pearson, Birger A., ‘Eusebius and Gnosticism’, in Attridge, Harold W. and Hata, Gohei, Eusebius, Christianity and Judaism, Detroit 1992, 291–310 Google Scholar: this point is made at p. 296 and n. 35.

¹⁰ Irenaeus, , Against heresies iii. 4. 3Google Scholar; cf. Eusebius, , HE iv. 11. 1Google Scholar.

¹¹ Differing views on the identity of the writer of the Refutatio do not in general involve placing the book significantly later. I am convinced by the arguments of Miroslav Marcovich in his edition ( Hippolytus, , Refutatio omnium haeresium, Berlin–New York 1986, 8–17 CrossRefGoogle Scholar) to the effect that Hippolytus, Callistus' rival as bishop of Rome, wrote the book; but the problem is one with a large bibliography. See most recently on the other side Brent, Allen, ‘Was Hippolytus a schismatic?’, Vigiliae Christianae (hereinafter cited as V. Chr.) xlix (1995), 215–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹² At p. 48 of his edition of Hippolytus, Refutatio, Marcovich refers to the theory that the eight tractates had undergone editing by a single redactor; but, rather than accept the arguments of E. Peterson and K. Beyschlag that a collector within the Christian Church had gathered the material for use in controversy, he prefers W. Anz's view that mutual borrowings between gnostic sects are responsible for the similarities that are in evidence.

¹³ Origen, , Contra Celsum v. 61–2Google Scholar.

¹⁴ Eusebius, , HE vii. 31 Google Scholar. 2.

¹⁵ The Nag Hammadi Library in English, San Francisco 1977 Google Scholar, was the first translated edition. Citations in this paper will be from the third, completely revised edition published in 1988 (hereinafter cited as NHL).

¹⁶ The case is made conclusively by Pearson, Birger A. in Gnosticism, Judaism and Egyptian Christianity, Minneapolis 1990, 10–28 Google Scholar. Friedländer, Moritz had suggested this in Der vorchristliche jüdische Gnosticismus, Göttingen 1898 Google Scholar, but his arguments were poorly received at the time.

¹⁷ Bauer, Walter, Orthodoxy and heresy in earliest Christianity, Philadelphia 1971 Google Scholar (trans, of Rechtgläubigkeit and Ketzerei im ältesten Christentum, Tübingen 1934)Google Scholar. On Edessa see pp. 1–43, on Egypt pp. 44–76.

¹⁸ Koester, Helmut, ‘ Gnomai diaphoroi: the origin and nature of diversification in the history of early Christianity’, Harvard Theological Review lviii (1965), 279–318 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁹ Pearson, , Gnosticism, Judaism and Egyptian Christianity, 194–213 Google Scholar.

²⁰ Griggs, C. Wilfred, Early Egyptian Christianity from its origins to 451 C.E., Leiden 1991, 45 Google Scholar: ‘an infusion of a stringently defined Christianity into Egypt occurred near the end of the second century’.

²¹ This view of how things developed in Egypt would merit further discussion, but my concern at present is only to define Griggs's standpoint. See McKechnie, Paul, review of Griggs, , Early Egyptian Christianity in Prudentia xxiv (1992), 66–8Google Scholar.

²² Edwards, M. J., ‘Gnostics and Valentinians in the Church Fathers’, JTS xl (1989), 26–47 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and idem, ‘Neglected texts in the study of Gnosticism’, ibid xli (1990), 26–50. Plotinus, , Enneads ii. 9 Google Scholar, represents ‘the crowning exposition in an ample body of literature’ (‘Neglected Texts’, 47) which, suggests, Edwards, hangs together to the degree of exhibiting ‘the minute coincidences of thought and detail that we expect in the tradition of a single, coherent school’ (p. 48)Google Scholar.

²³ Pagels, E., The gnostic gospels, New York 1980 Google Scholar.

²⁴ Daly, Mary, Beyond God the Father (see above), and, Gyn/Ecology: the metaethics of radical feminism, Boston 1978 Google Scholar.

²⁵ Idem, Outercourse, San Francisco 1992.

²⁶ Not that today's American Gnostic is necessarily feminist: take for instance Bloom, Harold, author of The American religion: the emergence of the post-Christian nation, New York 1992 Google Scholar, a book little in sympathy with feminist concerns. Bloom, describes himself as ‘a gnostic Jew’ (p. 22)Google Scholar.

²⁷ Daly, , Gyn/Ecology, 2–3 Google Scholar.

²⁸ Zostrianos 18, 24 (in NHL).

²⁹ Ibid. 131: ‘Do not baptize yourselves with death, nor entrust yourselves to those lower than you instead of to those who are better. Flee from the madness and the bondage of femininity, and choose for yourselves the salvation of masculinity.’

³⁰ Dialogue of the Saviour 91–2 (in NHL).

³¹ On this see Wisse, Frederick, ‘Flee femininity: antifemininity in gnostic texts and the question of social milieu’, in King, Karen L. (ed.), Images of the feminine in Gnosticism, Philadelphia 1988, 297–307 Google Scholar.

³² It happened for complex reasons that the Gospel of Thomas (quoted here from NHL) was first published as early as 1959, eighteen years before the first edition of The Nag Hammadi Library in English (see Robinson's, James M. introduction to NHL, at p. 25)Google Scholar.

³³ Gospel of Thomas 114.

³⁴ Irenaeus, , Against heresies iii. 11. 8–9Google Scholar. Hahnemann, Geoffrey Mark argues in The Muratorian fragment and the development of the canon, Oxford 1992 at pp. 100–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar, that Irenaeus', views represented an innovation, ‘for if a Fourfold Gospel had been established and generally acknowledged, then Irenaeus would not have offered such a tortured insistence on its numerical legitimacy’ (p. 101)Google Scholar. Tertullian, too, refers to acceptance of four Gospels, (Adversus Marcionem iv. 2. 2 [AD 207?], ed. Dekkers, E., Borleffs, J. G. P., Willems, R. and others, CCSL i–ii)Google Scholar, but Hahnemann thinks that he and Irenaeus were promoting the Fourfold Gospel, canon at a time when it was not fully established: Muratorian fragment, 104–5Google Scholar. Hahnemann's argument risks becoming circular. Irenaeus and Tertullian both contrast people who accept the Four Gospels [ = the Orthodox] with people who believe in fewer or more. The distinction between sects may not have been enunciated in these terms before Irenaeus' time, but Irenaeus applied it in the context of a situation which already existed. So he says (Against heresies iii. 11. 9): ‘all who destroy the form of the Gospel are vain, unlearned, and also audacious; those, I mean, who represent the aspect of the Gospel as being either more in number than as aforesaid, or, on the other hand, fewer. The former class do so, that they may seem to have discovered more than is of the truth; the latter, that they may set the dispensations of God aside’. Irenaeus marks off an in-group from two out-groups: his work would have lacked credibility unless a majority of readers in the Churches could identify themselves with the in-group. Thus even if Irenaeus used an innovative formula to define his position, his statement of that position implies that it was grounded in the existing Church practice of the side he was on.

³⁵ It is possible, despite the title Diatessaron, that Tatian drew material from apocryphal works as well as from the canonical Gospels: Hahnemann, , Muratorian fragment, 98–9Google Scholar, and Charlesworth, J., ‘Tatian's dependence upon apocryphal traditions’, Heyihrop Journal xv (1974), 5–17 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The key point, however, is that Tatian's work was professedly derivative ( Eusebius, , HE iv. 29. 6Google Scholar), so that use of it presupposed a shared understanding of what the Gospel was.

³⁶ For instance, Clement of Alexandria quotes with implied approval a saying which is practically identical to Gospel of Thomas 2, though he ascribes it to the Gospel according to the Hebrews: Slromateis ii. 45. 5, in Clemens Alexandrinus ii, ed. Stählin, Otto, Berlin 1960 Google Scholar. See Koester, Helmut, Ancient Christian gospels: their history and development, London–Philadelphia 1990, 60 n. 3Google Scholar. Also at Alexandria at this date the Secret Gospel of Mark was (at least arguably) in use: Koester, , Ancient Christian gospels, 293–303 Google Scholar.

³⁷ Aspegren, Kerstin, The male woman: a feminine ideal in the early Church, Uppsala 1990, for example at pp. 138–9Google Scholar.

³⁸ Synoptic and Johannine parallels laid out by Koester, : Ancient Christian gospels, 84–124 Google Scholar.

³⁹ See ibid. p. xxx, where Koester discusses the impact made by the second edn of Bauer's Orthodoxy and heresy: ‘It seemed as if almost two millennia of discrimination against those whom the Fathers of the church had labelled as “heretics” would come to an end. If these heresies were not simply deviations from an already established orthodoxy…also their gospels could claim to be genuine continuations of the earliest stages of the formation of the traditions about Jesus of Nazareth.’

⁴⁰ Ibid. 83.

⁴¹ The possibility of a later date has not been disproved, despite Koester's energetic advocacy of the early dating. Snodgrass, Klyne R. in ‘The Gospel of Thomas: a secondary gospel’, Second Century vii (1989–1990), 39–56 Google Scholar, raises a series of considerations against an early date and in favour of dependence on the synoptics. His points deserve more attention than they receive from Koester, in Ancient Christian gospels, 85 n. 4Google Scholar.

⁴² Gospel of Thomas 1.

⁴³ Ibid. 50. Koester, (Ancient Christian gospels, 125)Google Scholar argues that the pattern of a small number of esoteric sayings interspersed in routine material is a deliberate feature of Thomas: ‘Thomas contains a number of sayings whose meaning is not as transparent as the common wisdom forms cited thus far. But there are indications that this is by design. These sayings reveal a more radical concept of secret knowledge.’

⁴⁴ Ibid. 80.

⁴⁵ Koester does not note this point, but the inference is unavoidable. The Gospel of Thomas is mentioned by Hippolytus, (Refutatio omnium haeresium v. 7. 20)Google Scholar when he is discussing the beliefs of the Naassenes, whom he has heard of via his written source (see above). This suggests that Thomas would not have been well known in Rome at his time. Otherwise it is attested in Clement of Alexandria (see above) and Origen, (Homilia in Lucam 1, ed. Crouzel, Henri, Fournier, François and Périchon, Pierre, Paris 1962)Google Scholar, and preserved in part in Oxy, P.. I, in The Oxyrhynchus papyri, ed. Grenfell, Bernard P. and Hunt, Arthur S., i, London 1898 Google Scholar – all three Egyptian sources. Later patristic sources which mention it draw on Origen: Koester, , Ancient Christian gospels, 78 n. 2Google Scholar.

⁴⁶ Cooper, Kate, ‘Insinuations of womanly influence: an aspect of the christianization of the Roman aristocracy’, Journal of Roman Studies lxxii (1992), 150–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar, examines texts that deal with the idea that a Christian woman might convert her pagan husband to Christianity, commenting (p. 153) that ‘a surprising proportion of the material preserved on women in our historical sources falls within the broad category of character evidence for or against men’. Tertullian, contrary to the commonplace Cooper analyses, is sceptical about the likelihood of husbands being converted by their Christian wives (see, for example, Ad uxorem ii. 8. 1–5), and where he refers to women he is usually also directing his conclusions towards them, rather than using discourse about women to reflect on male concerns.

⁴⁷ Eusebius, , HE vi. 18. 2–4Google Scholar.

⁴⁸ Tertullian, , De idololatria 10. 5–7Google Scholar.

⁴⁹ Martyrdom of Perpetua 2. 1, in The acts of the Christian martyrs, ed. Musurillo, H., Oxford Google Scholar.

⁵⁰ Eusebius, , Vita Constantini i. 53. 1–2Google Scholar, in Eusebius Werke 1.1: Über das Leben des Kaisers Konstantin, ed. Winkelmann, Friedhelm, Berlin 1975 Google Scholar.

⁵¹ I have discussed this question elsewhere: McKechnie, Paul, ‘St Perpetua and Roman education in AD 200’, L'Antiquité classique lxiii (1994), 279–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵² De baptismo 18. 6.

⁵³ Idem, Ad martyras 1. 1; De oratione 1.4.

⁵⁴ Idem, De cultu feminarum ii. 9. 4.

⁵⁵ For the argument that Tertullian was a catechist see, for example, Le Saint, William P., Tertullian: treatises on penance, Westminster, Md.–London 1959, 157 n. 82Google Scholar.

⁵⁶ Tertullian, De baptismo.

⁵⁷ Confusingly, De cultu feminarum ii is earlier than De cultu feminarum i. Barnes, T. D. (Tertullian: a historical and literary study, Oxford 1971, 55)Google Scholar dates De cultu feminarum i to 205/6, nine years after De cultu feminarum ii (196 or early 197).

⁵⁸ Tertullian, , De cultu feminarum i. 1 Google Scholar. 1.

⁵⁹ Heine, Susanne, Women and early Christianity: are the feminist scholars right?, London 1987 Google Scholar (trans, of Frauen der frühen Christenheit, Göttingen 1986), 27 Google Scholar.

⁶⁰ De cultu feminarum ii. 13, contrasted with Ad uxorem 2. 9: Heine, , Women and early Christianity, 28 Google Scholar.

⁶¹ This follows Paul's precept in I Cor. xi. 5.

⁶² Tertullian, , De oratione 21. 1–22. 10Google Scholar.

⁶³ Ibid. 25. 1–5.

⁶⁴ Ibid. 17. 1.

⁶⁵ Ibid. 23. 3–4.

⁶⁶ Ibid. 26. 1–2.

⁶⁷ Idem, Ad uxorem ii. 5.

⁶⁸ Idem, De cultu feminarum ii. 11. 1–2.

⁶⁹ Clement, of Alexandria, , Paedagogus ii. 9, in, ed. Mondésert, Claude and Marrou, Henri-Irénée, Paris 1965 Google Scholar.

⁷⁰ Powell's, Douglas suggestion (‘Tertullianists and Cataphrygians’, V. Chr. xxix [1975], 33–54)Google Scholar that there never was a split between Tertullian's followers and the Catholics in Carthage, but that the followers of the New Prophecy formed what was only a faction within the Church, is unsatisfactory.

⁷¹ Eusebius, , HE v. 14–v. 18. 14Google Scholar.

⁷² See, for example, Tertullian, De ieiunio, contrasting Montanist zeal for fasting with easy-going Catholic practice.

⁷³ Kraemer, Ross Shepard, Her share of the blessings, Oxford 1992, ch. xi, 157–73Google Scholar.

⁷⁴ Ibid. 168.

⁷⁵ Ibid. 164. Other scholars have been cautious on this. See, for example, Powell, , ‘Tertullianists and Cataphrygians’, 46–7Google Scholar: ‘Neander in 1827 began the popular custom of finding the root of Montanist extravagances in the Phrygian cult of Cybele. Later historians have conducted a continuous retreat from his position. Harnack, Bonwetsch and de Labriolle in succession reduced the role of Phrygian influence’.

⁷⁶ Kraemer, , Her share, 170 Google Scholar.

⁷⁷ Ibid. 161.

⁷⁸ Ibid. 160.

⁷⁹ Martyrdom of Perpetua 2. 1.

⁸⁰ It is fair to assume that Tertullian, , De baptismo 18. 6Google Scholar (see above), recommending postponement of baptism until after marriage, reflects the usual practice of the Carthaginian Church.

⁸¹ Martyrdom of Perpetua 5. 6.

⁸² Kraemer, (Her share, 167–71)Google Scholar, deals with the role of women in Montanism: but her examples of women in leading roles in the sect are confined to Perpetua and Felicitas together with the founding prophetesses Prisca and Maximilla. There is also a female presbyter called Ammion known from an epitaph at Usak on the Phrygi/Lydia border: Gibson, Elsa, ‘Montanist epitaphs at Usak’, Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies xvi (1975), 433–42Google Scholar, argues that she was Montanist on the ground that only the Montanists had women presbyters ( Epiphanius, , Panarion 49. 2, in Epiphanius: Ancoratus und Panarion, ed. Holl, Karl, ii, Leipzig 1922 Google Scholar, says that the Montanists had women presbyters and bishops). Ammion is a debatable asset for Kraemer: Gibson also argues that she did not celebrate the eucharist (p. 438) – if not, then perhaps among the Montanists some presbyters were more equal than others.

⁸³ Augustine, , Sermons 280–2, PL xxxviii. 1280–84, and Sermon 394, PL xxxix 1715–16Google Scholar. See Shaw, Brent D., ‘The Passio of Perpetua’, Past and Present cxxxix (1993), 3–45 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁸⁴ Here note references in the Martyrdom of Perpetua to disputes within the Carthaginian Church, especially at Martyrdom of Perpetua 13, where, in a dream, Perpetua is asked by the bishop, Optatus, and by Aspasius the presbyter and teacher, to make peace between them. It would make sense if Aspasius were a pro-Montanist cleric responsible for catechism teaching – hence the prominence of apparently Montanist emphases in the Martyrdom of Perpetua – while Optatus as bishop favoured a more conservative line and was inclining towards deciding to follow the example of the Roman Church, where it had been decided in the 190s that Montanism was unacceptable. If a doctrinal dispute was still going on, then the Catholic/Montanist split had not yet happened.

⁸⁵ Barnes, , Tertullian, 258 Google Scholar, quoting Fuller.

⁸⁶ Augustine, , De haeresibus 86, ed. van den Hout, M. P. J. and others, CCSL xlviGoogle Scholar.

⁸⁷ Kraemer, , Her share, 161–2Google Scholar.

⁸⁸ Tertullian, , Adversus Valentinianos 4. 2–4 Google Scholar.

⁸⁹ See Edwards, M. J., ‘Gnostics and Valentinians in the Church Fathers’, JTS xl (1989), 26–47 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for arguments in favour of a clear distinction.

⁹⁰ For example in his advocacy of a tough line on repentance at De pudicitia 10. 8: ‘What the psychics want is that God, the judge of the just man, should prefer the repentance rather than the death of that sinner who has preferred death to repentance’ (encapsulating and disagreeing with the Orthodox position); and in his reference to Catholics as the majority at De ieiunio n. 1: ‘among the (allegedly) “most glorious multitude” of the psychics…’.

⁹¹ Tertullian, , De ieiunio 1. 2 Google Scholar.

⁹² Idem, De pudicitia 21. 16. Note that De pudicitia and De ieiunio are among Tertullian's latest works of controversy ( Barnes, , Tertullian, 55 Google Scholar).

⁹³ Grégoire, H., ‘Epigraphie chrétienne [Les inscriptions hérétiques d'Asie Mineure]’, Byzantion i (1924), 708 Google Scholar. For discussion of Montanist use of the term ‘pneumatic’ see Gibson, Elsa, The ‘Christians for Christians’ inscriptions of Phrygia, Missoula 1978, 138–9Google Scholar.

⁹⁴ Pearson, , ‘Eusebius and Gnosticism’, 292–3Google Scholar. The list is aimed at proving that Gnosticism as a religion was ‘a discrete historical phenomenon, distinct from, even if closely related to, Judaism and Christianity’.

⁹⁵ Idem, Gnosticism, Judaism and Egyptian Christianity, 205.

⁹⁶ Layton, Bentley, The gnostic scriptures, New York 1987, 199 Google Scholar.

⁹⁷ Irenaeus says that the Carpocratians called themselves Gnostics, : Against heresies i. 25 Google Scholar.

⁹⁸ Pagels, , Gnostic gospels, 32 Google Scholar.

⁹⁹ On the Gnostics' dualist tendency towards hatred of the body and the physical world see, for example, Pagels, , Gnostic gospels, 148–9Google Scholar. This would usually manifest itself in self-denial, as in the case of the ‘Colossian heresy’, while only comparatively few sects drew the conclusion that it was unimportant what the body did (for example the Nicolaitans: Irenaeus, , Against heresies i. 26. 3Google Scholar) or that it was necessary to experience every kind of life and all types of activity in order to escape the cycle of death and rebirth (for example the Carpocratians: ibid. i. 25. 4).

¹⁰⁰ Forgivable and unforgivable sins: Tertullian, , De pudicitia 2. 12–16 Google Scholar. Adultery and fornication unforgivable: ibid. 7. 21–3.

¹⁰¹ Pagels, Elaine, Adam, Eve and the serpent, New York 1988, 65–77 Google Scholar.

¹⁰² Kraemer, , Her share, 168–9Google Scholar.