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The fact is that Gnosticism existed first and was eventually changed into orthodox Christianity around 220 CE. As time went on, the carnalizing Christians created distance between themselves and their Gnostic roots by rewriting texts for their own benefit. As Jackson says, "It will be noticed that generally speaking the earlier Epistles show signs of Gnostic influence, while the later show signs of anti-Gnostic bias."'7

In turn, the Gnostics likened the orthodox Christians to "dumb animals" and stated that it was the orthodoxy, not the Gnostics themselves, who were the blasphemers, because the orthodoxy did not know "who Christ iS."18 As Pagels relates, "Gnostic Christians . . . castigated the orthodox for making the mistake of reading the Scriptures-and especially Genesisliterally, and thereby missing its `deeper meaning.-19 In fact, as Massey says:

Historic Christianity originated with turning the Gnostic and Esoteric teachings inside out and externalising the mythical allegory in a personal human history.20

As stated, many of the Gnostics were fervently "anti-material," such that when the historicizers appeared and began to insist that the Christian savior had indeed "come in the flesh," the Gnostics equally zealously held that their Christ could never take human form. These, in fact, were the Christian "heretics" noted by Taylor as the "first class of professing Christians."

This denial of Christ "come in the flesh" was called "Docetism," a term used by the conspirators to gloss over the disbelief in the incarnation by saying it meant that Christ existed but had never taken a material body, rather than serving as a rejection of the gospel story. While later Gnostics may have followed this opinion, the pioneers did not, nor did the Pagans, who were more blunt in their assessment as to the historical nature of Christ. Of Docetism, Massey says:

The Docetae sects, for example, are supposed to have held that the transactions of the gospel narrative did occur, but in a phantasmagoria of unreality. This, however, is but a false mode of describing the position of those who denied that the Christ could be incarnated and become human to suffer and die upon the cross. The Christians who report the beliefs of the Gnostics, Docetae, and others, always assume the actual history and then try to explain the non-human interpretation as an heretical denial of the alleged facts. But the docetic interpretation was first, was pre-historical ... 21

In Against Heresies, Irenaeus speaks of the followers of the Gnostic-Christian Valentinus (2nd cent.), who preceded Irenaeus and was so orthodox that he was nearly elected bishop:

For, according to them, the Word did not originally become flesh. For they maintain that the Saviour assumed an animal body, formed in accordance with a special dispensation by an unspeakable providence, so as to become visible and palpable. . . . At the same time, they deny that He assumed anything material [into His nature], since indeed matter is incapable of salvation.

Irenaeus further complains about and threatens the Docetics, while acknowledging them as followers of the Master, i.e., Christians:

He shall also judge those who describe Christ as [having become man] only in [human] opinion. For how can they imagine that they do themselves carry on a real discussion, when their Master was a mere imaginary being? Or how can they receive anything steadfast from Him, if He was a merely imagined being, and not a verity? And how can these men really be partaken of salvation, if He in whom they profess to believe, manifested Himself as a merely imaginary being?

In addition to denying that Christ came in the flesh, the early followers were extremely confused as to the "history" of their savior, depicting his death, for example, in dozens of different ways, even though such astounding events should have been seared into memory. Irenaeus recounts other Gnostic-Christian "heresies," beginning with the Samaritan belief that it was not Christ