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a slave could have withdrawn psychologically into a spiritual world beyond the reach of abusive masters. Jones explains that she (Norea) took refuge in an experience of “gnōsis,” “knowledge” of her “true” identity, rooted in a “higher” reality, which she believed superior to the reality of the rulers.”65 It is doubtful that Jones’ theory explains the origin of every Gnostic treatise or conversion, rather it supplies a social profile of one kind of person who would be attracted to Sethian Gnosticism and offers an insight into a completely different social reality from the Valentinian communities.

The ascent of the soul in these texts finds a renewed mythological relevance for Late Antiquity. These systems, with their mythologies and rapes, their overturning of the Biblical text and their subjection of the historical Christ to a subservient role amongst a host of redeemer figures, put the Church Fathers’ on edge. But what really made their blood boil is that these texts suggest that faith is a low form of knowledge for those who have never seen the truths of these texts, as revealed in contemplation, meditation, and personal vision.

The Heresiologists

JUSTIN AND IRENAEUS

The Gnostics’ spiritualization of the saving events of Christianity was a threat to the Church Fathers-for their myths of rape and deception and for their bowdlerization of Old Testament passages but especially because they spiritualized the resurrection. The defensive (apologetic) polemic against heresy started, naturally enough, with Justin, who was both martyr and disputant. His heresiological work is lost to us but is incorporated into Irenaeus’ writings. Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho, a fascinating work in itself, also contains a few interesting issues on this theme. Justin develops a very traditional association between resurrection and judgment. He believes that the Hebrews, at least those who do God’s will before the coming of Christ, are to be saved. Resurrection will take place after Christ’s thousand-year rule. For Justin, the superiority of resurrection is that it grants to each person exactly its due. He criticizes those who believe that the afterlife is only the immortality of the soul (Dial. 80).

Furthermore, Christianity is infinitely superior to pagan philosophers because they only have the vaguest notions about their future afterlife while Christians have sure knowledge that they will regain their bodies and be justly rewarded (1 Apol. 18). So for Justin, Christianity is superior to all because it, like all notions of resurrection before, grants exactly the right rewards and punishments to each and also contains the full truth of the future life. Docetists and Gnostics could hardly have missed the implications of this polemic against their spiritualizing of the Gospel. Though he is respectful of the righteous Jews of the past, he is less patient with his contemporary Jewish opponents. He mentions that the Jews say that the disciples stole the body of Christ from the tomb, the accusation that stimulates the development of the empty tomb tradition (Dial. 108). The story of the empty tomb not only raises these doubts, it also provides the readers with ready-made answers to the question.

Irenaeus follows Justin by two generations, with several intervening fathers to mediate the discussion. With Justin as a guide, he points out that both body and soul are necessary for complete human existence (Adv. Haer. 5.6.1). Irenaeus also brings in the Eucharist as an actual exemplar of the dual nature of Christ, as was implicit in the Gospel descriptions of the event. If it is not possible for God to save both the body and the soul, then he cannot transmit salvation through the Eucharist either (Adv. Haer. 5.2.2-3).66 Irenaeus’ opponents are basically the Gnostics, “falsely so-called,” as he characterizes them, to refute their claim to “saving knowledge” (gnōsis). He accuses them of denying God’s power over creation when they deny resurrection:

They refuse to acknowledge the power of God …who dwell upon the weakness of the flesh but do not consider