2nd century

Gnosticism: Gnostic Exegesis and the Church's Anti-Gnostic Response

Berkhof describes Gnosticism as a speculative movement claiming a deeper knowledge of divine things, and also as popular and syncretistic. The Gnostics appealed to Scripture a great deal and interpreted it allegorically: Ptolemy in the Letter to Flora divided the Law into three parts, and Heracleon of the school of Valentinus produced the first known commentary on the New Testament – an interpretation of the Gospel of John that neglects the historical sense. Irenaeus (Against Heresies), Hippolytus and Tertullian opposed them. According to Berkhof, in the struggle the Church learned to mark the limits of revelation and the relation of the Testaments and became conscious of Christianity as "doctrine."