an unsympathetic text which condemns its theology as heretical. Ptolemy's beliefs are also known from the writings of Irenaeus.

Content

The Letter to Flora relates the Gnostic view of the Law of Moses, a rational explication of the proposition that "the whole Law is divided into three parts; we find in it the legislation of Moses, of the elders, and of God himself".

the entire Law contained in the Pentateuch of Moses was not ordained by one legislator--I mean, not by God alone: some commandments are Moses', and some were given by other men.... The first part must be attributed to God alone, and his legislation; the second to Moses--not in the sense that God legislates through him, but in the sense that Moses gave some legislation under the influence of his own ideas; and the third to the elders of the people, who seem to have ordained some commandments of their own at the beginning.

The

1.Previous
3.Next