We may surmize that an exciting promise of the visitors was that those willing to accept a further initiation at their hands would come to enjoy a deeper insight or knowledge (Gk. gnōsis) of the things of God. From such small beginnings was to grow the developed Gnosticism of the second century which was to set the churches so many problems.2 Such an appeal has perennial fascination, offering as it does a special understanding of spiritual reality, immune from dissent