(10) The Gnostic viewpoint concerning the Christ is well worthy of consideration. This order claimed to be the only sect to have actual pictures of the Divine Syrian. While these were, in all probability, idealistic conceptions of the Savior based upon existing sculpturings and paintings of the pagan sun gods, they were all Christianity had. To the Gnostics, the Christ was the personification of Nous, the Divine Mind, and emanated from the higher spiritual Æons. He descended into the body of Jesus at the baptism and left it again before the crucifixion. The Gnostics declared that the Christ was not crucified, as this Divine Nous could not suffer death, but that Simon, the Cyrenian, offered his life instead and that the Nous, by means of its power, caused Simon to resemble Jesus. Irenæus makes the following statement concerning the cosmic sacrifice of the Christ:

(2) The goal as well as its believers is great. And the thinking mind of believers will not disappear, nor will the mind of those who know. We are chosen for salvation and redemption, since from the beginning we were predestined not to fall into the folly of the ignorant. We shall enter into the wisdom of those who have known the truth. Those who have wakened to the truth cannot abandon it. The system of the pleroma is strong. A small part of it is what broke loose to make up the world. What encompasses everything, the realm of all, did not come into being. It was. So never doubt the resurrection, my son Rheginos.