"Between 50 and 400 AD, and out of this same circumstance the Fathers of the Christian Church-and in this case the usually inheralded Mothers of the Church as well-crafted a new sexual order. Procreative marriage served as its foundation. Importantly, they also built this new order in reaction to the Gnostic heresies which threatened the young church; and perhaps even human life itself. The Gnostic idea rose independent of Christianity, but successfully invaded the new movement. The Gnostics drew together myths from Iran, Jewish magic and mysticism, Greek philosophy, and Chaldean mystical speculation. They also appealed to an exaggerated freedom from the law, in this case said to be proclaimed by Jesus and Paul. In this sense, they were antinomians; that is, they believed that the Gospel freed Christians from obedience to any law, be it scriptural,, civil, or moral. The gnostics claimed to have a special “gnosis”, a “secret knowledge” denied to ordinary Christians. They appealed to unseen spirits. They denied nature. While they developed a mélange of moral and doctrinal ideas, most gnostics shared two views: they rejected conventional marriage as a child-centered institution; and they scorned procreation. This heresy posed a grave challenge to the early Christian movement Ineed, the Epistles are full of warnings against Gnostic teachings. In 1 Timothy 4, for example, Paul write that “some will depart from the faith by giving heed to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons….who forbid marriage.” In Jude 4 we read that admission into the Christian community “has been secretly gained by…ungodly persons who pervert the grace of our God into licentiousness.” 2 Peter tells of false prophet corrupting the young church, “irrational animals, creature of instinct,…reveling in their dissipation, carousing with you They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable souls.” Relative to sex, it appears that Gnosticism took two forms One strand emphasized total sexual license. Claiming the freedom of the Gospel, these Gnostics indulged in adultery and ritualistic fornication. The Church Father Irenaeus pointed to those who “introduced promiscuous intercourse and marriages…, [saying] that God does not really care about these matter.” The Church Father Clement described abuse of the eucharist by the Gnostics in the church at Alexandria, Egypt: There are some who call Aphrodite Pandemos [physical love] a mystical communion….[T]hey have impiously called by the name of communion any common sexual intercourse."