I read the pages 368-395 from the Chapter 29, for Gnostics. Excellent analysis, but it is short. I think that Eliade contrasted with Dodds’ remarks in his book Pagans and Christians on Gnostics’ eclecticism. He points out that: “esotericism of the Gnostics became suspect in the eyes of the ecclesia. But it was not esotericism and gnosis as such that were found to be dangerous but the heresis that infiltrated themselves under the cloak of initiatory secrecy.” Ecclesia from a point after its establishement had not to be affraid from esoteric gnosis as such. Because of its open character could easily absorb the secret sects, but it could not stand their heretical doctrines.
A History of Religious Ideas 2: From Gautama Buddha to the Triumph of Christianity by Mircea Eliade
katelisviglas.com 