This whole scheme of thought, with its neat ethnic divisions and its tidy chronology, has a pleasing simplicity. It has recently become apparent, however, that these are achieved at the cost of the data. It cannot accommodate phenomena which are increasingly making themselves felt, such as Jewish Gnosticism, Gentile apocalypticism, or signs of ‘early catholicism’ (such as an insistence on the passing on of tradition) which occur in the very earliest stratum.8
