NEW PUBLICATION. 
 Neander's History of the Christian Reli 
 
 GiON, during the first three Centuries. Thin 3Vo. 
 
 No. 1, pp. 96, price 25 cents. Philadelphia: James 
 
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 JThiawork of Dr. Nean d er. which is translated 
 
 PIUNCETON. X. J. 
 
 Neander, August, 1789-1850. 
 The history of the Christiarf 
 religion and church during 
 
 1 — 
 
 does not wisli lor accu rate 
 of the Christian lieii^ion ai 
 three Ceiituiies 
 
 .eiisf" o! ine m.'IoTy" 
 (Jhurcc, during the first 
 The grain of raustu.d ;ieed, planted 
 the Aposiolic age, has become a aiitthty tree on 
 whose Iruit the nations live, and by whose Branches 
 they are sheltered. The reader will find, in the re- 
 cital of the early history of the Christian Church, an 
 argument in support of the divinity of its origin. It 
 was introduced into the world without the attractions 
 of pomp, or the support o! power; and did not con- 
 strain the judgment of men by offering them "The tri- 
 bute or the sword." Wrapped, at first, in swaddling 
 clothes and laid in a manger, it gradually developed 
 the vigor of manhood, and th^ purity of heaven. The 
 worshippers of the lalse gods of Greece and Rome op- 
 posed the progress of the new religion. But the re- 
 sults of every succeeding persecution, armed with im- 
 perial power, alibrded additional proof that the blood 
 of the martyrs became the seed of the Church. The 
 religions of Greece and Rome were buried beneath 
 the ruinsol tlieir civil and political institutions. The 
 religion of Jesus of Nazareth survived; anti when the 
 sign appeared in Heaven, "By this thou shalt con- 
 quer," it ascended the throne of the Cie:-ars. Genius 
 and learning iiave conspired for its overthrow; and the 
 rock remains nnsliaken. The insii'ious pen of the 
 historian has seemed to praise, while it aimed to de- 
 stroy; but the simple histories of the "Fishermen of 
 Galilee" will be received by the world, alter existing 
 t-mpires shall have declined and iailcn, and new fly- 
 nasties shall have arisen. In vain did Voltaire pro- 
 claim to the world, "Crush the wretch." Eveiy op- 
 poser of this Divine Teacher shall be brought to ac- 
 knowledge, with the dying and apostate dulian, ."O 
 Galih-ean! thou hast conquered." C. 
 
^?- 
 
 fui/ : 
 
 J^ . 0/(^^2*-*. s 
 
 ^p-^^j* 
 
 ^c^<^Vw^M<*^^ 
 

 
 ^-'*-*» ***"^.vC 
 
-^N^//^ 
 
 THE HISTORY 
 
 CHRISTIAN RELICtION AND CHURCH, 
 
 THE THREE FIRST CENTURIES. 
 
 BY DR. AUGUSTUS NEANDER. 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN, 
 
 BY HENRY JOHN ROSE, B.D. 
 
 RECTOR OF HOUGHTON CONQUEST, AND LATE FELLOW OF ST. JOHN's COLLEGE, CAMEEIDGE. 
 
 IN ONE VOLUME, 
 
 CONTAINING 
 
 THE introduction; the history of the persecutions of CHRISTIANITY; AND 
 
 THE HISTORY OF CHURCH DISCIPLINE, AND OF CHRISTIAN LIFE AND WORSHIP; 
 
 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SECTS AND DOCTRINES, AND AN ACCOUNT OF 
 
 THE CHIEF FATHERS OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 P 1] i 1 a b c 1 p I) i a : 
 
 JAMES M. CAMPBELL & CO., 98 CHESTNUT STREET. 
 NEW YORK: SAXTON & MILES, 205 BROADWAY. 
 
 Stereotyped by C. W. Murray ^- Co. 
 
 1843. 
 
THE TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE 
 
 
 The history of the Christian Church, especially ia the earlier periods of existence, is 
 a cheering subject for the contemplation of a Christian heart. It supplies a commentary, 
 which cannot be mistaken, on the promise of our Lord, that He would be with his dis- 
 ciples even to the end of the world. (Matt. xxviii.20.) The difficulties against which 
 Christianity had at first to struggle, only serve to prove the overwhelming might of the 
 arm which sustained it. It was to be expected that an age of corruption should put forth 
 all its powers to crush that religion which denounced and combated it. The progress 
 which Christianity made in spite of this opposition, constitutes one of the chief points 
 of interest belonging to the earlier periods of ecclesiastical history. The working of that 
 leaven, which is destined in God's good time to leaven the whole lump, is seen most 
 definitely at that season, when the world was exchanging its paganism for Christianity.* 
 
 Let any man read the first sixteen chapters of Gibbon, and then turn from that melan- 
 choly record of blood and crime to the history of the Christian Church during the same 
 period. He will then acknowledge that there was beneath that stormy tide of passion 
 and ambition an under current silently advancing, whose calmer and purer waters came 
 to light, Avhen once that troubled tide had passed away. He will see principles of 
 action, and rules of life, the strongest and the purest ever given to man, making their 
 way against all the persecutions of power, by their own intrinsic worth, and by the 
 power which sustained them from above. It is in this point of view, among many 
 others, that the early history of Christianity is fraught with such deep interest to man, 
 and it is to be considered one of the great aims of such an history to develope this progress 
 of the Church clearly, and delineate it with accuracy. 
 
 It would be foreign to the purpose of this Preface to discuss the merits or the de- 
 merits of other ecclesiastical histories, but it may be allowable to direct attention to this 
 particular point, as connected with the work of Dr. Neander. To develope this progress 
 of Christianity faithfully, requires that the historian should not only possess the learning 
 and the impartiality which are needed for all historical inquiries; but that he should 
 unite profound and extensive views of human nature with what is of even more im- 
 portance, warm feelings for the higher parts of the Christian scheme, and an eye well 
 practised to discern the dealings of God in the world. I cannot but think that the learned 
 and amiable author of this history unites these qualifications in no common degree; and 
 I believe that it would be difficult to become acquainted with his works without feeling 
 reverence for the high qualities both of head and heart which adorn their author. The 
 present portion of the history bears testimony to his candour and acuteness, his diligence 
 and his fidelity. His judgment also in disentangling the historical! from the fictitious 
 in the Acta Marlyrum cannot fail to strike any one, who will take the trouble to compare 
 the details of this history with the original of the Acta Martyrum, as edited by Ruinart. 
 
 To this meed of praise, high as it is, I think every impartial reader will consider the 
 author to be entitled, but still this avowal by no means binds us to the acceptance of all 
 the views propounded in this work. I feel it necessary to state, that in many of them I 
 
 * Every man at all arquainted with the history of religion, will see at once, that the history of 
 this period contains much that is interesting to all ages, because the controversies of all ages have 
 been nearly the same in substance, though varied in form, and in this period the germ of most of 
 them will be discerned. 
 
 t It has, however, been observed, that in another part of the subject. Dr. Neander has expressed 
 far too favourable an opinion of Apollonitis of Tyana — a man, whose very existence is a matter of 
 doubt, and whose life, as set forth to us by eulogists, is a tissue of impostures. See Leslie, Easy 
 Method with the Deists. 3 
 
iv THE translator's PREFACE. 
 
 cannot at all concur. The author has embraced them honestly, and he maintains them 
 with a zealous love of truth, and in a truly Christian temper of charity ; but still I cannot 
 accede to the views themselves, nor acknowledge the weight of the arguments brought 
 10 support them, especially those which relate to the early form of church government, 
 and the questions concerning the Christian ministry. It will be seen at once that these 
 are not isolated questions; they are only parts of a larger system or view, which seeks 
 to place Christianity in an improper opposition to Judaism in respect to universality and 
 spirituality. The same sort of view which induces the author to attribute the rights of 
 Christian priesthood to every Christian, and to maintain that these rights gradually 
 became restricted to one class from motives of convenience, and the necessity of order, 
 Sec, leads him to look upon all days as LonVs days, and to consider the special sanctifi- 
 caiion of one day in the week a measure of convenience, rather than a precept of 
 Christianity. The view taken of the sacraments, and some other portions of the 
 Christian scheme, is greatly affected by this desire to represent the essentials of Chris- 
 tianity, as independent upon any particular and external observances. In a great 
 degree, the views taken of these matters by the author appear to arise from habits of 
 mind which are admirable in themselves, but still require regulation, to prevent them 
 from undue excess or improper application. I mean his fear of lowering the spiritual 
 nature of Christianity, by giving too much importance to its forms — his fear, lest the 
 spirit should be lost in the form. This is a rational fear, and a just ground of jealousy, 
 but the question is, whether it is justly applied. And in the present instance, I think it 
 has improperly led Dr. Neander to combat the notion of an authoritative ministry, as if 
 it savoured of the Jewish priesthood, and to present in great vagueness much which 
 Christianity distinctly defines.* 
 
 Now one thing which is remarkably striking in the view presented by Dr. Neander 
 of the early government of the Church, is its indefiniteness in point of time. In the first 
 chapter he professes to treat of the apostolic times, but in that case the miraculous gifts 
 and the superintendence of the apostles themselves would appear to deserve more par- 
 ticular notice. They are two elements which distinguish this period from every other. 
 If, however, it be meant for the age immediately succeeding- that of the apostles, it must 
 be remarked that the notices of this age are very scanty, and as far as I have investi- 
 gated the question, his account, which admits of lay elders and rejects an authoritative 
 ministry, is not warranted by those notices, and still less by the accounts of the next 
 times, of which we have a more accurate knowledge. To descend, therefore, to one or 
 two particulars : — 
 
 * I here subjoin an extract from the "British Critic," enumerating some of the writers who treat 
 on the question of the ministry : 
 
 " To those who are not conversant with this question we should recommend Bennel's Rights of 
 the Clergy, (Lond. 1711.) This book proves, we think, decisively, the necessity of an ordination 
 by minisTers, although it does not enter into the question between presbyters and bishops. This 
 latter question he treated in his work on Schism, and it is also well argued by King Charles, in the 
 letters which passed between him and the ministers at Newport. The Jus Divinum Ministerii 
 Evangclici, also argues the former question admirably. Leslie's little tract (on the Qualifications 
 requisite to administer the Sacraments,) and Bilson's large treatise, are also well worthy of perusal. 
 'I'he former of these coiitains the pith of the episcopal question in a small compass. Slatyer's 
 ' Original Draught of the Primitive Church,' is said* to have made a convert of Lord Kin^, against 
 whose work on the Church it was written. Burscon^h, Thorndike, or Potter, might also serve 
 the same purpose as the above works, or Daubeny's ' Guide to the Church.' Any of these books, 
 but especially Bennet, Leslie, or Burscough, will give the common arguments on the subject." 
 On the (luesiion of the priesthood, as savouring of Judaism, see Hooker, Eccles. Pol. Rook iii. % 
 11. v. 78. There are also some admirable remarks on this subject in an article on Dr. Whateley's 
 Errors of Romanism, in the British Critic for July, 1831. 
 
 * As this assertion has been controverted, it may be proper to state, that I wrote the artiele which is here quoted, and 
 at the same time to give the autliorityon whicli the assertion was made. It is the following passage from the Works of the 
 Learned for 17:19, and it will be seen that the words of the Review do not assert the fact, but simply that there exists a 
 report to that effect — " is said to have made a convert of Lord King, &c." 
 
 After praising Sir P[eter] K[ing] as a lawyer, and mentioning Ins treatise on the Church, the writer proceeds : — " An 
 an.swtr was made by a very karned and judicious divine to this Book in 1717, which Sir Pfetcr King] saw, and read in 
 MS. before it was printed ; and he had it in his power to prevent the printing of it etTcclually. if he nleaseij. But so far 
 was he from that, that he gave up his own book, which had just then had a second editiort, without asking his consent, by 
 one Bell, a dissenting bookseller, thereunto moved by the party ; and he returned the MS. with thanks, and desired it 
 might be printed, for it had convinced him of his mistakes." Works of the Learned, lor Jan. 1739. Vol. v. p. 21. 
 
THE translator's PREFACE. V 
 
 1. With regard to lay elders (see 1 Tim. v. 17, quoted p. 190.) The passage from 
 Bishop Bilson, which I have cited, is very badly worded, but as it was impossible to 
 extract his commentary on it, I merely took the shortest extract possible. In his work, 
 p. 131, the reader will find strong arguments for an interpretation, at least somewhat 
 similar in substance, though differently expressed. The most obvious interpretation 
 certainly appears that given by Dr. Neander, but still I am inclined to think it not the 
 true one. Mosheim says, that he acquiesces in it, but he gives and supports in his note 
 an entirely different interpretation. He makes " labouring in the word," to mean ex- 
 tending Christianity among heathens by labouring to convert them, and distinguishes 
 this "labour" from that of teaching the converted Church: (Mosheim, de Rebus 
 Christianorum, p. 12G.) He also admits that this one passage is not sufficient to esta- 
 blish the existence of lay elders, that they had ceased almost immediately, and that 
 afterwards none were made presbyters but such as could also teach the Church. 
 
 2. With regard to the gifts or ;t*§'°"-"='''"* of Christians (see p. 188.) 
 
 The word X'^V'^y-'^ 's used sixteen times in Scripture, and variously applied. If any 
 one will take the trouble to look at Rom. xii. 6 — 8, he will find it there applied to (1.) 
 prophecy; (2.) ministry, {Stanona.-^ (3.) teaching; (4.) exhortation; (5.) charity; (6.) 
 government; (7.) showing mercy. 
 
 It has been contended from 1 Pet. iv. 9— 11, that all gifted brethren should be minis- 
 ters of the word, and preach publicly in the churches. Now I can see in this passage 
 only a general exhortation to use all the gifts which God bestows upon us, for the edifi- 
 cation of our brethren; and in the interpretation of ver. 11, Macknight renders it, " If 
 any man speak hy inspiration, let him speak as the oracles of God." It is to be remem- 
 bered that, during this time, the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit were manifested by 
 miraculous effects ; and, therefore, great caution is requisite in applying what is said of 
 those times to our own. The presbyters were the public ministers in the assemblies, 
 the public expounders of the word of God, they were from the first appointed by impo- 
 sition of hands, and it was a regular office. Now in order to make out the argument of 
 our opponents, it ought to be shown that any ordinary gift, or a capacity for teaching 
 properly, entitled a man to be a public teacher, and take the place of the presbyters 
 without qualifying himself for that office in the regular course, to which other presbyters 
 submitted ; namely, ordination. I am unable to discover such a general permission even 
 in the apostolic age, and I cannot but think that establishing a regular ministry with the 
 right hand to be contended with, perhaps, or superseded by another irregular ministry 
 from the left hand, is unlike the dealings of God and his apostles. That these gifted 
 brethren might be of great service to the cause of Christ by activity in their own proper 
 sphere — by instructing those whom they could instruct, no one is weak enough to deny; 
 but this is not the point contended for. It would seem from Dr. Neander's account, 
 that by degrees all public teaching was limited to ine presbyters, which was not the case 
 at first. We look then to the apostolic age, and we certainly find some brethren mira- 
 culously gifted, using their gifts publicly for the good of Christ's Church, though not 
 regular ministers; but as soon as the Church of Christ emerges from the darkness which 
 hangs around the immediate post-apostolic age, we find every thing pretty well settled, 
 and a regular ministry established.* 
 
 The episcopal question is hardly touched upon, for the points which are concerned in 
 it, would require separate discussions of considerable length to be fairly considered. 
 One or two works, besides the great works of Hooker and Taylor, in which it has been 
 
 * In makine; ihese remarks, I have studiously preferred drawing them from writers, who do not 
 agree with the Church of England, among them are Macknight, CoMinge, (Vindiciee Ministerii 
 EvanseUci Revindicatne, p. 45 — 56.) M. Poole's Quo Warranto, (chapter entitled, Gifted Brethren 
 no Gospel Preachers.) These two last treatises arc nearly contemporary with Calamy's "Jus 
 Divinum Ministerii Evangclici," published by the Provincial Assembly, 1G54. 
 
 t Churchman's History of Epi.scopacy ; Slatycr. (or Sclater, for the work is anonymous) Original 
 Draught of the Primitive Church; Maurice's Diocesan Episcopacy: Brokesby's History of the 
 Government of the Church during the three first centuries. See also, my brother's " Sermons on 
 the Commission of the Clergy." 
 
 a2 
 
VI THE TRANSLATOR S PREFACE. 
 
 argued on Ine episcopal side, are mentioned in a note. The main point is simply this, 
 whether presbyters had originally the right of ordination. The limits of episcopal 
 power over the clergy is a different question, and the part of Dr. Neander which relates 
 to this, will, I think, be read with considerable interest. Those who would wish to see 
 the controversies in which Cyprian was engaged, handled by a person whose notions on 
 this subject are entirely opposed to those of Dr. Neander, may consult the work entitled. 
 Historical Collections concerning District Succession, during the Chree first centuries. 
 It was written, I believe, by one of the Nonjurors. 
 
 These remarks it seemed proper to make on the important subject of the Christian 
 Ministry, and in making them I trust that I shall not be deemed guilty of presumption, 
 but simply desirous of pointing out what I believe to be true and salutary in the author's 
 work, and what I consider erroneous. It will not be desirable to enter into the discus- 
 sion of the other points at the same length. After the general indication I have made 
 above of their unsoundness, as it appears to me, I must leave the work to the judgment 
 of the reader. The Christian tone of feeling which characterises it, and the beautiful 
 development of the progress of Christianity against persecution, and of its effects upon 
 the social life of the world, cannot fail to obtain their due share of approbation, and need 
 no praise of mine. 
 
 But it may, perhaps, be useful, if I add here a very brief synopsis of the contents of 
 the work, so as to show the plan upon which Dr. Neander has worked in this portion 
 of his history, and thus to methodise it more conveniently than the detailed table of con- 
 tents affords us the means of doing. This is the course pursued in the history: — 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 1. General view of the heathen and Jewish world in a religious point of view. 
 
 Sectiox I. — External History of Christianity. 
 
 1. Its propagation during the three first centuries. 
 
 2. The opposition which it met with from heathen persecution. 
 
 3. The opposition to it by controversial writings. 
 
 Sectiox II. — History of the Formation of the Church. — Church Discipline and Church Schism. 
 
 1. General view of the early constitution of the Church and its changes, until it assumed a form 
 of outward unity as one integral body. 
 
 2. Church Discipline — Excommunication and re-admission to the Church. 
 
 3. History of Schisms (as distinguished from Heresies.) 
 
 a. Schism of Felicissimus in the North African Church. 
 
 b. Schism of Novatian in the Romish Church. 
 
 Section III. — Christian Life and Worship. 
 
 1 . Christian Life — Effects of Christianity as affectiong social and domestic life, and condition of 
 the world generally. 
 
 2. Christian Worship: 
 
 Places and times of worship — Single acts of worship — Sacraments — Baptism and the Lord's 
 Supper, considered as acts of worship, not doctrinally viewed. 
 
 Section IV. — History of the conception and Development of Christianity as a system of 
 
 Doctrines. 
 1. History of Sects. 
 
 a. The Judaizing Sects. 
 
 b. The Sects which arose from the mixture of Oriental Theosophy with Christianity. 
 (1.) Gnostic Sects. 
 
 General Remarks on Gnostic Sects. 
 
 Cerinthus — Basilides — Valcntinus — Ophites— Pseudo-basilidians — Saturninus — Tatian — 
 Eclectics as e. i^. Carpocrates — Marcion — Appendix on the Worship of the Gnostics. 
 (2.) Manes and the Manichees. 
 
 Sectiox V. — History nf the Formation of Christianity as a system of Doctrines in the Catholic 
 Church which formed itself in opposition to the Sects. 
 
 1. (a) Realistic disposition. 
 
 (i) Idealistic disposition in the Alexandrian Church. 
 
 2. D<!vclopniciit of the great doctrines of Cliristianity separately. Theology — Anthropology — 
 Christology — Doctrine concerning the Church — Eschatology. 
 
THE TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. Vll 
 
 3. (1) History of the most celebrated Church teachers : Bamabus — Clement — Hcrmaa. 
 (2) Peculiar characteristics of the Church teachers. 
 a In Asia Minor, 
 jg In North Africa. 
 ■y In Rome. 
 / In Alexandria. 
 
 I have now finished the prefaratory remarks which I feel called upon to make with 
 regard to the original work ; and in concluding them, I must again express my high 
 respect for the author's talents and learning, and for what is far above talents and 
 learning, his Christian temper and feelings. In translating his work, I think the cause 
 of truth requires me to express my dissent from some of his views; and I feel assured 
 that the candid author himself would be the last person to disapprove of the course I 
 have taken. 
 
 With regard to the manner in which I have executed my humble task of translation, 
 it is for others to judge, not myself. I have only endeavoured to transcribe faithfully the 
 ideas of the author, and in words approaching as much to his own as possible. In 
 translating a work of imagination, the great point is to convey the spirit of the original: 
 in translating the history of the Church, my object has been to say every thing which 
 the author says, and nothing whatever which he does not say. 
 
 With regard to the second edition of this first volume, I must merely add, that it 
 scarcely differs at all from the former, with the exception of a very few corrections, 
 where I had either missed the sense of the original, or where I thought a slight alteration 
 might improve the faithfulness of the version, and the clearness of the sense. I have 
 constantly compared the proof sheets with the original, and the consequence has been 
 the very few alterations to which I have just alluded. I ought perhaps here to apologise 
 for the few fragments of notes which are scattered through the volume. The fact is, 
 that I do not pretend to give any notes to the work at all, but have merely printed a few 
 private memoranda made in the course of reading this history, because I thought them 
 likely to be useful. In general they are merely calculated to facilitate references to other 
 editions of the authors here quoted, besides those used by Dr. Neander. I trust that 
 they may be found of use, inasmuch as I have often found it very difficult to consult the 
 originals of passages, simply because the editions were different from those which 
 I possessed. 
 
 I will only add, that as I hope, ere long, to publish a translation of the succeeding 
 volumes of this history, I shall feel obliged by any corrections, or by any suggestions, 
 which may render the succeeding volumes more valuable and more acceptable. 
 
 H. J. Rose. 
 
 Houghton Conquest, 1842. 
 
THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 To set forth the history of the Church of Christ, as an eloquent witness to the 
 Divine power of Christianity, as a school of Christian experience, as a voice of in- 
 struction and warning to all who choose to hear, which speaks to all ages of the world 
 — this has long been the chief aim of my life and of my studies. And yet at the same 
 time I have always felt the deep importance of such a work, and the great difficulty of 
 accomplishing it in a manner which should answer the demands of knowledge, and at 
 the same time serve these great practical purposes. Both these ends are intimately con- 
 nected; nothing, which will not prove its truth before the judgment-seat of a genuine, un 
 prejudiced knowledge, that does not look through the false glare of a philosophical or dog- 
 matical school, can be adapted for edification, instruction, and admonition; and wherever 
 knowledge, occupying itself with Divine things, and their revelation and development 
 in human nature, does not lose itself, by the mismanagement of human perverseness, 
 in senseless caricatures, or content itself with a lifeless skeleton of facts, it must neces- 
 sarily lead to these practical results. Knowledge and life must mutually imbue each 
 other with the spirit peculiar lo each, if we would preserve the source of life from the 
 manifold contradictions of error, and knowledge from a dead and empty vanity. 
 
 Although I felt an inward call to such an undertaking, yet I was constantly withheld 
 from the execution of this favourite scheme, which had so long occupied my thoughts, 
 by the consciousness of its importance and its responsibility — especially in an age like 
 the present, which needs so much the aid of "Historia, vita; Magistra," to find a sure 
 and certain guide amidst its multifarious storms. After much preparation by means of 
 works on detached portions of ecclesiastical history,* I was at last induced, by many 
 outward and inward motives, to attempt the execution of a work which, if delayed too 
 long, might, perhaps, remain forever unaccomplished. 
 
 The most immediate inducement of an outward nature was, that my very excellent 
 publisher urged me to undertake a new edition of my book on the Emperor Julian, and 
 to supply what was left imperfect in it; but on attempting this, I found that, with my 
 present views, this book would be very much altered, and that if any thing at all was 
 done with it, I must entirely rewrite it. I then began to think that I would first publish 
 the ecclesiastical history of the three first centuries, as the beginning of a general 
 history of the Christian Church, and the encouragement of my publisher strengthened 
 me in my determination. 
 
 I therefore begin the execution of this plan with the following volume, and publish 
 the first part of an ecclesiastical history of the first three centuries, which shall be 
 followed, " Deo volente," by the second about next Easter.f The History of the 
 Apostolic Age, as a whole, appeared to me too important to be interwoven mto this 
 historical work. I therefore altogether presuppose it already executpd, while 1 reserve 
 the publication of it for a separate book.J May He, from whom all that is good and 
 true descends, accompany the beginning of this work with his blessing, and grant me 
 the power and the proper disposition to continue it. 
 
 In conclusion, I beg to offer my most heartfelt thanks to all the friends who have 
 given me their assistance during the printing of this work, and particularly to my dear 
 young friend, M. Singer of Silesia, one of our most promising students in theology. 
 This book owes much to his kindness and diligence in correcting ihe press, which was 
 often attended with no small trouble to him. I have also to thank this kind friend for 
 the table of contents, which I hope will contribute much to the satisfaction of the reader. 
 
 A. Neander. 
 
 * Among these we may mention, I. the Denkwiirdigkeiten aus der Geschichte des Christeii- 
 ihums und des Christlicheii Lebcns ; Berlin, 1825. Sections first, second, and third, relate to the 
 first three centuries, and serve to illustrate the first and third sections. 
 
 2. GQiiPtischc Entwickelung der Vornehmston Gnostischen Systcinen ; Berlin, 1818. 
 
 3. Aniignostikus Geist des Tertullian ; Berlin, 1825. 
 
 4. A work on Chrysostom and his times. 
 
 5. St. Bernard and his times. 
 
 6. A Life of our Saviour. 
 
 t Neander's book was originally published in three volumes. 
 
 t [It has now been published. The second edition of it has been translated into English by Mr. 
 Ryland, and forms two volumes of the Edinburgh Cabinet Library. — H. J. R.] 
 
 (8) 
 
THE HISTORY 
 
 CHRISTIAN RELIGION AND CHUECH, 
 
 DURING THE THREE FIRST CENTURIES. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 General viexo of the Slate of Religion among 
 the Ilomans, Greeks, and Jcii's, at the time 
 of the first appearance of Christianity. 
 
 Human nature bears universally the 
 same relation to Christianity, inasmuch 
 as that nature remains always essentially 
 the same, as well as its tendencies to evil 
 and to good, although in different epochs 
 the active development of those tenden- 
 cies appears under different forms. There 
 are, no doubt, in the general history of 
 unregenerated human nature, as there are 
 in the life of an unregenerated individual, 
 some periods in which its godlike quali- 
 ties are most visibly displayed, and others 
 in which its ungodliness is most promi- 
 nent; and yet a deep observer, whom ap- 
 pearances do not deceive, may observe in 
 every age qualities of both kinds at work, 
 and satisfy himself of the constant iden- 
 tity of human nature. The most depraved 
 times are not without some contrast of 
 good against the prevailing evil, and on 
 the otlier hand, in an age apparently the 
 most glorious, there will always be found 
 some offset of evil, partly in those very 
 circumstances, which a superficial view 
 regards as an unmixed manifestation of 
 good, and partly in those which are openly 
 opposed to it. In every age Christianity 
 proves itself the only means by which the 
 innate evil of human nature, which always 
 remains the same, though it is at some 
 times developed in open excesses, and at 
 others in hidden wickedness, can be puri- 
 fied, and human nature itself, from its in- 
 most foundations, ennobled and exalted. 
 In every age, therefore, Christianity has 
 
 the same relation to the corruption of hu- 
 man nature, which in it alone can find its 
 radical cure. The declaration of Christ 
 is universally proved true, that he came, 
 not for the sake of the righteous, but for 
 the sake of sinners; not for the sound, 
 but for the sick. So, also, although the 
 obstacles opposed to that attractive power 
 which Christianity exerts upon human 
 nature may be more or less ; yet Christi- 
 anity never entirely fails (unless when its 
 preachers mix up too much of their own 
 with it) to exert this attractive power of 
 the Divine nature upon that which is akin 
 to the divine in humanity. It is univer- 
 sally seen, that those come to the Son of 
 God whom the Father draws to him ; the 
 sheep, who know the voice of their shep- 
 herd when he calls them, and follow him. 
 The hindrances, however, which oppose 
 this influence of Christianity on human 
 nature in different periods appear under 
 different forms, but they all rest on the 
 same foundation, on the same inclinations 
 of human nature, which are opposed to 
 Christianity, and over which it must tri- 
 umph in order to be able to fix its roots 
 in the depths of that nature. And, again, 
 it is constantly seen how every human 
 affection finds its place in Christianity, a 
 scheme which calculates upon the deve- 
 lopment of the whole nature of man, and 
 how the opposite and conflicting powers 
 and affections of man's nature can be re- 
 conciled to each other by Christianity 
 alone. It is universally proved that 
 Christianity is the leaven, destined to 
 leaven the whole mass of human nature. 
 
 Now that which may indeed be per- 
 ceived throughout the whole of ecclesi- 
 astical history, is more striking and pro- 
 9 
 
10 
 
 STATE RELIGIONS. 
 
 minent in those periods in which Chris- 
 tianity took a peculiar hold of human life 
 on a larger scale, and this is particularly 
 seen in the season at which Christianity 
 was at first revealed in the life of man, as 
 the means of reforming and healing his 
 nature; for the unseen hand which guides 
 all the threads in the development of 
 man's nature, in the plans of his infinite 
 wisdom, had so guided the threads of this 
 development among that portion of the 
 human race, in which Christianity was 
 first to take root, and from which the in- 
 struction of the rest of mankind was to 
 proceed, that they were exactly calculated 
 to be brought together by the power of 
 Christianity, and to be interwoven toge- 
 ther into one web. The consideration of 
 this first period vvill show us how requi- 
 site a fundamental remedy for the evil of 
 human nature then was, and how the want 
 of it was particularly felt in those regions, 
 — it will show us what is calculated to 
 satisfy the moral and religious wants of 
 human nature, and how Christianity ex- 
 actly supplied this need ; — it will show 
 us how an unconscious desire after such 
 a religion was excited, and how the spi- 
 ritual world was made exactly then most 
 capable of receiving such a religion; but, 
 at the same time, how powerful obstacles 
 of a peculiar nature also opposed the re- 
 ception of Christianity in this century; 
 and, lasdy, it will show us that a religion 
 like the Christian, could never have sprung 
 forth from any of the individual religious 
 tendencies of that age, nor from any union 
 of them; but, at the same time, how well 
 the opposing religious tendencies of that 
 age might be purified, ennobled, recon- 
 ciled with one another, and united by 
 means of Christianity. We shall first 
 throw our glance on the heathen world, 
 under the influence of the Roman and 
 Grecian nations. 
 
 Religious state of the Roman and Grecian 
 world, in Heathen days. 
 
 It was Christianity which first present- 
 ed religion under the form of objective 
 truth, as a system of doctrines perfectly 
 independent of all individual conceptions 
 of man's imagination, and calculated to 
 meet the moral and religious wants of 
 man's nature, and in that nature every 
 where to find some point on which it 
 might attach itself. The religions of an- 
 tiquity, on the contrary, consist of many 
 elements of various kinds, which, cither 
 by the skill of the first promidgator, or in 
 the length of years, by the impress of na- 
 
 tional peculiarities, were moulded together 
 into one whole. By the transmission of 
 tales, half mythical, and half historical, 
 by forms and statutes bearing the impress 
 of religious feelings or ideas, mingled 
 with multifarious poems, which showed a 
 powerful imaginative spirit, rugged indeed, 
 or if animated by the spirit of beauty, at 
 least devoid of that of holiness, all these 
 varied materials were interwoven so com- 
 pletely into all the characters, customs, 
 and relations of social life, that the reli- 
 gious matter could no longer be separated 
 from the mixed mass, nor be disentangled 
 from the individual nature of the life and 
 political character of each people with 
 which it was interwoven. There was no 
 religion generally adapted to human na- 
 ture, only religions fitted to each people. 
 The divinity appeared here, not as free 
 and elevated above nature, not as that 
 which, overruling nature, might form and 
 illuminate the nature of man ; but the di- 
 vinity was lowered to ihe level of nature, 
 and made subservient to it. 
 
 That idea, wdiich dwells in the heart of 
 man, of a Divine Being, was not recog- 
 nised as a revelation of an Almighty and 
 Holy God, a God above nature and of free- 
 will, and received as a finger-mark which 
 actually pointed to him ; but this notion 
 was transferred to all the great masses, 
 powers, and appearances of nature, which 
 worked on feeble man either to befriend 
 or fright him ; and, lastly, to all which ap- 
 peared great in history or in the intellec- 
 tual world; and often without any refer- 
 ence to its moral or immoral character. 
 Through this principle of deifying the 
 powers of nature, by which every exer- 
 tion of bare pf>wer, even though immoral, 
 might be received among the objects of 
 religious veneration, the idea of holiness 
 which beams forUi from man's conscience, 
 must continually have been thrown into 
 the back-ground and overshadowed. As 
 long as a certain simplicity of life and 
 manners existed among a people, — as 
 long as the political and social life was in 
 its purity and power, — so long also might 
 a religion, interwoven into every social 
 relation, retain its life and vigour; and 
 the moral feelings, awakened by civil and 
 social intercourse, might attach them- 
 selves to that which was religious in the 
 national religion, and ennoble it. Now 
 this was especially the case among the 
 Romans, while the republic was in full 
 vigour; for' among them, with all their 
 miserable superstition, religion took rather 
 a political and moral cast, than as among 
 
ESOTERIC AND EXOTERIC RELIGION. 
 
 11 
 
 the Greeks, a character in which the re- 
 finements of art were joined with those of 
 an aesthetic system, a character which in 
 natural religion is likely to prove danger- 
 ous to morality.* The old lawgivers 
 were well aware how closely the main- 
 tenance of an individual state religion de- 
 pends on the maintenance of the individ- 
 ual character of the people, and their civil 
 and domestic virtues. They were well 
 aware that when once this union is dis- 
 solved no power can restore it again. 
 Therefore we find, especially in Rome, 
 where politics were the ruling passion, a 
 watchfulness after the most punctilious 
 ohservance of traditional religious ceremo- 
 nies, and a jealous aversion to any inno- 
 vations in religion. 
 
 Men of thought, however, must always 
 have attained to the perception, that in tlie 
 traditional religions of a people, truth and 
 falsehood must be intermingled. The 
 consciousness of their religions nature, 
 developed by tlie influence of their rea- 
 son, must have tauglit them to distinguish 
 the foundation of religion from the super- 
 structure of superstition. The belief of a 
 divine origin of all existence is a first 
 principle in man's nature, and he is irre- 
 sistibly impelled to ascend from Many to 
 One. This very feeling showed itself 
 even in the polytheism of national reli- 
 gions, under the idea of a Highest God, 
 or a Father of the Gods. Among those 
 who gave themselves up to the conside- 
 ration of Divine things, and to reflection 
 upon them, this idea of an original unity 
 must have been more clearly recognised, 
 and must have formed the centre-point 
 of all their inward religions life and 
 thought. There always accompanied, 
 therefore, the polytheism of the national 
 religions of antiquity, a certain doctrine 
 of the unity of God ; "although, in general, 
 this doctrine was unable to elevate itself 
 above the principles of natural religion. 
 It usually appeared only as an accompa- 
 niment to the polytheism of the national 
 religion, a conception of religion imder a 
 different form, and with a different spirit; 
 the one a conception of nature from the 
 consideration of the multitude of powers 
 at work in her; and the other from that 
 of the unity which revealed itself in the 
 operation of those powers. But under 
 all circumstances, the idea of this unity 
 appeared something too abstract and ele- 
 
 • See the remarkable intimation of Dionysius 
 of Halicamassus conccrnin<j the difference be- 
 tween the Roman and the Grecian rehgion. Ar- 
 chsEolog. II. 18. 
 
 vated to be brought within the compre- 
 hension of the gross ami sensuous many. 
 The imaginaton of the people was to be 
 engaged with the numerous powers and 
 energies flowing forth from that one 
 Highest Being, while to the contempla- 
 tion of that unity, only a small nuujber 
 of exalted spirits, the initiated leaders of 
 the multitude, (which in religious mat- 
 ters was accounted a minor) could elevate 
 themselves. The one God was the God 
 of philosophers alone. Thus Plato said, 
 in the true spirit of the ancient world, 
 that it is hard to find out the Father of 
 all, and that it is impossible, when you 
 have found him, to make him known to 
 all ; and so the Brahmins of the East Indies 
 stdl think. A spiritual conception of the 
 whole of religion was closely connected 
 with the doctrine of the unity of God, 
 and both together formed an esoteric 
 system of doctrines attached to the exo- 
 teric, symbolic religion of the people. 
 All pure spiritual knowledge of religion 
 was considered as the peculiar possession 
 i of a small number of initiated men ; it 
 seemed impossible to communicate this 
 knowledge to the multitude, under which 
 name we must include not only the lower 
 classes, but, in general, all those who 
 were occupied with any practical busi- 
 ness. Certainly, the spiritual perception 
 of religion, in order to be conceived, duly 
 understood, and soundly employed, sup- 
 posed a certain stage of intellectual culti- 
 vation, and a certain direction of the whole 
 inward life, and of the whole habits of 
 thinking; and no means were at hand to 
 produce these qualifications, and thu3 to 
 work on the inmost foundations, and the 
 centre-point of human nature. Hence, 
 the ruling opinion of all the thinking men 
 of antiquity, from which all religious 
 legislation proceeded, was, that pure reli- 
 gious truth could not be proposed to the 
 multitude, but only such a mixture of fic- 
 tion, poetry, and truth, as would serve to 
 represent religious notions in such a 
 manner that they might make an impres- 
 sion on men, whose only guide was their 
 senses.* The principle of a so-called 
 fraus pia was prevalent in all the legisla- 
 tion of antiquity. The great historian 
 Polybius, says, (B. xvi. c.~^12.) "As far 
 as it serves to maintain piety, we must 
 pardon some historians, if they do relate 
 miraculous stories." As this same Poly- 
 bius saw in the religion which was so 
 
 • [See Warburton's Alliance, Book i. ch. iv. 
 p. 45. in Quarto edition of his works. — H. J. R.j 
 
12 
 
 NO FREE DEVELOPMENT OF MAN'S MORAL AND SPIRITUAL NATURE. 
 
 interwoven into all the piiblic and private 
 relations of the Romans, and in the super- 
 stition which was connected with it, the 
 most eminent cause of the truth and hon- 
 esty by which they were distinguished in 
 all their intercourse with other nations, 
 and the source of the prosperity of their 
 stale, he therefore defends the Roman 
 legislators from the reproach, that they 
 had introduced so much superstition 
 among mankind, and says, — '■^K a state 
 could be formed wholly of wise men, 
 perhaps, such means would not be requi- 
 site. But as the people are giddy and 
 full of evil desires, there remains no o^her 
 resource than to keep the multitude in 
 check by the fear of something unseen, 
 and by terrors arising from this sort of 
 tragic representation." (vi. 56.) This 
 observer of human nature, who saw 
 deeply into it by means of the light 
 of nature, and to whom the light of Di- 
 vine wisdom was alone wanting, clearly 
 perceived that the eartlily order of civil 
 society cannot be maintained as an inde- 
 pendent arrangement, and can only be 
 maintained, when it is held together by a 
 higlier bond, connecting human aftairs 
 with heaven ; but how miserable would 
 be the case of mankind, if this bond could 
 only be united by means of lies : if lies 
 were necessary in order to restrain the 
 greater portion of mankind from evil ! 
 And what could religion in such a case 
 effect ? It coidd not impart holy dispo- 
 sitions to the inward heart of man; it 
 could only restrain the open outbreaking 
 of evil, that existed in the heart, by the 
 power of fear. Falsehood, which cannot 
 be arbitrarily imposed on human nature, 
 would never have been able to obtain 
 this influence, had not a truth., which is 
 sure to make itself felt by human nature, 
 been working througli it, had not tlie be- 
 lief in an unseen God, on whom man 
 universally feels himself dependent, and 
 to whom he feels himself attracted, hud 
 not the impulse towards an invisible 
 world, wliich is implanted in the human 
 heart, been able to work also through this 
 covering of superstition.* In this point 
 of view, with all the appearances of poli- 
 tical freedom in antiquity, how little 
 could that free development of spiritual 
 and moral powers, which human nature 
 requires, have existence, when tlio greater 
 jiart of mankind, given up to blind super- 
 stition, were obliged to submit to be led 
 
 • [See Stillingfleet, Orig. Sacr. Book I. c. 
 vi. vii— H. J. R.] 
 
 b)' lies at the hands of a few who had the 
 monopoly of truth. And these wise men 
 themselves, who believed that they were 
 elevated above the multitude, who needed 
 no such artificial terrors, who saw that 
 mankind can only be happy by the estab- 
 lishment of moral order, who had plea- 
 sure after the inward man in the holy 
 law for its own sake, could they then, if 
 they really probed their own hearts, say 
 that their iuM'ard feelings entirely har- 
 monised with this holy law; did they 
 feel nothing within them of that power 
 of evil, whose outbreakings among the 
 multitude, uncontrolled by any refine- 
 ments of education, they believed it neces- 
 sary to restrain by the aid of a higher 
 power ? Let us compare with the above 
 expression of Polybius the opinions of 
 some thinking men who lived in the 
 century in which Christianity itself ap- 
 peared. 
 
 The geographer Strabo (see B. i. c. 2. 
 p. 36, ed. Casaubon) thinks that, in the 
 same manner that mythical tales and 
 fables are needful for children, so alstl 
 thpy are necessary for the uneducated and 
 uninformed, who are in some sort children, 
 and also for those who are half-educated, 
 (TTETraf^Eyju.Ei'oi/i/t.ET^iw?) for even with them 
 reason is not sufficiently powerful, and 
 tliey are not able to free themselves from 
 the habits they have acquired as children 
 (}. e. of loving fables. Sec.) This is, in- 
 deed, a sad condition of humanity, when 
 the seed of holiness, which can develope 
 itself only in the whole course of a life, 
 cannot be strewn in the heart of the child, 
 and when mature reason must destroy that 
 which was planted in the early years of 
 infancy ! When holy truth cannot form 
 the foundation of the future development 
 of life from the earliest dawn of childish 
 consciousness ! He then continues thus: — 
 " The great mass of the inhabitants of 
 cities are excited to' good by means of 
 agreeable fables, when they hear the poets 
 narrating in a fabulous manner the deeds 
 of heroes ; such, for instance, as the 
 labours of Hercules or Tiieseus, or the 
 honors bestowed on men by the gods, 
 or when they see these mythical events 
 represented by painting or statuary ; and 
 they are deterred from evil by narrations 
 or pictures of the j)unishments inflicted 
 by tlie gods ; for the great mass of women, 
 and the promiscuous multitude of the 
 people, cannot be led to piety by philoso- 
 phical reasoning, but for that purpose 
 superstition is requisite, which cannot be 
 .supported without miraculous stories and 
 
THEOLOGIA PHILOSOPHICA ET CIVILIS. 
 
 prodigies."* The thinking Roman states- 
 man, also of the time at which Chris- 
 tianity appeared, as Varro, for instance, 
 distinguish between the theologia p/dloso- 
 p/tica and the t/ieologia civilis, which 
 contradicts the principles of the former, 
 as Cotta in Cicero distinguished between 
 the belief of Cotta and the belief of the 
 Pontifex. The philosopher required in 
 religion a persuasion grounded on rea- 
 soning — the citizen, the statesman, fol- 
 lowed the tradition of his ancestors with- 
 out inquiry. Suppose now this tlieolog'ia 
 cilhUs and this theologia pJulosophica to 
 proceed together, without a man's wishing 
 to set the opposition between the two in 
 a very clear light to himself, and that 
 the citizen and the statesman, the philo- 
 sopher and the man, could be united in 
 the same individual, with contradictory 
 sentiments, [a division which in the same 
 man is very unnatural,) so that he might, 
 perhaps, say : Philosophical reason con- 
 ducts to a different result from that which 
 is established by the state religion ; but 
 the latter has in its favor the good fortune 
 which tlie state has enjoyed in the exer- 
 cise uf religion handed down from our 
 ancestors. Let us follow experience, 
 even where we do not thoroughly under- 
 stand. Thus speaks Cotta, and thus also 
 many Romans of education (see below) 
 in his time, either more or less explicitly. 
 Or perhaps we may suppose, that men 
 openly expressed this contradiction, and 
 did not scruple to assign the pure truth 
 to the theologia philosophical and to de- 
 clare the theologia civilis only a matter 
 of politics, as Seneca does, when in his 
 book Contra Superstitiones he says : — 
 '" We must pray to that great multitude of 
 common gods, which in a long course of 
 time a multifarious superstition has col- 
 lected, with this feeling, that we are well 
 aware that the reverence shown to them 
 is a compliance rather with custom, than 
 a thing due to the actual truth. All these 
 things the philosopher will observe, as 
 something commanded by the law, not as 
 a thing pleasing to the gods." How 
 miserable for the philosopher, if he had 
 human feelings, to be obliged to stand a 
 cold hypocrite there, where men are 
 gathered together to exercise the highest 
 and noblest privileges of their heart. So 
 Plutarch, out of the fulness of an honest 
 heart (non posse suaviter vivi sec. Epi- 
 curum, c. 22.), exclaims, — "He feigns 
 
 • See the contrast exhibited below in the first 
 eflects of Christianity. 
 
 13 
 
 1 prayer and adoration from fear of the 
 multitude ! And he utters words which 
 I are against his own conviction; and 
 ! while he is sacrificing, the priest who 
 slays the victim is to him only a 
 j butcher!" 
 
 In the East, which is less subject to 
 I change and fluctuation, where tranquil 
 1 habits of life are more common, and 
 I where a mystical spirit of contemplation, 
 accompanying and spiritualising the sym- 
 bolical religion of the people, was more 
 prevalent than an intellectual cultivation, 
 opposed to it, and developing itself inde- 
 j pendently, it was possible that an esoteric 
 , and an exoteric religion should proceed 
 hand in hand without change for many 
 centuries. But it was otherwise with the 
 more stirring spirits and habits of the 
 West. Here this independently proceed- 
 ing development of the intellect must 
 ' have been at open war with the religion 
 of the people, and as intellectual culture 
 I spread itself more widely, so also must a 
 j disbelief of the popular religion have Geen 
 more extensively diffused, and in conse- 
 quence of the intercourse between the 
 people and the educated classes, the dis- 
 belief must also have found its way at 
 last among the people themselves ; more 
 especially since, as this perception of the 
 nothingness of the popular religion spread 
 itself more widely, there would naturally 
 be many who would not, with the pre- 
 caution of the men of old, hide their new 
 illumination from the multitude, but 
 would think themselves bound to procure 
 for it new adherents, without any regard 
 to the injury of which they might be 
 laying the foundations, without inquiring 
 of themselves, whether they had any 
 thing to offer to the people in the room 
 of that of which they robbed them, in the 
 room of their then source of tranquillity 
 under the storms of life, instead of that 
 which taught them moderation under 
 affliction ; and lastly, in the place of their 
 then counterpoise against the power of 
 wild desires and passions. Against men 
 of this sort Polybius, a century and a half 
 before the birth of Christ, had said, '■'The 
 men of old appear to me, not without 
 good reason, to have introduced tlie no- 
 lions of the gods, and the representations 
 of the infernal regions among the multi- 
 tude; our contemporaries far rather ap- 
 pear to me to be banishing these opinions 
 without good reason, and in a very sense- 
 less manner." Whilst with the increase 
 of luxury a superficial education was 
 constantly extending itself among the 
 B 
 
14 
 
 SCEPTICISM LIFELESS DEISM. 
 
 Romans, and the old simplicity of man- 
 ners was daily disappearing, the old citi- 
 zen virtues, the constitution and freedom 
 died away, a general corruption of morals, 
 and a system of slavery was introduced ; 
 and the bond was also broken, by which 
 the old state religion had hitherto main- 
 tained its ground in the lives of the peo- 
 ple. Those philosophical systems among 
 the Greeks, which thought lightly of 
 Divine matters, or altogether denied all 
 objective truth, which left nothing to man 
 but the pleasures of sense, such systems, 
 for instance, as Epicurism and Scepticism, 
 would obtain the most easy and the most 
 general acceptation, because they corres- 
 ponded the most with the prevailing light- 
 minded sentiments, which were entirely 
 limited to views of the world, and these 
 sentiments again assisted to further these 
 systems. The old religion could not 
 maintain its ground before an inquiring 
 intellect, and to the wit of those who held 
 noticing sacred, and who were without 
 any feeling for Divine things, as, for in- 
 stance, Lucian, it was an easy matter to 
 make all religion a subject of ridicule, by 
 coupling it with the vapid and contra- 
 dictory superstitions of the people. Men 
 saw in the religious systems of different 
 nations which then came into contact 
 with each other in the enormous empire of 
 Rome, nothing but utter contradiction and 
 opposition. The philosophical systems 
 also exhibited nothing but opposition of 
 sentiments, and left those who could see 
 in the moral consciousness no criterion 
 of truth, to doubt whether there was any 
 such thing or not. In this sense, as rep- 
 resenting the opinions of many eminent 
 and cultivated Romans, with a sneer at 
 all desire for truth, Pilate made the sar- 
 castic inquiry, " What is truth ?" Many 
 contented themselves with a shallow 
 lifelesss Deism, which usually takes its 
 rise where the thirst after a living union 
 with heaven is wanting; a system which, 
 although it denies not the existence of a 
 God, yet drives it as far into the back- 
 ground as possible! a listless God! who 
 suffers every thing to take its own course, 
 so that all belief in any inward connexion 
 between this Divinity and man — any 
 communication of this Divinity to man, 
 would seem to this system fancy and en- 
 thusiasm. The world and human nature 
 remain at least free from God. This be- 
 lief in God, if we can call it a belief, 
 remains dead and fruitless, exercising no 
 influence over the life of man. Man is 
 independent, as if he were his own God ; 
 
 he created for himself his own world, 
 without thinking further on his God. if, 
 however, impelled by his moral feelings, 
 the inward man felt delight in God's law, 
 and endeavoured to fulfil it; yet neither 
 good nor evil came before him with rela- 
 tion to God, except in as far as he 
 thought, " by doing good he shall become 
 like God." ' The belief in God here pro- 
 duced neither the desire after that ideal 
 perfection of holiness, the contemplation 
 of which shows at the same time to man 
 the corruption of his own nature, so 
 opposite to that holiness; nor that con- 
 sciousness of guilt, by which man, con- 
 templating the holiness of God within him, 
 feels himself estranged from God : nor 
 does thil belief impart any lively power 
 of sanctification. Man is not struck by 
 the inquiry, " How shall I, unclean as I 
 am, approach the Holy God, and stand 
 before him, when he judges me according 
 to the holy law which he has himself 
 engraven on my conscience .' What shall 
 I do to become free from the guilt M'hich 
 oppresses me, and again to attain to com- 
 munion with him ?" To make inquiries 
 such as these, this spirit of Deism consi- 
 ders as fanaticism and anthropopathism, 
 for while it ridicules the vulgar and su- 
 perstitious representations of God's anger, 
 and the punishments of the infernal re- 
 gions — forgetting that superstitioit, never- 
 theless, supposes a real and undeniable 
 desire in human nature, which procures 
 for it admission, and which it only mis- 
 understands, as well as a fundamental and 
 undeniable truth, which it only misunder- 
 stands and defaces — forgetting all this, the 
 spirit of Deism casts away from it all 
 notions of God's anger, judgments, or 
 punishments, as representations arising 
 only from the limited nature of the human 
 understanding. 
 
 This was Lucian's way of thinking. 
 And Justin Martyr says of the philo- 
 sophers of his day : " The greater part 
 of them think no more on these ques- 
 tions, whether there be one or more 
 gods ; whether there be any Providence 
 or not ; than if this knowledge was of no 
 importance in regard to our happiness. 
 They attempt, far more, to persuade us 
 that the Divinity, although he upholds 
 the whole and whole races, yet cares not 
 for you and me and individual men. We 
 need not, therefore, pray to him at all ; 
 because every thing revolves with un- 
 changing laws in one eternal circle."* 
 
 Just. Mar. Dial, c Tryph. Jud. p. 213. 
 
UNBELIEF CANNOT ENDURE LONG. 
 
 More lively and penetrating spirits, who 
 felt in the world an infinite Spirit, which 
 animated all things, fell into an error of 
 quite an opposite nature to this Deism, 
 which removed God too far from the 
 world, namely, into a Pantheism, which 
 confused God and the world, which was 
 just as little calculated to hestow tran- 
 quillity and consolation. The considera- 
 tion of nature filled them with the con- 
 ception of an infinite and Almighty Spirit, 
 not to be judged of by the limits of the 
 human understanding. But this was not for 
 them a strengthening, an elevating and ani- 
 mating feeling ; but rather a feeling which 
 abased and prostrated them, because upon 
 it was founded another feeling, that of 
 their own narrow nature and nothing- 
 ness ; and there was to them no middle 
 ground on which these contemplations 
 and feelings, so opposite to each other, 
 
 with the limits of their nature. Man is 
 full of wishes and desires, running into 
 infinity, which can never be gratified, and 
 his nature is a lie; the greatest poverty 
 united with the greatest pride.* 
 
 Yet the history of all ages proves that 
 man cannot for any length of time disown 
 the desire for religion implanted in his na- 
 ture. Whenever man, entirely devoted to 
 the world, has for a long time wholly 
 overwhelmed the perception of the Divin- 
 ity which exists in his nature, and has 
 long entirely estranged himself from Di- 
 vine things, these at last prevail over hu- 
 manity with greater force. Man feels that 
 something is wanting to his heart which 
 can be replaced to him by nothing else, 
 he feels a hoUowness within him, which 
 can never be satisfied by earthly things, 
 and can find satisfaction and blessing, 
 suited to his condition, in the Divinity 
 
 might meet and amalgamate. They be- alone, and an irresistible desire impels 
 lieid only the gulf between the finite and ! him to seek again his lost connexion with 
 the infinite, between the mortal and the heaven. The times of the dominion ot 
 immortal, between the Almighty and the superstition, as history teaches us, are 
 
 poor weak being; and no means to fill 
 up that gulf. They conceived God only 
 as the infinite being elevated above frail 
 man, and not as being connected with 
 him, attracting him to himself, and low- 
 ering himself down to him. It was only 
 the greatness, and not the holiness, nor 
 the love of God, which filled their souls. 
 We may consider Pliny the Elder as the 
 representative of these deep-feeling and 
 inquiring, but comfortless men. Polythe- 
 ism appeared to him only as an invention 
 of human weakness, by which men, un- 
 able to embrace and hold fast the whole 
 idea of perfection, broke it up into its 
 several parts. They formed for them- 
 selves different ideal beings, as objects of 
 their veneration ; each one made for him- 
 self his God, as he happened to feel the 
 need of one. The wants of weakness, as 
 well as fear, feigned Gods ; what God is, 
 if he be distinct from the world, no human 
 understanding can know. But it is a 
 foolish fancy, proceeding from the help- 
 less weakness of human nature, as well 
 
 also always times of earthly calamity, for 
 the moral corruption which accompanies 
 superstition, necessarily also destroys all 
 the foundations of earthly prosperity. 
 Thus the times in which superstition ex- 
 tended itself among the Romans were 
 those of the downfal of civil freedom, and 
 of public suffering under cruel despots. 
 But, however, the consequences of these 
 evils conducted men also to their remedy; 
 for by distress from without man is 
 brought to the consciousness of his own 
 weakness, and his dependence on a high- 
 er than earthly power ; and when he is 
 forsaken by human help, he is compelled 
 to seek it here. Man becomes induced to 
 look upon his misfortunes as the punish- 
 ments of a higher Being, and to seek for 
 means by which he may secure again for 
 himself the favour of that Being. He 
 looks back with anxious longings to the 
 time in which his ancestors were so hap- 
 py in their old faith, and this was the case 
 with many then. They compared these 
 th those when the Ro- 
 
 unhappy times wi 
 as from its pride, to suppose that such an | man state was in its blooni ; and they he- 
 infinite Spirit, be it what it mav, can ' lieved they had found the cause of the. 
 
 difference, inasmuch as then the gods, 
 who protect the Roman state, had been 
 honoured with piety, whereas they were 
 now neglected. They saw the conten- 
 'tiir feeling oF hi7frali'ness imposes 'no | tions of philosophical systems one with 
 limits on the wishes of man. A creature ! another, which, while they promised truth, 
 
 full of contradictions ! The most un- ' ~ 
 
 happy of all creatures ! For other crea- i 
 tures have no desires incommensurate | ^ 
 
 trouble itself with the miserable affairs of 
 man. The vanity of man, and his insa- 
 tiable longing after existence, have also 
 invented a life after death. Thus even 
 
 Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. ii. c. 7 ; lib. vii. Prooem. 
 
PAUSANIAS — DIONYSIUS OF HALICARNASSWS. 
 
 16 
 
 only increased uncertainty and doubt; 
 and all this led their thoughts back to the 
 external authority of the old religion, un- 
 der which the nations had been so free 
 from doubts, and were so happy. Thus 
 in Minucius Felix, [p. 42. Ed. Ouzel et 
 Meursii, 1672.] the heathen Coecilius, 
 after painting the contentions and the un- 
 certainties of the systems of human phi- 
 losophy, and the doubts regarding Provi- 
 dence, which proceeded from a view of 
 the misfortunes of the virtuous, and of 
 the good fortune of the vicious, a sight 
 not unfrequent in the public life of these 
 corrupt days of despotism, draws his con- 
 clusion from it in the following words.* 
 " How much more reputable and better is 
 it, to receive the doctrines of our ances- 
 tors as guides to truth! to honour the re- 
 ligions which have descended to us ! to 
 pray to the gods, whom our ancestors 
 taught their children to fear, before they 
 knew right from wrong! And concern- 
 ing the divinities, not to please one's own 
 fancies, but to trust to our ancestors, who 
 in the childhood of humanity at the birth 
 of the world were honoured by having the 
 .gods either as their friends or their kings." 
 The need of a connexion with heaven, 
 from which man felt himself estranged, 
 and dissatisfaction with the cold and joy- 
 less present, obtained a more ready be- 
 lief for the picture which mythology pre- 
 sented, of a golden age, when gods and 
 men lived together in intimate union ; and 
 warm imaginations looked back on such 
 a state with longing and desire. This be- 
 lief and this desire, it must be owned, 
 were founded on a great truth, which man 
 could rightly apprehend only through 
 Christianity, and this desire was a kind of 
 intimation which pointed to Christianity. 
 Pausanias, who wrote in the first half of 
 the second century, after introducing an 
 old mythological fable, says, (lib. ii. ch. 
 8.) " The men of those days, on account 
 of their righteousness and piety, were on 
 terms of hospitality with the gods, and 
 their companions at the board, and when 
 they acted uprightly they openly received 
 honour from the gods, just as they were 
 also visited with an^er if they committed 
 any iniquity. And then also they, who 
 are still honoured in this manner, became 
 gods instead of men. Thus also we can 
 believe that a Lycaon was transformed 
 into a beast, and Niobe, the daughter of 
 Tantalus, into a stone. But in my time, 
 when vice has reached its loftiest summit, 
 
 and has spread itself abroad over the 
 whole country, and in all cities, no one 
 has passed from man to God, except only 
 in name, and out of flattery to power," 
 (i. e. in the deification of the emperors) 
 " and the anger of the gods opposes evil 
 more tardily, and is not executed on men 
 till after they have left this world. But 
 much, which used in former times to take 
 place, and which happens even now, those 
 persons, who have mixed falsehood with 
 truth, have rendered incredible to the 
 multitude." After Dionysius of Halicar- 
 nassus, who wrote only a few years be- 
 fore the birth of Christ, has told the tale 
 of the discovery of a Vestal virgin's inno- 
 cence, who had been falsely accused, by 
 the special interference of a supernatural 
 power, he adds, "The atheistic philoso- 
 phers, if those persons deserve the name 
 of philosophers, who scoff at all the ap- 
 pearances of the gods which have taken 
 place among the Greeks and the barba- 
 rians, would deduce all these histories 
 from the trickery of man, and turn them 
 into ridicule, as if none of the gods ever 
 cared for any man; but he who does not 
 deny the gods a providential care over 
 men, but believes that the gods are benev- 
 olent to the good, and angry against evil 
 men, will not judge these appearances to 
 be incredible."* 
 
 From the nature of the case, however, 
 it is clear that a fanatical zeal, where the 
 heat of passion concealed from man the 
 hollowness and falsehood of his faith, 
 might be created for a religion, to which 
 man only betook himself as a refuge in 
 his misery, and in his dread of the abyss 
 of unbelief; a religion which no longer 
 served for the development of man's na- 
 ture, and into which nevertheless he felt 
 himself driven back from the want of any 
 other; and that men must use every kind 
 of power and art, to uphold that which 
 was in danger of falling from its own in- 
 ternal weakness, and to defend that which 
 was unable to defend itself by its own 
 power. Fanaticism was, therefore, obliged 
 to avail itself of every kind of power in 
 the struggle with Christianity, in order to 
 uphold heathenism, which was fast sink- 
 ing by its own weakness. Although the 
 Romans had from the oldest times been 
 noted for their repugnance to all foreign 
 sorts of religious worship, yet this trait of 
 the old Roman character had with many 
 altogether disappeared. Because the old 
 national temples of the Romans had lost 
 
 Comp. Tac. Ann. VI. 22—26. 
 
 Ant. Rom. II. 68. 
 
FANATICISM AND SUPERSTITION. 
 
 17 
 
 their respect, in many dispositions, man 
 was inclined to bring in to their assistance 
 foreign modes of worship. Those which 
 obtained the readiest admission were such 
 as consisted of mysterious, symbolical 
 customs, and striking, sounding forms. 
 As is always the case, men looked for 
 some special and higher power in what is 
 dark and mysterious. 
 
 The consideration of human nature and 
 history shows us, that the transition from 
 unbelief to superstition is always easy. 
 Both these conditions of the human heart 
 proceed from the self same ground, the 
 want of that which may be properly called 
 faith, the want of a life in God, of a lively 
 communion with Divine things by means 
 of the inward life; that is, by means of 
 the feelings. Man, whose inward feelings 
 are estranged from the Divine nature, is 
 inclined, sometimes, to deny the reality 
 of that of which he has nothing within 
 him, and foi the conception and applica- 
 tion of which to himself he has no organ. 
 Or else the irresistible force of his inward 
 nature impels man to recognize that high- 
 er power from which he would fain free 
 himself entirely, and to seek that connex- 
 ion with it which he cannot but feel need- 
 ful to his comfort ; but inasmuch as he is 
 without any real inward sympathy of dis- 
 position with the Divinity, and wants a 
 true sense of holiness, the Divinity appears 
 to his darkened religious conscience only 
 under the form of power and arbitrary 
 rule. His conscience paints to him this 
 power as an angry and avenging power. 
 But as he has no idea of that which the 
 Divinity really is, he cannot duly under- 
 stand this feeling of estrangement from 
 God, this consciousness of Divine wrath, 
 and instead of seeking in moral things 
 the source of this unquiet feeling, which 
 leaves him no rest by day or night, and 
 from which there is no escape, he fancies 
 that by this or tliat action, which of itself 
 is perfectly indifierent, he may have of- 
 fended this higher power, and he seeks by 
 outward observances again to reconcile 
 the offended power. Religion here be- 
 comes the source not of life, but of death, 
 the source not of consolation and blessing, 
 but of the most unspeakable anxiety, 
 which torments man day and night, with 
 the spectres of his own imagination. Re- 
 ligion here is no source of sanctification, 
 but may unite in man's heart with every 
 kind of untruth, and serve to promote it. 
 There is one kind of superstition in which, 
 while man torments himself to the utmost, 
 he still remains estranged from the true 
 3 
 
 nature of inward holiness, and while he 
 is restrained from many good works of 
 charity by his constant attendance on mis- 
 chievous, arbitrary, and outward obser- 
 vances, he is still actuated by a horror of 
 any great sin, — a superstition in which 
 man avoids pleasure so completely that 
 he falls into the opposite extreme; and 
 even the most innocent enjoyments, which 
 a childlike simplicity would receive with 
 thankfulness from the hand of a heavenly 
 Father, he dares not indulge in. But 
 there is also another kind of superstition, 
 which makes it easy for man, by certain 
 outward observances, to silence his con- 
 science under all kinds of sin, and which 
 therefore serves as a welcome support 
 to sin. Both these forms of superstition 
 were in existence at this time. The first 
 sort of superstition is especially painted 
 by Plutarch, in colours which can be 
 taken only from the life, in his excellent 
 
 work, TTif* ^(»a-»(J«i/L/,ona? x«» ci9foT»)T9^, OU 
 
 the contrast between superstition and un- 
 belief. These sketches are taken from 
 his melancholy picture, " Every little evil 
 is increased to the superstitious man by 
 the terrifying spectres of his own anxiety. 
 He looks on himself as a man hated by 
 the gods, one whom they persecute with 
 their wrath. But it is even still worse 
 with him, he dares not employ any means 
 to avoid or remedy his calamities, lest he 
 should appear to be contending against 
 the gods. The physician, the consoling 
 friend, are sent away. /Leave me,' says 
 the unhappy man, 'let me, godless and 
 cursed, and hated by all the gods, let me 
 suffer my punishment.' He sits without, 
 covered with sackcloth or with filthy rags, 
 and often rolls and wallows in the mire, 
 and remembers this or that sin" — and how 
 characteristic are these sins ! " He has 
 eaten or drunk such and such things,* or 
 he has gone such a road, which it was not 
 permitted to him to go by the Divine au- 
 thority. The festal days of the gods fill 
 not the superstitious man with pleasure, 
 but with fear and horror. He gives the 
 lie to the saying of Pythagoras, that then 
 we are happiest when we are going to the 
 gods, for with the superstitious man this 
 is the time of his deepest misery. Tem- 
 ples and altars are a place of refuge for 
 the persecuted, but where other men find 
 a release from their fears, there the super- 
 stitious man fears and trembles the most. 
 In his sleep, as well as in his waking 
 hours, the spectres of his anxiety still 
 
 * Compare Coloss. ii. 16. 
 b2 
 
18 
 
 STOIC RESIGNATION. 
 
 haunt him. Awake, he does not use his 
 reason, and in his sleep he finds no deli- 
 verance from that which disquiets him; 
 his reason is always dreaming, and his 
 fears always awake. He can never escape 
 from the terrific spectres that fright him." 
 Plutarch throws the unbeliever and the 
 superstitious man into strong contrast 
 when he says, "The atheist denies the 
 existence of a God ; the superstitious man 
 would be glad to believe in none, but he 
 believes by compulsion, because he is 
 afraid to disbelieve ; in his heart he is an 
 unbeliever, but too weak to believe that of 
 the gods, which he would be glad to do." 
 When he says further, that superstition 
 has introduced the existence of unbelief, 
 and serves as an excuse for it, he advances 
 what is certainly true, and what is confirm- 
 ed by the contemplation of those times, as 
 we may learn from the jesting of a Lucian, 
 although he does not point out the pecu- 
 liar and the deepest cause of unbelief. 
 Still the contemplation of human nature 
 in general, and of this time in particular, 
 contradicts another statement of Plutarch, 
 — namely, that atheism, on the contrary, 
 did not at all serve the purposes of super- 
 stition, and lead to its introduction, for 
 the history of those times exactly show^ 
 us most pointedly how completely men 
 were driven, by the irresistible impulses of 
 their nature, to take refuge in superstition, 
 from a comfortless atheism, under which 
 their religious nature could not long re- 
 main in peace. Now as this superstition 
 had a deep-laid foundation in these irre- 
 sistible and so long unsatisfied wants of 
 human nature, in a sickness of heart 
 which showed itself by many outward 
 appearances, it was therefore impossible 
 that ridicule should cure the superstitious 
 man, and the deeper the sickness lay within 
 Jiim, the less chance there was of curing 
 him thus. Or, even if it were possible 
 to persuade the superstitious man of 
 the nothingness of some one of the ob- 
 jects of his fear, yet that inward restless- 
 ness, whose cause was not removed, 
 would create a multitude of other spec- 
 tres, just as it is useless to persuade a man 
 of diseased imagination of the absurdity 
 of some one of his fancies, as long as the 
 inward disease exists, which is sure to 
 fasten itself, sometimes on one, sometimes 
 on another, of the outward objects pre- 
 sented to it. 
 
 There were especially two forms of an- 
 cient philosophy, wliich found a more 
 ready admittance than others among those 
 of the educated classes, who felt most 
 
 deeply the religious and moral wants of 
 man's nature, and which, connecting 
 themselves in a certain manner with the 
 popular religion, opposed themselves to 
 infidelity. The stoic philosophy com- 
 mended itself in a corrupted and eflfemi- 
 nate age to many noble and powerful 
 minds, because it raised them above the 
 corruption around them, by an animated 
 zeal lor an ideal standard of morality, and 
 because in the self-sufiiciency of the phi- 
 losopher's own heart it taught him to de- 
 spise the baseness which surrounded him. 
 This philosophy certainly imparled to 
 many powerful spirits a higher moral 
 impulse, which, however, was not untaint- 
 ed by the pride of self-idolatry, although, 
 as it often happens that the influence of a 
 philosophic system is modified by the na- 
 tural character of the men who adopt it, 
 this pride might often be softened in indi- 
 viduals by their childlike and unassuming 
 dispositions, as in the case of Marcus Au- 
 relius. But there were many who, in the 
 idle contemplation of an ideal standard of 
 perfection, overlooked their own baseness, 
 and who imagined that by an acquiescence, 
 although it were purely intellectual, in 
 the excellence of that standard, they were 
 immediately raised above all sin, while 
 sin was still reigning in their hearts, — 
 men who, bearing in iheir mouths the 
 loftiest professions of moral wisdom, gave 
 themselves up in tlieir daily lives to every 
 kind of lust, qui Curios loquuntur ct Bac- 
 chanalia vivunt ! Stoicism did not teaci) 
 a belief in a God, who governs all things 
 with a father's love, to whom every indi- 
 vidual is an object of regard, and who 
 knows how to unite the good of tiie whole 
 with the good of the individual; but in a 
 Saturn, who devours his own children, an 
 universal Spirit, from which every indi- 
 vidual existence originally proceeded, and 
 into which tliey must all, after a certain 
 period, resolve themselves again. Every 
 thing is repeated after immutable laws, 
 and even moral evil is necessary to the 
 establislmientof the harmony of the whole. 
 Ttie philosopher looks calmly on the 
 game, and willingly ofiers up his indivi- 
 dual existence to the requirements of the 
 great whole, to which all individuals must 
 be subservient as its parts. The philoso- 
 pher has the same divine life as Jove, 
 irom whom he is sprung. With calm de- 
 votion, when his appointed hour comes, 
 he resigns it again to its original source. 
 A cold submission, which overwhelms all 
 our natural feelings, how difierent is it 
 from the childlike resignation of the 
 
INFLUENCE OP PLATONISM. 
 
 Christian, which leaves all the pure feel- 
 ings of human nature uninjured, a resig- 
 nation not to the iron decrees of a neces- 
 sity which commands annihilation, but a 
 resignation founded on a confidence in 
 that eternal love, which restores all which 
 is sacrificed to it in greater splendour and 
 beauty. The Emi)eror Marcus Aurelius 
 says, " With deep reverence the philoso- 
 pher speaks thus to nature, which gives all 
 and again reclaims all. Give what thou 
 wilt, and take what thou will I"* This is 
 not spoken with the pride of one Avho de- 
 fies nature, but only in the spirit of one who 
 willingly obeys her. The words would 
 have been words of consolation in the 
 mouth of a childlike reliance on eternal 
 love, which guides all things for the ad- 
 vantage of those who confide in it; but 
 they are dead and comfortless in the 
 mouth of stoic submission to a Deity 
 which devours all things, although the 
 feelings of the man, who thus resigned 
 himself to the will of an unknown God, 
 deserve regard. But how poor, how un- 
 quickening to the heart of a man of feel- 
 ing, are the grounds of consolation by 
 which he endeavours to reason himself 
 out of the desire after an everlasting life. 
 — "Man must consider two things; first, 
 that every thing returns again and again 
 in constant succession, from eternity even 
 till now ; and that it matters not, whether 
 one sees the same thing in one hundred 
 or in two hundred years, or in an endless 
 infinity of time. Next, that he who lives 
 the longest and he Avho dies the soonest, 
 both lose the same, for each loses that 
 only, which he hath, the present mo- 
 ment."! (xi. 14.) " Always think that all 
 which happens or will happen, hath been 
 already. — All is only one uniform exhibi- 
 tion !" (x. 27.) How miserable is tliis 
 consideration of the vanity of the constant 
 succession of earthly tilings, without the 
 feeling that we are destined to a higher 
 and eternal life ! '- Every active power 
 which ceases at some destined time, suf- 
 fers no evil from the fact of ceasing; and 
 he, who used this instrument, suffers no 
 evil, because he has ceased. And so also 
 the whole which consists of the collec- 
 tion of all activities, namely, life, when 
 it ceases at its appointed time, suflers no 
 evil, because it has ceased, and he also, 
 who closed this chain at its appointed 
 
 * Monolog. X. 14. 
 
 t [See de Maistrc. Soirees de St. Petersburg, 
 vol. i. p. 294. Tlie germ of many of these senti- 
 ments is to be found in Seneca. Ep. 77. H.J. R.] 
 
 19 
 
 time, incurs no blame." (xii. 23.) He 
 throws out the following inquiry in xii. 5. 
 "How have the gods, who have ordained 
 every thing well and witli love to man, 
 overlooked this one thing alone, that 
 many excellent men, who through pious 
 works and sacrifices have been in confi- 
 dential intercourse with the gods, when 
 once they have died, never again have 
 come into existence, but are altogether 
 and entirely lost for ever ?" He answers 
 thus, "Even if this be so, remember that 
 had necessity ordained it otherwise, it 
 would have been otherwise. For if it 
 were just, if it were even possible, and 
 were it conformable to nature, nature 
 would have made it thus. That it is not 
 so, if it be not so, must be a proof that it 
 could not have been thus appointed." 
 Little, indeed, can cold reflections, such 
 as these, satisfy a heart that trembles be- 
 fore the notion of annihilation, and unsa- 
 tisfied with the vanity of earthly things, is 
 longing to attain unto that ideal being, 
 which it has pictured to itself in the in- 
 most recesses of the spirit and the affec- 
 tions. It would only be some peculiar 
 natures, entirely absorbed in reflections, 
 and living in the world of their own 
 thoughts, who would thus limit and go- 
 vern their feelings, their wants, and their 
 wishes. J^aturamfrustra expdlasfurca. 
 The Platonic philosophy was likely 
 to obtain a more general influence than 
 the Stoic among dispositions which were 
 alive to religious wants. History has 
 often to repeat the same statement, that 
 in times of scepticism and of superstition 
 this philosophy was efficacious towards 
 exciting and animating more spiritual 
 feelings of religion, and, in some degree, 
 assisted the preparation for the appear- 
 ance of Christianity. It led man to the 
 consciousness of possessing a nature akin 
 to the Divinity; and, of a connexion with 
 a more exalted system, from which all 
 that is true and good descends upon the 
 divine portion of man's nature, a system, 
 the revelation of which this godlike na- 
 ture affords him the organs to perceive 
 and to appropriate to himself, from which 
 the divine portion of his inward nature 
 bursts forth, for which it must developc 
 itself independently, and into which it 
 must again enter, freed from every thing 
 of foreign essence, as an integral member 
 of that system. This philosophy did not, 
 as the stoic must have done, if logically 
 pursued, make the divine nature in man 
 something entirely independent, an ema- 
 nation from a divine original, which as 
 
20 
 
 Plutarch's idealism — the oracles. 
 
 long as he continued in his personality, 
 could exist independently for itself; it 
 did not represent Jupiter to the philoso- 
 pher merely as the ideal of wisdom and 
 virtue; but it considered the divine part 
 of man's nature only as an indication of 
 a divine origin, only as a conceiving povv- 
 er, which was of no value except when in 
 communion with Him from whom alone 
 it can conceive. It considered man's per- 
 sonality, not as a mere transitory vision, 
 but as destined for a higher development. 
 This philosophy considered the life of the 
 individual, not a mere purposeless game 
 in the succession of the world's events, 
 but it recognised in it a stage of purifica- 
 tion and preparation for a more lofty ex- 
 istence. It required from man no sup- 
 pression of his purer human feelings; on 
 the contrary, it allowed him to seek and to 
 exp 
 
 ed his attention to a higher state of exist- 
 ence, in which the soul, freed from all 
 ibreign adniixlure, might arrive at the 
 clear contemplation of a truth. It did not 
 oppose the existing religions with a bare 
 abstract acknowledgment of religion, but 
 it endeavoured to point out in the whole 
 history of human nature, the traces of a 
 communion between heaven and earth, 
 and of a revelation of the divine nature to 
 man, under a variety of different forms. 
 When scepticism produced the contradic- 
 tion of religions the one to the other as a 
 proof against their truth ; on the contrary, 
 the Platonic religion and philosophy 
 sought to point out the fundamental unity 
 which existed under the multiplicity of 
 forms in which it was revealed ; and it 
 endeavoured, by distinguishing between 
 form and essence, between the Spiritual 
 and the Sensual, between the idea and the 
 symbol which represents it, to oppose un- 
 belief and superstition, because it deduced 
 the causes of unbelief and superstition 
 from a confusion between tliese things, 
 and a neglect of these differences. This 
 method of considering the matter is ex- 
 pressed in the following passage of Plu- 
 tarch, one of the noblest and wisest repre- 
 sentatives of this system, and one in 
 whose writings it was first fully unfolded. 
 Pint, de Iside et Osiride, c. 67. " As the 
 sun, and the moon, heaven, earth, and the 
 sea, are common to all ; but yet are dif- 
 ferently named by different men, so also, 
 although only one system of nature exists, 
 and one Providence governs, and the pow- 
 ers that serve this Providence are placed 
 over all mankind, yet by the laws of dif- 
 ferent men, different modes of worship, 
 
 and different names are established for 
 them ; while some make use of darker, 
 others of clearer consecrated symbols, 
 which lead the contemplation, not without 
 danger, to the Divinity; for some who 
 have entirely erred, fell into superstition, 
 but others who endeavoured, as it were, 
 to avoid the slough of superstition, fell, 
 on the other hand, without perceiving it 
 as it were, into the abyss of infidelity." 
 The reverence towards a higher necessity 
 in the religious institutions of mankind, 
 and the recognition of an authority raised 
 above the caprice of man, is beautifully 
 expressed in these words of the pious 
 Plutarch, Adv. Stoic, c. 31 : " Since Jove 
 is the beginning, and the centre of every 
 tiling, and all arose from Jove, so also 
 must man, if any thing impure or erro- 
 neous has stolen into the notions he enter- 
 
 ect the satisfaction of them. It point- I tains of the gods, instantly rectify and 
 
 purify them. But if nothing of this kind 
 has happened, he must leave all men to 
 that mode of worship, to which their 
 laws and their customs lead them." He 
 then quotes the beautiful passage of the An- 
 tigone of Sophocles, to prove that the foun- 
 dation of human religion is to be referred 
 to the Divine impress on man's heart : — 
 
 N OJUIfAA 
 
 Cu yjLg rl wv T6 x'l^Boi:, CKK dii TroTi 
 
 1)1 rxuTct KouJii olSiv £| oTcu '<petv». — Soph. Attt. 
 
 Out of this religious philosophy, there- 
 fore, a certain idealism proceeded, which, 
 connecting itself with the popular reli- 
 gion, endeavoured to establish and defend 
 it against infidelity, and spiritualizing it, 
 to purify it from superstition. 
 
 It is in this view that Plutarch says, in 
 his exhortation to the priestess of Isis, 
 ch. 3. " As the long beard and the man- 
 tle do not make a philosopher, neither 
 does the linen garb and the shaven head 
 constitute a priest of Isis. But the true 
 priest of Isis is he who, having received 
 through the laws, the customs relative to 
 these gods, inquires into the grounds of 
 them, and philosophises on the truth con- 
 tained in them." When, for example, 
 superstitious people thought that the god 
 himself inhabited the priestess in the Del- 
 phic Oracle, and spoke through her moutli, 
 so that every thing literally came from 
 Phcebus himself, and when, on the con- 
 trary, the infidels endeavoured to turn 
 this representation into ridicule, and quot- 
 ing the bad verses of the Pytliian pro- 
 phetess, laughed at the notion of their 
 coming from Apollo, Plutarch thus de- 
 livers his sentiments, DePythiaeOracul.ch. 
 
POLYTHEISM MAKES WAY FOR CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 21 
 
 7 : " The language, the expression, the 
 words, and the metre come not from God, 
 but from the woman. The god only pre- 
 sents the images to her mind, and lights up 
 in her soul the lamp which illuminates the 
 future. The god uses the soul as an instru- 
 ment, and the activity of the instrument 
 consists in its property of representing as 
 purely as possible what is communicated 
 to it. It is impossible that it should ever be 
 repeated perfectly pure, nay, without even 
 a large admixture of foreign matter." Ch. 
 21, de Pyth. Orac. 
 
 Thus Porphyry defends the use of ima- 
 ges in religion,* " By forms perceptible to 
 the senses the ancients represented God and 
 his powers, and they imaged the invisible 
 by the visible, for those who had learnt 
 to read, in images as in books, a writing 
 which treats of God. We cannot, there- 
 fore, wonder if the most ignorant can see 
 in statues nothing but wood and stone, 
 just as those who are ignorant of the art 
 of writing can see nothing but stone and 
 monuments, nothing but wood in tables, 
 and nothing but a scroll of papyrus in 
 books." These Platonic religious phi- 
 losophers connected themselves with the 
 polytheism of the popular religion, but 
 they endeavoured to refine and spiritualize 
 it, by constantly insisting more strongly 
 on the unity on which it fundamentally 
 rests. There is, according to them, one 
 source of all existence, the abstract of all 
 perfection, from whose super-abundance 
 of life all the gods which are akin to him 
 emanated, and in them the divinity, which 
 comprehends all things within itself, has 
 unfolded itself, so that in every one of 
 these divinities one individual divine pro- 
 perty or power, stands forth personified. 
 In these divinities the multitude, who are 
 unable to raise themselves by the force of 
 contemplation, to the one great source of 
 all, pray to these qualities. Every thing, 
 mediately or immediately, resolves itself 
 finally into relation with him ; the gods 
 are the mediate powers between the first 
 cause and man distracted by multiplicity. 
 Only in relation to these can all worship, 
 which is testified by objects of sense, be 
 explained : that source of all existence, 
 on the contrary, who is far above all con- 
 nexion with the visible world, cannot be 
 honoured by any outward observance or 
 sensible object; but to him only the phi- 
 losopher can raise himself, by pure and 
 spiritual contemplation. Thus speaks 
 Apollonius, of Tyana, in his work on 
 Sacrifices :t "To the first of gods, who is | 
 
 • In Euseb. Prap. Ev. iii. 7. f Ibid. iv. 13. i 
 
 ONE, and separated from all others, we 
 show the most worthy honour, when we 
 sacrifice nothing to him, when we light 
 no altar to him, and consecrate nothing 
 material to him, for he wants nothing, 
 nothing even from beings superior to us, 
 and there is no plant which the earth 
 I produces, there is no creature of the earth 
 or air, which considered in reference to 
 him, hath not some taint of impurity . . . 
 and from the most excellent of Beings we 
 must ask for good things by the most ex- 
 cellent of all we have, that is, by the 
 spirit, which needs no outward organ." 
 This endeavour to refine and spiritualise 
 the religion of Polytheism, must after- 
 wards, when Christianity extended itself 
 with great success, have taken a polemic 
 and apologetic direction. It was thus en- 
 deavoured to prop up and support the 
 rotten fabric of heathenism, but this en- 
 deavour, often too artificial, served only 
 to show most easily how untenable that 
 religion was, which it was at such pains 
 to defend, and these philosophical refiners 
 of religion themselves afterwards gave, by 
 this means, to the Christians weapons 
 against the popular religion, which these 
 latter knew well how to wield. Already 
 Plutarch had made use of the doctrine of 
 daemones as intermediate beings between 
 gods and men, in order to uphold the 
 loftiness of the gods, and yet to defend 
 the popular religion, while he withdrew 
 much which had been by men assigned 
 to the gods, from the race of gods, and 
 attributed it to these intermediate beings. 
 Plut. de Defectu Orac. c. 13, et seq. Por- 
 phyry went farther, when he considered 
 these daemones as impure beings, allied to 
 matter, from which these Platonists de- 
 clared the origin of all evil. '^ These 
 beings have their delight in material ofler- 
 ings, by which their sensual appetites 
 were gratified, they enticed men to all 
 evil desires, they endeavoured, by giving 
 themselves out as the gods, to seduce 
 men from their reverence towards the gods, 
 and to spread abroad unworthy notions of 
 these gods, and even of the Almighty God 
 himself. Their arts of deception have 
 found reception from the earliest ages. 
 Hence come the unworthy and unseemly 
 stories of the gods, which are propagated 
 among the multitude and supported even 
 by the poets and philosophers.""* It is 
 easy to see how well such discussion 
 
 * Porphyiy ap. Euseb. Prspp. iv. 21, 22. [This 
 is the substance of a considerable part of the pas- 
 sage of Porphyry there found, but not a translation 
 of any part of it. H. J. R.] 
 
22 
 
 SUPERSTITION AND ENTHUSIASM. 
 
 nies, and magic formulae. The latter 
 Platonists themselves invented many, in 
 order to satisfy this desire. Now, inas- 
 much as these Platonists adhered to the 
 popular religion, and endeavoured to melt 
 this down with their philosophical ideas, 
 they were able, by an artful admixture of 
 truth and falsehood, to receive many 
 forms of superstition into their systems, 
 and to give them a still stronger ground 
 of acceptance by means of their method 
 of spiritualizing them. The experience 
 of later times, (as, for instance, the case 
 of the controversies about images among 
 the schoolmen,) shows that a superstition 
 refined by an idealistic system of this sort 
 is most difficult to uproot. Platonism 
 awakened an indefinite desire after the 
 supernatural, and after a communion with 
 the invisible world, which it was unable 
 to satisfy. The less this indefinite desire 
 was understood by those who felt it, the 
 more an imaginative power, unfettered by 
 laws and a speculative curiosity, which 
 delighted to look into hidden things, 
 mingled themselves with it, by so much 
 the more occasion was given for delusions 
 of every kind, and so much the more 
 did those who wished to thrust them- 
 selves into the invisible world by means 
 of their own choosing, and avoided as 
 much as possible all attempts to realise 
 godliness in their hearts, give them- 
 selves up to most dangerous self-deceits 
 and to deceptions arising from the influ- 
 ence of others. 
 
 There were at that time roving about 
 the Koman empire many pretenders to 
 supernatural powers, for whom the ex- 
 istence of such a feeling and desire pro- 
 cured acceptance, men in whom, as is 
 usually the case during such a season of 
 religious excitement, a degree of self-de- 
 lusion or enthusiasm was mingled with 
 more or less of intentional deceit. Such 
 was that Alexander of Abonoteichos, in 
 Pontus, whose life Lucian has written 
 after his usual satirical manner, a man 
 whose pretended enchantments and pre- 
 dictions found credit all over the world, 
 from Pontus to Rome, one who was 
 honoured and consulted as a prophet, 
 even by men who held the highest and 
 most distinguished ofiices in the Ponian 
 state. Among the better men of this sort 
 we must class the ApoUonius of Tyana, 
 so celebrated in the apostolic age, who 
 was probably possessed of more extraor- 
 dinary gifts, and was probably under the 
 the soul, which men believed might be influence of the Divine Spirit, although 
 obtained by manifold outward ceremo- ' by spiritual pride and vanity he had at 
 
 Avould serve the purposes of the Christian 
 opponents of heathenism. 
 
 Thus these Platonists, by their sp»iri- 
 tualizing idealism, and their mysticism 
 Avhich excited, or pretended and feigned 
 an inward religious life, while they en- 
 listed the imagination, a certain conveni- 
 ent, agreeable, and indolent contemplation, 
 and a speculation often obscure, into the 
 service of the popular religion, endea- 
 voured to restore that religion to life, in 
 some degree, among the educated classes, 
 and excite some degree of zeal for its ad- 
 vancement. But the knowledge of reli- 
 gion, and a religious life among the com- 
 mon people, was utterly incapable of 
 being amended by these refinements on 
 religion. The people still clung to the 
 outward parts of their worship, they still 
 clung to the old superstition, which the 
 })hilosophers endeavoured to advance, 
 although they refined and spiritualized it, 
 and they were totally unable to compre- 
 hend any thing of those spiritualizations, 
 and symbolical meanings of their religious 
 worship. Nay, these Platonists them- 
 selves considered the spiritual knowledge 
 of religion to be attainable only by the 
 philosopher, who lived in contemplation; 
 to it man could only arrive by means of 
 tvio-rriiAVi, while the people must content 
 themselves with the ^o|«, in which truth 
 and falsehood ai-e mingled together. It 
 was besides impossible to oppose super- 
 stition eflectually, by theoretically oppos- 
 ing to it purer general principles of reli- 
 gion. As its foundation lay in a practical 
 Avant, it could only be opposed success- 
 fuJiy in a practical manner. An unsatis- 
 fled religious yearning, the yearning after 
 a deliverance from that feeling of guilt 
 which was deeply implanted in the heart, 
 though it might not have attained the 
 character of a perfect conviction of sin, 
 was the source of superstition. This 
 longing must be satisfied, and the distract- 
 ed heart eased of this oppressive burden, 
 and then superstiiion would fall of itself, 
 together with its cause. Plutarch casts 
 on superstition the reproach, that it looks 
 on the gods, who are full of fatherly love, 
 only as beings to be feared; but it Avas of 
 no purpose, to exhort men to confide in 
 the kind and preserving deities (fisot 
 aurvi^ti y.ai f^tj^ixK)* :) the feeling of es- 
 trangement from God in their hearts op- 
 posed itself to the reception of such a 
 notion of the gods. Hence arose the at- 
 tempts to find means of purification for 
 
WANT OF HUMILITY 
 
 least in part destroyed the talent intrusted 
 to him, instead of keeping it pure, and 
 increasing it by faithful and careful use. 
 But it is difficult to judge of this man ac- 
 curately, from the exceeding paucity of 
 autlienlic accounts. Those who, like 
 Piiilostratus, in the tliird century, have 
 endeavoured to represent him as one of 
 the heroes of the ancient popular reli- 
 gion, have injured him most deeply in 
 the eyes of posterity. He went about to 
 stir up and animate a spirit of religious 
 faith, and furthered fanatacism, while he 
 gave food to that curiosity which inquires 
 after the tilings of the invisible world. 
 He spoke against superstition, because it 
 served to promote immorality when men 
 believed that they could buy impunity for 
 crime by sacrifices ; and he declared, that 
 without a moral state of the heart and 
 feelings, no sacrifice could be well plea- 
 sing to the gods. He exclaimed against 
 the cruel custom of shows of gladiators; 
 for when the Athenians, who were in the 
 habit of exhibiting these shows, invited 
 him to their assembly, he answered that 
 he could not enter a place stained with 
 so much human blood, and that he won- 
 dered the goddess did not leave their 
 city.* Wiien the president of the Eleu- 
 sinian mysteries refused to initiate Apol- 
 lonius of Tyana, it is difficult to deter- 
 mine whether the Hierophant was really 
 in earnest, and thought ApoUonius an 
 enchanter, who used forbidden arts, or 
 whether he was not rather jealous of the 
 great influence, opposed to priestcraft, 
 which ApoUonius exercised on the peo- 
 ple, and to such a degree, tliat many con- 
 sidered intercourse with him of far more 
 consequence than initiation into the mys- 
 teries. The concluding formula of all 
 the prayers of ApoUonius, which he re- 
 commended also to others, who would 
 pray, although opposed to the notions of 
 
 * Just like Demonax, another remarkable man 
 of Athens, of the age of the Antonines, who, in- 
 stead of the mystical pantheism, from which Apol- 
 lonius of Tyana set out, opposed the superstition 
 of the people by another more temperate one. 
 When the Athenians wished to exhibit a show of 
 gladiators, he told them they must first pull down 
 the altar of Pity, of exjjc, which their city more 
 than all other cities honoured. The answer to 
 the inquiry, whether the soul is immortall which 
 Demonax gave — "yes! immortal; but like every 
 thing:" may be compared with the declaration of 
 ApoUonius, that being born and dying are only 
 an illusion, (Maja) the same substance sometimes 
 withdrawing itself into the invisible, and at other 
 times clothing itself in gross earthly forms. See 
 his Ep. 58, a letter which is most probably 
 genuine. 
 
 23 
 
 those who think the heart of the suppli- 
 cant of no consequence in prayer, yet 
 shows wherein was his greatest deficiency, 
 a deficiency which might well prove to 
 him the source of most of his self-delu- 
 sions, I mean the prayer : " Gire 77ie, ye 
 gods, that which I deserve'''' — Soirnt /xoi ra 
 6cl)ii^o/A£>« : the direct contrary to the 
 prayer, " Forgive us our debts .'" 
 
 A desire universally displayed itself for 
 a revelation from heaven, which might 
 ensure to the inquiring mind that tran- 
 quillity which was neither to be found in 
 the contending systems of ancient philo- 
 sophy, nor in the antiquated religions, 
 now called back to the world in an age 
 of artificial refinement. Porphyry, that 
 zealous defender of the old religion, him- 
 self alludes to this desire, so deeply felt; 
 a desire which, while he supports himself 
 on the authority of the promises of the 
 gods, he endeavoured to satisfy in his 
 collection of old oracular responses, as the 
 groundwork of a system of theology. 
 On this subject he says,* ''The utility of 
 this work those will best be able to esti- 
 mate, who, feeling an anxious desire after 
 the truth, have wished that some open 
 vision of the gods might be granted to 
 them, and set them free from their 
 doubts." 
 
 The composer of a sort of philoso- 
 phico-religious romance, called the Cle- 
 mentine, has given us a sketch of the life 
 of one of this class of men ; a man 
 thirsting after truth, but tormented by 
 doubt from his very childhood, and dis- 
 quieted by the strife of contending opin- 
 ions, who at last is led to embrace Chris- 
 tianity in consequence of this long unsa- 
 tisfied desire after truth ; the Heavenly 
 Father thus leading him to a knowledge 
 of his Son. it is but a picture, but it is a 
 picture drawn from the life, which we 
 shall here make use of to characterise 
 many of the thinking spirits of this 
 period. 
 
 Clement, a man of a noble Roman 
 family, who lived about the time of the 
 first preaching of the Gospel, gives the 
 following account of himself : "From the 
 earliest days of my youth, doubts, like 
 the following, which have come into my 
 mind, I know not how, have constantly 
 exercised my thoughts. After death shall 
 I exist no longer, and will no one ever 
 remember me } does infinite time thus 
 drown all human affairs in oblivion I 
 
 * nsg« TJic jx \ej«iiv ^iKiTcfixi, in Euseb. Praepar. 
 
24 
 
 CLEMENT HOW HE WAS BROUGHT TO THE GOSPEL. 
 
 Then will it be as if I had never been 
 born ? When was the world created, 
 and what was before the world was ? If 
 it has existed from eternity, it will last to 
 all eternity : if it had a beginning, it must 
 liave an end. And what will again exist 
 after the world, unless it be a death-like 
 stillness ? Or, perhaps, something may 
 then exist which now it is impossible to 
 conceive. Whilst I, continues he, inces- 
 santly bore about with me thoughts like 
 these, 1 know not whence, I was con- 
 stantly tormented, so that I grew pale and 
 wasted away ; and what was most dread- 
 ful of all, when I endeavoured to free 
 myself from this anxiety as being useless, 
 these sufferings only awoke again in my 
 heart with stronger violence, and inflicted 
 on me more severe vexation. I knew not 
 that in these tormenting thoughts I had a 
 good companion, who was leading me to 
 eternal life, as I afterwards found by ex- 
 perience, and 1 thank God, who rules all 
 things, for this, because by these thoughts, 
 ■which at first so tortured me, I was obliged 
 to search into the nature of things, and 
 thus to find out the truth. And when 
 this had taken place, I pitied as wretched 
 creatures the very men whom at first, in 
 my ignorance, I was in danger of consi- 
 dering happy. As I found myself harassed 
 by these thoughts from my very child- 
 hood, ] visited the schools of the philo- 
 sophers, in order that I might have some- 
 thing certain to repose upon, and I saw 
 there notliing but building up and pulling 
 down of systems, strife and contradiction ; 
 and sometimes, for instance, the doctrine 
 that the soul is immortal gained the vic- 
 tory; sometinies the notion that it is 
 mortal : when the first carried the day, I 
 was glad; if the latter triumphed, I was 
 again cast down. Thus was I driven 
 backwards and forwards by different ar- 
 guments, and I was obliged to suppose 
 that things appear not as they really are, 
 but as they are represented from this side 
 or from that. 1 was hence seized with 
 greater dizziness, and I sighed from the 
 bottom of my heart." Clement had al- 
 ready determined, as he could attain by 
 reason to no sure and certain persuasion, 
 to seek the resolution of his doubts by 
 some other method, and to journey into 
 Egypt, the land of mysteries and appari- 
 tions, and there to search for some magi- 
 cian who could call a spirit for him from 
 the dead. The appearance of a ghost 
 would give him an occtdar proof of the 
 immortality of the soul, and then, once 
 firmly persuaded by the evidence of his 
 
 own eyes of this truth, no argument 
 should ever again be able to make him 
 waver. The representations, however, 
 of a philosopher of calmer thoughts re- 
 strained him from seeking the truth by 
 means of these forbidden arts, after the 
 use of which he would never again ob- 
 tain peace of conscience, hi this frame 
 of mind, doubting, wavering, inquiring, 
 tormented, and deeply agitated, the preach- 
 ing of the Gospel, supported by proofs 
 reposing on the operations of the Spirit 
 and on miracles, reached him, and his 
 case may represent to us that of many 
 others. 
 
 If then, after the representation which 
 has been given of the religious condition 
 of the heathen world at this period, we 
 consider its relation to Christianity •, we 
 find that on the one hand Christianity 
 was opposed by unbelief, a frame of mind 
 as devoid of all capacity for the percep- 
 tion of any thing Divine, as it was of all 
 religion; a frame of mind which to that 
 doctrine, when it preached Divine truth, 
 offered in reply the inquiry, " What is 
 truth ?" — And on the other hand, it was 
 opposed by a kind of fanatical attachment 
 to the old popular religion, revived by 
 causes we have above related, and by a 
 blind superstition, which those who en- 
 deavoured to spiritualize it, only pro- 
 moted, a disposition of mind to which the 
 worship of God in spirit and in truth was 
 an offence. But the restless religious 
 desire of many hearts, which sought for 
 rest, the thirst after some new connexion 
 with heaven, and after some revelation 
 from heaven, placed beyond all doubt, 
 which, amid the strife of human opinions 
 might assure its followers tranquillity and 
 confidence, were all calculated to lead 
 men's souls to Christianity. And yet 
 this indefinite desire, often uncertain even 
 of what it wished itself, might also deliver 
 up men to every kind of delusion ; and 
 spirits, which promised to impart the 
 powers of the invisible world, and to ex- 
 plain its mysteries, and thereby flattered 
 tJie natural inclinations of men, would 
 often be more readily received than the 
 simple Gospel which opposed those in- 
 clinations. Only there was in Christian- 
 ity a power of God, which put to shame 
 all arts of delusion, which could make its 
 way, through all the adverse powers of 
 delusion, to the human heart, and prove 
 itself to be that which could alone satisfy 
 all its wants ; and which alone was able 
 utterly to uproot that superstition, which 
 no Platonic philosophy could triumph 
 
IRREFRAGABLE GROUNDS OP THE JEWISH BELIEF. 
 
 over, because it alone brought a radical 
 cure to the real source of the disease. 
 But the Platonic philosophy, inasmuch as 
 it excited more lively inward feelings of 
 religion, and gave them a more spiritual 
 turn which did not correspond with the 
 popular religion, was, in some degree, a 
 preparation for Christianity; and yet, on 
 the other hand, it might perhaps oppose 
 the humble spirit of the simple Gospel 
 with its fantastic mystico-poetical religion, 
 which has its attractions for the vanity of 
 the natural man that delights in the Gor- 
 geous, for, althougli all that is Divine 
 bears the impress of simplicity, yet man 
 is least of all inclined to inquire into what 
 is simple. This Platonic religious eclec- 
 ticism, accustomed to melt down every 
 thing, even discordant elements, together, 
 and amalgamate them, could not so easily 
 bring itself to recognize only one thing 
 which was needful for man, to give up 
 the whole man to this one, and to seek 
 every thing in this one. With those, who 
 had more than others, although not ex- 
 actly what human nature desires for the 
 healing of its sickness, and the satisfaction 
 of its wants, it was a harder sacrifice than 
 with other men, to acknowledge the in- 
 sufficiency of that in which their advan- 
 tages lay, and to clothe themselves in that 
 humility, without which the riches of the 
 Gospel cannot be received nor enjoyed. 
 
 If we now pass over to the religious 
 condition of the Jewish people, we shall 
 perceive between Judaism and heathenism 
 that immense difference, which must exist 
 between a revelation of the living God 
 and natural religion. Witness the pure 
 religious and moral spirit of Judaism ; 
 the idea of one holy, almighty, all-wise, 
 merciful, and independent God, as Creator 
 and governor of the world, to whose glory 
 all things must be subservient, and on 
 whom every thing must depend ; and this 
 notion, not the possession of a small 
 class of initiated persons, not an esoteric 
 doctrine of the priests, but the possession 
 of a whole people, the centre of a whole 
 system of popular religion ; witness the 
 contrast between holiness and sin, which 
 was tiot to be found, so clearly defined, 
 in the natural religion of the heathens. 
 It was, however, in the divine scheme of 
 education for the human race, the loftiest 
 purpose of this religion, to awaken desires 
 of the heart and the spirit which it could 
 not .satisfy, — the satisfaction of which it 
 could and should only prepare and promise; 
 to call forth the consciousness of a division 
 in the heart of man, which it could not 
 4 
 
 25 
 
 remedy ; but still there remained under 
 every change of human civilization, a di- 
 vine power in this religion, there was 
 here an objective, authentic ground of be- 
 lief, and not a mere texture of varied 
 myths and stories, into which a religious 
 meaning must be conveyed, or from which 
 only some dark glimmering of religious 
 thought proceeded. Hence this religion 
 was enabled to preserve its authority, in 
 general, unshaken under all the political 
 storms, which agitated the Jewish people; 
 nay, in after times, under all the oppres- 
 sions of this nation, its faith in the old 
 religion was altogether only surer and 
 stronger. But nevertheless, even this re- 
 ligion was unable to escape the general 
 causes of decay, which have in the end 
 produced the downfall of all religious in- 
 stitutions. As a peculiar form of religion, 
 it was unable to come forth victorious as 
 Christianity has often done in similar 
 times of excitement, with a more splendid 
 display of its excellence, because, as a 
 peculiar form of religion, it was only 
 given and appropriate to man, in one defi- 
 nite stage of development; and hence, if 
 it endured longer, it must necessarily 
 overlast its time, and become lifeless and 
 dead. From a struggle with those causes 
 of decay, no victorious result could arise 
 here, except a revival in the purer and 
 nobler form of Christianity. 
 
 A penetration into the spirit of the 
 Jewish religion was not the necessary 
 consequence of a strict adherence to its 
 letter. The remembrance of God's won- 
 derful dealings with these people, and 
 of their theocratic economy, so pregnant 
 with instructive hints for the development 
 of the whole history of man, witii the 
 major part of the Jews served only as the 
 food of a carnal pride. Instead of think- 
 ing how they might make themselves 
 worthy of that peculiar guidance which 
 their forefathers had enjoyed, and how 
 they might correspond, in heart and con- 
 duct, to that theocratic economy, they 
 fancied themselves the native members 
 of this theocracy, in virtue of their cor- 
 poral descent from the patriarchs; and 
 in virtue of a mere outward worship of 
 God, they considered themselves as 
 already citizens of the kingdom of hea- 
 ven, and entitled to the enjoyment of all 
 the rights of such citizens. The idea, 
 which formed the centre-point of the 
 whole theocratic economy, the idea of a 
 Messiah, had only been brouijlit forward 
 with more lively feelings through the 
 oppressions and the sufferings of the latter 
 C 
 
JUDAS GALIL/EUS LIFELESS ORTHODOXY. 
 
 26 
 
 period of their history. With the warmest 
 hopes and desires, many were awaiting 
 the promised Deliverer from misery, by 
 whom the fallen theocracy was again to 
 be renewed with greater splendour; but 
 then, the only misery they felt was their 
 temporal misery, and not that spiritual 
 misery, from which the temporal had 
 proceeded, and they expected in their 
 Messiah nothing but a deliverer from 
 their temporal calamities. They were 
 unable to comprehend the idea of the 
 Messiah, and the kingdom which he was 
 to found, in any but a worldly point of 
 view. AVith heavenly miraculous powers, 
 he was to serve for the gratification of 
 their worldly desires, to free them from 
 the Roman yoke, to execute vengeance 
 on their enemies, and to found a king- 
 dom of earthly splendour, in which they 
 were to delight themselves with the en- 
 joyment of all the pleasures which an 
 imagination, inclined indeed to the won- 
 derful, but still looking only to sensual 
 things, could set before their eyes. The 
 nation was destitute of guides and teachers 
 who could undeceive it, and really in- 
 struct it in the true nature of their reli- 
 gion, and of the divine economy. For 
 the most part, their instructors were blind 
 leaders of the blind, who only strengthened 
 the people still more in their fleshly and 
 perverted heart, and in the fancies to 
 which this heart led them. Great harm 
 had particularly been wrought by a blind 
 fanatical zealot, Judas of Gamala, or the 
 Galilean, who came forward about the 
 year fourteen after the birth of Christ, on 
 occasion of the taxing of the people, insti- 
 tuted by Augustus Caesar. He urged the 
 people to throw off die bondage of Rome 
 at once, and to acknowledge no sovereign 
 but God alone ! As if a people, who were 
 as far as the Jewish people from tlie only 
 true n)oral freedom, and governed by 
 wild passions and desires, could have 
 been in a condition to enjoy even a mere 
 political freedom! As if they, Avhose 
 whole heart was estranged from God, and 
 given up to so many idolatrous desires, 
 could have acknowledged God as the 
 sovereign in reality and truth! This 
 flesidy conception of the idea of the 
 kingdom of God, and of the freedom and 
 the rights of its citizens — this mixture of 
 worldly and spiritual things — was, as in 
 all other times, the source of a wild fanati- 
 cism among the Jews, which at length 
 brought down upon Jerusalem its tem- 
 poral destruction. They were, therefore, 
 unable to comprehend what the Son of 
 
 God said to them of that true freedom, 
 which he had come from heaven to be- 
 stow on man, sighing under the bondage 
 of sin. As they had been unable to know 
 the Father by their earddy-mindedness, 
 so they were also unable to know the 
 Son. They were also unable to recog- 
 nise in him the Messiah, because they did 
 not understand the voice of the Father, 
 which spoke of him in the wants and 
 desires of the human heart; but they 
 would only listen to the voice of the 
 world and of the flesh, that spoke in 
 their own hearts ; and they therefore 
 chose to have a Messiah to whom the 
 voice of their heart called them, as men, 
 not taught by God, but under the in- 
 fluence of ungodly feelings ; a Messiah, 
 who would have satisfied their expecta- 
 tions and wishes, founded on earthly 
 considerations. As Christ, whose warn- 
 ing voice they would not hear, predicted 
 to them, to their destruction they became, 
 through this fleshly mind, a prey to the 
 delusive arts of all false prophets who 
 chose to flatter this fleshly disjiosition in 
 their idle promises. When the Temple 
 of Jerusalem was already on fire, such a 
 false prophet was able to persuade whole 
 hosts of the people, that God, from out 
 of the temple, would show them a way 
 of salvation by some miracle ;* and be- 
 fooled by him, thousands became the 
 victims of the flames or of the Roman 
 sword. Josephus, who was no Chris- 
 tian, but who considered the fate of his 
 people in a more unprejudiced manner 
 than others of his nation, concludes liis 
 narration of this circumstance with the 
 following remarkable reflection: — "The 
 unhappy people then allowed themselves 
 to be only deluded by deceivers, who 
 dared to lie in the name of God. But 
 they paid no regard to the clear miracles 
 which announced impending destruction, 
 and believed them not, but like men 
 utterly confounded, and as if tliey had 
 neither eyes nor understanding, they 
 heard nothing which God himself pro- 
 claimed." 
 
 Among the Jewish theologians in Pales- 
 tine, we find the three grand classes, which 
 usually form themselves during the decay 
 of a religion, and oppose each other. 
 One class consists of those who, confu- 
 sing the inward and the outward things 
 of religion, or rather forgetting the in- 
 
 * Such a sign from heaven as they had often 
 required from Him, who wished to show them the 
 vyay to their true good. 
 
PHARISEES. 
 
 ward in tlie outward, make a quantity 
 of Inmian staiulcs, engrafted on the ori- 
 ginal religion, the chief business of reli- 
 gion, and place its whole essence in a 
 round of lifeless ceremonies, and a dead, 
 common-place ordiodoxy. Another class 
 is formed of those who oppose this false 
 pretence to religion, and this falsification 
 of its original excellence; but, inasmuch 
 as they are destitute of a lively sense of 
 religion within, and a hearty desire for it, 
 as well as of a capacity for the perception 
 of Divine things, they overstep the mark 
 in their opposition, because the true spi- 
 ritual feelings do not accompany and di- 
 rect with them their critical judgment, 
 and their cold and negative disposition, 
 while it justly attacks many human 
 statutes which give themselves out as 
 Divine laws, throws away at the same 
 time, under the title of additions, many 
 deep truths, which it is luiable, with its 
 earthly notions, to comprehend. Lastly, 
 come those more quiet, but more warm- 
 hearted spirits, with whom the power of 
 religious imagination or feeling is too pre- 
 dominant, who withdraw into themselves 
 from the strife of opinions among the 
 learned in Scripture, and seeking the in- 
 terpretation of the meaning of the old 
 documents of religion in their subjective 
 feelings or imaginations, become mystics 
 sometimes of a practical, sometimes of a 
 contemplative character. These three 
 grand classes of religious characters, 
 which constantly return under a change 
 of form, we here recognise in the three 
 sects of the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and 
 the Essenes. 
 
 The Pharisees* propagated in their 
 schools, by means of oral instruction, a 
 Cabbala, that is to say, a kind of polished 
 speculative theology, composed of a mix- 
 ture of the Mosaic religion with other 
 eastern religious elements, which they 
 fixed upon the original documents of the 
 religion, by means of an allegorical spirit 
 of interpretation. By means of arbitrary 
 verbal criticism, mystical meanings, and 
 pretended traditions from their ancestors. 
 
 • This name is derived from the verb f^>•^n, 
 
 either in the sense of " to interpret" as W")'!^ 
 
 the i^nyiim T'.u I'^fjL-M ««t' ^.'X""' which honour 
 the Pharisees claimed, according to .loscphus, or 
 in the sense of "to separate," WV^'Q (which 
 
 rather more nearly resembles the (ircrk <;><g;!rau-,c,) 
 •' the man sepuraled from the profane multitude, 
 (from the V"\*<"l"OV») "" *^"*^ who wished 
 to I'e revered as a hoher man." 
 
 they had connected the ceremonial law 
 of Moses with a multitude of new out- 
 ward precepts, oil the rigid observance of 
 which they often laid more stress than 
 on the works of righteousness and charily. 
 They had invented for themselves many 
 external offices of worship, which they 
 considered as works of supererogation, by 
 means of which many who fancied, in the 
 blindness of their hearts, that they had 
 from their youth up fullilled the law, 
 imagined tliat they could do even more 
 than the law required, and obtain for 
 themselves a higher degree of holiness. 
 In estimating,' however, the character of 
 these Pharisees, as well as that of the 
 monks in later times, we must not put 
 them all in one class, but accurately 
 separate the ditrerent classes of men from 
 one another. The greater part of them 
 were, more or less, hypocrites, or mere 
 pretenders to holiness, whose chief care 
 was about their own reputation and 
 dominion over others, and who en- 
 deavoured to gain respect in the eyes of 
 the people by their outward observances, 
 while with all this outward show their 
 hearts were full of wicked desires, and 
 like to painted sepulchres, and while in 
 secret thev often delivered themselves up 
 to the gratification of their sinful passions. 
 But others, no doubt, were in earnest in 
 their endeavours after justification and 
 holiness ; they observed conscientiously 
 what their statutes prescribed, and sought 
 to triumph over evil by their ascetic seve- 
 rities. Their error only consisted in this, 
 that they thought they could, by their 
 own endeavours, take by storm that 
 which the grace of God alone can bestow 
 on humble and on broken hearts. In 
 this struggle many of them probably felt 
 those very experiences Avhich St. Paul, 
 once a Pharisee himself, has painted so 
 naturally in the seventh chapter of his 
 epistle to the Romans. 
 
 The Sadducees were, for the most part, 
 rich people living in great comfort, who 
 forgot in the enjoyments of the world the 
 higher desires of their nature ; their hearts 
 were not softened by necessity, so often 
 the instructor of man, and compelled to 
 seek the pleasures of a better world, but 
 they were quite right in ojjposing the 
 self-invented ceremonial of the Pharisees, 
 their troublesome precepts and their vain 
 refinements. But while they opposed 
 these adidtcrations of the original Mosaic 
 religion, they were alike unwilling to ac- 
 knowledge that historical development 
 which, under the guidance of God's Spirit, 
 
28 
 
 JOSEPHUS MORE WORTHY OP CREDIT THAN PHILO. 
 
 had been bestowed upon it; and many 
 religious truths, which had first been de- 
 veloped by the prophets, were therefore 
 denied by them. They ascribed Divine 
 authority to the Pentateuch alone, and 
 would acknowledge those religious truths 
 only, which a literal interpretation could 
 deduce from that volume. They there- 
 fore denied the doctrine of the resurrec- 
 tion, and of the destination of the soul for 
 an eternal existence. They also, accord- 
 ing to Acts xxiii. 8, rejected a belief in 
 angels. We cannot, however, see how 
 they could reconcile this with their be- 
 lief in the Divine authority of the Penta- 
 teuch, unless, perhaps, like other Jewish 
 sects, they considered the apparitions of 
 angels as mere impersonal and transient 
 forms of appearance of the Deity. Al- 
 though it cannot be directly concluded 
 from the account of Josephus, that they 
 altogether denied the doctrine of a Provi- 
 dence, which extended to the affairs of 
 individuals, it is, however, clear, in con- 
 formity to their negative disposition in re- 
 ligion, that they made God as much as 
 possible an inactive spectator of the course 
 of events, and supposed him to take far 
 less interest in human occurences than 
 was consistent with the spirit of the 
 theocracy. They ascribed a pre-eminent 
 value above every thing besides lo an ex- 
 ternal morality in fulfilment of the law, 
 and hence, perhaps, came their name.* 
 The less they penetrated below the sur 
 foce of morals, the more they were able 
 to ascribe to man a sufficiency in himself, 
 and to leave every thing to depend on the 
 spontaneous determinations of the human 
 will. The hard, cold, heartless disposi- 
 tion, which Josephus attributes to the 
 Sadducees, is also in excellent keeping 
 with this way of thinking. Although 
 Josephus himself was a Pharisee, yet he 
 shows himself, nevertheless, always un- 
 prejudiced in his judgments ; nay, he often 
 lays bare and naked the faults of the Pha- 
 risees themselves, and tliere is accordingly 
 no reason to suspect him in tliis instance 
 of gratifying his enmity at the expense of 
 truth. — We certainly cannot from the na- 
 ture of the doctrines of the later Kara- 
 ites, who were moderate enemies of the 
 traditions of the Pharisees, draw any con- 
 clusion as to the nature of those of the 
 Sadducees. Indeed, it is a matter of en- 
 quiry generally, whether these latter ever 
 
 * [From Q'n^, he was just or righteous.— 
 
 Others deduce it from Sadoc, a proper name. — H. 
 J.R.] 
 
 were in open connection with the former 
 (the Sadducees,) although their enemies' 
 zeal for the discovery of heresies was 
 naturally gratified in attaching this impu- 
 tation upon them. 
 
 A company of pious men, much expe- 
 rienced in the trials of the outward and of 
 the inward life, had withdrawn themselves 
 out of the strife of theological and politi- 
 cal parties, at first apparently (according 
 to Pliny the elder,) to the western side of 
 the Dead Sea; where they lived together 
 in intimate connexion, partly in the same 
 sort of society as the monks of later days, 
 and partly as mystical orders in all pe- 
 riods have done. — From this society, 
 other smaller ones afterwards proceeded, 
 and spread themselves over all Palestine. 
 They were called Essenes, {Yaanvot or 
 Eo-(7«to».) They employed themselves in 
 the arts of peace, agriculture, pasture, 
 handicraft works, and especially in the 
 art of healing, while they took great de- 
 light in investigating the healing powers 
 of nature. It is probable, also, that they 
 imagined themselves under the guidance 
 of a supernatural illumination in their 
 search into nature, and their use of her 
 powers. Their natural knowledge, and 
 their art of healing, appear also to have 
 had a religious, theosophic character, as 
 they professed also to have peculiar pro- 
 phetical gifts. The Essenes were, no 
 doubt, distinguished from the mass of or- 
 dinary Jews by this, that they knew and 
 loved something higher than the outward 
 ceremonial, and a dead faith ; that they 
 did really strive after holiness of heart, 
 and inward communion with God. Their 
 quiet, pious habits also rendered them re- 
 markable, and by means of these they re- 
 mained quiet amidst all the political 
 changes, respected by all parties, even by 
 the heathens; and by their laborious 
 habits and kindness, their obedience 
 towards the higher powers, as ordained 
 of God, their fidelity and love of truth, 
 they were enabled to extend themselves 
 in all directions. In their society every 
 yea and nay had the force of an oath ; for 
 every oath, said they, pre-supposes a mu- 
 tual distrust, which ought not be the case 
 among a society of honest men. Only in 
 one case was an oath suffered amongst 
 them, namely, as a pledge for those who 
 after a three years' noviciate were to be 
 received into the number of the initiated. 
 According to the portraiture of them, 
 given by Philo the Alexandrian, in his 
 separate treatise concerning the ''True 
 Freedom of the Virtuous," we should take 
 
THEOSOPHY OF THE ESSENES. 
 
 29 
 
 the Essenes for men of an entirely practi- 
 cal religious turn, far removed from all 
 iheosophy and all idle speculation ; and 
 we should ascribe to them an inward re- 
 ligious habit of mind, free from all mix- 
 ture of superstition and reliance on out- 
 ward things. But the account of Philo 
 does not at all accord with that of Jose- 
 phus, and the more historical Josephus 
 deserves in general more credit than 
 Philo, who was too apt to indulge in 
 philosophising and idealism. Besides, 
 Josephus had more opportunity of know- 
 ing this sect thoroughlj^, than Philo; for 
 Philo lived in Egypt, and the Essenes did 
 not extend beyond Palestine. — Josephus 
 had here passed the greater part of his 
 life, and had certainly taken all necessary 
 pains to inform himself accurately of the 
 nature of the different sects, among which 
 he was determined, as a youth of sixteen 
 years of age, to make choice, although he 
 can hardly have completely passed through 
 a noviciate in the sect of the Essenes, be- 
 cause he made the round of all the three 
 Jewish sects, in a period of from three to 
 four years. Josephus, also, shows him- 
 self completely unprejudiced in this de- 
 scription ; while Philo, on the contrary, 
 wished to represent the Essenes to the 
 more cultivated Greeks as models of prac- 
 tical wisdom, and therefore he allowed 
 himself to represent much, not as it really 
 was, but as it suited his purpose. We 
 must conclude that the Essenes did also 
 busy themselves with theosophy, and pre- 
 tended to impart to those of their own 
 order disclosures relating to the superna- 
 tural world of spirits, because those who 
 were about to be initiated, were obliged 
 to swear that they would never make 
 known to any one the names of the angels 
 then to be communicated to them. The 
 manner in which they kept secret the an- 
 cient books of their sect, is also a proof 
 of this. And, indeed, Philo himself makes 
 it probable, when he says, that they em- 
 ployed themselves with a (piXoo-oipia Sia 
 a-vfjuBoXut , a philosophy, which was sup- 
 ported by an allegorical interpretation of 
 Scripture ; for this kind of allegorizing 
 interpretation was usually the accompani- 
 ment of a certain speculative system. Ac- 
 cording to Philo they rejected the sacri- 
 fice of victims, because they considered, 
 that to consecrate and ofier up themselves 
 wholly to God, was the only true sacri- 
 fice, the only sacrifice worthy of God. 
 But according to Josephus they certainly 
 considered sacrifice as something pecu- 
 liarly holy, but they thought that from its 
 
 peculiar holiness it must have been dese- 
 crated by the profane Jews in the temple 
 of Jerusalem, and that it could be worthily 
 celebrated only in their holy communi- 
 ty, just as mystic sects of this nature are 
 constantly accustomed to make the objec- 
 tive acts of religion dependent on the sub- 
 jective condition of those who perform or 
 take part in them. In the troublesome 
 and superstitious observance of the rest of 
 the Sabbath, according to the letter, and 
 not according to the spirit, they went even 
 farther than the other Jews, only with 
 this diflerence, that they were in good 
 earnest in the matter, while the Pharisees 
 by their casuistry relaxed their rules, or 
 drew them tighter, just as it suited their 
 purpose. The Essenes not only strenu- 
 ously abhorred, like the other Jews, con- 
 tact with the uncircumcised, but, having 
 divided themselves into four classes, the 
 Essenes of a higher grade were averse 
 from contact with those of a lower, as if 
 they were rendered unclean by it, and 
 when any thing of this kind did happen, 
 they purified themselves after it. Like 
 many other Jews, they attributed great 
 value, in general, to lustration by bathing 
 in cold water. To their ascetic notions 
 the constant and healthy practice in the 
 East of anointing with oil seemed unholy, 
 and if it befel any one of them, he was 
 obliged to purify himself. It was also a 
 great abomination to them, to eat any 
 food except such as had been prepared by 
 persons of their own sect. They would 
 die rather than eat of any other. This is 
 a suflicient proof that although the Essenes 
 might possess a certain iijward religious 
 life, and a certain practical piety, yet that 
 these qualities with them, as well as with 
 many other mystical sects (as, for exam- 
 ple, those of the middle ages) were con- 
 nected with a theosophy, which desired 
 to know things hidden from human 
 reason, (If^/Sariusur etq « rtj fxr) lu^ccxi*,) 
 and therefore lost itself in idle imagina- 
 tions and dreams, and were also mixed 
 up with an outward asceticism, a proud 
 spirit of separation from the rest of man- 
 kind, and superstitious observances and 
 demeanours totally at variance with the 
 true spirit of inward religion. 
 
 The religious and theological character 
 of the Jews who dwelt at Alexandria, that 
 remarkable intermediate spot between the 
 eastern and the western world, was of an 
 entirely peculiar cast. By means of con- 
 stant intercourse with educated Hellenists 
 in one of tlie most flourishing seats o( 
 Hellenistic literature and civilization, they 
 c2 
 
PHILO'S VIEW OP THE DESTINY OF HIS PEOPLE. 
 
 30 
 
 most have gradually lost their usual ab- 
 horrence of foreign customs. By their 
 sojourn among the Greeks for centuries, 
 separated from their original country, they 
 gradually assumed the Greek language, 
 and much of Greek manners ; they be- 
 came more and more estranged from the 
 language and the habits of their own na- 
 tion, and many of them were strongly at- 
 tracted by the charms of Greek literature, 
 and especially of Greek philosophy.* 
 
 Under these circumstances two cases 
 might occur. One would be the case of 
 those, who became so thoroughly imbued 
 with the spirit of this foreign culture, and 
 Hellenized to such an extent, that they 
 lost even that reverence for the ancient 
 holy institutions of their people, so deeply 
 implanted in the heart of a Jew. A few 
 general superficial ideas, skimmed from 
 Grecian philosophy, and a certain moral 
 cultivation, became to these men their high- 
 est law, and after this miserable and false 
 illumination, they dared to condemn and 
 to ridicule the holy history and documents 
 of their people, which they could not un- 
 derstand, because they were deficient in 
 the deep religious feeling and the know- 
 ledge requisite for that purpose. We find 
 in Philo traces of this kind of the Jewish 
 scofTer in places where we can hardly 
 imagine he is glancing at the heathen. As 
 when he opposes Moses, who remained 
 always true to his people in the seductions 
 of the Egyptian court, to these renegades : 
 "Who transgress the law, in which they 
 have been born and educated, who des- 
 troy the customs of their country, to 
 which no blame can be attached, and in 
 their prejudice for that which is new, lose 
 all remembrance of that which is old."! 
 In another placej he thus expresses him- 
 self against such people; "Who are dis- 
 inclined to the religious system of their 
 country; who always look on the laws 
 of their religion to blame and accuse them, 
 and use these and similar|| narrations pro- 
 fligately, as a support to their Atheism 
 (aOeoTij;,) and say, ' Do you really think 
 higldy of your laws, and imagine that 
 they contain the rules of truth i* Behold ! 
 
 what you call your holy Scriptures, do 
 they not contain myths and fables which 
 you yourselves laugh at w'hen you hear 
 them from others ?' "* 
 
 Nevertheless, the faith in the Divine 
 origin, and the holiness of their religion, 
 had taken too deep hold on the hearts of 
 most Jews ; the seed of religion, which 
 had been sown in their earliest childhood, 
 and had spread over all their life, had 
 made too deep impression on their hearts, 
 to allow of its being thus dissipated and 
 destroyed. Although they were attracted 
 by the Greek philosophy, and especially 
 by that which had chiefly prevailed at 
 Alexandria in later times, and which by 
 its nature would give the best opportunity 
 for a religious spirit to connect itself with, 
 namely, the Platonic, yet still they were 
 far from consciously and intentionally 
 sacrificing their religion and their holy 
 writings to the authority of a human phi- 
 losophy. They had far rather learnt, by 
 comparing the religious knowledge of 
 their people with that of the Egyptians 
 and the Greeks, day by day to estimate 
 better the distinguished character of their 
 old religion, and to see more clearly the 
 Divine providence which guided their pe- 
 culiar history, and the influence which 
 these were destined to bear on the whole 
 human race. Philo, whom we may name 
 the representative of these Alexandrians, 
 speaks thus:"]" — ''That, which the most 
 genuine philosophy alone is able to im- 
 part to its scholars, the knowledge of the 
 Most High, is communicated by our laws 
 and our customs to the whole Jewish 
 people." He declares it to be the destiny 
 of the Jews, inasmuch as they alone were 
 consecrated as a whole people, to the 
 worship of the One true God, and M'ere 
 to spread this to the whole human race, 
 that they were to be priests and prophets 
 for all mankind.J Philo was well aware 
 that it is the characteristic of the Divine 
 revelation, to let the light of truth gene- 
 
 * [A very elaborate work on the Alexandrian 
 Jews has a[)pi'arc(l since the publication of this 
 History. It is entitled, Geschiihtliche Uarstclluiig 
 (ler Judisch-Alexandrinischen Religions-Pliiloso- 
 phio: vertksst von A. F. Dtihiie, P. D. &c Hallo, 
 1834. 2 vol. 8vo.— H. .1. K.] 
 
 -j- De Vila Mosis, i. (i07. 
 
 \ De confus. ling. 320. 
 
 II He is s])eak.iiii^ iierc of the confusion of 
 tongues at the tower of Babel, 
 
 * Also, in the passage de Nom. Mutat. p. 1053, 
 where Philo introduces the sarcasms of an . 6s:f, or 
 uo-«/3«c, the bitterness with which he speaks, may 
 well lead us to conclude that this scofler was an 
 unbelieving Jew In an heathen this jesting could 
 not have appeared so striking to him. He looks 
 ujion it as a ])unishment of the profligate opinions 
 of tills man, that he soon after hanged himself, j/ « 
 ^i«gcc Kuj (fu^xxSagTcc jui^Ji x/flagoi b'tv-iTH) TtxajTinrn. 
 I3y means of his allegorical explanations Philo 
 wished to remove what had given rise to the ridi- 
 cule of this man, in order that others might not fall 
 into a similar snare and punishment. 
 
 t Do Caritate, 699. 
 
 i De Abrah. 364; De vita Mosis, i. 625. 
 
THE ALEXANDRIAN SCHOOL AND THE SCRIPTURE. 
 
 31 
 
 rally shine before all men, and not to keep I their own religion. But as it is univer- 
 it purposely hidden. The more easily sally so difficult for men to keep exactly 
 the people of Alexandria might be se- the right path between the two opposite 
 duced into joining in the traftic in secret I faults of an abrupt and narrow-minded 
 things, attendant on the mysteries, the j rejection of every strange impression, and 
 more remarkable, therefore, and pleasing 1 a too great facility in accepting them, 
 is an expression in an Alexandrian, which I these men, while they wislied to prove 
 shows, that he recognised the character j the excellence of their religion to Greeks 
 
 of simplicity and publicity in Judaism, 
 and opposed it to the hatred of tlie light, 
 incident to the mysteries.* ""All myste- 
 
 of education, and especially of a philoso- 
 phical education, on their own ground, 
 might also easily have been led to intro- 
 
 rics, all such pomp and such tricks Moses j duce into tlieir Old Holy Scriptures some 
 
 removed far from the sacced lawgiving, 
 because he did not desire that those who 
 were educated in such a religion, suffer- 
 ing themselves to be blinded by myste- 
 rious matters, should neglect the truth, 
 nor follow what belongs to the night and 
 
 notions foreign to them, and to forget the 
 peculiar, practical spirit of those writings, 
 which diller so decidedly from all other 
 religious and philosophical dispensations. 
 This, at least, happened ; they wished to 
 prove to the Greeks, that their Holy 
 
 darkness, neglecting that which is worthy j Scriptures harmonized with the spirit of 
 of the light and of the day. None also the Platonic philosophy, by which they 
 of those who know Moses, and reckon | themselves were governed, and that they 
 themselves among his disciples, allow j were the richest source of all philoso- 
 themselves to be initiated into such I phical notions. They were, therefore, 
 mysteries nor initiate others ; for either I obliged, although it was decidedly not 
 to learn or to teach these mysteries, is no | their intention, to do violence to the 
 slight crime ;| for ye initiated! wherefore, i Scriptures, in order to be able to find in 
 if these are honourable or useful things, 1 them something which was entirely 
 
 do ye shut yourselves up in deep dark- 
 ness, and do service to three or four only, 
 when you might benefit all mankind, if 
 you would communicate in the market- 
 places what might be of use to all, in or- 
 der that all might be able to take a part in 
 a better and a happier life r" 
 
 In order properly to judge of these 
 Alexandrians, we must pay due regard to 
 their relation to the various parties, with 
 which ihey had to contend. On the one 
 hand, they must defend their religion and 
 its documents, which they constantly re- 
 garded with reverence, against Jewish 
 and heathen scoffers. This apologetic 
 strife might induce them to penetrate 
 more deeply into the essence of their 
 religion, and the spirit of their Old Scrip- 
 tures, while they endeavoured to oppose 
 the prejudices of the heathen against 
 them. Hence they might become more 
 free in their own mode of thinking and 
 their own notions, from this very circum- 
 stance, that tliey were obliged to take up 
 a strange position, and from that position 
 endeavour to contemplate the ideas of 
 
 • De victimas OfTeront. p. 56. 
 
 ■f- This emphatic warning appears to indicate 
 that already many of the Jews might have allowed 
 themselves to be seduced by the pomp of the mys- 
 teries. [There is an able chapter on the mysticism 
 of the Alexandrian school in Hcinroth's work on 
 Mysticism.— H. J. R.] 
 
 foreign to their nature. This would soon 
 conduct them to a false Hermeneutic. 
 And they became still more enamoured 
 of the character of this false Hermeneutic, 
 while they were opposing anotlier and a 
 contrary false tendency of the theological 
 and religious mind among their country- 
 men, which certainly contributed much 
 to render the Jewish religion contemptible 
 in the eyes of the heathen. There were 
 men who fancied that they were to under- 
 stand, in a gross and sensual acceptation, 
 the things of the Spirit, which are re- 
 vealed under the covering of human lan- 
 guage, and hence degraded the spiritual 
 into the sensual; they lost themselves in 
 petty refinements about the letter of the 
 Holy Scriptures, which they might have 
 avoided, could they have perceived the 
 spirit in the letter; and while they did 
 not distinguish the anthropopalhical 
 images, in which Divine things were 
 brought down to man's understanding in 
 the childhood of human nature, (and, to 
 say the truth, in regard to the Divine 
 nature, we always remain, in this life, as 
 children, we can only conceive, think, 
 and speak as children,) from the ideas 
 which are enveloped in these images, 
 they fell into many misconceptions of 
 God, and of that which belongs to God, 
 which were some of them injurious in a 
 ) practical point of view. These are those 
 
32 
 
 DISPOSITION REQUIRED BY THE SCRIPTURE. 
 
 zealots, "so* conceited at their own 
 hair-splitting in the literal interpretation 
 of Scripture," whose sensual anthropo- 
 pathical representation of God and Divine 
 things, Philof so often combats. Op- 
 posing this sense-bound, literal mode of 
 interpretation, the Alexandrians declared 
 it the loftiest problem of interpretation, in 
 the letter to recognise the hidden spirit, 
 and to free it from this covering. In 
 order, however, said they, to be able to 
 perceive this spirit, we need a spiritual, 
 religious habit of mind, capable of under- 
 standing il, and akin to the Divine nature]]; 
 and the errors of those sensuous interpre- 
 ters of the Bible came from this very 
 cause, that they are without this habit of 
 mind, and are so utterly enthralled by 
 what is sensuous. It was certainly judi- 
 cious to call the attention of those sen- 
 suous-minded men, in the first instance, 
 to that which, within their own hearts, 
 opposed a right understanding of the 
 Holy Scriptures — for they might be im- 
 pelled by this means to turn themselves 
 to the Spirit, "which maketh free," 
 which alone was able to free their minds 
 from this veil. Philo was also well 
 aware, that without being enlightened 
 from a higher source, man can never 
 arrive at understanding that which is 
 Divine. He was far from the imagination, 
 that man could, by the employment of 
 his own powers, purify that part of his 
 nature which is akin to the Divine, and 
 by that means alone, acquire for himself 
 a knowledge of Divine things. " Every 
 movement of the spirit, (tending towards 
 God,") says he, (de Migrat. Abraham 414,) 
 " without divine grace, (aest; fisia? iiri(p^o- 
 erv>ri<;,) is pernicious, and it is better to re- 
 main here below, and wander about amidst 
 mortal life, like the rest of the human 
 race, than wishing to raise ourselves up 
 to heaven, to fall by pride." [p. 283, Ed. 
 Turneb.] Justly, indeed, does Philo re- 
 mark, that as man consists of spirit and 
 of sense, in regard to both of these, that 
 there are two kinds of that conceit which 
 thinks it can dispense with God — the 
 
 Of T«C pHTWC !r§-<^//«.T8WC trcpKTTM htM) T*C C?^Wf 
 
 iciiirrr-j.KOTi:. Dc Somniis, 580. 
 
 f See for instance, de Plantat. Noe, 219, where, 
 in spcakinc; of the representations such people 
 fonn to tlicmselvcs from their sensual mode of in- 
 terpretin.t? Scripture, he says, t^v uvSga-ri^cg^jv st/ 
 
 Ti KU i.vBgUsr'j'Txfji; TO stfT/SV iW^.-yOtTOIt W tlKTi^UHC 
 KU OcrlCTilTOi K'^MfiTll fXTyJMHV L^nm inBlTjUOTXTlt 
 
 ovru. fC^ufxitri. 
 
 ■^ By means of the vot^oi: mtufxtTUiov in us, we 
 can understand the vwrcv, Biav, which is enveloped 
 in the a.irBmiH, a-u^nuus of the Holy Scri^jturc. 
 
 idolatry of sensuality, and the idolatry of 
 reason that is left to itself, and gives 
 itself out as self-sufficing.* " Never must 
 we believe," says he, (de Somniis, 1111,) 
 " that man himself is in a condition to 
 purify his life, which is full of stains, 
 without God's grace." But, although it 
 cannot be denied that Philo points to 
 God as the source of enlightenment and 
 sanctification, yet it is also certain that he 
 directs our attention more to the necessity 
 of an illumination of the reason, than to 
 that of a complete practical change in the 
 heart; that he did not speak enough of 
 the nature of this practical change, and 
 did not enough show that all illumination 
 in Divine matters can and must proceed 
 only from practical grounds ; and tliis 
 deficiency is in exact harmony with that 
 exclusively prevalent contemplative spirit 
 of his in religion, of which we shall 
 shortly have occasion to speak. 
 
 Without that inward sense, indeed, en- 
 lightened through the Spirit of God, that 
 Avjiich is Divine in the holy Scripture 
 cannot be comprehended; but the en- 
 lightening by the Spirit of God by no 
 means excludes the use of those natural 
 and human means, which are requisite to 
 the understanding of any writings what- 
 ever, nor does it make them at all super- 
 fluous; but, on the contrary, it rather sets 
 them forth as necessary conditions, be- 
 cause the mind, enlightened by God's 
 Spirit, can then first rightly quicken and 
 conduct the use of these human means. 
 But to that carnal pride, which, with an 
 unenlightened mind, would think to have 
 eternal life in the bare letter of Scripture, 
 there was opposed another kind of pride, 
 which made little enough of the letter, 
 and which, by means of immediate illu- 
 minations, expected to be able universally 
 to understand the spirit of Scripture with- 
 out the use of natural and human means. 
 This sort of pride, despising most haughti- 
 ly the assistance and the rules of logical 
 and grammatical interpretation, was ne- 
 cessarily the source of much self-deceit, 
 and must have punished itself by itself. 
 Where, through simple remarks on the 
 logical connection of the context, and 
 through observance of the Hebrew-Greek 
 idiom, many difficulties in the translation 
 current at Alexandria, in which Philo read 
 the Old Testament, might have been very 
 easily removed, Philo overlooked the 
 simplest ways, and sought deep mysteries 
 
 * CI T8 TUI VOV BlUffUTd,! KXt TftlV oLKTfjuO-iiey, 0« //8V 
 
 ejtuviv, ci it ToujTitv 6e3»-A.aoTM/cr«. De Victim. Ofler 
 ib. 858. 
 
NEEDLESS DREAD OP ANTHROPOPATHISM. 
 
 in places where there was not the slight- 
 est trace of them.* And, therefore, as 
 these Alexandrians did not show proper 
 regard to the letter of the Scripture, as 
 they had no perception of the just rela- 
 tion of the spirit to the letter, tliey were 
 on that account more likely to run the risk, 
 instead of deducing the spirit of Scripture 
 from itself, of introducing into it a spirit 
 foreign to its nature, but one by wliich 
 tlicy were captivated, in consequence of 
 their peculiar philosophical habits of 
 mind. Instead of constantly keeping close 
 to the practical aim of the theocratic plan ; 
 instead of forming men to a God-devoted 
 life, of representing to them God as Crea- 
 tor, Governor, and Law-giver; and instead 
 of referring every thing in Scripture to 
 this, the highest aim of ihe Divine reve- 
 lations, they attributed to them, as their 
 highest purpose, one foreign to their na- 
 ture, and borrowed from the Platonic plii- 
 losophical religion : namely, to impart 
 general speculative ideas (t<x vorira.) to 
 those who were capable of receiving them. 
 They formed for themselves, in conse- 
 quence, an idealism in Judaism, similar to 
 that of the new Platonic school of reli- 
 gious philosophers in heathenism, except 
 that they thoroughly recognised the dif- 
 ference between the historical part of the 
 Old Testament and the myths of heathen- 
 ism. Still they considered the historical 
 part and the letter, only as a covering for 
 those general ideas, which it was the 
 loftiest purpose of the Divine revelations 
 to communicate to men of a spiritual turn ; 
 but yet they still altogether decided upon 
 the objective reality and truth of the his- 
 tory and the letter, and ascribed indeed to 
 both their use, as a means of moral and 
 religious improvement for those who were 
 unable to lift themselves up to that height 
 of speculation and contemplation. Only 
 in certain places, where they found things 
 which they could not make to square with 
 their religious philosophy, where they en- 
 tered into controversy with the sense- 
 bound interpreters of the Bible, (who, it 
 must be confessed, by taking even the 
 minutest matters literally, fell into many 
 very crude notions, as, for instance, in the 
 history of Paradise, and of the fall of man,) 
 they were unable to keep close to this 
 general principle, that the Spirit always 
 appeared clothed in a real body. Instead 
 
 • A remarkable instance of this occurs in his 
 treatise, Quis rcr. div. hxresl p. 492, (p. 3.34, Ed. 
 Turneb.) where the phrase i^i-yvit t^co etrikes 
 Philo, and he searches for a peculiar and profound 
 sense in the addition i^a>. 
 5 
 
 33 
 
 of acknowledging an objective fact of deej) 
 importiince for the development of the 
 whole nature of man, in the symbolical 
 language of the ancient traditions, they 
 saw only a general idea clothed in a mys- 
 tical dress. Here they considered tlie let- 
 ter of the narration only as a fable, en- 
 tirely devoid of all historical truth (to 
 f»)Toi' (jLv^uhi ia-n, according to Philo.) 
 And this they reconciled thus with their 
 principles : in order that spiritual men 
 should not be induced to hold entirely by 
 the bare letter, without searching for the 
 idea enveloped in the covering of the let- 
 ter, some means of exciting their attention 
 nmst be resorted to by scattering about a 
 few places, in which the letter gives no 
 reasonable sense (ra ay.a.n^a.'Ka. ta? y^*^*)?, 
 a.(po^jjLXi Ton Tv(p\on; rrjt Stxytoy). This 
 
 principle naturally admitted of a great 
 laxity and caprice in its application, and 
 might perliaps lead to this result, that 
 every one would allow only exactly so 
 much of the Scripture to hold good, as he 
 could comfortably reconcile with his own 
 subjective habits of thought, although 
 Philo was most undoubtedly very desirous 
 to keep up all respect for the holy Scri{>- 
 ture. But this is the manner in which a 
 speculative or contemplative pride pun- 
 ishes itself, which despises history and 
 the letter, while it fancies itself capable 
 of knowing every thing a priori. 
 
 Philo was perfectly right in combating 
 the sensuous anthropojmthism of those 
 Jewish rabbis ; but here, as it often hap- 
 pens, in avoiding one error, he fell into 
 another of an opposite character, by mis- 
 taking and overlooking the objective and 
 real truths, which were at the ground- 
 work of that anthropopat Ideal form, in 
 which they were delivered, — a form ne- 
 cessary, not only to the multitude, (rot; 
 TroAAoj?) but to man as man, who can only 
 contemplate the Divine under the analogy, 
 refined indeed and ennobled, but still the 
 analogy, of the human. 
 
 Philo suggests the enquiry : IIow can 
 Moses attribute to God, who is far above 
 all parties and changes, anger, zeal, and 
 other similar human things } and he an- 
 swers : Moses has Iiere, like a wise law- 
 giver, let himself down so as to meet the 
 wants of rude sense-led men, incapable 
 of tlie contemplation of pure tnith, who 
 must at first be restrained from evil by the 
 fear of punishment. " Let all such per- 
 sons, therefore," says he, " learn those 
 false things, by which they may be pro- 
 fited, if they are unable to be amended by 
 truth ; for the most approved physicians 
 
THE HUMANIZING AND THE NOT-HUMANIZING SYSTEM. 
 
 34 
 
 tlare not tell the truth to those who are 
 dangerously ill, because they know that 
 this will depress them, and the disease 
 will gain strength."* Philo here did not 
 remember, that the fear of punishment 
 can at most only restrain the open out- 
 break of vice, while the man remains un- 
 touched by that true inward sanctification 
 of the heart, which religion is meant to 
 impart. Like those heathen Platonizers, 
 he did not consider that the Old Testa- 
 ment notion of God's anger contains a 
 great truth represented in human language, 
 the truth of the reality of sin and guilt, 
 the objective opposition of evil and God's 
 holiness ; a truth to which the voice of 
 the conscience bears witness in the soul 
 of the philosopher, and of the man of 
 highly cultivated mind in a human sense, 
 as well as in the souls of the so-called 
 uncultivated multitude. In the conscience 
 of the philosopher, as well as in that of 
 the despised multitude, the anger of God 
 from heaven reveals itself on all unright- 
 eousness of men (of which every one can 
 find sufficient within himself,) who hold 
 the truth in ungodliness ; and therefore, 
 there existed between these Idealists, who 
 spiritualized every thing, and the Mate- 
 rialists, who understood every thing in a 
 sensuous manner, — or, to use Philo's 
 phrase, between the spiritual man and the 
 man of mere sense, — a controversy which 
 never could be decided, because each 
 stuck fast to his half-truth and to the er- 
 rors which he had mixed up with it. The 
 Idealists could not bear the representation 
 of God according to our sense. The 
 Materialists could not bear to dilute and 
 wash away, as mere anthropopathism, that 
 which there was of positive in their no- 
 lions, and which proved itself true in the 
 very deepest foundations of their moral 
 and religious conscience. 
 
 Philo, therefore, came to this, that he 
 opposed to each other two different 
 methods of considering God and Divine 
 matters, as taking their origin from two 
 different points of view, namely, the hu- 
 manizing, and not-humanizingi (or that 
 in which God is represented as a man, and 
 that in which he is not.) In the first, all 
 
 • Deum. immutab. p. 302, 303, (p. 204. ed. 
 Turneh.) 
 
 ■j" '¥.v fxiv, cTt ou^ J,c cvS^amc o ©esc, Irfpcv ii. In 
 if (;v6ga)T5f 1. c. p. 301. (p. 204, ed Turneb.) 
 Philo thought he found these two difierent methods 
 in Nuinb. xxiii. 19, compared with Deuteronomy 
 i. 31: the same dilTercnce which later Christian 
 mystics made between a Sahoyix CTrcp^riKH, and a 
 
 flKAiJ/** K-i.T»ip*TflUI. 
 
 liuman qualities are attributed to God, for 
 the advantage of those men who are to 
 be bettered, but are still incapable of pure 
 spiritual contemplation (tt^o? ttiv rm woAAwr 
 ^i^otjy.ccXiODi); in the other point of view, 
 that of pure truth, all positive ideas are 
 removed from the contemplation of God 
 for spiritual men, who are capable of 
 taking such a view. The being of God 
 only, apart from all qualities, here be- 
 comes conceived by means of an imme- 
 diate communion of the spirit with this 
 great Being, and by means of an intellec- 
 tual contemplation raised far above any 
 definite ideas.* 
 
 Philo, who explained himself (see 
 above) so clearly against the mysteries, 
 nevertheless brought himself here to dis- 
 tinguish two points of view in the know- 
 j ledge of religion from each other, the 
 ; esoteric and the exoteric. There we find 
 i an intellectual intuitionj" of God's being, 
 which raises itself above all syllogistic^ 
 thought, and above all positive, historical 
 revelation of God, but wliich is the first 
 thing that teaches us to recognise tlie in- 
 ward sense of Scripture, which is enve- 
 loped in the symbol of the letter ; an al- 
 legorical interpretation of Scripture, pro- 
 ceeding from this point of view; a love 
 of the Most High for himself alone, for 
 his overwhelming perfection, wliich can 
 dispense with all other sources of reli- 
 gious amendment. Here we see an 
 anthropopathical conception of God, as 
 the Most High represents himself to the 
 man of sense-led mind, by letting himself 
 down to this point of view ; an adherence 
 to the letter of Scripture, without being 
 able to penetrate into its inward spirit; a 
 carnal, literal interpretation of the Bible; 
 the hope of reward, and the fear of pun- 
 ishment, as springs of action and of life 
 to man.§ 
 
 These opinions, indeed, pushed to ex- 
 tremes, lead to this, that we are to con- 
 sider positive religion merely as a means 
 of instruction for the multitude, which 
 the wise man may easily dispense with, 
 and which has no meaning as addressed 
 to him. And they were, in fact, really 
 
 * OuJi/uit ra>v yfryonTotv iSit TigiSitKXcvTi to ov, 
 SiX\' exjfi.'ySitravTS; uuro, i tto Tri-o-m TrcKTinof -^txuv uvfv 
 yciejtx.ri:^i( Tuv uTTJ^^it K-Jc.r-jAxu&JnirB'*.!, thy kxtu. to 
 iivJU pav,T5t<ri*v /acvx evfefs^iVTc, y.h /w.^pKruvn; auto. 
 
 j- [An-ichauurig. See Translator's Preface to 
 the second part of this work. H. J. R ] 
 
 i [Difikursive. See Preface. H. .1. K.] 
 
 ^ According to Philo the knowlcdi^e of the cr 
 as Iv, the »</«t» xxt«a«4'> '''"' '>"'''f > '*'^'' ^^^^ know- 
 ledge of the CK also in the Atjo?, makes us uloi tm 
 «yTjf, and uiot tcu Aey^v. 
 
ULTRA IDEALISTS — THE SECT OF THERAPEUT^. 
 
 35 
 
 pushed to extremes by many at Alexan- 
 dria. '" The observance of outward wor- 
 ship," they said, "belongs to the multi- 
 tude; we, who know that all is only the 
 symbolic garb of spiritual truth, we have 
 all and quite sufiicient in the contemplation 
 of this truth, and need not to trouble our- 
 selves about the outward part of religion." 
 But the more moderate, like Philo, by 
 means of the pure feelings of humanity 
 within them, by their desire after religious 
 Cdininunion, and by their reverence for the 
 law of Moses, and the dealings of God 
 with their people, were held back from this 
 violent contrast to the religion of the peo- 
 ple. Philo says of those stricter and more 
 violent Idealists, " As if they lived for 
 themselves alone in the desert, or as if 
 they were souls without bodies, and knew 
 nothing of social intercourse, they de- 
 spise the faith of the multitude, and are 
 willing only to investigate pure truth, as 
 it is in itself, and yet the word of God 
 ought to teach them to strive after a good 
 name among the people, and not to violate 
 prevailing customs, which godly men, of 
 a higher grade than we are, have estab- 
 lished. As men must provide for the body, 
 which is the house of the soul, so also 
 must they for the observance of the letter 
 of the law. If we keep this, that also of 
 which the letter is the symbol becomes 
 clearer, and we escape, at the same time, 
 blame and reproaches from the people."* 
 It was natural enough, that this prevailing 
 contemplative telidency of the religioiis 
 spirit should at the same time introduce 
 in Egypt, (afterwards the native land of 
 the anchorite and monkish habits among 
 Christians,) the formation of thensophic 
 and ascetic societies, which withdrew 
 themselves from the world. Philo him- 
 self relates that, in order to collect him- 
 self within more still and undisturbed, he 
 had often withdrawn into the desert, but 
 that he had learned by experience, that 
 man does not become free from the world, 
 which he carries about within him, by an 
 outward withdrawal from it; nay, that 
 just exactly in outward Solitude, where 
 the lower powers of human nature are 
 unemployed, it has from that very cause 
 more power to distract and afflict him. 
 Let us hear his own words. (Leg. Allcgor. 
 B. II. p. 81, vol. i. Mangey's edition.) " I 
 often left relations, friends, and country, 
 and retired into the desert, that I might 
 raise myself to worthy contemplations; 
 but in this I did not succeed ; and, on the 
 
 contrary, my spirit either became distract- 
 ed, or it was wounded by some impure 
 impression. At times, however, in the 
 midst of thousands, I find myself alone, 
 while God represses the tumult of the soul, 
 and teaches me, that it is not the difference 
 of place which creates evil or good, but 
 that it depends on God, who leads the 
 ship of the soul whither he will." Philo 
 felt it necessary, as he considered the 
 union of the contemplative and of the 
 practical life the loftiest purpose of human 
 nature, to caution men against a partial 
 over-estimate of the contemplative.* He 
 was obliged even then to speak against 
 those who, either from laziness or vanity, 
 had retired into the life of ascetics and 
 hermits, and hid their inward baseness 
 under the appearance of holiness, like the 
 later Christian monks. (De Profugis, 455. 
 p. 309, ed. Turn.) " Truth may, indeed, 
 with justice blame those who leave the 
 occupations and trades of civil life with- 
 out having tried them in their own per- 
 sons, and then say, that they have despised 
 honour and pleasures. They pretend that 
 they despise the world, but they despise 
 it not. A slovenly appearance and a 
 crabbed look, a strict and sparing life, 
 they use as baits, as if, forsooth, they were 
 friends of strict manners and self-com- 
 mand ; but they are unable to deceive deep 
 observers, who can look at what is within, 
 and who do not suffer themselves to be de- 
 ceived by superficial appearances." Philo 
 wished that only those who had been 
 proved by active virtue in civil life, should 
 pass over to the contemplative, just as the 
 Levites were not allowed to leave the 
 active service of the Temple before their 
 fiftieth year. 
 
 One particular phenomenon, which re- 
 sulted from this theosophico-ascetic spirit 
 among the Alexandrian Jews, was the 
 sect of the Therapeut2e.| Their head- 
 
 * De Decalogo, p. 760. 
 
 ■j- [The reader will find a most elaborate discus- 
 sion on this subject (or rather on the Essenes in 
 general) by Salinasius, in his edition of Solini 
 Polyhir.tor, vol. i. p. 610; and in Calmct's Diet, 
 of the Bible, Art. Therapeutic. The head-quar- 
 ters of the Therapeutffi arc here placed near the 
 lake Mocri'5. The word in German is Moris-see, 
 which, as far as I can see from Mannert (Geogra- 
 phic dcr Griechen und Riimer,) can only be so 
 translated. From Brucker, Hist. Philosoph, vol. 
 ii, p. 780, and from the original passage in Philo 
 I de Vita Contem|)lativa, p. 892, (or in Mangey's 
 I Edit, vol. li. p. 784, and Turneb, p. 611,) I am 
 i inclined to believe lliat the spot was on the marshy 
 ' lake of Mareatis, which was close to Alexandria. — 
 
 De Migrat. Abrah, 402. 
 
 ' H. J. R.] 
 
36 
 
 CARNAL MIND OF THE JEWS AND CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 quarters were at no great distance from 1 
 Alexandria, in a quiet pleasant spot on 
 the shores of the Lake Moeris, where 
 they lived, like the anchorites in later pe- 
 riods, shut up in separate cells, (o-i/LivEfotj, 
 Ixo^xa-TvpiOK;^) and employed themselves in 
 nothing but prayer, and the contempla- 
 tion of Divine things. An allegorical in- 
 terpretation of Scripture was the founda- 
 tion of their speculations, and they had 
 old theosophical writings which gave them 
 this turn. They lived only on bread and 
 water, and accustomed themselves to fast- 
 ing. They only ate in the evening, and 
 many fasted for several days together. 
 They met together every Sabbath-day, 
 and every seven weeks they held a still 
 more solemn assembly, because the num- 
 ber seven was peculiarly holy in their es- 
 timation. They then celebrated a simple 
 love-feast, consisting of bread with salt 
 and hyssop: theosophical discussions were 
 lield, and the hymns, which they had from 
 their old traditions, were sung; and amidst 
 choral songs, mystical dances, bearing re- 
 ference to the wonderful works of God 
 with the fathers of their people, were 
 continued to a late hour in the night. 
 Many men of distinguished learning have 
 considered this sect as nothing but an 
 offset of the Essenes, trained under the 
 peculiar influence of the Egyptian spirit. 
 But there was no such connexion between 
 these two sects, that we should necessa- 
 rily conclude the one to have been out- 
 wardly derived from the other. We do 
 not knovv that the Essenes extended be- 
 yond Palestine, and the origin of the 
 Therapeutic sect may very fairly be de- 
 duced from the peculiar theosophico-as- 
 cetic disposition of the Egyptian Jews. 
 It has, however, been attempted to sup- 
 port this derivation of the one from the 
 other, from the sameness in the meaning 
 of their names, by deriving the Essenes 
 from the Chaldaic tDXi vhysician^ in re- 
 ference to the healing either of the body 
 or of the soul, or both ; and Pliilo him- 
 self deduces the name of the Therapeutte 
 from the Gs^awaa td? ^J'l'x^5?. although cer- 
 tainly the other derivation, which Philo 
 gives, is more consonant to the Alexan- 
 drian theosophic idiom, namely, from 
 fis^aweta tow ©so-j. the truz Spiritual wor- 
 ship of God^ making them thus, fisgawif- 
 Ta» Tof Qtov — TOW o»To? : the worshippers 
 of God, xar' i^ox,*!*-, nien who dedicate 
 their whole lives to the worship of God 
 in the spirit, and to the contemplation of 
 God.* What Philo says, that the sect of 
 * We frequently find in Philo expressiomi of 
 
 Therapeutae had spread much among the 
 Hellenes and the Barbarians, is well 
 worthy of remark, not as if the members 
 of this particular sect of Therapeuta; had 
 been thus dispersed, but as if that general 
 theosophical and ascetic disposition, from 
 which theTherapeutaj derived their origin, 
 had many supporters among the Jews in 
 other districts, ftlany of the seven Jew- 
 ish sects, whose names only remain to 
 us, may have derived their origin from 
 this very disposition. 
 
 If, from this representation of the reli- 
 gious tendencies of the Jews, we attempt 
 to deduce the result which they would 
 give, as to the reception of Christianity, 
 we shall immediately observe, that with 
 the greater part of the Jewish people, the 
 most serious obstacles to their capability 
 of receiving the Gospel, arose from their 
 carnal disposition, which was anxious to 
 use the heavenly as a means of obtaining 
 the earthly, from the want of an heartfelt 
 thirst for moral and religious things, and 
 from their reliance on tiieir unalienable 
 birth-right, as the children of Abraham 
 according to the flesh, and on the merits 
 and sanctifying power of their ceremonial 
 law. It might easily happen, that where 
 men of this cast, moved by some momen- 
 tary impressions, embraced Christianity, 
 they should err again in their faith, and 
 fall away again from Christianity, because 
 they did not find their carnal expectations 
 instantly realised, and because, with their 
 carnal hearts, they were unable to receive 
 the witness of the Spirit for Jesus, as the 
 Messiah. And, even if they remained 
 outwardly Christians, they were never 
 taken by the true spirit of the Gospel; 
 they conceived Christianity itself in a 
 carnal manner, mixing it up with all their 
 Jewish imaginations, and they made 
 merely a new sort of opus operalum of 
 faith in Christ, without its having any in- 
 fluence on their inward life. These were 
 men who, as Justin Martyr says, in his 
 Dialogue with Trypho, deceived them- 
 selves, by supposing that, even though 
 they were sinnprs, yet if they merely ac- 
 knowledged God,* the Lord would not 
 
 this sort, which arc synonymous — Tiiio( ^ifixvairouv, 
 yivo; iKiTixcv, ry&oc op-JLTlnov, o i^^cuiK — Jvw isgav toy 
 ee;i'. — De Victijn. Offerentib. 854. "Jkstsu x.m Bi^st- 
 TTwrat Tou oyTO!; iym. — De Monarchia, 816. 'Av- 
 
 — Dc Decalogo, 7C0. — Ol ncKK-i x^V^ <ppxo-svTK 
 TAK dKX^K ■Tre-xyuiTilMi, c,Ttt.\i ty£ia-ity rev fiiov 6sga- 
 3-6.* eiyj. — Lib. iii. dc Vita Mosis, 681. To fis^a- 
 TrarMcv auTcu (t«/ ©kw) y&o;. 
 
 * ISome such pretended acknowledgment of God, 
 as that against wliich St. John contends in bis 
 first Epistle. 
 
SADDUCEEISM PHARISAISM ESSENISM. 
 
 37 
 
 impute their sins to them, the hypocrites 
 ajrainst whom St. Paul often speaks, and 
 the mere professors of Christianity, such 
 as we find in the churches to which St. 
 James wrote. It was from this cause 
 that, as Justin Martyr (Apol. II. p. 88, or 
 Apol. I. § 68. ed. Grabe,) says, Chris- 
 tianity found more and more faithful con- 
 verts (irXtio»«j x«» (x\n^taTt(;ov; X^Krrmt,- 
 »ov{) among the multitude of the heathens, 
 who had less grounds for religious trust, 
 and with whom Christianity must have 
 utterly contradicted all their then notions 
 of religion, than it did among the multi- 
 tude of the Jews. There were, however, 
 as the Gospel history tells us, many up- 
 right men, many who, although they ex- 
 pected in the Messiah the founder of a 
 visible kingdom which should appear with 
 outward tokens, yet had a purely spiritual 
 notion of the happiness of this kingdom, 
 and thought its happiness would consist 
 in an inward communion with God, and 
 the universal dominion of good ; men who 
 acknowledged, that a general purification 
 and the healing of moral evil must pre- 
 cede the foundation of this kingdom, and 
 they expected these effects from the Mes- 
 siah. Such hearts might in Jesus recog- 
 nise that Son of God, whom they longed 
 for, and once given up to Him, might be 
 made free by the influence of his Spirit. 
 And those also, in whom a carnal mind 
 prevailed, and yet not to the utter extinc- 
 tion of all capability of higher impres- 
 sions, those in whom hitherto there had 
 only been wanting the means of awaken- 
 ing moral and religious desires, might be 
 led to the Son by the hand of the Father, 
 when they had once seen before them the 
 visible coming of the Son of God and had 
 heard his voice, or even if He spoke to 
 them by the preaching of the Gospel 
 without their seeing Him ; and thus, as 
 they received the Son without prejudices, 
 their whole habits of thought and their 
 heart might then be spiritualised. 
 
 When we estimate the effects of the 
 different habits of thought among the Jew- 
 ish theologians, we find that the Gospel 
 could not find any point of union with a 
 system like Sadduceeism, a cold system, 
 which, sliut up within itself, extinguished 
 all desires of a more lofty nature. The Gos- 
 pel might, indeed, work its way to man, 
 even through the covering of Sadduceeism, 
 just as elsewhere ; but then the conversion 
 must have been one wliich his previous 
 habits had no share in preparing, and, on 
 that account, since no point of union, no 
 point of transition appears between the two 
 
 systems, we cannot think of any mixture 
 of Sadducee and Christian notions. If it 
 be suggested tliat such a mixture may have 
 taken place in certain opponents of the 
 doctrine of the resurrection in the apos- 
 tolic age, we must say that this has been 
 supposed without sufficient reason, be- 
 cause the appearance which it attempts to 
 account for may be deduced from totally 
 different grounds.* 
 
 With the Pharisees, in general, the ob- 
 stacles to an acceptance of the Gospel, 
 were their pride, their belief in their own 
 righteousness, and their want of sincerity. 
 We must here accurately distinguish be- 
 tween the two classes of Pharisees which 
 we remarked above. To those who, al- 
 though they deceived themselves, did 
 really strive, in some sense, truly after 
 holiness, at length some light of the Spirit 
 might make plain the nothingness of those 
 means, by which they sought to attain it, 
 the covering of their inward corruption 
 might disappear before the power of truth, 
 and their desire after holiness might now 
 become a road to lead them to Christianity. 
 The painful struggle, which St. Paul de- 
 scribes, from his own experience, in the 
 seventh chapter of the Episde to the Ro- 
 mans, might be gone through by them, 
 and bring them into a stedfast quietness 
 of belief. But those Pharisees, who came 
 over to Christianity without any such ex- 
 citement of the inward man, might fall 
 into the temptation of melting down and 
 uniting their former Pharisaic notions with 
 Christianity, and not recognise Jesus as 
 their Redeemer, in the full sense of the 
 term, because they still trusted in their 
 righteousness of works. 
 
 Among the Essenes and other similar 
 mystics, the striving after inward religion 
 might lead them to Christianity, but yet 
 in their contemplative life they would, 
 perhaps, take the appearance for the 
 reality, and think they had more than 
 they really had ; moving round and round 
 in one narrow circle of ideas and feelings, 
 they were likely to mistake the true busi- 
 ness and the true wants of their nature, 
 and to reject all which did not suit that 
 narrow circle, or which threatened to take 
 them out of it. To become poor in spirit 
 was often for men like these the hardest 
 trial, for it compelled them to renounce 
 the belief they cherished of their own in- 
 tellectual and spiritual perfection. They 
 
 • The intermixture of certain philosophic or 
 theosophic notions of the Jews or Greeks witli the 
 Gospel. 
 
 D 
 
ALEXANDRIAN GNOSIS AND CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 38 
 
 were the less able to determine on re- 
 nouncing their outward demeanour and 
 observances, because these were closely 
 connected with their whole mystical re- 
 ligious system ; and men of such sects, 
 although their inward religious feelings 
 might be attracted by Christianity, would 
 find it hard to practise such self-denial as 
 utterly to renounce the whole of their 
 former notions, and entirely give them- 
 selves up to the new birth under the Gos- 
 pel. A kind of mixture of their earlier 
 theosophy with the simple truths of 
 Christianity might easily take its rise 
 among them ; and be the source of many 
 sects which adulterated Christianity, the 
 seeds of which we see already alluded to 
 in the Epistle of St. Paul to the Colos- 
 sians, and in the Pastoral Epistles. 
 
 Among the Alexandrian Jews the re- 
 ception of the Gospel was not hindered 
 by the political and temporal expectation 
 of the Messiah, nor by many other pre- 
 judices which prevailed among the other 
 Jews. We must not, however, imme- 
 diately conclude that these Alexandrian 
 Jews were free from all the common 
 Jewish expectations, however much these 
 expectations were spiritualized by them. 
 Even Philo believed that the Temple of 
 Jerusalem, and the temple worship, were 
 destined to remain for ever.* Even Philo 
 believed, that had the Jews once turned 
 to God in any signal manner, they would 
 have been at once, by a miracle from 
 heaven, brought back from all the people 
 among whom they had been scattered 
 and prisoners, and that tlien, in virtue of 
 their piety, which would command re- 
 verence, they would remain unattacked 
 by their enemies or victorious over them, 
 and that a golden age would come forth 
 from Jerusalem. The spiritual tendency 
 of their religious feelings might here make 
 men more capable of accepting Christian- 
 ity, and Christianity might engraft itself 
 on their attempts to oppose the carnal and 
 literal interpretation of the Bible, and to pe- 
 netrate its inward sense and spirit. Chris- 
 tianity might announce itself as Gnosis, 
 which had first unfolded the true spirit of 
 the Old Testament. Christianity showed 
 that the golden age which tlie Alexandrian 
 Jews expected, had already appeared 
 in spirit, and being prepared in spirit, 
 Avould at some time or other appear also 
 openly to their view. The letter of an 
 Alexandrian Jew, converted to Christian- 
 ity, which has been ascribed to Barnabas, 
 
 gives us an instance, how the religious 
 notions of Alexandria might become a 
 point of communication and prove a means 
 of conversion to Christianity. There were 
 in these notions many other religious ideas, 
 which would be realized by Christianity. 
 But just as the religious idealism of the 
 Alexandrian school might be attracted by 
 that which is ideal in Christianity, so also 
 on the other hand, the diminution of the 
 realistic principle in their religion might 
 hinder the reception of the Gospel. They 
 had no expectation* of a personal Messiah, 
 which had disappeared even among many 
 other Jews, who had received an Hellen- 
 istic education, like Josephus, and there 
 was wanting, therefore, an essential ground 
 for Christianity to fasten on. With those 
 of the Alexandrian school, as with those 
 mystics, it might happen, that in their 
 proud religious philosophy they shut 
 themselves up against all new religious 
 impressions, and by their partial, contem- 
 plative, and speculative disposition of the 
 heart and spirit, deceiving themselves 
 about the true condition and the real wants 
 of their nature, they tried to become poor 
 in spirit. It might, therefore, happen that 
 although men of this cast were attracted 
 by what Christianity offers of an ideal 
 kind, they could not conquer themselves 
 so as to become simple and single-hearted 
 through Christianity and in Christianity. 
 They wished to melt down their religious 
 philosophy and amalgamate it with Chris- 
 tianity ; they wished, even in Christianity, 
 to keep their own superiority, and to in- 
 troduce into the Christian Church the dis- 
 tinction between an esoteric and exoteric 
 religion, against which the very essence 
 of the Gospel, uniting all men through the 
 communion of a higher life, entirely pro- 
 tests, — a distinction which afterwards be- 
 came the source of so many errors. Thus 
 in the spiritual and idealistic, as well as in 
 the carnal and realistic, spirit of this age, 
 we cannot but observe many obstacles to 
 Christianity, and many grounds for it to 
 work upon, and also many causes which 
 threatened to adulterate its purity by the 
 admixture of sti'anger elements. 
 
 Among the wonderful dealings of God, 
 by which the coming of Christianity was 
 prepared, must be placed the spreading 
 of the Jews among the Greeks and Ro- 
 mans. Those among them who belonged 
 to the Pharisees gave themselves much 
 
 De Monarchia, 822, 
 
 * We are" not, however, justified in concluding 
 that all the Jews of the Alexandrian school thought 
 I with Philo on this subject. 
 
PROSELYTES OF THE GATE. 
 
 trouble to obtain proselytes •, and the loss 
 of respect for the old popular religion, and 
 the unsatisfied religious wants of multi- 
 tudes, furtliered tlieir views. Reverence 
 for the national God of the Jews, as a 
 mighty Being, and reverence for the secret 
 sanctuary of the splendid Temple of Jeru- 
 salem, had long gained admittance among 
 the heathen. Jewish GoetcC (enchanters, 
 jugglers, Stc.,) permitted themselves to 
 make use of a thousand acts of delusion, 
 in which they were very skilful, to make 
 an impression of astonishment on the 
 minds of those around them. Confidence 
 in Judaism had in consequence made such 
 wide progress, especially in large capital 
 towns, that the Roman writers in the time 
 of the first emperors openly complain of 
 it, and Seneca in his book upon supersti- 
 tion, said of the Jews — " The conquered 
 have given laws to the conquerors."* 
 The Jewish proselyte-makers, blind lead- 
 ers of the blind, who had themselves no 
 conception of the real nature of religion, 
 could give to others no insight into it. 
 They often allowed their converts to take 
 up a kind of dead monotheism, and merely 
 exchange one kind of superstition for an- 
 other ; they taught them, that by the mere 
 outward worship of one God, and out- 
 ward ceremonials, they were sure of the 
 grace of God, without requiring any 
 change of life, and they gave to them 
 only new means of silencing their con- 
 science, and new support in the sins 
 which they were unwilling to renounce ; 
 and hence our Saviour reproached these 
 proselyte-makers, that they made their 
 converts ten times more the children of 
 iiell, than they themselves Avere. But 
 we must here accurately distinguish be- 
 tween the two classes of proselytes. The 
 proselytes in the strict sense of the word, 
 the proselytes of righteousness, who un- 
 derwent circumcision and took upon 
 themselves the whole of the ceremonial 
 law, were very different from the prose- 
 lytes of the gate, who only bound them- 
 selves to renounce idolatry, to the Avor- 
 ship of the one God, and to abstinence 
 from all heathenish excess, as well as 
 from every thing which appeared to have 
 any connexion with idolatry .| The for- 
 
 • Victoribus victi leges dederunt. 
 
 ■}■ The so-called seven precepts of Noah. [Some 
 remarks on the precepts of Noah will be found in 
 Dr. Lardner's Remarks on Dr. Ward's Disserta- 
 tions. Dr. Lardner contends that there Was only 
 one kind of Proselytes. Lardner's Works, in 4to, 
 vol. V. H.J. R.] 
 
 39 
 
 mer often embraced all the fanaticism and 
 superstition of the Jews, and allowed 
 themselves to bo blindly led by their 
 Jewish teachers. The more difficult it 
 had been to them, to subject themselves 
 to the obserA'ance of the Jewish cere- 
 monial law, necessarily so irksome to a 
 Greek or a Roman, the less could they 
 find it in their hearts to believe, that all 
 this had been in vain, that they had ob- 
 tained no advantage by it, and that they 
 must renounce their presumed holiness. 
 What Justin Martyr says to the Jews, 
 Dial, cum Tryph. 350, holds good of 
 these proselytes : " The proselytes not 
 only do not believe, but they calumniate 
 the name of Christ twice as much as you, 
 and they wish to murder and torture us 
 who believe on Him, because they are de- 
 sirous to resemble you in every thing." 
 The proselytes of the gate, on the con- 
 trary, had taken many of the most admi- 
 rable truths out of Judaism, Avithout be- 
 coming entirely Jews, they had become 
 acquainted with the Holy Scriptures of 
 the Jews, they had heard of the promised 
 messenger from God, of the king armed 
 Avith power from God, of whom a report 
 had been spread, as Suetonius says in the 
 life of Vespasian, c. iv., over the Avhole of 
 the East. Much of that which they had 
 heard from their JcAvish teachers, Avhose 
 writings they had read, had remained dark 
 to them, and they Avere still to seek in 
 them. By the notions Avhich they had 
 received from the Jcavs, of one God, of 
 the Divine government of the Avorld, of 
 God's judgment, and of the Messiah, they 
 Avere more prepared for tlie Gospel than 
 other heathens, and because they still 
 thought that they had too little, because 
 they had no determined religious system, 
 and Avere curious after more insti-uction 
 in Divine things, and because they had 
 not received many of the prejudices Avhich 
 SAvayed the JeAvs ; they Avere more fitted 
 to receive the Gospel than many of the 
 JcAVS. From the very beginning they must 
 have been attentive to the preaching of the 
 Gospel, Avhich secured to them, Avithout 
 making them Jews, a full share in the 
 fulfilment of those promises, of Avhich the 
 Jews had spoken to them. To these 
 proselytes of the gale, (the (pcBoviJuvoi rot 
 ©«o>, the E^ai/3£tf of the New Testament,) 
 passed, therefore, according to the Acts, 
 the preaching of the Gospel, when it had 
 been rejected by the blinded Jews ; and 
 here the seed of the Divine Avord found a 
 fitting soil in hearts desirous of holiness. 
 There were, hoAvever, doubtless, among 
 
40 
 
 THE PROPAGATION OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 tlie proselytes of the gate, some who, 
 wanting in proper earnestness in their 
 search after religious truth, only desired, 
 in every case, an easy road to heaven, 
 which did not require any self-denial; 
 and who, in order to be sure of being on 
 
 the safe side, whether power and truth lay 
 with the Jews or the heathens, sometimes 
 worshipped in the synagogue of Jehovah, 
 sometimes in the temples of the gods, and 
 who, therefore, fluttered in suspense be- 
 tween Judaism and heathenism.* 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF CHRISTIANITY WITH REGARD TO THE UNBELIEVING WORLD. 
 
 I. Propagation of Christianity. 
 
 II. Jl general view of the Propagation of Christianity, of the ohstarles which opposed it, 
 
 and of the means and causes by which it was furthered. 
 
 Christiaxity, being in its nature only 
 a spiritual religion and only the establish- 
 ment of a kingdom which is not of this 
 world, is by no means necessarily de- 
 pendent on any outward worldly circum- 
 stances. It can, therefore, find equally 
 free access to men living under institu- 
 tions and notions the most widely differ- 
 ent, and incorporate itself with them, 
 provided they contain nothing which is 
 immoral. This peculiar character of 
 Christianity must always render its pro- 
 pagation more easy wherever, as in its 
 earlier days, the preachers of the Gospel, 
 well aware of its spiritual nature, abstain 
 from intermeddling in the affairs of this 
 world. That Christianity is calculated to 
 enter in all earthly forms of life and rela- 
 tions, and yet raise man by its spiritual 
 influence above the affairs in which he is 
 engaged, is expressly stated by a Christian* 
 of the early part of the second century, 
 when speaking of the life of his fellow 
 Christians. *•' The Christians," says he, 
 "are not separated from other men, either 
 in their earthly abode, nor by language, 
 nor customs ; they never inhabit separate 
 towns, they use no peculiar speech, no 
 singular mode of life. — They dwell in the 
 towns of Greeks, or of Barbarians, just as 
 chance has assigned their abode, and in- 
 asmuch as they follow the customs of the 
 country with regard to raiment, food, and 
 other such matters, they show a temper 
 and conduct M'hich is wonderful and re- 
 markable to all men. They obey the ex- 
 isting laws, nay, they triumph over the 
 laws by their own conduct." But as 
 Christianity incorporates itself with every 
 thing that is pure in human nature, so 
 must it, on the contrary, struggle most 
 
 decidedly with all that is ungodly in 
 mankind, and with all that has any con- 
 nexion and relation to ungodliness. Chris- 
 tianity declared itself as a power which 
 should work a reformation in man, and 
 form his character anew, Avhile the world 
 endeavoured to maintain its old ungodly 
 ways. The old man struggled every 
 where against the new creation, and to 
 this did the saying of Christ relate : ''• I 
 came not to send peace upon the world, 
 but a sword," the sword of the Spirit ; 
 and history has fully verified this pro- 
 phecy in the workings of Christianity 
 among mankind. Christianity, from its 
 very beginning, was opposed on many 
 points to the prevailing opinions, as well 
 as to many of the ruling customs and in- 
 clinations, which the spirit of a holy reli- 
 gion could not tolerate. Besides this, the 
 Pagan state-religion was so closely inter- 
 woven with civil and social life, that 
 whatever attacked the state-religion must 
 necessarily come into hostile contact with 
 the different relations of civil and social 
 life. This struggle might indeed have 
 been partially avoided, had the early 
 Church, like the Churches of later days, 
 been inclined to humour the world, had 
 they at least accommodated themselves to 
 the prevailing manners, even when op- 
 })osed to Christianity, merely to obtain 
 more followers. But the first Christians 
 were far more inclined to a haughty abo- 
 mination of every thing heathen, and even 
 
 * The author of the letter to Diognetua. 
 
 * Such were the persons painted by Commo- 
 1 dianus in his Instructiones, the inter utrumque 
 
 viventcs. 
 I Iiiler utrumque putans dubie vivendo ravere 
 
 Nudntus a lege decrepitus hixu proccdis? 
 
 Quid in synagogo decurris ad Pharisffios, 
 
 lU tibi misericors fiat, quern dcnegas ultro? 
 
 Exis inde foris , iterum tu fana requiris. 
 
RELIGION OP THE SPIRIT. 
 
 41 
 
 of that which had merely an apparent 
 connexion wilh Paganism, than to any 
 thing like a lax accommodation; and cer- 
 tainly, for the preservation of the purity, 
 both of Christian life and doctrines, any 
 excess on this side was far safer than on 
 the other. The religion, then, which had 
 to combat such deep-rooted notions and 
 manners, which threatened to shake to 
 pieces that which was fast and firmly es- 
 tablished by its antiquity, — this religion, 
 I say, came from a people, despised for 
 the most part by the civilized world ; it 
 found, at first, its readiest acceptance 
 among the lower classes -, and this was 
 of itself a sufficient reason to the Romans 
 and the Greeks, proud as they were of 
 their superior cultivation, to look down 
 with contempt upon it. They recognised 
 as yet nothing but the superstition of 
 THE PEOPLE, and the religion of the 
 PHILOSOPHER. How could, then, man 
 have hoped, in those days, to learn more 
 in the market-places than in the schools 
 of the philosophers ? Celsus,* the first 
 writer against Christianity, makes it a 
 matter of mockery, that labourers, shoe- 
 makers, farmers, the most uninformed and 
 clownish of men, should be zealous 
 preachers of the Gospel, and that they 
 (especially the first) chiefly addressed 
 themselves to women and children. Of 
 a religion for all mankind, these persons, 
 proud of their own civilization, who would 
 have nothing in common with the mass 
 of the people, had no conception what- 
 ever. It was their constant reproach 
 against Christianity, that it required only 
 a blind belief (wkttjv t^Xoyot ;) they de- 
 manded philosophical grounds for what 
 was said. 
 
 It may, perhaps, be urged, that the old 
 popular religions had been already once 
 shaken by the assault of unbelief and had 
 now lost all their authority. There is 
 some truth in this ; but on the other 
 hand, we must consider well that men 
 liad betaken themselves, Avith a renewed 
 fanaticism, to their old religions, and 
 hence arose the bloody combat for their 
 maintenance. The cruel rage of the po- 
 pulace against the Christians, bespeaks 
 decidedly a religious character among the 
 people •, and probably superstition, called 
 forth bv the opposition of scepticism, now 
 more than ever ruled tlie people, and 
 .some portion of the educated world. 
 With regard to the greater part ot persons 
 in those days under the influence of super- 
 
 stition, Plutarch justly makes use of the 
 saying of Heraclitus about the dreamers 
 of the night, — " They found themselves 
 awake in open day, in a world of their 
 own :" a world which was closed to all 
 beams of reason and truth. Men of car- 
 nal minds, who wished to see their gods 
 with their own eyes, who had been ac- 
 customed to carry about with them their 
 gods, either in signets or in little images, 
 to which they generally attributed the 
 power of amulets , how often did men of 
 this stamp cry out to tlie Christians, 
 " Show us your God !" and to men like 
 this a spiritual religion, which brought 
 with it no worship, no temples, no vic- 
 tims, no images, and no altars, appeared 
 so bare and cold, that the heathen often 
 made it a matter of bitter reproach. 
 
 There was, however, as we have above 
 remarked, a spirit of inquiry, and of long- 
 ing after new communications of heaven, 
 shed abroad in this century ; with all the 
 obstinate clinging to the old religion, there 
 were yet maniibld capacities at Jiand for 
 new religious impressions. But this long- 
 ing, which hardly well acquainted with 
 its own objects and aim, was only led by 
 the blind impulse of feeling, might easily 
 be deceived, and easily be the occasion of 
 every kind of delusion. Celsus, indeed, 
 already imagined that he could illustrate 
 the rapid propagation of Christianity from 
 the fact, that in this time so many en- 
 chanters, (Goeten, Greek TorTat,) who 
 endeavoured to deceive by the exhibition 
 of supernatural powers, found a ready 
 belief among many, and for the moment 
 excited a great sensation, which of course 
 soon subsided again. There was, how- 
 ever, as Origen justly represented in reply 
 to Celsus, a great difl^erence in tlie man- 
 ner which those persons used, from that 
 made use of by the preachers of the Gos- 
 pel. Those deceivers flattered the sinful 
 inclinations of men, and forming, them- 
 selves upon their then habits of thinking, 
 they required no sacrifices from their fol- 
 lowers of any thing dear to them. On 
 the contrary, he who, in the earlier ages, 
 would become a Cliristian, must tear him- 
 self away from many of his darling pas- 
 sions, and be ready to sacrifice every thing 
 for his faith. TertuUian* says, that more 
 persons were deterred from embracing 
 Christianity from fear of losing their plea- 
 sures, than from the danger with which 
 their life was threatened. The influence 
 which such enchanters exerted on the 
 
 In Origen, c. Cels. III. 149. 
 6 
 
 De Spectaculis, c. 2. 
 
 d2 
 
42 
 
 HEALING THE POSSESSED IMPOSTURES. 
 
 people, was a new hindrance to the ope- 
 ration of Christianity. It was obliged 
 now to reach the hearts and spirits of 
 men, tliroiigh the delusions with which 
 these iniposters had invested the con- 
 science of man ; the examples of a Simon 
 Magus, and Elynias, an Alexander of 
 Abonoteichos, show us how this sort of 
 men opposed the reception of Christian- 
 ity. Visible miracles were needed to de- 
 tach persons from the influence of such 
 deceptions, to arrest their attention, and 
 to make them capable of higher impres- 
 sions. The examples from the Acts, (ch. 
 viii.) of the manner in which the disciples 
 of Simon Magus were withdrawn from 
 him, and from ch. xiii., of the way in 
 which the conversion of Sergius Paulus 
 was prepared ; so many proofs from the 
 Acts, of the means by which the attention 
 of the superstitious multitude was attract- 
 ed to the preachers of the Gospel, prove 
 clearly, that the miracles efiected what 
 the inward power of the Holy Word, for 
 Avhich these miracles first paved the way 
 to men's hearts, never could have effect- 
 ed — or at least, not so quickly, without 
 the aid of these miracles. Through these 
 signs and tokens, for a time, the Spirit 
 of God supported the preaching of the 
 Gospel, and many thus were conducted 
 through outward things to inward things, 
 and through the Corporeal to the Spirit- 
 ual. The Fathers often appeal to such 
 appearances in the language of truth, and 
 even before heathens themselves ; and 
 even he who discriminates the fact from 
 tlie views with which it is brought for- 
 ward, must nevertheless recognise its 
 existence and its influence on the con- 
 sciences of men. It is, therefore, unde- 
 niable, that the spreading of the Gospel 
 was furthered by such means. Let us re- 
 present to ourselves some of these cir- 
 cumstances, in lively connection with the 
 nature and circumstances of those times. 
 A Christian meets with an unhappy man, 
 blindly possessed by the superstitions of 
 lieathenism, who, being sick in body and 
 mind, has in vain hoped to obtain a cure, 
 both in the temple of ^sculapius, where 
 so many expected a cure by means of 
 dreams sent by the god of health,* and 
 from the multifarious incantations and 
 amulets of the heathen priests and dealers 
 in enchantment. The Christian exhorts 
 him no longer to seek for help from fee- 
 ble and dead gods ; (or, according to the 
 then prevalent opinion of Christians, at 
 
 • See the Orations of Aristides. 
 
 the hands of evil spirits ;) but to turn to 
 the Almighty God, and to trust in Him, 
 who alone can help. He hears those 
 who pray to Him in the name of Him by 
 whom He has redeemed the world from 
 sin. The Christian introduces no magic 
 formulae, no amulets ; but, calling on God 
 through Christ, he lays his hand on the 
 head of the sick man, in firm and faithful 
 reliance on his Saviour. The sick man 
 is healed, and the cure of his body leads 
 to that of his soul. There were besides, 
 in these times of ferment, when the bonds 
 of spiritual and moral life were torn in 
 sunder, a multitude of persons, sick in 
 body and in mind, who found their in- 
 ward spirits utterly convulsed — persons 
 who felt themselves seized by a strange 
 power, to which their wills were subject- 
 ed, and blindly impelled hither and thither, 
 they were agitated by an anxiety of which 
 they could give no just account. All the 
 powers, therefore, of darkness and de- 
 struction would bestir themselves, where 
 the power of healing godliness ought to 
 enter, and distraction in man's nature, with 
 all its terrible consequences, would na- 
 turally there ensue, and rise to the highest 
 pitch, where in man's nature, the peace 
 of heaven, which brings all things into 
 harmony, ought to be revealed. The un- 
 happy man believed himself possessed by 
 evil spirits, and it was then the usually 
 received opinion, that they were the cause 
 of such convulsions. There were many 
 among the heathens and Jews, who 
 pretended, through the means of incense, 
 annointings, simples, amulets, and invo- 
 cations of the evil spirits, in enigmatical 
 and high-sounding forms of words, to 
 be able to exorcise them. Sometimes 
 such means as had a natural efficacy in 
 healing, sometimes such as, through 
 power over the imagination, which has 
 such influence in these cases, cured the 
 patient of his fancy for the moment, or 
 repressed it by promises for the future. 
 In every case these people only did in- 
 jury, while they strengthened men in 
 their superstition, and in their whole 
 course of ungodly existence ; while they 
 fought against the kingdom of lies only 
 by the power of lies, and drove out one 
 evil spirit by another. Their imposture 
 was unable to touch the inward source 
 of evil, which lay deeper, and by which 
 alone any real cure could be eflected. 
 Our Saviour said of such cases : — " How 
 shall one go into a strong man's house 
 and rob him of his goods, unless he first 
 bind the strong man, and then rob his 
 
FACTS FROM THE FATHERS. 
 
 43 
 
 house ?"* How much credit such exor- 
 cists then obtained, we may judge from 
 the tlianks which Marcus Aurelius ofiers 
 uj) to the gods, because he had been 
 taught by a philosopher not to trust those 
 tales of incantations and exorcisms which 
 were related of miracle workers and 
 Gcetaj-t An unhappy man of this kind, 
 after seeking help in vain at the hands 
 of these impostors, comes to a Christian ; 
 the Christian considers him possessed, 
 and feels himself by no means called 
 upon to inquire more precisely into the 
 actual cause of the malady. lie knows 
 that his Redeemer had overcome the 
 power of the prince of this world, and 
 that to him all the powers of evil must 
 yield, in what way soever they show 
 themselves. He calls upon him, and on 
 the power of the Holy Spirit which is in 
 him. His prayer, which calls down the 
 power of Heaven, works deeply on the 
 distracted heart of the patient. Inward 
 peace follows the turbulent tide which 
 agitated him within ; and, conducted by 
 this experience of the influence of Chris- 
 tianity on himself to a belief in it, he be- 
 comes now, in every sense, for the first 
 time freed from evil spirits, and healed 
 through the enlightening and healing 
 power of truth so thoroughly and for- 
 ever, that the evil spirit returns not to his 
 house, to find it swept and garnished for 
 him. 
 
 We may now introduce some remark- 
 able intimations from the Fathers of this 
 age relative to such facts. Justin Martyr, 
 in his first Apology, (I. 45) says to the 
 heathen, " That the reign of evil spirits 
 has been destroyed by Jesus Christ, you 
 might ascertain from what liappens before 
 your own eyes ; for many of our people, 
 of us Christians, have healed, and still 
 heal, many possessed by evil spirits in the 
 whole world, as well as in your city 
 (Rome,) adjuring them by the name of 
 Jesus Christ, whom Pontius Pilate cruci- 
 fied; and these were persons who could 
 receive no relief whatever from all other 
 exorcists." Irenaeus says, (adv. Hair. lib. 
 ii. c. 22) '■'■ In the name of Jesus Christ, his 
 true disciples, who have received grace 
 from him, work for the good of other men, 
 according as each has received the gifts 
 from him. Some cast out evil spirits, so ra- 
 
 * The power of evil over the inmost heart of 
 man must first be broken, and then the individual 
 workings of this evil will cease of them.selves. 
 
 ■(• I. 6. To i^no-TXTWO/ TO/f i/V; Twy Ti^trvjomm- 
 
 dically and completely, that those purified 
 from evil spirits often become, afterwards, 
 themselves believers and members of tlie 
 community; otiiers heal the sick by the 
 laying on of hands. Already have many 
 even been raised from the dead, and re- 
 mained among us a tolerable number of 
 years. There are innumerable operations 
 of grace, which the Church has received 
 all over the world from God, and daily 
 brings forth for the advantage of the hea- 
 then, in the name of Jesus Christ, who 
 was crucified under Pontius Pilate, while 
 it deludes no one, and seeks no gain; for 
 as it has received freely from God, so does 
 it freely give. It performs nothing by the 
 invocation of angels, nothing through 
 spells and other evil arts, but purely and 
 openly, (not with hidden arts and secret 
 mysteries, as those GcEta3 do,) it ofl"ers up 
 its prayers to him, who has created all 
 things, while it calls on the name of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ." 
 
 Origen considered these manifestations 
 of supernatural power necessary, especi- 
 ally for {]\Q first foundation of the Church. 
 (See Origen c. Celsum, lib. viii. edit. Hoe- 
 schel. p. 420.)* " It is more," says he, 
 '^ through the power of miracles than 
 through exhortation, that men became in- 
 clined to leave the religion of their coun- 
 try, and to take a foreign one : for if we 
 judge from probability, taking into account 
 the education of the first Church commu- 
 nity, it is scarcely credible that the apos- 
 tles of Jesus, unlearned and ignorant men, 
 should have relied on any thing else, in 
 their preacliing of Christianity to man- 
 kind, than on the power which was be- 
 stowed upon them, and the grace of God, 
 which accompanied their preaching ; nor 
 that their hearers should have suffered 
 themselves to be detached from the habits 
 of their country, deeply rooted in them 
 l)y the revolution of ages, had not a com- 
 manding might and miracles, entirely op- 
 posed to those things among which they 
 had been educated, induced them to be- 
 come disciples." And in the seventh 
 book of this work, he says also, "y In the 
 first times of the teaching of Jesus, and 
 after his ascension, more visible tokens of 
 the operations of the Holy Spirit were re- 
 vealed, and in later days fewer. Tliere 
 still, however, remain the traces of these 
 operations among some few, whose souls 
 have been purified through the Word of 
 God, and a life corresponding to it." — 
 
 • [The passage occurs p. 408, ed. Spencer, but 
 it is condensed in the above translation. H. J. R.] 
 
44 CONDUCT OF CHRISTIANS ^MEANS OP CONVERSION. 
 
 Origen appeals also to circumstances of I ward in its course. As the Redeemer, in 
 which he was an eye-witness. "Many [his prayer, had commended the faithful 
 give proofs to those who have been healed | to his heavenly Father, that their commu- 
 through their power, that they have at- nion with hun, the glory received from 
 taiued a miraculous power through this the Father, which he bestowed on them, 
 faith, while over those who require heal- i beaming through their life, might lead 
 iug, they invoke no other power than the men to believe on him, so it came to pass. 
 Almighty God and Jesus Christ, together i The witness which genuine Christians 
 with the preaching of his Gospel. There- gave of their Lord through their conduct, 
 by have I seen many persons rescued the healing power of the Gospel, which 
 from severe circumstances of delirium and revealed itself in their life, Mas a most 
 phrensy, and many other evils, which no powerful engine in the conversion of the 
 man, and none of your demons, could heathen. Justin Martyr appeals to this 
 cure."* And in another place Origen as matter of experience. (Apol. ii. p. 63 ; 
 says these remarkable words if--" Though or in Grabe's Edition, Apol. i. § xx. p. 30.) 
 Celus mocks at it, yet must it be said that After quoting the words of our Lord, '•'Let 
 many are come to Christianity against ' your light so shine before men, that they 
 their will, because some spirit, through may see your good works, and glorify 
 visions which he presented to them, your Father which is in heaven," he adds, 
 awake or in the dream, led their reason ; "the Lord wills not that we should recom- 
 suddenly from hatred against Christianity pense evil for evil; but he requires of us, 
 to a zeal which gave even life for it. jMuch through the might of patience and gentle- 
 of this kind could we relate, which were ness, to entice all men out of the disgrace 
 we to set it down, although we were eye- ' of their corrupt desires ; this we can prove 
 witnesses of it, would be the source of ' by many among us, who from violent and 
 much mockery to the unbelievers ; but tyrannical men have become changed by 
 God is the witness of our conscience, that [ a victorious might, either by observing 
 we have never wished to spread the holy how their neighbours could bear all things, 
 doctrines of Jesus Christ through false or by perceiving the patience of their de- 
 reports, but through many undeniable frauded travelling companions, or in some 
 facts."'! j way or other by the intercourse of life, 
 
 Nevertheless, all outward dealings and ] came to be acquainted with the life of 
 miracles would have created for this reli- Christians." The distinguished virtues 
 gion no such access to the hearts of men, of the Christian must then have come far 
 had it not possessed, in its inward nature, I more vividly in contrast Avith the prevail- 
 an attractive power for that in human na- ing crimes and vices. The strictness of 
 ture, which is related to God, however it Christian virtue, sometim.es carried to ex- 
 may be darkened and overwhelmed, either cess, in contrast with an universal depra- 
 by false refinements or through carnal vity of manners ! How deep an impres- 
 grossness.§ They would have been im- sion in later ages, when public life had 
 availing, had it not shown itself victorious ' taken tlie form of Christianity, did the 
 over all the impostures, which, taking ' strict life of the monks make, wlicn con- 
 prisoner the human mind, opposed it ; i trasted with the corruption which pre- 
 had it not shown itself the only true and vailed in large towns. The inward bro- 
 fundamental source of satisfaction to the therly love of the Christian, — contrasted 
 religious wants excited in an age of fer- i with the universal selfishness which di- 
 ment ; had it not proved the only thing vides all men from one another, and 
 wiiich would create for the spiritual world I makes them distrustful of each other, 
 peace and tranquillity, in this wild ferment ' which prevented men from understanding 
 of opposing elements ; and had not tliis the nature of the Christian community, 
 religion, as soon as it had once taken root and rendered it a source of never-failing 
 any where, by the activity which showed j wonder to them I " See," said they, " how 
 itself in it, been irresistibly impelled for- ' tliey love one another." " This surprised 
 . j them beyond measure," says Tertullian 
 
 * Lib. iii. p. 128. [p. 124, ed. Spencer.] (Apol. c. 39,) " since they are accustomed 
 
 f C. Celsuin, I. v. 3.5. [Lib. i. p. 35, cd. Spen- to hate one another, that one man should 
 cp'-l be ready to die for another." All could 
 
 i Compare with these words of Origen what j^^, Hierefore, be cold and heartless like 
 
 TeitulUan says, de Anima, 47. Major pane vis ,, i-,. • i n i, . „ «^ „ i c 
 
 V • 1 • • 1 T» 1- i. the nolilicians we sliall have to speak oi, 
 
 homiiium de visionibus Ueutn discunt. ' "*^"'"' "^ '^ if 
 
 § In men, hominibus ipsa urbanitate deccptis, who, accustomed to measure every tlimg 
 06 Tertullian says. , by their own limited measure, were only 
 
OLORY EVEN IN A STATE OF SLAVERY. 
 
 45 
 
 distrustful of such an union. The heart, 
 unhardened by predjudice or fanaticism, 
 must have been touched at the impression 
 of such an appearance, and must have 
 made the inquiry, '■ What is it that can so 
 bind the spirits of men togetlier ?' hi a 
 time of shivish cowardice the heroic cou- 
 rage of faith, with which the Christians 
 desired death as soon as any thing against 
 their religion was required of them, worked 
 so powerfully on men, as an appearance 
 quite foreign to the times, that they made 
 tliis character a matter of reproach to the 
 Christians, as a thing tilted for the heroic 
 days of antiquity, but not for these more 
 polished and more efTenunate days.* 
 Though the ordinary class of Roman 
 politicians, though the followers of world- 
 ly love which delights in magnificence, 
 though the cold stoic who desires demon- 
 stration in every thing, could see only a 
 blind enthusiasm in the spirit with which 
 Christians, who were called upon to give 
 witness to the truth, met their death; yet 
 the sight of the confidence and light- 
 heartedness of sufTering and dying Chris- 
 tians must have made an impression on 
 many more yielding or more impredju- 
 diced hearts, must have disarmed the 
 prejudices against the Christians, and have 
 called the attention of the world to that 
 for which so many men were willing and 
 ready to give up every thing, and which 
 was able to nerve them for this sacrifice. 
 Outward violence could effect nothing 
 against this inward power of heavenly 
 truth, it could only cause the might of 
 this godly truth to be more gloriously 
 displayed. TertuUian, therefore, closes 
 his Apology with these words, as to the 
 persecution of the Christians : " There- 
 fore all the refinements of your cruelty 
 can effect nothing, or rather they have 
 brought over persons to this sect ; our 
 number augments, the more you persecute 
 us. The blood of Christians is the seed 
 they sow. Your philosophers, who e.x- 
 hort to the endurance of pain and death, 
 make not so many disciples as the Chris- 
 tians through their deeds. That obsti- 
 nacy which you upbraid us with, is an in- 
 structress. For who is not impelled, 
 through the consideration of this, to the 
 inquiry, what this matter can be? Who 
 joins us not as soon as he has inquired ? 
 Who wishes not, when he has joined us, 
 himself to suffer for truth .?" 
 
 * M'eW enough suited to the ingenia duriora 
 robustioris antiquitatis, but not tlie tranquillitas 
 pacis, and the ingenia mitiora. TertuU. ad Nat. I. 
 c. 18. 
 
 At a season when the earthly glory of 
 the old world was nearly at an end, when 
 all, which had hitherto given a certain im- 
 pulse to the souls of men, was growing 
 old and fading away, Ctiristianity appear- 
 ed, and called mankind from the old fa- 
 ding world to the creation of a new one, 
 destined for eternity ; from the fading 
 earthly world to an everlasting glory, 
 which in fliith and spirit they were even 
 now capable of conceiving. Augustin 
 says beautifully, " Christ appeared to the 
 men of a world, which was growing old 
 and dying, that while all around them 
 faded away, they might receive through 
 him a new and youthful life." And the 
 higher life which was spread abroad by 
 Christianity, required no glittering out- 
 ward splendour, like all which man had 
 delighted in before, to reveal its glory. 
 This life could find an entrance, even 
 amidst the most confined and oppressive 
 circumstances and conditions, and let its 
 glory shine forth in the most dishonoured 
 and despised vessels, could elevate man 
 above all which tends to bow him to the 
 ground, vviihout making him overstep the 
 bounds which he believed a higher power 
 had assigned to his station in the world. 
 The slave remained in all his worldly 
 circumstances a slave, fulfilled all his du- 
 ties in that station with greater fidelity and 
 conscientiousness than before, and yet 
 within he felt himself free, and showed 
 an elevation of soul, a confidence, a power 
 of faith and devotion, which must have 
 astonished his master. The men of the 
 lower orders, who hitherto had known 
 nothing of religion but its ceremonies and 
 its fables, received hence a clear and con- 
 fident religious persuasion. The above 
 cited remarkable words of Celsus, as well 
 as many individual examples of the first 
 times of Christianity, show us how often 
 the wide spreading of the Gospel proceed- 
 ed from women, who showed forth the 
 light of the Gospel, as wives and mothers, 
 amidst the corruption of heathen manners, 
 from young people, from boys and girls, 
 from slaves, who shamed their masters. 
 '^ Every Christian handicraftsman," says 
 TertuUian, (Apol.c.46) " has found God, 
 and shown him to thee, and can teach 
 thee all, in fact, which thou needest to 
 know of God, although Plato (in the Ti- 
 meeus) savs it is difiicult to find out the 
 Creator of the Universe, and when you 
 have found him, impossible to communi- 
 cate this knowledge to the multitude." 
 And Athenagoras says, " Among us you 
 will find ignorant persons, handicraftsmen, 
 
46 
 
 SPREADING OP THE GOSPEL. 
 
 and old women, who although they could 
 not prove to you by words the healing 
 influence of our religion, yet by their ac- 
 tions show the sahitary power of the 
 thoughts which it communicates, for they 
 learn not words by heart, but they show 
 good works ; they suffer themselves to be 
 smitten, and smite not; again, when they 
 are robbed, they do not go to law ; they 
 give to those who ask from them, and they 
 love their neighbour as themselves." — 
 Christianity was able to lower itself to 
 the sensuous conceptions of those whose 
 spirits were not calculated to receive and 
 develope godlike things in a form suited to 
 them ; it laslened itself upon the dross of 
 their earlier and fleshly methods of think- 
 ing, as we shall see in the notions of the 
 Chiliasts, while they had nevertheless re- 
 ceived the seed of an hidden and godly 
 life, which was destined by and by to 
 penetrate the whole mass of their nature, 
 and also to form, lastly, their habits of 
 thought. The working of Christianity in 
 the life and sufferings of Christians, as 
 well as isolated parts of Christian doc- 
 trine, which they heard, called at last to 
 Cliristianity the attention of philosophi- 
 cally educated heathen, who had run 
 through nmliifarious philosophical and re- 
 ligious systems to find religious truth, on 
 which they might rely, and which could 
 satisfy the wants of their hearts and spi- 
 rits — and they found in Christianity what 
 they had sought in vain elsewhere. 
 
 [B.] On the spreading of the Gospel in 
 various Quarters of the Wo7-ld. 
 
 The commercial intercourse of various 
 rations had already pointed out and paved 
 a way for the propagation of the Gospel. 
 The easy communication between the dif- 
 ferent parts of the vast Roman empire, the 
 connection of the Jews, who were settled 
 in various districts, with Jerusalem, the 
 connection of all parts of the Roman em- 
 pire with Rome, of the provinces, with 
 their metropolitan cities, and of the greater 
 part of the Roman empire, with the more 
 considerable capitals, such as Alexandria, 
 Antiochia, Ephesus, Corinih, all tended to 
 promote this object. The latter cities, 
 centres as they were of mercanlile, politi- 
 cal, and literary communication, became 
 head-quarters, where the first preachers 
 took up their abode, in order to spread 
 their religion ; and the general spirit of 
 commercial intercourse, which from early 
 times had never been confined to the mere 
 exchange of earthly commodities, but had I 
 
 also served for the interchange of intel- 
 lectual treasures, became now of service, 
 as a means of extending a knowledge of 
 the highest spiritual treasures. In gene- 
 ral, the first advances were made by Chris- 
 tianity in towns ; for, since it was of the 
 greatest consequence at first to secure es- 
 tablished stations for the propagation of 
 the Gospel, it was requisite for the early 
 preachers, in their passage through any 
 country, to preach the Gospel at first in 
 the cities, from which its influence might 
 extend over the country by the exertions 
 of the natives. On the other hand, in the 
 country, they were likely to meet with 
 far greater obstacles, in the general rude- 
 ness, the blind superstition, and the hea- 
 then fanaticism of the people, as well as 
 from their ignorance in many cases of the 
 language of the country, while in cities, 
 for the most part, Greek and Latin were 
 sufficiently intelligible. We know, how- 
 ever, from Pliny's report to Trajan, from 
 the account of Clemens Romanus, (Ep. I. 
 ad Corinih. § 42) and from the relation 
 of Justin Martyr, (Apolng. II. 98) that 
 this was not universally the case, and that 
 in many situations country communities 
 were formed very early ; and Origen says 
 expressly (c. Cels. iii. p. 1 19) " tiiat many 
 had made it their business to go through 
 not onjy their towns, but also the villages 
 and farms (xat xwpaj xai sTrafAt*;.") The 
 numerous country bishops, in insulated 
 spots, are also a proof of this. 
 
 In the New Testament we find ac- 
 counts of the spreading of Christianity in 
 Syria, Cilicia, apparently also in the then 
 widely extended empire of Parthia,* in 
 Arabia, Asia Minor, and the neighbouring 
 districts ; Greece, and the neighbouring 
 districts, as far as lllyria, and in Italy. 
 We are much in want of authentic ac- 
 counts of the propagation of Christianity 
 for the times that immediately succeeded ; 
 for later stories, which arose out of the en- 
 deavour to deduce every national Church 
 from an apostolical origin, deserve no ex- 
 amination. We only bring forward that 
 on which we can rely. The old story of 
 the letters that passed between the Abga- 
 rus Uchomo, the king of the small state 
 of Edessa, in Osrhoene of Mesopotamia, 
 of the dynasty of the Agbari, or Abgari, 
 
 * For the circumstance that St. Peter (1 Kp. v. 
 31) sends a salutation from his wife* in Babylon, 
 
 * [" Vonseincr frau." Ila Ncandcr. (^an sei- 
 nrr lie a misprint for einfr ? ' from a lady in 
 Uabylon." The passage is i, iy Bjifiu>.avi owiKhTti, 
 which our translation renders, ' '1 he cliurch that 
 
PROPAGATION OF CHRISTIANITY IN ARABIA. 
 
 47 
 
 and our Saviour, whom he prayed to cure 
 him of a severe sickness, deserves no 
 credit, nor does that of the conversion of 
 this Ai2:barus by Thaddeus, one of the se- 
 venty disciples. Eusebius found the docu- 
 ments, from which he penned this nar- 
 ration, in the archives of Edessa, and 
 suffered himself to be deceived by them.* 
 The letter of Christ is utterly unworthy 
 of him, and bears the appearance of a 
 cento from various passages of the Gos- 
 pels. We cannot imagine either that any 
 thing written by the Saviour himself could 
 have remained unknown to the rest of the 
 world till the time of Eusebius. Again, 
 the letter of Abgarus is not composed in 
 the style of an Oriental prince. Whether 
 the story be in some degree founded in 
 truth, though not true as it now stands, 
 we have no means of determining; one 
 thing is certain, that Christianity spread 
 betimes into these parts, but yet the first 
 traces of it in a prince of that country 
 occur between 160-170, in Abgarus Bar 
 Manu. The Christian sage, Bardesanes, 
 was in high regard with him, and relates, 
 that he forbad, under heavy punishments, 
 the custom of castration for the rites of 
 Cybele, by ordering that those who per- 
 formed it should lose their hands. It 
 certainly does not follow from this that 
 he v\as a Christian, but we may remark 
 besides, that on his coins the customary 
 marks of the worship of' Baal disappear, 
 and are replaced by the cross.f 
 
 If St. PeterJ preached the Gospel in the 
 
 whether it be the then capital of Seleucia, Ctesi- 
 phon, or more probably the old ruined Babylon, 
 leads us to suppose that he was residing in that 
 quarter. 
 
 * [The observations of Lardner^ (vol. iii. p. 
 R9i, 4to ed.) and the note of Valcsius on the two 
 last chapters of Book I. of Eusebius, are well wor- 
 thy of attention. Dr. Jones maintains that the 
 whole account in Eusebius is an interpolation. 
 Jones on the Canon, vol. ii. p. 1 — 26. H. J. R. 
 
 ■j- Bayer, Historia Edessena e numis illustrata, 
 1. iii. p. 173. Bayer is, however, wrong in plac- 
 ing him in the year 200. [The name is invari- 
 ably Abgarus on coins. For this information I am 
 indebted to one, whose extensive and accurate 
 knowledge of Greek coins is only equalled by his 
 readiness to communicate to those who seek for 
 information on IS"umismatical subjects, the results 
 of his own experience. The name of Mr. Burgcn 
 is so well known to the Numismatical world, as 
 scarcely to require mention after the above state- 
 ment.— H. J. K. 
 
 f And St. Thomas also, according to the tradi- 
 tion of Origen, preserved in Euseb. iii. 1. 
 
 is at Babylon, elected together with you.'. See, 
 however, Eusebius, H. E. ii. 15, where he ob- 
 serves that St. Peter calls Home, Babylon, and 
 quotes this passage. Vid. Vales, in ioc, — H. J. R] 
 
 1 Parthian empire, some seeds ofChristianity 
 j may perhaps, in very early days, have 
 reached Persia, which then belonged to 
 j that empire, but the frequent wars be- 
 j tvveen the Romans and the Parthians 
 would prevent communication between 
 j the Christians of those slates. The Bar- 
 desanes of Edessa, mentioned above, who 
 wrote in the time of the Emperor Marcus 
 Aurelius, mentions* the spreading of 
 Christianity in Parthia, Media, Persia, and 
 Bactria. After the restoration of the in- 
 dependence of the old Persian empire, 
 under the Sassanidae, the Persian Chris- 
 tians are better known to us in conse- 
 quence of the attempt of the Persian 
 Mani, in the latter half of the third cen- 
 tury, to form a son of miion between the 
 religion of Zoroaster and that of Christ. 
 
 In Arabia, the Jews, who were in great 
 numbers, would serve as a starting-point 
 for the preaching of the Gospel. We 
 have no farther account of the activity of 
 tlie Apostle St. Paul in diis country, im- 
 mediately after his conversion, than what 
 we gather from ids own expression, in 
 his Epistle to the Galatians. If Indian 
 and Arabian are used as synonymous terms 
 in an old tradition, we may conclude that 
 St. Bartholomew preached the Gospel in 
 Arabia, for which purpose he took with 
 him a Gospel written in the Hebrew 
 (Aramaic) language. If this supposition 
 is correct, Pantasnus, the learned cntechist 
 of Alexandria, was the pastor of a part of 
 this nation, in the latter half of the second 
 century. In the early part of the third, 
 Origen, the great Alexandrian pastor, was 
 exerting himself in some portion of Arabia. 
 Eusebius tells us (vi. 19) "A soldier came 
 and brought to Demetrius, bishop of Alex- 
 andria, and the then prefect of Egypt, let- 
 ters from the governor of Arabia, (viyot/ixtvof 
 T»j? Agai^iai,) requesting that Origen might 
 be sent as soon as possible to a conference 
 with him." The language of Eusebius is 
 not such as to lead us to imagine he is 
 here speaking of the chief of a set of 
 nomadic Arabians; and even were it so, 
 it would hardly be probable that such a 
 person should have heard of the wisdom 
 of a Christian teacher. On the contrary, 
 these words naturally point to a Roman 
 governor of the part of Arabiaf then sub- 
 ject to the Roman empire. He might be- 
 long to the class of inquiring heathens, 
 and having heard of the wisdom and the 
 
 * Euseb PriEpar. Evang. I. vi. c. 10. 
 ■\ In later times we find a " dux Arabia;" in the 
 Notitia Imperii. 
 
48 
 
 CHRISTIANITY IN ARABIA AND EGYPT. 
 
 knowledge of Origen, to which the hea- must conclude, that before the begi 
 
 then were not strangers, may have turned 
 his attention to him in particular, as an 
 enlightened teacher. It may well be ima- 
 gined that Origen made use of this op- 
 portunity to obtain the governor's favour 
 for the (Gospel. We see Origen afterwards 
 in close connection with the Christian 
 communities in Arabia, but the further 
 propogation of the Gospel there in later 
 times was much impeded by the nomadic 
 liabits of the people, and the influence of 
 the Jews, who hated Christianity. 
 
 The ancient Syro-Persian community 
 of Cliristians deduces its origin, we know^, 
 from St. Thomas the Apostle, although 
 the first definite account of its existence 
 is to be found in Cosmus Indicoploistes, 
 in the middle of the sixth century. Some 
 traces, however, of such a report are 
 found in Gregory Nazianzen, in the latter 
 part of the fourth century, for he says, 
 (Orat. 25) that St. Thomas preached the 
 Gospel in India, but India was then a very 
 indefinite term. Jerome (Ep. 148) under- 
 stands by it Ethiopia, which was com- 
 monly included under the name India, as 
 well as Arabia. If the tradition, which is 
 found in Origen, that St. Thomas was the 
 Apostle of the Parthians, be worthy of 
 credit, the other is, perhaps, also credible, 
 for the Parthian empire then touched the 
 borders of India ; but these are only vague 
 reports. Eusebius (i. 10) relates, as we 
 remarked above, that Pantaenus undertook 
 a missionary journey to the people who 
 dwelt eastward, and proceeded in the 
 prosecution of it as far as India. He there 
 found the seed of Christianity already 
 sown by St. Bartholomew, and a Hebrew 
 Gospel which the same apostle had 
 brought thither. The circumstance of the 
 Hebrew Gospel is no proof that he does 
 not mean East India properly so called ; 
 for we may suppose, that the Jews who 
 now inhabit the coasts of Malabar had 
 already settled tliere. The words of Eu- 
 sebius seem to indicate that he himself 
 thought of a more distant country than 
 Arabia, and would well suit the notion of 
 East India proper. In order to decide 
 which he most probably meant, a district 
 of Arabia or East India proper, we must 
 hero compare some accounts of a later 
 date, namely, of the fcmrth century. If 
 then tlie Din, from which the missionary 
 Theophilus came, in the time of the Em- 
 peror Constantine, is the Din at the en- 
 trance of the Persian Gulf, and if in the 
 
 of the fourth century the seed of the 
 Gospel had been sown in East India, for 
 all which is there mentioned attests the 
 foundation of the Christian Church to 
 have been laid there in olden times. 
 
 We proceed now to Africa. In this 
 quarter of the globe, Egypt was the first 
 portion which received the knowledge of 
 Christianity. We have remarked above, 
 that in Alexandria fewer prejudices than 
 elsewiiere opposed (he introduction of 
 Christianity ; and that, in fact, in many 
 respects the turn of their minds there was 
 favourable to it. There appear among the 
 earliest zealous preachers of Christianity, 
 men of the Alexandrian school, as Apollo 
 the Alexandrian, and, probably, also Bar- 
 nabas of Cyprus. The Epistle to the He- 
 brews, the Epistle ascribed to Barnabas, 
 and the Egyptian Gospel, {'EvctyyiXto> xecr 
 AiyvTfTtovi;,) in which the Alexandrian 
 theosophic taste showed itself, the Gnos- 
 ticism of the first half of the second cen- 
 tury, are proofs of the influence that Chris- 
 tianity exerted over the Jewish philosophy 
 of Alexandria. According to an old tra- 
 dition, the Apostle Mark was the founder 
 of the Alexandrian Church. Cyrene was 
 likely to receive Christianity with great 
 ease from Alexandria, in consequence of 
 their constant communication, and their 
 kindred spirit. Its progress from Lower 
 Egypt, a place filled with Jewish and 
 Grecian colonies, to Middle, and especially 
 to Upper Egypt, whither foreign cultiva- 
 tion had less penetrated, was Ukely to be 
 impeded by unacquaintance with the Greek 
 language, the prevalence of the Coptic, 
 and the dominion of the priests and the 
 old Egyptian superstition. A persecution, 
 however, of the Christians in the Thebais, 
 under the Emperor Septimus Severus, 
 (Euseb. vi. 1) shows that Cln-istianity had 
 spread even into Upper Egypt in the lat- 
 ter part of the second century. In the 
 first half of the third, this province pro- 
 bably possessed a translation of the New 
 Testament in the old language of the 
 country. 
 
 There are no distinct and authentic ac- 
 counts of the progress of Christianity in 
 yEthiopia (Abyssinia,) during these cen- 
 turies. History gives us no information 
 as to the consequences of the conversion 
 of the courtier of Candace, queen of Me- 
 roe, which is mentioned in the Acts, ch. 
 viii. 
 
 The Gospel soon readied Carthage, and 
 
 history of Philostorgius, (cxi. 4, Sec.) by , the whole of Proconsular Africa, from 
 India is meant East India proper, then we ^ their intercourse with Rome. This Church 
 
GERMANY — SPAIN. 
 
 49 
 
 of Carthage is first known to us from the 
 Presbyter Tertullian, in the latter half of 
 the second centuijy, but it was then evi- 
 dently in a flourisluDg condition. The 
 Christians were already there in great 
 numbers, and complaints were made "■ that 
 Christianity was spreading both in town 
 and country among all ranks, and even 
 among the highest."* Not to cite passages, 
 where Tertullian speaks rhetorically, he 
 mentions in hisaddress to the governor. 
 Scapula, (chap, iv.) a persecution of the 
 Christians as having already taken place 
 in Mauretania. Christianity, after the 
 middle of the third century, had made 
 such progress in Mauretania and Numi- 
 dia, that under Cyprian, the bishop of 
 Carthage, a synod of eighty-seven bishops 
 was held. 
 
 If we pass now to the consideration of 
 Europe, we find in Rome the chief, but 
 not the only station for the propagation 
 of the Gospel. Flourishing churches at 
 Lugdunum (Lyons,) and Vienne, become 
 known to us during a bloody persecution 
 in the year 177. The multitude of Chris- 
 tians of Asia Minor, as well as the pecu- 
 liar connection of these communities with 
 that country, lead to the supposition, that 
 the commerce between the trading town 
 of Lyons and Asia Minor gave occasion to 
 the introduction of Christianity from Asia 
 Minor, where it was spread so widely 
 from tlie first, into Gaul. The heathenism 
 of Gaul withstood a long time the exten- 
 sion of Christianity. Even towards the 
 middle of the third century there v/ere 
 but few Christian communities in Gaul. 
 According to Gregory of Tours, a French 
 historian, seven missionaries had then 
 come from Rome into Gaul, and founded 
 communities in seven towns •, of which 
 they became the bishops. One of these 
 was Dionysius, the first bishop of Paris, 
 whom later legends have confused with 
 Dionysius the Areopagite, who was con- 
 verted at Athens by St. Paul. Gregory of 
 Tours, who wrote towards the end of the 
 sixth century, when so many fables as to 
 the origin of various churches were in 
 circulation, is, we acknowledge, no very 
 trustworthy witness •, but still this account 
 may have some truth for its foundation. 
 One of the seven, Saturninus, the founder 
 of the Church of Toulouse, is known to 
 
 * Tertullian, ApoUoget. i. Obsessam voceif- 
 rantur civitatem, in agnis, in castellis, in insulis 
 Christianos, omnem sexum, tDtatem, conditionem 
 et jam dignitatem ad hoc nomen transgredi. 
 7 
 
 us by a far older document, the narration 
 of his martyrdom. 
 
 Irenaeus, who became bishop of Lyons, 
 after the above mentioned persecution in 
 177, states the extension of the Gospel 
 into Germany, (adv. Haeres. lib. i. c. 10.) 
 It might easily reach that part of Germany 
 subject to the Romans, the German ia Cis- 
 rhenana,from its connection with the pro- 
 vince of Gaul, but would experience more 
 difficulty in penetrating among the inde- 
 pendent neighbouring tribes of Germania 
 Transrhenana. But the same Irenaeus 
 says, in another passage, (iii. ch. 4,) " Many 
 nations of barbarians, without paper and 
 ink, have, through the Holy Spirit, the 
 words of salvation written in their hearts."* 
 Irenaeus here justly recognises in the ac- 
 tivity of Christianity that peculiar and 
 essential character, in virtue of which it 
 can reach people in every stage of civili- 
 zation, and through its living power im 
 press its precepts on their hearts. But it 
 is also certain that Cliristianity can never 
 long maintain its own peculiar character, 
 where it does not lay deep hold of the 
 intellectual and moral habits of a people, 
 and where it does not, while it brings its 
 own peculiar character with it, raise up 
 also and foster the seeds of all human 
 civilization. 
 
 Irenaeus is also the first to speak of the 
 propagation of Christianity in Spain (In 
 T«t{ 'l^n^tat?.) The tradition in Euse- 
 bius, in the fourth century, that the Apostle 
 St. Paul preached the Gospel in Spain, is 
 not sufficient evidence, because it was then 
 too much the fashion to establish facts 
 from incompetent presumptions, conclu- 
 sions, and suppositions ; and so, perhaps, 
 Rom. XV. 24, may have given rise to this 
 report. But since the Roman Bishop 
 Clemens (Ep. i. v. 5,) says that St. Paul 
 went to the very boundaries of the West, 
 {rt^fia. T»)j ^vaiu^^) we cannot imagine this 
 expression to allude to Rome, and our 
 thoughts naturally turn to Spain. Clement 
 was probably himself the disciple of St. 
 Paul, and this is a matter on which we 
 can hardly suppose him to have been de- 
 ceived. Most certainly, however, we find 
 no place for any journey of St. Paul's 
 into Spain, unless we suppose that he was 
 freed from the imprisonment related in the 
 Acts, and after his deliverance fulfilled the 
 intention which he announces in the above 
 passage. Now the Second Epistle of St. 
 
 * Sine charta et atramento scriptam habentes 
 per Spiritum in cordibus suis salutem. 
 
50 
 
 ROMAN POLITICAL FEELINGS. 
 
 Paul to Timothy would actually compel 
 us to suppose such a deliverance, and 
 a second imprisonment, unless we take 
 refuge in some very forced interpretation. 
 
 Tertullian (adv. Jud. c. 7,) speaks of 
 the spreading of Christianity into Britain, 
 but the passage is entirely rhetorical in 
 its whole cast ; and the statement that it 
 had penetpated parts of Britain not sub- 
 jected to the Roman dominion, may per- 
 haps be exaggerated. Bede, in the eighth 
 century, informs us, that Lucius, a British 
 king, had requested Eleutlieros, the bishop 
 of Rome, in the latter part of the second 
 century, to send missionaries to him. But 
 the peculiarities of the later Church in 
 Britain are an argument against its deriving 
 its origin from Rome; for that Church 
 departed from the Romish in many ritual 
 points ; it agreed far more with the 
 Churches of Asia Minor; and it with- 
 stood for a long time the authority of the 
 Romish Church. This appears to prove 
 that the British received, either imme- 
 diately or by means of Gau], their Chris- 
 tianity from Asia Minor, which may have 
 easily taken place through their commer- 
 cial intercourse.* The later Anglo-Saxons, 
 who opposed the spirit of Church inde- 
 pendence, and wished to establish the 
 supremacy of Rome, were inclined gene- 
 rally to trace back their Church establish- 
 ments to a Roman origin, and from this 
 attempt, the above story, as well as many 
 other false reports, may have arisen. 
 
 We proceed now to the persecutions of 
 the Christian Church in the Roman em- 
 pire. 
 
 II. Opposition to Christianity. — Introduc- 
 tion — its first causes. 
 
 In order justly to appreciate the nature 
 of these persecutions, it is of great impor- 
 tance to weigh accurately their causes. It 
 has often been remarked as singular, that 
 while the Romans were usually tolerant 
 in matters of religion, they should have 
 shown such impatience, and such a love 
 of persecution towards the Christians; but 
 every statement of Roman tolerance re- 
 quires much limitation. The ideas of 
 general rights of man, of a general free- 
 dom in matters of religion and conscience, 
 were altogetlier foreign to the notions of 
 antiquity ; they were first brought to light 
 by the Gospel, when it set forth not a 
 national God, but a God of all human 
 nature, when it taught us to recognise man 
 
 [Sec, however, Bishop Lloyd on Church Go- 
 vemment, p. 48. H. J. K.J J 
 
 as man, to look on all men as the image 
 of God, with the same destination, the 
 same duties, and the same rights; when it 
 considered man, not as the member of 
 one narrow political circle, but as called to 
 citizenship in God's boundless kingdom ; 
 and when, freeing religion from all essen- 
 tial dependence on external and earthly 
 things, it placed its whole essence in the 
 worship of God in spirit and in truth. 
 The men of antiquity we're unable to dis- 
 tinguish the man from the citizen, so as to 
 attain to a recognition of general rights of 
 man and rights of conscience. Religion 
 was a state matter; there were only na- 
 tional and state religions, and the laws 
 which related to religion being a part of 
 the general civil code, any violation of 
 them was considered as a violation of the 
 latter.* This was a view which espe- 
 cially suited the Romans, whose ruling 
 passions and feelings were political. Ci- 
 cero, de Leg. ii. 8, lays it down as a prin- 
 ciple of legislation entirely conformable to 
 the rights of the Roman state, that •' no 
 man shall have separate gods for himself, 
 and no man shall worship by himself new 
 or foreign gods, unless they have been 
 publicly acknowledged by the laws of the 
 state :" (nisi publice adscitos.) Now al- 
 though under the emperors the old laws 
 became less strictly observed, and foreign 
 customs every day gained more admission 
 into Rome, there yet arose many new 
 causes for anxiety with regard to the in- 
 troduction of new religions. In those 
 times there was the greatest dread of 
 every thing to which a political end might 
 be attached, and the jealous character of 
 despotism icas apt to fear poIiJical aims, 
 even where there was nothing of the kind. 
 Religion, and religious societies, it seemed, 
 might easily become the pretence for poli- 
 tical societies and conspiracies. From 
 this feeling arose the well-known speech 
 of Maecenas to Augustus, in Dio Cassius, 
 who has here at least, whether the speech 
 be genuine or not, expressed the prevail- 
 
 * As Varro had already classed theology under 
 three divisions — " theologia philosophica et vera," 
 " theologia poctica et mythica," and " theologia 
 civilis;" so Dio Chrysostom, in the first half of 
 the second century, Orat. 12, distinguishes three 
 sources of religion ; the general religious sense in 
 all mankind, the j^(fi/Tcc aTrce^iy i yb^ctTrcK ivty.ta, 21 ; 
 poetry and customs, which easily extend them- 
 selves, 31 ; and laws which constrain, threaten, 
 and ])unish, to vi/xt6eT,»cv, to iv^jxa/ci', to /urr:i 
 ^u/utuc KctiTTg^cTTn^iU'v, although hcjusllv establishes 
 only the first as the general and original source 
 from which all the rest proceed. Christianity can 
 allow none of these, but ihe first, to be of avail. 
 
ROMAN TREATMENT OP FOREIGN RITES, 
 
 51 
 
 ing sentiment of those times. " Honour 
 the gods," says Maecenas, " by all means, 
 according to ihe customs of your coun- 
 try, and force, others so to honour them. 
 But those who are forever introducing 
 something foreign in these matters, hate 
 and punisli, not only for the sake of the 
 gods, because they who despise them will 
 hardly reverence any thing besides, but 
 also because they who introduce new 
 divinities, mislead many others into re- 
 ceiving foreign laws also. Thence arise 
 conspiracies and secret meetings, which 
 are of infinite disservice to the monarchy. 
 Siifier no man, either* to deny the gods, 
 or to practise sorcery." The Roman 
 jurist, Julius Pauhis, states the following 
 as one of the leading principles of Roman 
 law. (B. v. tit. 21.) " Those who in- 
 troduced new religions, or such as were 
 unknown in their tendency and nature, 
 by which the minds of men might be agi- 
 t;ited,j were degraded, if they belonged to 
 the higher ranks, and if they were in a 
 lower state, were punished with death." 
 We see easily how Christianity, which 
 produced so great, and to a Roman states- 
 man, so incomprehensible an agitation in 
 the consciences of men, would fall among 
 the class of " Religiones nova?." Here 
 also appear the two points of view in 
 which Christianity might interfere with 
 the laws of the state. 
 
 1. It seduced many Roman citizens 
 from the religion of the state, to the oh- 
 sprvanc of ivhich they were bound by the 
 laios, and also from the observance of the 
 ^'■Ccerimonice Romance.'''' Manv gover- 
 nors, therefore, not personally prejudiced 
 against Christianity, proposed a sort of 
 compromise to the Christians who were 
 brought before them. " They need onlv 
 outwardly do what the law required, and 
 observe the religions ceremonies pre- 
 scribed by the state; the law was only 
 concerned with outward conduct; and 
 they were welcome to believe and to 
 honour what they pleased in their hearts." 
 Or else thus : " they were free constantly 
 to honour their own God, provided they 
 joined with his worship that of '.he Roman 
 Gods." 
 
 2. Il introduced a new religion, which 
 was not recognised by the laws of the state 
 among Ihe '•'•Religiones lici.tce.'''' Thence 
 came, according to Tertullian, the nsnal 
 reproach of the heathens against Chris- 
 tianity — " Non licet esse vos ;" and Cal- 
 
 * 'aSsoi e.V=u the common tcrrp for a Christian. 
 •j- De quibus animi hominum moverentur. 
 
 sus accuses the Christians of secret meet- 
 ings, by which they contravened the 
 prevailing laws with regard to religion 
 
 (a-vnQriy.oci V(Z^x Ta ►£i'0/t*»<rjHii'a.) Thc 
 
 Romans had, no doubt, a certain kind of 
 religious toleration ; but it was one which, 
 being closely connected with the poly- 
 theistic system of philosophy and religion, 
 was not likely to be exercised towards 
 Christianity. When they secured to a 
 conquered people the free observance of 
 their old religion, they expected by that 
 means to win the people to their interests, 
 and also to make friends of their gods. 
 The Romans, who were religiously dis- 
 posed, attributed their universal sove- 
 reignty to this system of making friends 
 of the gods of all nations, as we may- 
 learn from the language of the heathen in 
 Minucius Felix, and from Aristides (En- 
 com. RomfE.) Even beyond the limits 
 of their own kingdom, the free exercise 
 of their religion was permitted to all 
 nations ; and therefore Rome, to which 
 men flocked from all quarters of the 
 globe, became the seat of religions of 
 every sort. See Aristid. loc. cit. and 
 Dionysius Halicarn. (Archasolog. ii. 19;) 
 the latter of whom says, " Men of a 
 thousand nations come to our city, and 
 there they must worship the gods of their 
 country according to their own customs." 
 It even happened that much from these 
 foreign systems of worship was incorpo- 
 rated, with some modification, into the 
 state religion of Rome : but then a distinct 
 senatns-consultum was requisite, before 
 the Roman citizen could be permitted to 
 join in the celebration of this foreign 
 worship. At this time, when the autho- 
 rity of the old national religion, from the 
 longing after something new, was fast 
 dying away, and strangers came con- 
 stantly to Jiome from all quarters, it was 
 often the case, that even Romans them- 
 selves would make use of the ceremonies 
 of foreign religions, which were not yet 
 among the " Religiones publice adscita) ;" 
 but then this was an irregularity which 
 old-fashioned Romans attributed to the 
 corruptions of the times, and to the ne- 
 glect of old customs. Much, which w;is 
 reckoned among those corruptio'ns, was 
 passed over, as well as this, without ani- 
 madversion. Tiie change was also the 
 less remarkable, because those who had 
 adopted the foreign customs, observed at 
 the same time the "Cajrimonia; Romanaj." 
 And yet certainly at times, when mailers 
 ran too high, or when some extraordinary- 
 zeal for old habits and the old civil virtues 
 
52 
 
 v.-as awakened, laws were enacted "ad 
 coercendos profanos ritus." 
 
 The free and undisturbed exercise of 
 their religion was secured also to the Jews, 
 by senatus-consulta and imperial edicts ; 
 and the Romans could recognise, in the 
 God of the Jews, a national God, deserv- 
 ing of veneration — although, at the same 
 time, they complained of the narrow- 
 mindedness and intolerance of the Jews, 
 who would honour no God but their own, 
 and forbade, with bitter enmity, the wor- 
 ship of any other. Judaism was a " re- 
 Jigio licita;" and it was, therefore, made 
 a matter of reproach to the Christians, 
 that they had endeavoured at first, by 
 coming forward as a Jewish sect, to creep 
 in under the cover of an openly-tolerated 
 religion.* But it was by no means per- 
 mitted to the Jews to extend their religion 
 among the Roman heathens; and the lat- 
 ter were forbidden, under heavy penalties, 
 to undergo circumcision. But even then 
 it happened, that from the above men- 
 tioned causes, the number of proselytes 
 among the heathen increased exceedingly. 
 This the government sometimes disre- 
 garded, but at other limes, on the contrary, 
 severe laws were enacted to repress it, as 
 those of the senate under Tiberius, (Tac. 
 Ann. ii. 85.) those of Antoninus Pius, and 
 Septimus Severus. 
 
 The case was wholly different with 
 Christianity. Here was no old religion 
 of a country and people, as in all the 
 other cases, but Christianity appeared 
 rather as a falling away from a "religio 
 licita" — a revolfj" against an ancient na- 
 tional religion. So Celsus, in accordance 
 with the then prevailing sentiments, thus 
 reproaches the Christians, B. \. 254, (p. 
 247, ed. Spencer,) and tells them that they 
 are neither Heathens nor Jews : " while the 
 Jews are, at any rate, a peculiar people, 
 and observe a national worship, be that 
 worship what it may: and in this they 
 act like other men. Justly," says he, 
 " are the old laws observed among all na- 
 tions ; and it is a crime to desert them." 
 Hence arose the common reproach against 
 Christians, and their usual appellation, 
 " the new race," which is neither the one 
 thing nor the other, " genus tertium." 
 The notion of a religion which should 
 unite all men with one another, appeared 
 to the ancients an impossibility. " A man 
 must be very weak," says Celsus, " to 
 
 CHRISTIANITY AWAKENS JEALOUSY. 
 
 . * Sub umbraculo religionis licitsB. 
 
 ■\ It proceciled from a wish of (TTum^w TTfv ' 
 lutvov rm 'lovJoLutv- Celsus iii. 117. 
 
 imagine that Greeks and Barbarians, in 
 Asia, Europe, and Libya, can ever unite 
 under the same system of religion." B. 
 viii. p. 438. (p. 425, ed. Spencer.) They 
 now saw how Christianity was extending 
 itself irresistibly among all ranks, and 
 threatened to overturn the slate religion, 
 and with it the frame of civil society, 
 which seemed bound up in that religion. 
 They, therefore, thought it reqiiisite to 
 oppose inward power by outward violence. 
 It was still further an excitement to jea- 
 lousy, that the Christians had none of 
 those things, which men are accustomed 
 to look for in religion ; nothing that was 
 calculated to strike the eye, as there was 
 in Judaism, the temple and the sacrifices 
 of which were revered even by the hea- 
 then. Celsus says against the Christians, 
 B. viii. p. 400, (p. 389, ed. Spencer,) that 
 " their having neither altars, images, nor 
 temple, was the token of an invisible, se- 
 cret order." And again, the internal feel- 
 ings of brotherly union, by which every 
 Christian in every city alike found friends, 
 who were more to him than all the plea- 
 sures of the world, were beyond the com- 
 prehension of the heathen. " What is 
 this ?" they would say •, " how can the 
 Christians, recognising one another by 
 some secret token, love each other even 
 before they can be mutually known ?" 
 (See the heathen in Minucius Felix.) The 
 Roman politicians were unable to under- 
 stand the bond of feeling which united 
 Christians so strongly, and they looked 
 for political aims, for which, in those days, 
 the jealousy of despotism was forever on 
 the watch. It must, in those days of 
 slavery, have given a bad impression of 
 Christianity, that it gave to men some- 
 thing which elevated them above all fear of 
 man, and enabled them to despise all hu- 
 man power, when that power required 
 any thing from them which was contrary 
 to their conscience and faith. Roman 
 statesmen had no respect for the rights of 
 conscience. When the Christian could 
 not be induced, by any persuasion, any 
 fear, or any violence, to participate in the 
 "Cajrimoniae Romana;" enjoined by law, 
 they laid it all to a blind obstinacy which 
 required punishment (inflexibilis obstina- 
 tio.) The refusal, however, to sacrifice to 
 the gods, was with many a less crime than 
 their declining, while they showed most 
 conscientious obedience to the govern- 
 ment in every thing which was not against 
 the law of God, to pay any of those 
 species of veneration to tlie emperors, 
 which heathen adulation had invented in 
 
CHRISTIANS REFUSE DIVINE HONOURS. 
 
 building temples to them, oflering incense 
 to their busts, and numbering them among 
 the gods. The Christian was sure to give 
 the highest ofTence, when he explained 
 that he had one Lord in heaven that he 
 could not recognise the emperor as his 
 Lord in the same sense as he did God 
 Almighty ; and when he would neither 
 offer idolatrous worship of any kind to 
 the busts of the emperors, nor swear by 
 their genius. What a contrast is there 
 between the free and lofty spirit of the 
 Christian, whose conversation was in 
 heaven, and the slavish feelings of the 
 boastful, would-be philosopher, Celsus ! 
 when he says to the Christians :* " When 
 they ask you to swear by the Ruler of 
 Men, this is no severe demand, for to him 
 is the earth given, and whatever you re- 
 ceive in this life, you receive from him !" 
 On the anniversary of the emperor's ac- 
 cession, or on some rejoicing for a vic- 
 tory, when every place wore a festal ap- 
 pearance, the Christians slirunk back into 
 their deep seriousness, which appeared to 
 the heatiien, compared with their own 
 habits of carelessness and sensual enjoy- 
 ment of the moment, a misanthropic hatred 
 of the world (odium generis humani ;) 
 they would take no part in wild and un- 
 reasonable pleasures, or at least pleasures 
 which suited not serious habits of thought. 
 Slany a Christian, from his own feelings, 
 would have abhorred giving such signs of 
 participation as they might and ought to 
 have done according to the principles of 
 their religion ; but the zeal for God's law 
 was always entitled to respect, which in- 
 duced men to do too much, rather than 
 too little, and which tempted them to draw 
 down upon their heads persecution at the 
 hands of man, rather than to hazard for an 
 instant doing any thing against the law of 
 God. Many were too scrupulous to deck 
 their houses with laurel, or illuminate 
 them, from imagining in their mistaken 
 notions that there would be something 
 heathenish in these compliances. The 
 error of some was easily charged as a crime 
 on all. Hence in those times came the 
 dangerous "crimen majestatis" (accusa- 
 tion of high treason) against the Chris- 
 tians. They were called " irreligiosi in 
 Caesares, hostes C?esarum, hostes populi 
 Romani." Many Christians, who thought 
 themselves bound to military duties (for 
 all did not consider a soldier's life incom- 
 patible with Christianity,) yet refused to 
 take the military oath. The fault of in- 
 
 Lib, viii. p. 435. (p. 422, ed. Spencer.) 
 
 53 
 
 dividuals was again laid to the charge of 
 the whole body. " Does not the empe- 
 ror justly punish you ?" says Celsus ; " for 
 if all did as you do, the emperor would be 
 left to himself, no one would defend him, 
 the wildest barbarians would obtain the 
 power over all the world, and tliere would 
 not remain a single trace of true wisdom, 
 nor even of your religion, among man- 
 kind ; for fancy not that your Almighty 
 God would come down from heaven to 
 fight for us."* It was the fashion to at- 
 tack the Christians by accusations that 
 contradicted one another. While, on the 
 one hand, the intimate connection between 
 the Christians gave rise to a charge of po- 
 litical conspiracies ; on the other, they are 
 accused of not paying sufiicient attention 
 to civil matters, and the afiairs of the state ; 
 they are represented as men who are dead 
 to the world, and useless in business (ho- 
 mines infructuosi in negotio.) It used then 
 to be said of the Christians that they were 
 dumb in public, and praters in private (in 
 publico muti, in angulis garruli,) and 
 " what would become of the business of 
 the world if all men were like them r" 
 
 Such were the causes which impelled 
 the Roman governors to persecute Chris- 
 tianity, but all the persecutions did not 
 proceed from the government. The 
 Christians imre often the victims of -po- 
 pular fury. The common people looked 
 upon them as enemies of their gods, and 
 that w^as equivalent to Atheism. " The 
 Atheists," was the appellation of the 
 Christians in every body's mouth, and of 
 Atheists the vilest and most incredible 
 things would be believed. The same re- 
 ports, which at different times have been 
 spread about those sects of Christians, 
 which were an object of hatred and hor- 
 ror to the fanaticism of the multiuide, 
 were also prevalent among the heathen 
 about tlie Christians generally, " that they 
 committed unnatural crimes in their as- 
 semblies, and were in tlie habit of slaught- 
 ering and eating children." The evidence 
 of abject slaves, or of persons from whom 
 they elicited by torment whatever avowal 
 they wanted, were then used to support 
 these abominable accusations, and to jus- 
 tify the fury of the multitude. When a 
 drought occurred in hot districts, from 
 the want of rain, it was a proverb in the 
 north of Africa, according to St. Augus- 
 tin, that " if it does not rain, blame the 
 Christians for it," (non phut Deus, due 
 ad Christianos ;) if in Egypt the Nile did 
 
 Lib. viii. p. 436. (p. 423, ed. Spencer.) 
 
54 
 
 THE BILL RELATIVE TO THE CHRISTIANS. 
 
 not irrigate the fields, if in Rome the Ti- 
 ber overflowed, if an earthquake, a fa- 
 mine, or any other public calamity took 
 'place, the rage of the people was in an 
 instant excited against the Christians. 
 We have to ascribe all this, they would 
 say, to the anger of the gods on account 
 of the increase of Christianity. And -can 
 we wonder at this, when Porphyry, a 
 man who wished to be accounted a phi- 
 losopher, found a cause for the inveteracy 
 of an infectious and desolating sickness 
 in this, that Esculapius could no longer 
 exert any eflectual influence on the earth 
 in consequence of the prevalence of Chris- 
 tianity ? 
 
 There were also individual interests at 
 ■work, which were anxious to excite the 
 rage of the populace against Christianity ; 
 priests, artificers, and others, who de- 
 rived profit from the service of idolatry, 
 like Demetrius in the Acts ; magicians, 
 who saw their trickery laid open by 
 Christians, and sanctified cynics, whose 
 hypocrisy the Christians exposed. When 
 the magician, Alexander of Abonoteichos, 
 in Pontus, whose life Lucian wrote, ob- 
 served that his arts of deception no longer 
 obtained any credit in the cities, he ex- 
 claimed that Pontus was full of Atheists 
 and Christians, and urged the people to 
 stone them, unless they wished to bring 
 upon themselves the anger of the gods. 
 He never began his enchantments before 
 the people, without previously crying out, 
 " If any Atheist, CJiristian, or Epicurean, 
 has sneaked in here as a spy, let him de- 
 part!" To appeal to the might of the 
 multitude appears not to have been un- 
 usual with the defenders of heathenism, 
 when they were hard pushed. See Ti- 
 mocles, in Lucian's Jupiter Tragoed. Jus- 
 tin Martyr knew that Crescens, one of 
 the common pseudo-cynics of those days, 
 who were demagogues under the veil of 
 sanctity, had excited the people's fury 
 against the Christians, and threatened 
 death to himseif, simply because he had 
 exposed the hypocrisy of Crescens. 
 
 From these observations on the causes 
 of the persecutions, it follows as a matter 
 of course, tliat iill Chrisl'umity was re- 
 ceived into the class of '' religlones llcl- 
 Zce," hi) defmiie enactments^ the Christians 
 could enjoy no general and secure tran- 
 quillUy in the exercise of their religion in 
 the Roman empire^ and they were con- 
 tinually the victims of popular fury and 
 individual malice. 
 
 We proceed now to detail the varying 
 circumstances of the Christian Church, 
 
 under the various governments of empe- 
 rors, who were so differently disposed to- 
 wards it. 
 
 [A] Persecution of Christianity by the hand 
 of poiver — Condition of the Christian 
 Church under the various emperors. 
 
 Tertullian (Apol. ch. v. and xxi.) re- 
 lates of Tiberius, that having heard of the 
 miracles and resurrection of Christ from 
 the report of Pilate, he proposed a bill to 
 the senate, " that Christ should be re- 
 ceived among the Roman gods ;" but the 
 senate rejected this bill, that they might 
 not renounce their old right of determin- 
 ing about "religiones novse" only of their 
 own accord (e motu proprio.) The em- 
 peror did not, however, wholly renounce 
 his undertaking, and at last threatened 
 severe punishment against any who should 
 accuse Christians merely as Christians. 
 A man of so uncritical a judgment as. 
 Tertullian cannot be valid evidence for a 
 tale, Avhich bears every mark of falsehood 
 about it. If we conceive that this is some 
 real fact, which has been exaggerated, and 
 believe a part of it, yet the little we can 
 give credit to, even allowing that the em- 
 peror did propose some such bill, cannot 
 prove that toleration was granted to Chris- 
 tianity. If we could believe that Pilate, 
 on whom, from the frivolity of his senti- 
 ments, the miraculous events he had be- 
 held can hardly have made more than a 
 transient impression^ did actually send a 
 report of this nature, yet we are even 
 then far from having any reason to con- 
 clude that a similar impression could have 
 been made on the heart of Tiberius. At 
 all events, it suits ill with the slavish cha- 
 racter of the senate under Tiberius, to 
 imagine that it ventured to act in this 
 way; and this could hardly have given 
 rise to such a law against the accusers of 
 Christians, because at that time the Chris- 
 tian sect had scarcely obtained any name 
 or respect. The sequel of the history is 
 a clear proof that no such law was en- 
 acted in the time of Tiberius. The fact 
 seems to be, that Tertullian has been im- 
 posed on by a spurious document, fabri- 
 cated perhaps in very early times by some 
 of tliose Christians who hold a " fraus 
 pia" to be no sin.* 
 
 At first. Christians were confounded 
 
 * [Lardner (Heathen Testimonies, ch. ii.) 
 thinks that the story is in part founded on fact. 
 His elaborate discussion of the subject is well 
 worth reading. It is treated in a very different 
 si)irit by Gibbon, ch. xvi. p 666.— H. J. R.] 
 
NERO'S PERSECUTION. A. D. 
 
 64. 
 
 .55 
 
 with Jews, and, therefore, the edict for 
 tlie banishment of the restless Jews from 
 ]{ome, in the time of Claudius, A. D. 53, 
 was executed on the Christians also, if 
 there were any there, which may be justly 
 supposed. Suetonius* says the emperor 
 Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome, 
 who were constantly raising disturbances, 
 at the instigation of Clireslus. It might, 
 iiulecd, be supposed, that some turbulent 
 person of this name then living is here 
 intended. But as none so generally known, 
 as the expression of Suetonius would im- 
 port, is to be found, and the name X^ laroj 
 was often pronounced X^>)<7to? by the hea- 
 then, it is highly probable that Suetonius, 
 putting together what he had heard of the 
 Jewisli expectation of a Messiah, and the 
 mere dark and confused accounts which 
 mav have reached him of Christ's works, 
 has expressed himself in this indefinite 
 manner. 
 
 The first persecution took place under 
 Nero, A. D. 64. Nero wished to remove 
 from himself the suspicion that he was 
 the author of the well-known fire at 
 Home, and by casting the imputation on 
 the Christians, to give a satisfaction to 
 the fanatical and blood-thirsty populace, 
 while at the same time he gratified his 
 own diabolical cruelty. That Nero ever 
 thought of laying the guilt on Christians, 
 is a proof that they were even then an 
 object of especial hatred to the people, 
 and that such an accusation would then 
 meet with a ready belief, in consequence 
 of the common reports about the assem- 
 blies of the Christians. Tacitus was pro- 
 ]»al)ly induced by these same reports to 
 say of the Christians, " quos per flagita 
 invisos vulgus Christianos appellabat." 
 He condemns also the new sect, which 
 was spreading abroad an im-Roman reli- 
 gion (superstitio,) and probably without 
 any examination, just as in later times 
 many Romans of otherwise good under- 
 standing did, when they followed vague 
 reports in their judgment on sects which 
 dilfered from the prevailing religion. He 
 could see in Christianity nothing but a 
 detestable superstition, " exitiabilis super- 
 stitio !" 
 
 The Christians who were now arrested, 
 were executed in the most cruel manner, 
 by the command of the emperor ; inclosed 
 in the skins of wild animals, they were 
 thrown to dogs, to be torn to pieces ; or 
 perhaps their clothes smeared with com- 
 
 * Impulsore Chresto assidue tumultuantes Roma 
 expulit. 
 
 bustible materials (the "- tunica molesta") 
 they were set on fire, to give at night the 
 effect of an illumination. This persecu- 
 tion was, however, by no means a gene- 
 ral one ; it affected only those in Rome, 
 as the pretended cause of the great fire.* 
 [t It is, however, quite open to inquiry, 
 whether aU^ who were then executed as 
 Christians, were really so. For as they 
 were then following an ignorant cry of 
 the people, as the name of Christian had 
 then become an object of the people's 
 hatred, and was used by them to denote 
 every thing they abhorred ; and as the 
 people might easily apply that name to 
 all who, justly or unjustly, had become 
 objects of public hatred, and as there was 
 in this case undoubtedly no regular judi- 
 cial inquiry, it is likely enough that many, 
 " quos per flagitia invisos vulgus Chris- 
 tianos appellabat," although not Chris- 
 tians, were denounced as Christians. Ta- 
 citus (Ann. XV. 44.) says, " those were 
 seized first who confessed," but we are 
 then led to inquire, " confessed what ?" 
 was it that they had caused the fire, or 
 that they were Christians ? In the first 
 case, we must imagine that they were 
 persons who had actually allowed Nero 
 to make use of them to cause the fire ; 
 but then these were no Christians, only 
 men whom the multitude branded as 
 objects of hatred and abomination with 
 the name of Christians. These men had 
 possibly, in the hope of bettering their 
 own condition, given up many others 
 as Christians, some of whom might, 
 and others might not, be really so.] 
 But that which befel the Christians in 
 the metropolis would of course influ- 
 ence their condition in all the provinces. 
 The impression which these persecutions 
 and the truly diabolical character of Nero 
 made upon the Christians, may be judged 
 of from a saying which was spread abroad 
 among the Christian people, and was long 
 remembered, with just the Christian co- 
 louring which a heathen saying would ob- 
 tain among them, namely, that Nero was 
 not dead, but that he had retired beyond 
 the Euphrates, and would return as Anti- 
 christ.J This is worthy of remark, as the 
 
 * [If the inscription published by Gruter, p. 
 238, 2.39, be genuine, this persecution was felt in 
 Portugal. The inscription is given, and its genu- 
 ineness well discussed, in Lardner, Heathen Test, 
 ch. iii.— H. J. K] 
 
 ■\ This passage is incorporated into the work 
 from the addenda to the tliird volume. 
 
 i In the pseudo-Sibylline books, iit' Cvcut.t.ix-\u, 
 
NERVALS MILDNESS. 
 
 66 
 
 same notion was very often entertained, 
 in after times, of any princes who caused 
 great commotions in the world. Under 
 the despotic Domitian, who reified from 
 A.D. 81, as he favoured the profession of 
 informers, and was in the habit of remov- 
 ing out of the way, by various pretences, 
 those of whom he was jealous, or whose 
 property he desired, the accusation of 
 conversion to Christianity, already an ob- 
 ject of bitter hatred (as we learn from j 
 Nero's government,) was probably one 
 of the very commonest counts in a charge 
 of high treason* (crimen majestatis.) In 
 consequence of this accusation many were 
 sentenced to death, or to banishment into 
 an island, with the confiscation of their 
 property.! 
 
 The emperor was also informed that 
 there lived in Palestine two people from 
 the family of David and Jesus, who were 
 occupied in seditious undertakings. The 
 seditious tendency of the Jewish expecta- 
 tions of a Messiah were well known, and 
 what the Christians said of Christ's king- 
 dom was often misunderstood.^ He 
 ordered the accused to be brought before 
 him, and satisfied himself that they were 
 poor, innocent countrymen, who were far 
 from having any political designs, and he 
 therefore allowed them to return home in 
 safety.§ But this experience did not im- 
 pel him to relax the ordinances against 
 Christianity in general, which had other 
 grounds. Tertullian (Apol. c. 4.) certainly 
 speaks too generally when he declares 
 that Domitian had only made an attempt 
 to persecute the Christians, which he 
 abandoned again, and recalled the exiled. 
 
 The emperor Nerva, A. D. 96, from his 
 justice and humanity, was an enemy to 
 the system of informers, which had 
 wrought such evil under his predecessors. 
 This was of itself an advantage to the 
 Christians, because one of the commonest 
 accusations was that of being a Christian. 
 He declared all free who were condemned 
 on such charges, and recalled those who 
 had been banished ; and he ordered all 
 the slaves who had come forward as ac- 
 cusers to their masters to be executed. 
 
 * The joining together of sj^xX^/Utt cSjctxtoc and 
 'icvSuioiv ybii, in Dio Cassius, I. Ixvii. 14. clearly 
 points out the Christians. 
 
 ■\ Besides Dio Cassius, another historian, named 
 Bruttius, in the chronicle of Eusebius, says that 
 many suffered martyrdom under this emperor. 
 
 i The words of Jusl. Mart. Apol. ii. 58, prove 
 this; o«cu3-avTS: y?it3-;/M/av 5rg',7if;xafTs« h/aa;, i^u^nac 
 
 I Hegesipp. in Euseb. iii. 19,20. 
 
 He altogether forbade the reception of the 
 accusations of slaves against their masters. 
 This, again, must have been of service to 
 the Christians, for many of the accusations 
 against them proceeded from slaves of in- 
 different characters. The things which 
 under the preceding government had 
 formed the ground of most charges and 
 sentences, could no longer be brought 
 forward, and probably Christianity was 
 included in this general understanding.* 
 Under the short administration of this 
 emperor, therefore, we see accusations 
 against the Christians at a standstill, but 
 no permanent tranquillity was then assured 
 to them, nor their religion recognised by 
 the legislature as a " religio licila." And 
 we are inclined to think that since Chris- 
 tianity during these few years had been 
 able to spread itself farther without im- 
 pediment, the restrained fury of the people 
 would break out after the death of this 
 emperor with renewed violence. The 
 new law of Trajan (A. D. 99,) against se- 
 cret associations (Irat^aiai,) might clearly 
 be used against the Christians. Pliny the 
 younger came as governor during this 
 reign (A. D. 110,) to Bithynia and Pontus 
 into districts where the Christians were 
 numerous. Many of them were brought 
 j to his tribunal: he found himself in no 
 I small embarrassment, in consequence of 
 I such proceedings being quite new to him, 
 I and no definite law existing on the mat- 
 ter, as well as from the number of the 
 Christians ; " For many," he writes, " of 
 every age and rank, of both sexes, are 
 implicated in the danger; for not only in 
 the towns, but also in the villages, and in 
 the country, has the contagion of this su- 
 perstition spread." The temples were 
 forsaken, and the usual services of idolatry 
 could no longer be maintained, and vic- 
 tims for sacrifice were rarely brought. 
 Pliny did not suffer himself, like his 
 friend Tacitus, to be guided by the vague 
 reports of the people, but took proper pains 
 to inform himself about the question, and 
 interrogated those who had renounced the 
 Christian communion for some years. 
 We must remember that renegades are 
 seldom inclined to speak avcU of the so- 
 ciety to which they formerly belonged. 
 With the usual brutality of Roman justice, 
 which never recognised a human being in 
 
 * As Dio Cassius mentions the accusation of 
 a(r€/?«a, and also of 'IcvJoukoc yg/oc, along with the 
 "crimen majestatis;" although probably we are 
 not to understand either a6ioT»f, or Christianity 
 under the word dcrsjg«*. 
 
PLINY S CONDUCT TOWARD THE CHRISTIANS. 
 
 57 
 
 a slave, he applied the torture to two fe- 
 male slaves, who had served the office of 
 deaconesses in the Christian community, 
 in order to obtain from them an avowal 
 of the truth ; and yet all that he could 
 learn was '' that the Christians were ac- 
 customed to meet on a certain day (Sun- 
 day,) that they then sung a hymn in 
 praise of their God Christ, and that they* 
 mutually pledged themselves, nol| to the 
 commission of any crime, but to abstain 
 from theft and perjury ; never to break 
 their word, and never to withhold a de- 
 posit ;J that they separated after this, and 
 in the evening met again for a simple and 
 innocent repast.§ And even these latter 
 assemblies they had discontinued in con- 
 sequence of the imperial edict against the 
 Hetariaj." One would have supposed 
 that such a discovery of the effects of 
 Christianity would have led Pliny, if not 
 to further inquiries as to the origin and 
 nature of a religion, which produced 
 effects so widely differing from those of 
 Paganism, on such a variety of characters, 
 yet, at least, to the toleration of a religion 
 in which nothmg, either politically or 
 morally speaking, could be found worthy 
 of pimishment. No such thing ! Pliny 
 was too completely possessed by the nar- 
 row-minded, political views of a Roman, 
 so to judge. Unable to attain to any view 
 but that presented by his philosophical, 
 or his slate religion, he saw in that which, 
 differing as widely from the Roman state 
 religion as from his philosophical one, 
 could yet demand and obtain || so great a 
 power over the consciences of men, only 
 a perverse andU extravagant superstition. 
 We may see from this the power of pre- 
 vailing opinions, even on good men, when 
 they are not counteracted by some higher 
 principle than human systems can give. 
 The noble, tender-hearted Pliny, as he 
 seems to be from his letters, is here un- 
 able to distinguish the man from the citi- 
 zen and subject, to recognise the rights of 
 
 * The remembrance of the baptismal vow, the 
 " sacramentum militia; ChristianjB," which was 
 often urged upon their minds in practical discourses. 
 
 •j- A plain contradiction to the vulgar reports 
 about the horrible purposes of the assemblies of 
 the Christians. 
 
 i One who had violated his baptismal vow by 
 such a crime was excluded from the communion of 
 the Church. 
 
 § A clear contradiction to the vulgar reports 
 about the cannibal meals of the Christians, " epulis 
 Thyesteis." 
 
 II Pliny might well think this rather too much 
 of religion. 
 
 1 Superstitio prava et immodica. 
 
 8 
 
 man as man, and to perceive the power of 
 free and firm conviction, as well as the 
 regard it must command in every moral 
 feeling heart. He required only a blind 
 obedience to the law of the slate. The 
 Christians must deny their faith, invoke 
 the gods! they must offer incense, and 
 pour libations to the statues of the empe- 
 ror, as well as of the gods, and curse 
 Christ! If they refused, and after the 
 governor had three times, under a threat 
 of death, requested them to abjure their 
 belief, they still avowed steadfastly, that 
 they were and would remain Christians, 
 Pliny condemned them to death, as ob- 
 stinate confessors of a " religio illicita," 
 which was in direct violation of the laws 
 of the state. Those who complied with 
 the governor's requisition, obtained par- 
 don. It is not to be wondered at, if many 
 who embraced Christianity during its rapid 
 propagation in these regions in the tran- 
 quil times of Nerva, had, nevertheless, 
 not thoroughly considered what Chris- 
 tianity really requires, and whether they 
 wei-e ready to give themselves up wholly 
 to God, as he requires, and to sacrifice 
 every thing to him ; that is, if there were 
 such persons as our Lord describes, Matt, 
 xiii. 20 — 22. History often shows us that 
 these sudden conversions have something 
 unsound in them. Many, therefore, we may 
 suppose, there were among the multitude 
 of the Christians, whose faith was not 
 proof against the sight of death. Pliny 
 might perceive, as the effect of his prose- 
 cutions, that, while many abjured Chris- 
 tianity from the fear of man, and the '' few 
 chosen" became separated from the " many 
 called" by the storm of persecution, the 
 idolatrous worship of the heathen temples 
 revived again in public. Pliny, who 
 judged by appearances, thought that this 
 sect might easily be suppressed, if it were 
 treated with a due mixture of severity and 
 mildness ; if the obstinate were punished, 
 to frighten the rest, and yet those, who 
 would like to'retract, were not driven to 
 despair, by closing the door of pardon 
 against them. 
 
 In his report to Trajan (x. 97.) on this 
 matter, he makes also the following in- 
 quiries. Whether he should make any 
 distinction as to age, or deal Avith the 
 young* just as with the old > Whether 
 he should give room for repentance, or in 
 every case punish every one who had 
 
 • It seems probable that the number of chil- 
 drcn and youni:; people found among the Chris- 
 tians gave occasion to this inquiry. 
 
58 
 
 TRAJAN S TREATMENT OF THE CHRISTIANS. 
 
 ever been a Christian? Whether Chris- 
 tians should be punishable simply as 
 Christians, or only in consequence of 
 other crimes? ]t appears from the con- 
 duct of Pliny, as governor and judge, 
 how, according to his sentiments, most 
 of these inquiries should be answered; 
 and the emperor T"rajan approved his con- 
 duct, and seems in his decision to coin- 
 cide wholly with his views. He did not 
 allow the Christians to be classed with 
 common criminals, whom the governors 
 employed their police* to detect. Chris- 
 tians were not to be sought for, but when 
 they were brought up, they should be 
 punished. The emperor does not say 
 hoio ; indeed, he avows, that on this part 
 of tlie subject he could not determinef 
 any tiling definite. Jt appears, however, 
 that the punishment of death was gene- 
 rally understood; while pardon was to 
 1)6 extended to those who would re- 
 nounce Christianity, and return to the 
 Roman gods. 
 
 TertuUian had long ago pointed out a 
 contradiction in this decision. If the 
 emperor thought the Christians criminal, 
 they ought to have been searched for and 
 punished like any other criminals, and 
 brought to punishment. If he thought 
 them innocent, punishment was wrong in 
 every case. This is certainly a just 
 opinion in a moral point of view; but 
 the emperor regarded the matter in a 
 poUiico-juridicial light. He thought that 
 it was impossible, in any case, to allow 
 contempt of the " Caerimoniae Romanae," 
 the open violation of the laws of the state, 
 to go unpunished, although unaccom- 
 panied by any moral guilt.J So Trajan 
 thought it necessary to act wlien any 
 such illegal conduct came before the 
 governor publicly, but he wished then to 
 wink at it as much as possible, in order 
 to spare the Ciiristians, as far as was 
 consistent with a due observance of the 
 laws. He, hke Pliny, believing Chris- 
 tianity to be a delusion, thought that if 
 mercv and rigour were blended together, 
 and if, without making any great stir, the 
 open offences of this kind were punished, 
 but tliey were not persecuted, the en- 
 thusiastic fancy would pass, and the thing 
 itself would, by and by, die away. Had 
 there been nothing higher in Christianity, 
 
 the consequences would have justified 
 the opinion of Trajan. 
 
 That which had hitherto been a mat- 
 ter of tacit deduction, namely, that Chris- 
 tianity was not legally received among 
 the religions tolerated by the state, was 
 now expressly declared against Chris- 
 tians by a distinct law, and their condi- 
 tion must, in consequence, very soon 
 have changed for the worse. The only 
 search after Christians which Trajan had 
 in his contemplation, was of a legal kind ; 
 but it often happened that Christians, or 
 those suspected to be so, were seized 
 by furious mobs, and so brought to the 
 judgment-seat. There were some gov- 
 ernors, to whom blood-shedding was a 
 matter of indifference, and they willingly 
 sacrificed these persecuted creatures to 
 the fury of the populace, in order to 
 make themselves beloved in the province, 
 and some who themselves partook of the 
 violence of the people. Under his suc- 
 cessor Hadrian, they might imagine them- 
 selves at liberty to act thus with impunity, 
 or even with the emperor's approbation, 
 as he was known to be a zealous sup- 
 porter of the sacra of his country. When 
 he visited Greece, A. D. 124, and was 
 initiated into all the Grecian mysteries, 
 the enemies of Christianity, feeling this a 
 favourable moment, began immediately to 
 j)ersecute it. The two learned Chris- 
 tians, Quadratus and Aristides, were in- 
 duced by this to offer to Hadrian two 
 treatises in defence of their fellow be- 
 lievers. Whether these induced him to 
 join the side of the Christians, cannot be 
 decided with certainty; but, at any rate, 
 the emperor's zeal for the old religion 
 was not sufficient to extinguish his love 
 of justice. It was impossible that an 
 emperor and governors who loved justice 
 should be satisfied with tumultuous con- 
 duct, through which the innocent would 
 often be involved in the punishment of 
 the guilty. The proconsul of Asia 
 Minor, Serennius Granianus, complained 
 on the subject to Hadrian, and he was 
 induced to send a rescript to his suc- 
 cessor in the proconsul-ship, Minucius 
 Fundanus.* 
 
 * The t:e,nva^X'''^ curiosi. 
 
 •j- Neque enim in universum aliquid, quod 
 quasi certam formam habeat, constitui potest. 
 
 i As Pliny says, qualecunque esset quod fate- 
 rentur, pervicaciam ccrte et inflexibilem obstina- 
 tionem debere puniri. 
 
 * The genuineness of this rescxipt is attested, 
 not only by the citation of it in the Apology ad- 
 dressed by Melito, bishop of Sardis, to the second 
 successor of Hadrian, (see Euseb. iv. 26.) but 
 still more strongly by internal evidence : for it is 
 not to be believed, that a Christian could have 
 contented himself with saying so little in favour 
 of the Christians. The fact of Hadrian's dealing 
 mildly with the Christians, is also attested by tho 
 praises bestowed on him^ in the work of a Chris- 
 
HADRIAN AND THE CHRISTIANS. 
 
 The emperor declared himself strongly 
 against a conduct, by which the innocent 
 might be disturbed, and which might 
 give rise to false accusations, for the 
 sake of extorting money, by threatening 
 to accuse people as suspected Christians.* 
 All accusations against the Christians 
 were to be preferred in the legal forms, 
 and no measures taken against them on 
 mere popular clamour. If Christians 
 were legally charged, and proved guilty 
 of actions! contrary to the laws, they 
 were to be punished according to their 
 guilt; but, at the same time, false ac- 
 cusers were to suffer heavy punishment. 
 Similar rescripts were sent by the em- 
 peror to other quarters.J This edict 
 may have been understood as an edict of 
 toleration with regard to Christianity. 
 Under the name of "false accusers," 
 those may be understood who accused 
 the Christians of nefarious practices from 
 mere common report ; and the emperor 
 may have meant that the avowal and 
 exercise of the Christian religion should 
 not be considered criminal, and that only 
 decided crimes should be punished in the 
 Christians just as in other people. Thus 
 the emperor would, in this case, have re- 
 ceived Christianity into the number of 
 the "religiones licita; :" but if that was 
 his intention, there needed a more ex- 
 plicit declaration of what he understood 
 by the words "contrary to the laws." 
 Some particular and express declaration 
 was evidently needed on the subject, 
 after the rescript of Trajan, if the very 
 non-observance of the Roman religion, 
 
 tian, who probably wrote not long after these 
 times, i. e. in the fifth book of the pseudo-Sibylline 
 Prophecies. 
 
 Aoyv^Mgdoiii i"v»g T/f i' S3"<rfT:t< WMUrL TroiTiu, 
 E-TTXl KM ^stlriP.'OTif dvXg KOU TTdLyTSi VOMit. 
 
 * I think that Rufinus had the Latin original 
 before him, but that Eusebius, as often happens, 
 has not translated it accurately. Eusebius says, 
 ivti. tin T'Ji (rvx.ifa.VTU4; -^-..^iiyix Kouiw^yta.; Trxpio-^An : 
 Kufinus, •' Ne calumniatoribus latrocinandi tri- 
 buatur occasio." One cannot very well see how 
 Hufinus could change the general term KXKwgyia. 
 into the special one, " latrocinatio," to which the 
 context does not seem at all to point ; while 
 Eusebius, on the contrary, was likely enough 
 inaccurately to put a general for a particular term. 
 '• Latrocinari" is here synonymous with "con- 
 cutere" in other places, and the words of Tertul- 
 lian to Scapula, when he began to persecute the 
 Christians, may serve as a commentary on this 
 passage — " Parce provincia;, quae visa intentione 
 tua obnoxia facta est coiicussionibuset militum et 
 inimicorum suorum cuique." 
 
 ■j- Eos advcrsuni leges quicquani agere. 
 
 i According to Melito of Sardis, loc. cit 
 
 59 
 
 and the exercise of Christianity,* was no 
 longer to be held "contrary to the laws '' 
 The oidy thing which clearly results 
 from this decree is, that it was in opposi- 
 tion to riotous attacks on persons, as 
 being suspected of Christianity, and re- 
 quired legal proceedings in all accusa- 
 tions of them. Only in the case of gov- 
 ernors inclined to favour them, the 
 indefinite expressions of the edict might 
 perhaps be turned to the ailvantage of the 
 Christians.| 
 
 Those measures were, however, due 
 rather to his love of justice than to any 
 regard for Christianity or Christians, for 
 Hadrian was, as we remarked above, a 
 zealous and precise observer of the old 
 Roman and also of the Grecian religion, 
 and despised foreign ones (peregrina 
 sacra.) See ^Eiius Spartianus, Vita Ha- 
 drian!, c. xxii. This disposition is shown 
 in the remarkable letter of this emperor 
 to tlie consul Servianus, concerning the 
 Alexandrians.;|; Although he may, per- 
 haps, in this place be speaking of the 
 curious mixture of the various elements 
 of different religions in Alexandria, rather 
 than of Cliristianity in general, yet as a 
 friend to Christianity his language would 
 have been different. The relation, there- 
 fore, of jElius Lampridius (Alexander 
 Severus, ch. xxiv.) an historian of the 
 early part of the fourth century, is incre- 
 
 * Although Melito of Sardis says to Marcus 
 Aurelius afterwards, that his predecessors had 
 honoured Christianity in connection with other 
 religions (rrgof tu.i; axx^ic d^n^mt-jut iTiuticruv,) we 
 cannot conclude much from this ; for it is natural 
 enough that a person, who was claiming the pro- 
 tection of the emperor for Christianity, should lay 
 as much stress as possible on any thing in the 
 measures of his predecessors, which either really 
 favoured, or appeared to favour, the Christians. 
 
 -(- Tertullian ad Scapulam, c. iv. brings forward 
 instances of governors who made use of the re- 
 script to save the Christians. One was Ves- 
 pronius Candidus, who released a Christian who 
 was brought before him, under the plea that it 
 was against the order to obey the cry of the mul- 
 I titude, "quasi tumultuosum civilem* satisfacere.'' 
 I Another was Pudens, who, when he had ascer- 
 [ tained from the protocol (clogium, the committal 
 I or the proccs-verbal,) with which a Christian had 
 j been sent to him, that lie had been seized upon 
 j with threats and in a tumultuous manner, (con- 
 cussione ejus intellecta) lot him go, declaring that 
 without a certain and legal accuser, he could not 
 try him according to law. 
 
 ^ Flavii Vopisci Saturnius, c, ii. 
 
 * I leave this quotation as I find it, although I 
 cannot construe it. In my edition of Tertull. ad 
 Scap. (Canibr. IfiSfi,) it stands thus: " Quasi 
 tumultuosum civibiis suii> ptisfacere," which is 
 intelligible enough. — H. J. R. 
 
60 
 
 PERSECUTION UNDER M. AURELIUS. 
 
 dible, when he asserts that the emperor, 
 in the intention of receiving Christ among 
 the Roman gods, had in all cities temples 
 without statues, which were called Tem- 
 pla Iladriani;* but that he Avas withheld 
 from the fulfilment of his intention by the 
 representation of the priests. How this 
 report arose among the Christian people, 
 without any historical ground, admits of 
 a ready elucidation, if we reflect that 
 nothing was known of the destination of 
 these temples, and that this emperor was 
 looked upon in a very exaggerated light 
 as the protector of the Christians, and so, 
 by putting these two things together, they 
 attributed to this emperor what really was 
 the case with others, as for instance 
 Alexander Severus. 
 
 Under this government, which in the 
 Roman empire favoured the Christians, 
 tliey suffered in another quarter a severe 
 persecution. When Barchochab, whom 
 the Jews believed to be the Messiah, and 
 under whose conduct they revolted from 
 the Romans, could not induce the Chris- 
 tians in Palestine to deny their faith, and 
 take part in the revolt, he executed all 
 who fell into his hands by cruel and 
 painful deaths. 
 
 After the death of Hadrian, A. D. 138, 
 the efficacy of his edict against the attacks 
 of popular fury passed away. There 
 arose, besides, under the government of 
 Antoninus Pius, public calamities, which 
 excited afresh the rage of the populace, a 
 famine, overflowings of the Tiber, earth- 
 quakes in Asia Minor and Rhodes, and 
 desolating fires in Rome, Antioch, and 
 Carthage.f The gentle and humane dig- 
 position of the emperor could not view 
 with satisfaction these outbreakings of 
 popular wrath, and in dillerent rescripts 
 addressed to the Greek states, he expressly 
 condemned this violent conduct. But this 
 emperor must have done even more for 
 the Christians, if a rescript, ascribed in 
 all probabdity to him, and not to his suc- 
 cessor Marcus Aurelius, vvere genuine, die 
 rescript to the council of Asia Minor {w^oi 
 TO xoivov TD? 'A<rta?,) for he therein ex- 
 pressly declares, that the Christians should 
 be punislied only in case of tlieir being 
 convicted of political crimes; and, on the 
 contrary, any one who accused another 
 simply on the ground of his being a 
 Christian, should himself be liable to pun- 
 ishment. But the language of the rescript 
 is rather that of a heathen emperor, espe- 
 
 cially of one whose peculiar praise was 
 "insignis erga caerimonias publicas cura 
 ac religio," (Fabretti Marmor.) and the 
 history of the consecutive times does not 
 bespeak the existence of such an edict.* 
 Under the government of the next em- 
 peror, Marcus Aurelius, the philosopher, 
 many public calamities arose which ex- 
 cited the rage of the populace against the 
 Christians, especially a desolating pesti- 
 lence, which, extending itself by degrees 
 from Ethiopia to Gaul, infested the whole 
 Roman empire. During this time the 
 magician Alexander, in Asia Minor (see 
 above,) excited the zeal of the people for 
 their own gods, from whom he promised 
 miraculous assistance, and thus also he 
 excited the wrath of the people against the 
 Christians. But had there been nothing 
 here but popular fury, and had this empe- 
 ror been of the same sentiments as his 
 predecessor, this ebullition would soon 
 have been repressed. On the contrary, 
 however, we see under his government the 
 people and the higher officers of the state 
 united together against the Christians. 
 They were so severely persecuted in Asia 
 Minor, that Bishop Melito, of Sardis, their 
 advocate with the emperor, says, "The 
 race of the worshippers of God in Asia 
 Minor, are now persecuted more than ever 
 was the case before, in consequence of 
 neio edicts, for shameless informers, thirst- 
 ing after other men's property, now plun- 
 der the guiltless by day and night, when- 
 ever they can find any grounds for it in 
 the edicts. And we object not to this, if 
 it proceeds from your command, for a just 
 emperor would never decide unjustly, and 
 we willingly bear the happy lot of such a 
 death; and we only make this petition to 
 you, that you would acquaint yourself 
 with those who are thus persecuted, and 
 judge fairly whether they deserve punish- 
 ment and death, or safety and tranquillity. 
 If, however, this new decree and this de- 
 cision comes not. from you yourself, a 
 decree such as would be unbecoming even 
 against barbarian enemies, we pray you 
 the more earnestly, not to suffer us to be 
 a prey to such rapacity."| These words 
 
 * ' A(fgwvsw, so Aristid. Oral. Sacr. 1. 
 •J- Jul. Capitolini Vita Antoniiii Pii, c. ix. 
 
 * Eusebius, however, says, that Melito of Sardis, 
 in his Apology, addressed to the successor of An- 
 toninus Pius, appeals to this rescript ; but it strikes 
 one immediately, that Melito, in the fragment 
 quoted by Euseliius (loc. laud.,) just exactly does 
 not quote the rescript, for that would have been 
 far more favourable for the Christians than the 
 edict quoted, by Melito. [See Moyle's works, ji. 
 236 ; and ("hevalier's Apostolical Epistles, p. 278. 
 — H. .1. R.] 
 
 f [Dr. Neander is either misprinted, or he has 
 
M. AURELIUS — HIS NOTIONS OF THE CHRISTIANS. 
 
 61 
 
 of Melito, where Christian dignity is 
 mingled with Christian prudence, lead us 
 to many observations. Immediately after 
 the publication of Trajan's edict, a Chris- 
 tian once accused might be punished u-ith 
 death ; and this edict was never officially 
 revoked, although the mildness of the last 
 emperor in this respect may have pre- 
 vented its severe and literal execution. 
 But Melito informs us that a new and ter- 
 rible edict had been put forth by the pro- 
 consul, iriviting informations agai7ist the 
 Christians. This is the more striking un- 
 der the government of this emperor, who 
 was by no means inclined to approve of the 
 infamous trade of informers,* and whose 
 principle seemed rather to be to lighten 
 those punishments which the laws de- 
 nounced against crime.| We can hardly 
 imagine that the proconsul would have 
 ventured to publish a new edict on his 
 authority, and Melito appears to be quite 
 persuaded that it came from the emperor 
 himself; while at the same time he ex- 
 presses himself doubtfully on the point, in 
 order that he might ask its repeal with a 
 better grace. 
 
 Let us now consider generally the senti- 
 ments of this emperor towards the Chris- 
 tians, in connection with his philosophical 
 and religious systems, and see what results 
 from it in relation to his actual conduct 
 towards the Christians. His cold, con- 
 templative stocism, could never make him 
 their friend; the objects of his highest 
 admiration were a calmness that proceeded 
 from philosophical speculation, and a re- 
 signation which could coolly contemplate 
 even the annihilation of our personality, 
 as we have above remarked ; but he had 
 no sympathy with calmness and resigna- 
 tion, that arose from a living faith, and a 
 hope founded on that faith, and animated 
 by it. The spirit with which the Chris- 
 tian martyrs met death, nay, even in many 
 instances sought it (although the Church 
 in general condemned this latter custom,) 
 appeared to him a mere delusion of en- 
 thusiasm; for the faith from which this 
 spirit proceeded, no man could communi- 
 cate to another by philosophical demon- 
 stration. The principle which the Chris- 
 tians acted on, rathei to die than to do 
 what was required of them, Marcus Au- 
 relius was as little able to appreciate as 
 
 1 Pliny had been. He also could only see 
 j in this a blind opposition to the laws of 
 ' the state, and his philosophical bigotry 
 I would assist in inflaming his political zeal. 
 j We shall transcribe here the very words 
 I of this emperor in regard to the Chris- 
 tians ; they are taken from his Meditations, 
 (xi. 3.) "The soul must be prepared 
 I when it must leave the body, either to 
 I be extinguished, or to be dissolved, or 
 j to remain a little longer with the body. 
 -This readiness must proceed from free 
 i choice, and not from mere obstinacy,* as 
 , in the Christians; and it must also be the 
 ^ result of contemplation, and a lofty spirit, 
 I Avithout any theatrical elTect, so that a man 
 j should also be able to persuade another to 
 j the same course." In this point of view, 
 therefore, although he might find the 
 Christians guilty of no moral offence, and 
 probably disbelieve the often refuted tales 
 about them, yet he might consider them 
 as enthusiasts, dangerous to the well-being 
 of civil society, and as he remarked that 
 Christianity, under the mild government 
 of the last emperor, was constantly taking 
 deeper root, he might think it necessary 
 to oppose its increase by severe measures. 
 There may be in philosophy, just as well 
 I as in any thing else, a bigoted attachment 
 to certain notions and ideas, which renders 
 men intolerant and fond of persecution. 
 It is well, indeed, that Plato's wish of 
 seeing philosophy united with sovereign 
 poAver, can rarely be realised. Plato 
 would be right, if by his philosophy true 
 wisdom is understood, wdiich never can 
 be learned in a school ; but the philoso- 
 phy of a school, united with sovereign 
 power, would assuredly be a most fruitful 
 source of oppression. 
 
 We should, nevertheless, be judging 
 most unjustly, if we represented this em- 
 peror to ourselves as a philosopher, whom 
 certain general notions had taught proudly 
 to despise the religious faith of other men. 
 We find in him a certain child-like piety, 
 which he owed, not to his stoicism, but, 
 after his own confession, to the infiuencej 
 
 mistranslated Eusebius here; he leaves out the 
 negative in this sentence, and thus makes it non- 
 sense. In my edition the negative .stands. — II. J. 
 R. The passage is in Euseb. iv. 26.] 
 
 * Julii Capitolini Vita, c. xi. 
 
 ■j- L. c. c. xxiv. 
 
 • Mn Kvra. -^iKnv !Tas«T3|/v ; pervicacia, obsti- 
 natio. 
 
 f wrfg* Txc /ux^o; ro fisjiri/???. [In the Soirees de 
 S. Petersbourg there is an eloquent passage on this 
 subject, of which it will not be out of place to 
 quote the beginning here: — "It liclongs to our 
 sex, no doubt, to form mathematicians, tactitians. 
 chemists, &c., but that which one calls Man, that 
 is to say, the moral Man, is formed perhaps at ten 
 years of age, and if a man has not thus been 
 formed upon his mother's knees, he will feel it a 
 heavy misfortune throughout his life. Nothing 
 can stand in the place of such an education. If 
 
62 
 
 M. AURELItJS HIS NOTIONS OF THE CHRISTIANS. 
 
 of a pious mother on his education. And 
 though his chikl-like piety sometimes at- 
 taches itself to the superstition of the 
 popular religion, yet even this child-like 
 piety gives a far more honourable testi- 
 mony lo the disposition of the emperor, 
 than the proud feelings of a haughty deism 
 ever could have done. The following are 
 a kw traits of his religious creed. To 
 the same inquiry which was proposed to 
 the Christians, " Where hast thou seen 
 the gods, or where hast thou learnt their 
 existence, so that thou shouldest honour 
 them thus .^" he answers, " First,* they 
 are visible even to our eyes ; besides, I have 
 never seen my soul, and yet I treat it with 
 reverence: so also, when 1 constantly ex- 
 perience the power of the gods, I learn to 
 recognise their existence, and I honour 
 theni."! This experience of the power 
 of God was certainly no delusion. It was 
 the living God, to him an unknown God, 
 whom he might have learned to know 
 from the Gospel, but whom he worshipped 
 imder the name of those creatures of his 
 imagination. When he looked back upon 
 the Divine guidance, which had accompa- 
 nied him from childhood, he said, " As 
 far as depends on the gods, and the influ- 
 ence which descends from them on me, 
 their guidance and their inspiration, I 
 might already have attained to a life con- 
 formable to the rules of nature ; but that 
 I have fallen short of this aim, is my own 
 fault, and I owe it to my neglect of the 
 warnings, nay, of the express instructions, 
 of the gods.'"J The distinction which 
 he saw between an outward abstinence 
 from evil, and a true inward holiness, and 
 the recognition of the sinfulness of all 
 mankind, must, one would have thought, 
 have led him to the notion of a Redeemer 
 from sin ; but he explained these truths to 
 himself by means of his stoic doctrine of 
 fatalism — and in regard to this also he 
 learned to practise a stoic resignation; for 
 lie says, '-When thou seest another sin, 
 think that thou thyself sinnest oftentimes, 
 and art just such an one thyself. And 
 even thougii thou abstainest from many 
 sins, yet thou hast within thee the inclina- 
 
 tion to such practices, though from fear, 
 from vanity, or some similar disposition, 
 thou avoidest them.* He was honestly 
 devoted to the religion of the state and 
 of the people, although he endeavoured 
 to avoid the abject and extravagant super- 
 stition which was in vogue among the 
 heathen of his time."!" He believed, for 
 instance, as well as his contemporaries, 
 that the gods proclaim by dreams the 
 means of recovery from diseases, and he 
 thought that he had often experienced 
 their assistance.! When the pestilence 
 we mentioned above was raging in Italy, 
 I he saw in it a warning to revive the old 
 worship in all its power. He invited 
 priests from all quarters to Rome,§ and 
 delayed his departure to the war against 
 Marcomanni, during the religious solemni- 
 ties, by which he had hopes of driving 
 away the pestilence. Many even of the 
 heathens vented their sarcastic humour on 
 the number of victims he offered up during 
 his preparation for this war.!| 
 
 We can from these circumstances, ex- 
 plain the fact how Marcus Aurelius, dis- 
 tinguished as he was for a love of justice, 
 and for the mildness which shines forth, 
 as well in his conduct as in his writings, 
 might nevertheless, while he sought to 
 maintain the old state religion, become, 
 from political and religions motives a pei-- 
 secutor of Christianity, which was then 
 extending itself every where. A law of 
 his is extant, in which he condemns to 
 banishment on an island, all those " who 
 do any thing with the intention of terrify- 
 ing the light dispositions of men by the 
 fear of the Deity."!! It is not immediately 
 to be concluded that this law was made 
 against the Christians, because in those 
 days there were many goetae and impos- 
 tors, against whom it may justly have 
 been directed. But the emperor, M. Au- 
 relius, may very readily have classed these 
 people and Christians together, as Celsus 
 has done, who wrote against the Chris- 
 tians in his time. This prince was in- 
 clined to pardon those who confessed 
 their crimes and showed repentance, even 
 in cases where he might have punished 
 without being considered severe. (See 
 
 the mother has made it a duty to j^rave deeply the 
 Divine character on the forehead of her son, we 
 may be almost sure that the hand of vice will 
 never he aiile to efface it. Vol. i. p. 215. — 
 H. J. R.] 
 
 * It is uncertain whether the emperor here 
 alluil<!S to the stars, as visible divinities, or to the 
 appearances of tlie gods in visions and dreams. 
 The latter seems the most probalile supposition. 
 
 f L. xiii. c. 28. t I. 17. 
 
 *T/ib. xi. 18. 
 
 f He desired a 6i^<rt£iia. without a SufriSu/xmct.. 
 t I- 17. § Jul. Capitol, c. xiii. c. xxi. 
 II Hence the epii^ram recorded by Ammianus 
 Marccllinus, L. xxv. c. 4. oi x«ux;/ /S;s.- Msfxa) tm 
 
 Tl " lU'legandum ad insulam, qui aliquid fecerit, 
 ([uo loves hominuin animi superstitionc numinis 
 terreantur." From the Pandects. 
 
M. AURELIUS — HIS NOTIONS OP THE CHRISTIANS. 
 
 63 
 
 the example of Capitolinus, ch. xiii.) 
 But the Christians never would acknow- 
 ledge that they had done wrong, and otdy 
 persisted the more in what the laws for- 
 bade them to do. On this very account 
 the emperor may have ordered that every 
 means should be tried to force them to 
 recant, and that the punishment of death 
 should be indicted only in extreme cases, 
 where nothing would move them to give 
 in. But even thus an ill-judged humanity, 
 wiiose only view was to spare tlie effusion 
 of blood, may have been the occasion of 
 many cruel tortures. 
 
 If we now put together what we find 
 peculiar in the nature of the persecutions 
 of this time, we obtain a result combining 
 two circumstances, yir^-if, that inquisition 
 for Christians was ordered by the laws, 
 although the fury of the populace fre- 
 quendy out-stripped the legal proceedings 
 of public functionaries. According to the 
 edict of Trajan, no such inquisition was to 
 be made, but now, on the contrary, the 
 Christians, were eagerly sought for, and 
 were often obliged to escape by hiding 
 themselves, as appears from the several 
 accounts of the persecutions, and from 
 the expressions of Celsus.* Up to this 
 time then, the treatment they had experi- 
 enced was this : the Christians who were 
 accused and would not, after repeated re- 
 quests^ abjure their faith^ were executed 
 without the application of tortures ! JVoiv, 
 it was attempted to force the Christians to 
 recant by the use of tortures. An edict 
 which is still extant, under the name of 
 the ■[Emperor Aurelianus, (which pro- 
 
 Celsus says of the Christians, ( viii. p. 4 1 8,) it-. 
 
 <pfjy<,VTi; X.-U x.etjTrT.fji.tnt, « uX/a-*;^5li;, 
 
 and, 
 
 (viii. p. 436,) u[ji.m Jt x. v ■rK^vxruj ri;, in K^ibxvmv, 
 
 -j- This edict, which is preserved for us in the 
 Acta SyiTiphoriani, of which we shall have to speak 
 hereafter, is thus expressed in the orisfinal : 
 
 ".■Vurelianus Iniperator omnibus adiniriistratori- 
 bus suis atque rcctoribus. Comperimus ab his, 
 qui se temporibus nostris Christianos dicunt, le- 
 gum praecepta violari. Hos comprehensos, nisi 
 diis noslris sacrificaverint, diversis punitc cruciati- 
 bus, quatenus habeat distinclio prolata justitiani 
 et in resecandis criminibus ultio termiaata jam 
 finern." 
 
 No aim appears likely to be answered by the 
 forgery of such an edict, its lans^uage is the ofTicial 
 language of the day, and its whole spirit breathes 
 the Roman statesman, so that an unprejudiced 
 person can scarcely believe it spurious. If it l)e- 
 longs to the time of Aurelianus, whose name it 
 bears, the martyr, in whose history it stands, must 
 have died in his reign. But it is. diflicult to be- 
 lieve, that under this emperor they proceeded to 
 shed (christian blood (see below.) Also the man- 
 ner in which it speaks of Christians, as not then 
 
 bably, as Pagi and Ruinart jusily suspect, 
 stixnds for Aurelius,) coincides exactly 
 witli this account, and as it bears every 
 mark of genuineness in its language and 
 matter, it is not improbable that it may be 
 the very edict sent by this emperor to the 
 governors of the provinces. It runs thus : 
 — " We have heard that the laws are vio- 
 lated by those who in our times call them- 
 selves Christians. Seize these people, 
 and if they refuse to sacrifice to our gods, 
 punish them with various kinds of tor- 
 ments, in such a manner, however, that 
 justice be mingled with your severity, and 
 that the punishment cease, when the ob- 
 ject is attained of extirpating the crime!" 
 This last addition suits exactly the cha- 
 racter of Aurelius ; the governors were to 
 look steadfastly at the object he had in 
 view, namely, to abolish Christianity, 
 which was at variance with the state re- 
 ligion, and to lead back the people to the 
 worship of the Roman gods ; but they 
 were not to give themselves up to the dic- 
 tates of blind passion. The caution might 
 be humane enough, but it was totally in- 
 sufficient to restrain men from cruel and 
 arbitrary measures. 
 
 We shall now proceed to a more de- 
 tailed consideration of the progress of 
 these persecutions in the provinces, and 
 the conduct of the Christians under them, 
 after the narration of credible authorities. 
 We have, in the first place, a circumstan- 
 tial account of the persecution in the year 
 167, in which the Church of Smyrna lost 
 their old and venerai)le bishop, Polycarp, 
 the disciple of St. John, and of which this 
 Church has given a detailed narrative in a 
 circular, addressed to other Christian 
 Churches.* The then proconsul of Asia 
 Minor does not appear to have been per- 
 sonally hostile to the Christians ; but 
 the heathen people, with whom the Jew- 
 ish rabble joined themselves, were en- 
 
 bcing an old sect, appears to suit the time of Au- 
 relius better than that of Aurelianus, in which the 
 Christian sect had so long openly existed. Also, 
 the accusation against the Christians, that the ex- 
 ercise of their religion was a violation of the laws 
 of the state, could hardly be brought forward under 
 the f^mperor Aurelian, for Christianity in thatcase 
 had been recognised as a "religio licila" fifteen 
 years, when this edict appeared. Most undoubt- 
 edly, therefore, we must read Aurelius inste.\d of 
 Aurelianus, two names which are constanlly inter- 
 changed. Lucius Aurelius Commodus was favour- 
 able to the Christians, and therefore, he is o\it of 
 the question ; it suits no one but the Einjicror 
 Marcus Aurelius Antonius. 
 
 * Partly quoted in Eusebius, (iv. l.").) but more 
 at large in the collection of the Patres Apostolicu 
 
64 POLYCARP FLIES. 
 
 raged against them, and the proconsul | 
 yielded compliance to the fury of the 
 people, and the demands of tlie law. He 
 endeavoured to move the Christians to 
 recantation by threats, by the sight of the 
 torture, and of wild beasts, to whom they 
 were to be thrown ; and if they remained 
 steadfast in their faith, he condemned them 
 to death. Jn one respect he certainly 
 yielded too far to the savage cruelty of 
 the people, and that was in choosing pain- 
 ful and ignominious kinds of death, such 
 as throwing them to wild beasts, or 
 making them perish on the funeral pile, 
 for the law did not require this from him. 
 But, on the other hand, as the law de- 
 nounced in general terms sentence of 
 death against obstinate adherence to Chris- 
 tianity, people chose to suppose that per- 
 sons who were no Roman citizens, must 
 die an ignominious death.* Under the 
 severest tortures, even such as raised the 
 pity of the heathen themselves, the Chris- 
 tians showed great tranquillity and calm- 
 ness. " They showed us all," says the 
 Church, " that they were absent from their 
 bodies during these torments, or rather 
 that the Lord stood by them, and con- 
 versed with ttiem ; and, relying on the 
 grace of Christ, they despised the tor- 
 ments of the world." But the difference 
 was here exhibited between the passing 
 intoxication of enthusiasm, which though 
 it seeks danger with rash self-confidence, 
 turns to cowardice at the presence of 
 death ; and that resolute devotedness to 
 God, which waits for the call of God, and 
 then seeks strength from him. A certain 
 Quintus, of Phrygia, a nation peculiarly 
 liable to fantastic and exaggerated feelings, 
 with many others who had been seized 
 with this enthusiastic fire from his per- 
 suasion, appeared before the tribunal of 
 the proconsul of his own accord, and de- 
 clared himself a Christian ; a conduct 
 which, although always blamed by the 
 Christian Church, gave an opportunity to 
 the heathen to represent Christians, as a 
 set of restless enthusiasts, who ran into 
 danger and death, in the blindness of a 
 
 * Such punishments were assigned by law to 
 many of the crimes of which the people's blind 
 fanaticism accused the Christians. " Qui sacra 
 impia nocturnave, ut quem obcantarcnt, fecerint 
 faciendave curaverint, aut cruci sufllguntur, aut 
 bestiis objiciuntur. Qui hominem immolaverint, 
 sive ejus sanguine Htaverint, fanum tcmplumvc 
 polluerint, bestiis objiciuntur, vcl si honcstiores 
 sint, capite puniuntur. Magica; artis conscios 
 summo supplicio affici placuit, id est bestiis objici 
 aut cruci sufllgi, ipsi autcm magi vivi exuruntur. 
 Julius Paulus in sentcntiis rcccptis." 
 
 deluded imagination. Now when the 
 proconsul pressed this Phrygian hard, and 
 had affrighted him by the sight of the wild 
 beasts, to which he was to be thrown, he 
 gave in, swore by the genius of the em- 
 peror, and offered sacrifices. The Church, 
 after the narration of these circumstances, 
 add this remark : " Therefore we do not 
 approve of those who give themselves up, 
 for the Gospel does not instruct us to do 
 this." How different was the conduct of 
 the aged Polycarp I when he heard the 
 cry of the people who were eager for his 
 blood, his first impression was to remain 
 in the town, and to await God's pleasure 
 in the event; but the prayers of the 
 Church prevailed on him to take refuge 
 in a neighbouring country seat. Here he 
 remained in company with some friends, 
 busied day and night, as he was accus- 
 tomed, in offering prayers for all commu- 
 nities in. the whole world. When he was 
 searched for, he betook himself to another 
 country place, and he had scarcely gone 
 before tlie police appeared, to whom the 
 retreat of Polycarp had been made known 
 by some of his confidential but unworthy 
 friends. They found two slaves, one of 
 whom, under the pain of torture, betrayed 
 the place to which the bishop had fled. 
 When they came, Polycarp, who was in 
 the upper story, might have retreated 
 from the flat roof to another house, a con- 
 venience which the eastern mode of build- 
 ing afforded, but he said, "-God's will be 
 done !" He came down to the police- 
 officers, and ordered them as much re- 
 freshment as they might be inclined to 
 take, begging only as a favour that they 
 would allow him one hour's undisturbed 
 prayer. The fulness of his heart, how- 
 ever, carried him on for two hours, and 
 even the heathen were touched at the 
 sight of his devotion. 
 
 When this interval had passed, he was 
 conducted on an ass to tlie town, where 
 the chief officer of police (tl^nnu^x,"^) 
 going with his father out of the town, met 
 him, and taking him into his carriage, 
 spoke to him in a kind and friendly man- 
 ner : " What harm," said he, " can it be 
 for you to say, ' oiir lord the emperor.^* 
 and to offer up sacrifices ?"* Polycarp 
 
 * We may learn from the words of Tertullian, 
 Apologet. c. 34, what the sentiments of the Chris- 
 tians about such a demand were. "The name 
 Lord is also one of the names of God. I am 
 willing to-call the emperor lord, but in the common 
 acceptation of language, and then I must not be 
 compelled to call him lord in the same sense that 
 I call God by this name. But 1 am free from 
 
POLYCARP DIES ON THE FUNERAL PILE. 
 
 at first was silent, but when they con- 
 tinued to press him, he cahnly said, " I 
 will not do what you advise me." When 
 they saw that they could not persuade 
 him, they grew angry. With bitter and 
 contumelious expressions they threw him 
 out of the carriage, and so roughly as to 
 injure one of the bones of his shin. He 
 turned, and went on his way, as if 
 nothing had happened. When he ap- 
 peared before the proconsul, the latter [ 
 said to him, '•' Swear, curse Christ, and I [ 
 will set you free .'" The old man an- 
 swered, "• Eighty and six years have I 
 served him, and I have received only 
 good at his hands ! Can I then curse 
 him, my King and my Saviour ?" When 
 the proconsul continued to press him, 
 Polycarp said, " W' ell, then, if you desire 
 to know who I am, I tell thee freely, / 
 am a Christian ! if you desire to know 
 Avhat Christianity is, appoint an hour and 
 hear me." The proconsul, who here 
 showed that he did not act from any re- 
 ligious bigotry, and would gladly have 
 saved the old man, if he could silence the 
 people, said to Polycarp, " Only persuade 
 the people." He replied, " To you I felt 
 myself bound to render an account, for 
 our religion teaches us to treat the powers 
 ordained by God with becoming reve- 
 rence, as far as is consistent with our 
 salvation. But as for those without, I 
 consider them undeserving of any defence 
 from me." And justly too! for what 
 would it have been but throwing pearls 
 before swine, to attempt to speak of the 
 Gospel to a wild, tumultuous, and fana- 
 tical mob ? After the governor had in 
 vain threatened him with wild beasts and 
 the funeral pile, he made the herald pub- 
 licly announce in the circus, that Poly- 
 carp had confessed himself a Christian. 
 These words contained the sentence of 
 death against him. The people instantly 
 cried out, "This is the teacher of atheism, 
 the father of the Christians, the enemy 
 of our gods, who has taught so many not 
 to pray to the gods, and not to sacrifice !" 
 As soon as the proconsul had complied 
 with the demand of the populace, that 
 Polycarp should perish on the funeral 
 pile, Jew and Gentile hastened with the 
 utmost eagerness to collect wood from 
 the market-places and the baths. When 
 
 him. I have one Lord, the almighty and eternal 
 God, who is the Lord also of the emperor." 
 What a contrast between the free spirit of this 
 Christian and the slavish adulation of a Komari 
 senate since the time of Augustus ! Truly, in- 
 deed, it is the Son of God who sets us free ! 
 9 
 
 65 
 
 they wished to fasten him with nails 
 to the pile, the old man said, "Leave me 
 thus, I pray, unfastened ; He, who has 
 enabled me to abide the fire, will give me 
 strength also to remain firm on the stake." 
 Before the fire was lighted he prayed 
 thus : " O Lord ! Almighty God ! the 
 Father of thy beloved Son Jesus Christ ; 
 through whom we have received a know- 
 ledge of Thee ! God of the angels and of 
 the whole creation, of the whole human 
 race, and of the saints, who live before 
 thy presence ! I thank thee that thou hast 
 thought me worthy, this day, and this 
 hour, to share the cup of thy Chris-t 
 among the number of thy witnesses !" 
 
 The Church recognised, in the example 
 of their bishop, what tlie nature of a 
 genuine evangelical mart\Tdom should 
 be : — " for," they write, ^ he waited to be 
 given up (he did not press forward un- 
 called to a martyr's death,) as also did 
 our Lord, that we might therein follow 
 him ; so that we should not look to that 
 which concerns our own salvation alone, 
 but also to that which is requisite for our 
 neighbour : for this is the nature of true 
 and genuine charity — to seek, not only 
 our own salvation, but that of all the 
 brethren." 
 
 The death of the pious pastor was a 
 source of temporal advantage to his 
 Church. The fury of the populace having 
 obtained this victim, cooled a little, — and 
 the proconsul, who was not a personal 
 enemy of the Christians, suspended all 
 inquisition, and was willing to be igno- 
 rant of the existence of any Christians 
 around him. 
 
 The second persecution under this em- 
 peror, of which we have any accounts, 
 took place among the churches of Lyons 
 (Lugdunum) and Vienne, A. D. 177. The 
 fanatical rage of the people in these cities 
 resembled, if it did not exceed, that of 
 the people of Smyrna; and there was 
 here also the additional circumstance, that 
 the superior oOicers of government were 
 infected with this fury. The outbreak- 
 ings of the rage of tlie people appeared 
 gradually to increase in violence, and the 
 Christians were reviled and ill-treated 
 whenever they appeared in public, and 
 were plundered in their houses. At 
 length the best known were seized, and 
 brought before the government. VVhen 
 they declared themselves Christians, they 
 were thrown into prison, as they could 
 not be tried inmiediately, in consequence 
 of the absence of the governor, that is to 
 say, the legatus, or lieutenant. On his 
 f2 
 
66 
 
 CONDUCT OP THE GOVERNOR TO THE CHRISTIANS. 
 
 return, he instantly began an inquisition, 
 accompanied by the use of tortures, not 
 only to force the Christians to a recanta- 
 tion, but also to wring from them an 
 avowal of the truth with regard to the 
 horrible accusations of unnatural prac- 
 tices, which were commonly reported 
 against them. In Smyrna the proconsul 
 seems to have been too sensible to lend 
 his ear to such reports. A young man 
 of some rank, by name Bettius Pagatus, 
 although not arrested as a Christian, felt 
 himself bound, on hearing of these accu- 
 sations, to come forward in attestation of 
 the innocence of his brethren. He asked 
 a hearing, in which he promised to show 
 that nothing criminal took place at the 
 meetings of the Christians ; but the legate, 
 without giving hun a hearing, only asked 
 if he were a Christian, and on his clear 
 declaration of this, he was cast into prison 
 as the advocate of the Christians (Tra^axA*!- 
 Tor ^^KT-Tioctuv.) Some heathen slaves, 
 under fear of the torture, declared their 
 Christian masters guilty of the crimes 
 which vague rumours laid to their charge. 
 Little as such a declaration was worth, 
 fanaticism was eager to receive it as an 
 evidence of truth, and the people felt that ' 
 every cruelty was now justifiable. Neither 
 kindred, age, nor sex were spared. The 
 steadfastness and tranquillity of many of 
 these Christians under the most exquisite 
 tortures, showed plainly, to use the words 
 of the account given by the Church, 
 " how they were bedewed and strengthened 
 by the waters of life, which flow forth 
 from the heart of Christ, and that nothing 
 is terrible where the love of God exists, 
 nor painful, where the glory of Christ 
 dwells." Pothinus, the bishop of the 
 community of Lyons, a man of ninety 
 years of age, weak from infirmity and 
 sickness, but filled with youthful vigour 
 from his zeal to give testimony to the 
 truth, was dragged before the tribunal. 
 The legate asked him, " Who is the God 
 of the Christians ?" and received the an- 
 swer which such an inquirer deserved — 
 "You will know him if you prove your- 
 self worthy of such knowledge." All 
 who stood around the tribunal, were now 
 eager to pour out their wrath upon the 
 venerable old man. Half breathless he 
 was cast into prison, where he died in 
 two days. It was of no use now to yield 
 and recant; those who did were thrown 
 into prison, not as Christians, but as being 
 guilty of the crimes which were laid to 
 the charge of Christians — an accusation 
 which probably was supported on the 
 
 strength of such crimes having been some- 
 times confessed in the agonies of torture. 
 Many died in a dark dungeon, the terrors 
 of which many inventions were contrived 
 to augment, while the wretched prisoner 
 was condemned to endure the extremities 
 of hunger and thirst ; on the other hand, 
 to use the expressions of the Church, 
 " Many who suffered such severe tor- 
 ments, that it would have seemed impos- 
 sible for the greatest care to enable them 
 to survive, lived on in the dungeon, de- 
 serted by human care, but so strengthened 
 in body and soul by the Lord, that they 
 were able to inspirit and comfort their 
 comrades." It happened " by the grace 
 of God, who wills not the death of a sin- 
 ner, but delights in his repentance," that 
 the persuasions of these heroes of the 
 faith wrought deeply on many of those, 
 who had yielded and denied their faith, 
 and " their Mother the Church had the 
 great joy of receiving again out of the 
 prison as living members, those whom 
 she had cut off as dead." 
 
 As the number of the prisoners was 
 considerable, and there were among them 
 Roman citizens who could not be tried in 
 the province, the legate thought it best, 
 in regard to all of them, to send his re- 
 port to Rome, and await the emperor's 
 decision. The imperial rescript was to 
 this effect, '• that those who recanted 
 should be set free, and the rest beheaded." 
 It is evident here, that Marcus Aurelius 
 thought on this matter with Trajan, and 
 was far from giving credit to the accusa- 
 tions against Christians. The legate first 
 cited before his tribunal all those, who 
 had been prevailed on to recant during 
 the first inquisition, and were awaiting in 
 the dungeon the decision of their fate. 
 It was, of course, fully expected that they 
 would repeat tlieir denial of the faith, and 
 so obtain their freedom ; but the indigna- 
 tion and astonishment of the multitude 
 can scarcely be conceived, when many 
 among them uttered a steadfast confession 
 of their faith, and by so doing signed 
 their own death warrant. Tliose alone, 
 says the Church, remained apart from us, 
 who retained no vestige of their faith, nor 
 had ever put on tiie wedding-garment of 
 the Lord, (that feeling of faith working 
 througli love by which communion with 
 God is made known,) and such only as 
 had no fear of God, and had already scan- 
 dalized their religion by their conduct. 
 Tlie legate executed those among the pri- 
 soners who had the rigiUs of Roman citi- 
 zens by the sword, although he caused 
 
HUMILITY OF THE MARTYRS AT LYONS. 
 
 67 
 
 Attalus, one of the number, in violation 
 of the hwvs, to be tortured in various ways, 
 and then thrown to wild beasts, merely 
 to gratify tlie violence of the people ; and 
 when Attalus had endured all the punish- 
 ments, he allowed the death-blow to be 
 inflicted with the sword. The rest were 
 thrown to wild beasts. Two of the con- 
 verts, Ponticus, a stripling of fifteen, and 
 a girl named Blandina, whom they endea- 
 voured to frighten by making them wit- 
 ness all the severest sufferings of their 
 companions, excited only general aston- 
 ishment, at what the power of God could 
 effect in such weak and tender vessels. 
 We allow that these effects do not always 
 proceed from the Spirit of God \ most 
 extraordinary effects, we know from his- 
 tory, are often produced by the power of 
 the human will, animated by the feverish 
 intoxication of enthusiasm, which is ca- 
 pable of extinguishing so many of the 
 tender weaknesses of human nature. But 
 haughtiness and pride usually accompany 
 enthusiasm, while that which proceeds 
 from the Spirit of God is distinguished by 
 humility and love, and it was this sign 
 which marked the martyrs of Lyons, as 
 disciples of Jesus Christ. When their fel- 
 low Christians eagerly sought to show 
 honour to such heroes of the faith, they 
 refused it. Even when they had been 
 conducted back to prison, after enduring 
 repeated tortures, they did not, when they 
 looked only to themselves, feel sure of 
 the victory. As they were no deluded 
 enthusiasts, they felt strongly the strug- 
 gle between the flesh and the spirit ; and 
 they most decidedly blamed those who 
 honoured them with the name of " mar- 
 tyrs." "This name," they said, "be- 
 longs properly only to the true and righte- 
 ous Witness,* the First-born of the dead, 
 the Prince of life ; or, at least only to 
 those martyrs whose witness to the truth 
 Christ has already sealed by their death 
 in the faith. We are merely poor and 
 humble confessors of the faith." With 
 tears they implored the brethren fervently 
 to pray for them, that they might bring 
 their work to a glorious conclusion. 
 With tender love they received those of 
 their companions, wlio had fallen away 
 from the faith and were sent into their 
 prison, and prayed to God with many 
 tears, that Ho would restore these dead 
 to life. Tliev looked even on their per- 
 secutors without one feeling of revenge, 
 and only prayed to God that He would 
 
 forgive those who had inflicted the most 
 cruel tortures upon them. To the breth- 
 ren they left behind them, not contention 
 and wrath, but peace and joy, harmony 
 and love. 
 
 The rage of the populace was satisfied 
 with the mutilation of the body and its 
 consumption on the funeral pile, but even 
 then the ashes and the miserable remains 
 that escaped the fire, were thrown into 
 the waters of the neighbouring Rhone, 
 that no remnant of these enemies of the 
 gods might pollute the earth. Neither 
 tears nor money were availing to the 
 Christians, to procure the remains of mar- 
 tyrs so dear to them, for interment. The 
 ignorant and blinded heathen thought they 
 should thus bring the hope of Christians 
 to confusion. " We shall now see," said 
 they, " whether they will rise again, and 
 whether God can help them, and save 
 them from our hands." At length, how- 
 ever, as the Christians were so numer- 
 ous, men became weary of bloodshed, 
 and there still remained a branch of the 
 Church even under this bitter persecu- 
 tion. 
 
 In places where only a few Christians 
 dwelt, their existence was more easily 
 concealed, and the rage of the people was 
 not so easily attracted to them. The gov- 
 ernors did not think it necessary to es- 
 tablish a search for them, except where 
 individuals, from peculiar circumstances, 
 made themselves notorious as enemies of 
 the slate religion, which happened about 
 this time in a town not very far from 
 Lyons, called Autnn.* There was no in- 
 tention of persecuting the Christians there, 
 as they were in small numbers, and but 
 little known, when a Christian first at- 
 tracted public notice to himself. The 
 noisy multitude, with great solemnities, 
 were celebrating a festival in honour of 
 Cybele, whose worship appears to have 
 come hither from Asia Minor, by the same 
 route which Christianity afterwards fol- 
 lowed, and she appears also to have been 
 held in great respect at that time. An 
 image of Cybele was carried round in one 
 of her usual cars, and accompanied by a 
 great multitude of people. All fell on 
 their knees; but Symphorianus, a young 
 man of high family, conceived that his 
 conscience would not allow him to par- 
 ticipate in this rite, and most probably 
 on being taken to task for it, took occa- 
 sion to speak of the vanity of idolatry 
 He was instantly seized, and conductec: 
 
 Ma^Ti/g. Rev. i. fi. 
 
 Aagustodunum, .ifJdua. 
 
68 
 
 THE LEGIO FULMINEA, A. D. 174. 
 
 before the governor, Heraclius, a man of \ 
 consular dignity, as a disturber of the pub- 
 lic worship, and a seditious citizen. The 
 governor said to him, " You are a Chris- 
 tian, I suppose. As far as I can judge, 
 you must have escaped our notice^ for 
 there are but a few followers of this sect 
 here.'''' He answered, " I am a Christian ; 
 I pray to the true God, who rules in hea- 
 ven, but I cannot pray to idols ; nay, if I 
 were permitted, I would dash them to 
 atoms, on my own responsibility." The 
 governor, on this avowal, declared him 
 guilty of a double crime, one crime against 
 the religion, and another against the laws 
 of the state ; and, as neither threats nor 
 promises could induce Symphorianus to 
 abjure his faith, he was sentenced to be 
 beheaded. As they led him to execution, 
 his mother cried out to him, " My son, my 
 son, keep the living God in thy heart ; 
 we cannot fear death, which leads so cer- 
 tainly to life ; up, my son ! let thy heart 
 be up. and look to him who rules on high. 
 Thy life is not taken from thee to-day, 
 but thou art conducted to a better. By a 
 blessed exchange, my son, thou will pass 
 this day to the life of heaven."* 
 
 If we may credit a report which has 
 been current among Christians from the 
 beginning of the third century, the emperor 
 Marcus Aurelius was induced to adopt 
 a different conduct towards them by an 
 event of a miraculous nature. During the 
 war against the Marcomanni and the 
 Quaddi, A. D. 174, his army was reduced 
 to great distress ; a burning sun lay upon 
 it in front, and it was then suffering the 
 extremities of thirst from a drought, and 
 expecting every instant in this unfavour- 
 able condition an attack of the enemy. 
 In this extremity the twelfth legion, 
 which consisted entirely of Christians, 
 fell upon their knees. At their prayer a 
 rain descended, which quenched the thirst 
 of the Roman soldiers, and a storm arose 
 which frightened the barbarians. The 
 Roman army gained the victory, and in 
 commemoration of this event the emperor 
 gave the legion the name of Legio Fulmi- 
 nea. lie ceased to persecute the Chris- 
 
 tians , and although he did not go so far 
 as to receive their religion into the class 
 of " religiones licitse," he published an 
 edict inflicting heavy penalties on those 
 who accused Christians merely on the 
 score of their religion.* Truth and 
 falsehood are blended together in this 
 narration. The emperor cannot have 
 been induced to suspend his persecution 
 of the Christians by any event of this 
 date, for the persecution of Lyons took 
 place three years later. The twelfth 
 legion also had borne this name ever 
 since the time of Augustus Caesar .| The 
 fact, that the Roman army Avas at that 
 time saved from imminent danger by some 
 such remarkable occurrence, is undeni- 
 able ; and even the heathen acknowledged 
 in it the hand of God. They ascribed it, 
 however, not to the God of the Chris- 
 tians, nor to their prayers, but to their 
 own gods, to their Jupiter, and to the 
 prayers of the emperor or the army ; not 
 to mention a foolish superstition, which 
 attributes the descent of the storm to the 
 incantations of an Egyptian magician.J It 
 is said that the prince prayed to Jupiter, 
 stretching out his hands towards heaven, 
 and saying, "This hand, which never yet 
 shed human blood (for I reckon not the 
 blood of the enemies of the gods,) I 
 stretch forth to thee!" There were pic- 
 tures where he was represented praying, 
 and the soldiers catching the rain in their 
 helmets.§ The emperor himself expresses 
 this belief in a coin, -where Jupiter is 
 represented as hurling down his lightning 
 on fhe barbarians stretched upon the 
 ground ;|| and perhaps, also, in his medi- 
 tations at the end of the first book, where 
 among the things for which he has to 
 thank, not himself, but the gods, he 
 names, in the last place, the occurrences 
 among the Quadi.lT It is also quite cer- 
 
 * The relation of the martyrdom of Sympho- 
 rianus is so simple in essentials, so lilflc deformed 
 by the customary exaggerations of later days, and 
 so suitable to Ihe circumstances of the times, that 
 ■we cannot doubt that it is entirely founded on 
 facts, although, perhaps, in some passages it may 
 lie laboured and rhetorical. Every thing, how- 
 ever, conspires to prove that the event itself took 
 place at a time not far distant from that of the 
 persecution at Lyons and Vienne. 
 
 * Tertullian, Apologet. c. v. ; and ad Scapulam . 
 c. iv. Euseb.Lib. v. c. 5. 
 
 -j- Dio Cassius, in his table of the FiCgions ex- 
 isting in the time of the emperor Augustus, B. Iv. 
 ch. 23 : TO MeuttTov (irTgaTCTrscfov) ro h K^ttttuJouu, 
 ro it^a.uv:<p'j^cv. Also, in the fifteenth century, in 
 the "notitia dignitatum Imperii Romanii," § 27, 
 the "prffifectura legionis diiodccima; fulminea; Me- 
 litena;" is assigned to the Dux Armenia; ; the pro- 
 vince of Melitena lying on the borders of Armenia 
 and Cappadocia. 
 
 + Dio Cass. Lib. Ixxi. p. 8. 
 
 § Themist. Orat. 15, t« » /3«!rM«!i)TaT» Tcev 
 ligM-aiii, p. 191, ed. Hardouin. 
 
 II fSee Eckhel Numism. B. iii. 64. 
 
 1 Ta iv Kcu^o/c 'rpo; tm y^u.vcv^. It has here 
 been supposed, that M. Aurelius indicates by these 
 words the place in which he wrote this book ; but 
 
PEACE FOR THE CHRISTIANS UNDER COMMODUS. 
 
 tain, that this remarkable event can have 
 had no influence on the emperor's senti- 
 ments towards the Christians : but, at the 
 same time, we have no right, on this ac- 
 count, to accuse the latter of a fiction. 
 The thing is very easily explained ; there 
 may have been many Christians in the 
 Legio Fulminea, for it is quite certain that 
 only a part of the Christians condemned 
 the profession of a soldier, and even 
 though it may be difficxdt to imagine that 
 the Christians generally (and especially 
 under such an emperor as Marcus Aure- 
 lius) could withdraw themselves in the 
 Roman army from participation in heathen 
 ceremonies, yet, under peculiar circum- 
 stances, this may have been the case. 
 The Christian soldiers, under the pressure 
 of this distress, took refuge, as they were 
 accustomed to do, in prayer ; they looked 
 upon their deliverance as the answering 
 of their prayers, and on their return home 
 told their story to their fellow-believers. 
 Tiiese naturally would not iail to remind 
 the heathen of what they owed to the 
 Christians whom they so persecuted. 
 Claudius Apollinaris, bishop of Hierapolis, 
 in Phrygia, might have heard it soon 
 after the event from the mouths of the 
 soldiers themselves of this legion, which 
 returned to winter-quarters in Cappado- 
 cia, and he made use of it in an apology, 
 which he addressed to this emperor, or in 
 his other apologetic works.* As to the 
 letter, to which TertuUian appeals, from 
 Marcus Aurelius, apparently addressed to 
 the Roman senate, in which he ascribes 
 this deliverance to the Christian soldiers, 
 if the words are accurately quoted, the 
 above remarks will prove that the letter 
 must be a forgery. The inquiry, how- 
 ever, is still open, whether the words are 
 accurately cited, or whether the emperor 
 using the word " soldiers" simply, Ter- 
 tuUian, putting his own interpretation 
 
 69 
 
 ' upon it, makes him speak of Chrislian 
 I soldiers. At all events. TertuUian ex- 
 presses himself doubtfully.* Another 
 relation of this same event by TertuUian, 
 will plainly show us how the Christians 
 explained the religious deliverances of 
 I the heathen from their own belief, and 
 not witliout reason — for they well knew 
 icho the unknown God was, whom the 
 j heathen worshipped under the name of 
 Jupiter. These are his words: "-Mar- 
 I cus Aurelius also, in the German expedi- 
 j tion, received rain after a drought at the 
 i prayers of a Christian soldiery. How 
 often have the droughts of countries been 
 removed by our kneelingf and fasting! 
 In such cases, even the people gave our 
 :God the honour; for they cried out to 
 j the God of Gods, the only mighty one, 
 j under the name of Jupiter.";}; 
 
 There is the less reason to look for 
 i any definite cause for the cessation of the 
 ' persecutions, because rage naturally in 
 [time expends itself; and besides, in this 
 case, only a few years after the last 
 bloody persecution in France, every thing 
 at Rome was changed with the change in 
 the government. The insignificance of 
 the abandoned Commodus, who succeeded 
 his father in the year 180, litde as he can 
 have cared for Christianity, must have 
 been of advantage to the Christians in 
 procuring for them a time of refreshment 
 and repose after their sufferings under 
 Marcus Aurelius. Marcia, who lived in 
 illicit commerce with Commodus, was, 
 we know not how, a friend to the Chris- 
 tians, and influenced the emperor in their 
 
 as such an addition is only found in the third book, 
 we may, perhaps, more aptly interpret these 
 words as an allusion to some events in certain 
 places, the mention of which has some connection 
 with what goes before. 
 
 • We must avow, that where Eusebius makes 
 Apollinaris say, that the legion received the name 
 of " fulminea" from this event, there is reason to 
 suspect that he read his account in great haste, for 
 it is difficult to think that so gross a blunder could 
 have been made by a contemporary, living in the 
 neighbourhood of the wintcr-(juarters of that legion. 
 Perhaps Apollinaris only says, that the emperor 
 might now, with justice, call the legion " fulmi- 
 nea," or something of this sort. [Is not the dis- 
 tance of Cappadocia from the Quadi an objection 
 to that part of Dr. Neander's explanation, which 
 speaks of " winter-quarters 1" — H. J. R.] 
 
 * Christianorum forte militum. 
 
 t Days of prayer and fasting, commonly joined 
 together by the Christians. 
 
 t [Those who are desirous of further informa- 
 tion on the subject of the Legio Fulminea, will do 
 well to consult the remarks made on the early 
 miracles by the bishop of London, in the notes to 
 the volume of Sermons which he has lately pub- 
 lished. See also Mosheim, cent. ii. part 1, § 1U. 
 Jortin is fii|)pant on the subject, as usu:d, and Gib- 
 bon sneers at the Christians, as usual also; but in 
 all the writers whom I have consulted, I find that 
 the conclusion is nearly similar to that drawn by 
 Neandcr, which seems indeed to be the only 
 reasonable one. They all admit tlie fact to be 
 undeniable, but they mostly deny that any nura- 
 culous interposition is due to the prayers of the 
 Christians. Why, however, the account of the 
 Christians is not at least as credible as that of the 
 heathen, who attribute a miracle to Jupiter, Mr. 
 Gibbon leaves us to make out for ourselves. See 
 also the works of Mr. Moylc, where this question 
 is discussed in a very elaborate manner. Moyle's 
 Works, vol. ii. p. 81 — 390. Mr. Moyle, however, 
 does not admit some of the facts assumed by the 
 explanation of Dr. JMeander.—H. J. R.] 
 
NO NEW LAW FAVOURABLE TO THE CHRISTIANS. 
 
 70 
 
 favour. The law which we cited above 
 from TertuUian, as favourable to the 
 Christians, may have proceeded from this 
 emperor, who was well inclined to them, 
 and have been falsely attributed to the 
 latter years of his predecessor. There 
 were really events in the reign of Com- 
 modus, in which the working of such a 
 law has been supposed visible. One is, 
 however, led to inquire whether the con- 
 clusion as to the existence of the law 
 from these events is not a hasty one, and 
 whether it does not proceed from a mis- 
 take. It certainly does appear in the 
 highest degree improbable, that accusa- 
 tions against the Christians should have 
 been received just as before, the Chris- 
 tians sentenced to death by Trajan's law, 
 and yet their accusers, at the same time, 
 have been capitally punished ! An ex- 
 ample will, perhaps, clearly illustrate this. 
 ApoUonius, a Roman senator, having 
 been accused before the Pra)fectus urbis 
 as a Christian, his accuser was instantly 
 sentenced to death, and executed ; but 
 ApoUonius himself, liaving most courage- 
 ously avowed his faith before the senate, 
 Avas also beheaded by a decree of that 
 body. This is the tale : but Jerome, who 
 can hardly have mistaken the words of 
 Eusebius, and is likely to have a more 
 accurate knowledge on the matter, says, 
 that this accuser was the slave of ApoUo- 
 nius, and that this is proved by the igno- 
 minious punishment which he suffered, 
 his legs being broken previous to his 
 execution (suflVingi cura.) He was, there- 
 fore, executed, not as an accuser of a 
 Christian, but as a slave who was faith- 
 less to his master. From hasty conclu- 
 sions on such circumstances, it is possible 
 that the story of a law favourable to 
 Christianity may have derived its origin. 
 As, therefore, this emperor most probably 
 did not alter the condition of Christians 
 by any express edict, as the law of Trajan 
 had never been expressly repealed, and 
 as all depended entirely on the change in 
 the emperor's sentiments, the situation of 
 Christians must then have been very pre- 
 carious. They were constantly exposed 
 to persecution from any governor, who 
 might individually be hostile to Chris- 
 tianity. Thus the proconsul of Asia 
 Minor, Arrius Antoninus, began a perse- 
 cution, but a great multitude of Christians 
 from the town in which the persecution 
 began, flocked to the tribunal in order to 
 deter the proconsul from this measure by 
 tlicir numbers, a consunmiation they might 
 fairly hope for under a government where 
 
 the persecutirm proceeded from indivi- 
 duals, and not from the imperial throne. 
 The proconsul was really frightened, and 
 contenting himself with sentencing a few 
 to death, he said to the rest, " As for you, 
 miserable creatures ! if you choose to die, 
 you have rocks to dash yourselves from, 
 and ropes to hang yourselves with !"* 
 Irena^us, who wrote during this reign, 
 says that the Christians frequented the 
 imperial court, and that they were par- 
 takers in all the usual advantages of the 
 Roman empire, that they might go by 
 land and by sea wherever they were in- 
 clined ;'[ and yet this same Irenajus also 
 affirms that the church at all times, from 
 which he does not except those in which 
 he wrote, was constantly sending many 
 martyrs to the Father in heaven.J This 
 apparent contradiction is easily solved by 
 the above remarks on the nature of the 
 persecutions in this reign. 
 
 The political storms which followed 
 the murder of Commodus, A. D. 192 ; the 
 civil war between Fescennius Niger from 
 the east, Clodius Albinus from Gaul, and 
 Septimius Severus, which ended in the 
 sovereignty of the latter, like all other 
 public calamities, could not be favourable 
 to the Christians. In these political con- 
 vulsions the fury of the populace, or the 
 malice of individual governors, had many 
 opportunities of wreaking vengeance on 
 the Christians. Clement of Alexandria, 
 who wrote shortly after the death of 
 Commodus, says, " We see daily many 
 martyrs burnt, crucified, and beheaded 
 before our eyes."§ When Septimius Se- 
 verus had obtained the victory, and found 
 himself in secure possession of the em- 
 pire, he showed himself favourable to- 
 wards the Christians, and it is very pos- 
 sible that this disposition may have arisen 
 from the circumstance to which TertuUian 
 attributes it, viz. that Proculus, a Christian 
 slave, had cured him of an illness ; and 
 that he took Proculus to the palace, and 
 
 * We are acquainted with two proconsuls of 
 Asia Minor of this name in the second century, 
 Antoninus Pius, who was afterwards emperor, and 
 his fp-andfather, as well as a third during the reiga 
 of Commodus. J31. Lampridii Vit^-e Commodi, c. 
 vi. and vii. We are naturally inclined to suppose 
 it the contemporary of TertuUian, for otherwise he 
 would give one to understand that he was speak- 
 ing of an older one. We learn from Lampridius, 
 that this proconsul was in great favour with the 
 people. It was, perhaps, to court popular applause 
 that he persecuted the Christians. 
 
 -(- Lib. iv. c. Ilaeres. c. 30. 
 
 4: Lib. iv. c. 33, v. 9. 
 
 § Lib. ii. Stromat. p. 414. 
 
PERSECUTIONS UNDER SEPTIMUS SEVERUS. 
 
 71 
 
 always kept him near him. He knew 
 that men and women of the highest rank 
 in Rome, senators and tlie wives of sena- 
 tors, were Christians, and he protected 
 them against popular fury. As, however, 
 tlie old laws had never been repealed, 
 severe persecutions might take place in 
 particular districts — as for example in 
 proconsular Africa — as we may see in 
 many of the works of Tertullian, written 
 during this very period. The festivals in 
 honour of the emperor, at which the 
 Christians attracted attention by with- 
 drawing from them (see above,) gave an 
 opportunity for these persecutions. There 
 was besides a law enacted by this em- 
 peror, A. D. 202, in which conversion to 
 Christianity, as well as to Judaism, was 
 forbidden under heavy penalties ; but then 
 this law presupposed that the old laws 
 against Christianity had now generally 
 fallen much iuto disuse. Inasmuch as 
 this law, it is probable, opposed only the 
 further extension of Christianity, and in- 
 asmuch as it does not expressly condemn 
 all Christians as such, it implies some 
 relaxation of the older laws. And yet, 
 coming from an emperor who had hitherto 
 shown himself personally favourable to 
 the Christians, this distinct declaration 
 must have excited the spirit of persecution 
 still more against them. In many places* 
 the persecutions were so sore, that they 
 were believed a token of the speedy ap- 
 pearance of Antichrist. In Egypt and in 
 proconsular Africa, this was especially the 
 case, but these persecutions were certainly 
 not general. It happened now in several 
 districts that many Christians and Chris- 
 tian Churches purchased for themselves, 
 from the higher state-officers, permission 
 for the free exercise of their religion, and 
 for holding their assemblies. But this 
 measure did not give universal satisfac- 
 tion; in some cases the Christians thought 
 it derogatory to the honour of their name, 
 and in others it only served to excite the 
 cupidity of avaricious officers, and to in- 
 duce them to begin new persecutions for 
 the sake of extorting money.f The 
 Christians continued in this condition 
 throughout the reign of the capricious 
 Caracalla ; although cruel as he was, he 
 did not set on foot any particular perse- 
 cution against them. All depended on 
 the individual characters of the governors; 
 many sought expedients to save the lives 
 of the Christians brought before them 
 
 • Euseb. ii. 7. 
 
 ■j- Tertullian, de Fuga in Pereecut. 
 
 without a violation of the laws ; others 
 treated them with violence, either from 
 personal enmity, or to gratify the popular 
 voice ; and others iigain contented them- 
 selves with keeping to the very letter of 
 Trajan's law. Tertullian in his letter to 
 a persecutor of Christianity, the proconsul 
 Scapula, tells him that he might fulfil all 
 that the law required from his office, 
 without indulging in cruelty, if he would 
 only use the sicord against the Christians 
 according to the provisions of the original 
 laWy as the Praeses of Mauritania, and that 
 of Leon, in Spain, were still in the habit 
 of doing. 
 
 We shall now relate a few character- 
 istic anecdotes connected with the history 
 of the persecutions of these times. Some 
 Christians from the town of Scillita, in 
 Numidia, were brought before the tribu- 
 nal of the proconsul Saturninus, A. D. 
 200. He said to them, "You may receive 
 pardon from our emperors (Severus and 
 Caracalla,) if you will only return in good 
 earnest to our gods." One of them, by 
 name Speratus, answered, " We have done 
 no evil to any man, we have spoken no 
 evil against any man ; nay, for all the 
 wrongs which you have inflicted on us, 
 we have only thanked you. We praise 
 for all his dispensations the true Lord and 
 King." The proconsul replied, " We 
 too are pious, and we swear by the genius 
 of the emperor, our lord, and we pray for 
 his welfare, which you must also do." 
 On this, Speratus said, " I know of no 
 genius of the ruler of this earth, but I 
 serve my God in heaven, whom no man 
 hath ever seen, nor can see. I have never 
 stolen any thing from any man ; I pay 
 scrupulously all the taxes and tributes 
 which are due from me, for I acknow- 
 ledge the emperor as my ruler, but 1 can 
 worship only my Lord, the King of kings, 
 the Lord of all nations." The proconsul 
 upon this ordered the Christians to be 
 reconducted to prison till the next day. 
 On the next day, when they appeared 
 again, and he was unable to persuade 
 them, he granted them three days more 
 for deliberation. Speratus, however, an- 
 swered in the name of tlie rest, "I am a 
 Christian, we are all Christians, and we 
 will not depart from tlie faith of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ. Dispose of us as you will." 
 They were now, as they had avowed 
 themselves to be Christians, and refused 
 to show the emperor the honour which 
 was required from them, condemned to be 
 beheaded. On receiving their sentence 
 they thanked God, and on arriving at the 
 
72 
 
 place of execution they fell on their knees, 
 and again thanked God. 
 
 A few years afterwards three young 
 men, named Stevocatiis, Saturninus, and 
 Secundulus, and two young women, 
 named Perpetua and Felicitas, were seized 
 in Carthage, while they were all catechu- 
 mens. Their confinement and their suf- 
 ferings present many lovely traits of the 
 power of Christian faith, united with 
 Christian tenderness of disposition. Per- 
 petua was a woman of two-and-twenty 
 years of age, and the mother of a child, 
 which was still hanging on her breast. 
 ]^)eside the common struggles of flesh and 
 blood against the hand of death, she had 
 other and tenderer feelings to contend 
 with, those pure feelings of human nature 
 which Christianity recognises in all their 
 strength, and which genuine Christianity 
 even heightens, while at the same time it 
 requires the sacrifice of tliem to the One 
 to whom all must yield. The mother of 
 Perpetua was a Christian, but her aged 
 father was a heathen. Besides the bitter- 
 ness of losing a beloved daughter, he 
 feared the ignominy which her execution 
 as a Christian would bring upon him. 
 As soon as she was taken into custody, 
 her aged father came to her to say, that 
 she might recant. She pointed to a vessel 
 which lay upon the ground — "Can I," 
 said she^ " call this vessel any thing else 
 than what it really is .?" " No." " Well, 
 then," she added, " as little can I aver that 
 I am not a Christian." In the meantime 
 she was baptized, as it appears that spi- 
 ritual persons in the execution of their 
 ofiicial duty were able to buy free access 
 to the prisoners from the keepers of the 
 prisons at a very cheap rate ; but in this 
 case the purchase of such a permission 
 may not have been necessary, as they 
 were not then under such rigorous cus- 
 tody. Perpetua said, "• The Spirit prompted 
 me to ask at my baptis?n nothing else 
 than patience." A few days after they 
 were all thrown into the dungeon. " I 
 was terrified," she said, "because I had 
 never before been in such darkness. O 
 what a wretched day ! The stifling heat 
 from tlie number of the prisoners, the rude 
 treatment we suflered from the soldiers, 
 and to add to all this, my anxiety for my 
 child!" The deacons* who gave the 
 
 PERPETUA S FIRMNESS. 
 
 * [" Diaconca qui nobis ministrabant." Acta 
 Martyr, ap. Ruinart. p. 94. I suppose Dr. Ncan- 
 der to mean that they brought the consecrated ele- 
 ments to the Christians, a piactice well known 
 net to be unfrequent. See Mosheim, Hist. Eccles. 
 
 communion to them in the dungeon, pur- 
 chased for the Christian prisoners a better 
 residence in the prison, where they were 
 separated from other criminals. Perpetua 
 now took her child to her breast in prison, 
 and commended it to her mother; she 
 comforted the rest, and felt herself revived 
 by having her child near her. " Tlie pri- 
 son," said she, " now became a palace 
 to me." 
 
 The report that they were about to be 
 tried having reached her aged father, he 
 hastened to her and said, " My daughter, 
 pity my grey hairs, pity thy father, if I am 
 worthy to be called thy father ! I have 
 brought thee up to the bloom of thy age; 
 I have preferred thee to all thy brothers ; 
 give me not up then to such shame among 
 men ! Look upon thy mother and thy 
 aunt! look upon thy infant son, whose 
 death must shortly follow thine ! Lay 
 aside thy haughty spirit, lest thou exter- 
 minate .our race ! not one of us can again 
 speak with the freedom of a man, if thou 
 come to such an end." As he spoke, he 
 kissed his daughter's hand, and throwing 
 himself at her feet, called her not his 
 daughter, but his mistress. " The grey 
 hairs of my father," says Perpetua, "gave 
 me pain. I lamented that he alone, of all 
 my family, would not rejoice in my suf- 
 ferings." She said to him, " When I stand 
 before the tribunal, God's will must come 
 to pass ! for remember, we stand not in 
 our own power, but in that of God." 
 When this decisive moment came, her 
 father also approached, to try his last 
 efforts with his daughter. The governor 
 said to Perpetua, " Take pity on thy 
 father's grey hairs, take pity on thy tender 
 child. Offer sacrifices for the prosperity 
 of the emperor." Perpetua : " That I 
 cannot do." Gov. : " Art thou a Chris- 
 tian ?" Perpetua : " I am a Ciiristian." 
 Her fate was now decided. " His unhappy 
 age pained my nearl," says Perpetua, " as 
 deeply as if I myself were in his case." 
 Tliey were all condemned on the ensuing 
 festival of Geta's accession* to be thrown 
 to wild beasts, and thus afford a cruel 
 sport to the soldiery and people. They 
 returned to their prison rejoicing; the ten- 
 derness of a mother's feelings did not 
 overwhelm Perpetua, she sent to her 
 fatlier for her child that she might give it 
 suck, but the father would not part with 
 
 Sec. ii. Part ii. cap. iv. § 12. et alib. See also 
 Justin Martyr, Apolog. I. § 85. (Ed. Grabe. 
 Oxon. 1700, p. 128.) and Hieronyini Epist. 4, 
 near the end. — H. J. R.] 
 * IMatales (Jssaris. 
 
HELIOGABALUS ALEXANDER SEVERUS. 
 
 73 
 
 it. Violent suffering* having come on 
 Felicitas at her return to prison, the jailor 
 said to her, — " If thou canst scarcely bear 
 these sufferings, what wilt thou do when 
 thou art cast before wild beasts ? and yet 
 thou despisest them by thy refusing to 
 sacrifice !" She answered, " What I now 
 suffer, I suffer myself, but then it will be 
 another who will suffer for me, because I 
 shall suffer for Him." As it was usual in 
 those days, in compliance with some of 
 the customs which had been retained from 
 the times in which human sacrifices were 
 offered to Baal, to clothe those condemned 
 to die by wild beasts in priestly garments, 
 they wished to dress the Christian men as 
 priests of Saturn, and the women as j 
 priestesses of Ceres. Their free and 
 Christian spirits, however, revolted against 
 this. " We have come here voluntarily," 
 said they, " that our freedom might not 
 be taken away from us. We have given 
 up our lives, that we might not be com- 
 pelled to these practices." The heatliens 
 themselves recognised the justice of their 
 demand, and gave up the point. 
 
 Before these martyrs received their 
 death-blow, after being torn by the beasts, 
 they mutually took leave of each other 
 for the last time, with the brotherly kiss 
 of Christian affection. 
 
 With the reign of Ileliogabalus, A. D. 
 219, a more tranquil season for the Chris- 
 tian Church began, although the indul- 
 gence of this emperor towards the Chris- 
 tians proceeded from no virtuous motives. 
 He was no follower of the old Boman re- 
 ligion, but was himself devoted to certain 
 foreign rites, that is, to the Syrian wor- 
 ship of the sun, a service consisting of 
 the most abominable impurities. He 
 wished to establish this as the prevaiUng 
 form of religion in the Roman empire, 
 and to blend all others into it, and with 
 this view he tolerated Christianity as well 
 as other foreign religions. Had he been 
 able to carry his intentions into execu- 
 tion, the Christians would certainly have 
 been his most zealous opponents.^ 
 
 His successor, the noble and pious Alex- 
 ander Severus, (from A. D. 212 — 235,) 
 was a man of wholly different character 
 from his vicious predecessor ; and his fa- 
 vourable disposition towards Christianity 
 and Christians, proceeded from entirely 
 difierent grounds. The sensibilities of 
 
 * ["The pains of labour," according to the 
 original Latin. — H. J. K.] 
 
 t JEl Lamprid. Vit. c. 3. 6, 7. [See Gibbon, 
 vol. i. ch. vi.— H. J. R.] 
 
 10 
 
 this excellent prince were alive to all that 
 is good, and he felt a reverence for every 
 thing connected with religion. In his re- 
 ligion he was adtlicted to the then pre- 
 vailing fashion of electicism, and he in- 
 cluded Christianity among those religions 
 from which he drew his stores. He re- 
 cognised Christ as a Divine Being, to- 
 gether with other gods ; and in his lara- 
 riiim, or domestic chapel, where he odered 
 his morning devotions, among the busts 
 of those men whom he regarded as beings 
 of a higher order, such as Apollonius of 
 Tyana, and Orpheus, there was placed 
 also a bust of Christ! Now this must 
 have been with the intention of receiving 
 Christ among the Roman gods. He was 
 constantly in the habit of using our Sa- 
 viour's saying, in Luke vi. 31: "What 
 ye will that men should do unto you, do 
 ye likewise unto them ;" and he caused 
 it to be engraved on the walls of his pa- 
 lace, and on public monuments. While 
 Julia IMammsea, the mother of this em- 
 peror, who had great influence over him, 
 was resident at Antioch, she sent for Ori- 
 gen, the great pastor of the Alexandrian 
 Church, and Origen, who was of all men 
 the most capable of recommending Chris- 
 tianity to habits of mind quite foreign to 
 it, no' doubt made use of this opportunity 
 to do so with her, and Julia Mammaea 
 may, in return, have worked upon tlie 
 disposition of her son. Since this em- 
 peror was, therefore, so favourably in- 
 clined to Christianity ; since he gave the 
 world to understand that he recognised 
 the existence of a lawful association in 
 the Christian community, by new-model- 
 ling the appointments to state oflices, 
 after the regulations in use among Chris- 
 tian Churches, and by assigning to the 
 Christian Church in Rome a piece of 
 ground, which they disputed with the 
 corporation of cooks [or rather, perhaps, 
 restaurateurs ;] all this tends to show the 
 more strongly with how great reluctance 
 the Roman emperors published any new 
 edicts in matters concerning religion ; for, 
 as far as we know, he enacted no law by 
 Avhich Christianity was received among 
 the " religiones licitai." Indeed, Domi- 
 tius Ulpianus, the celebrated civilian in 
 the reign of Alexander Severus, (for it 
 was probably this same Domitius,) col- 
 lected the rescripts of former emperors 
 against the Christians* in his work " De 
 Officio Proconsulis." 
 
 The rude Thracian, Maximinus, who, 
 
 * Lactant. Institut Lib. v. c xi. 
 G 
 
T4 
 
 PHILIP THE ARABIAN, FROM A. D. 244. 
 
 after the murder of the excellent Alexan- 
 der Severus, A. D. 235, raised himself to 
 the imperial throne, hated the Christians 
 because iiis predecessor had been on 
 friendly terras with them, and especially 
 persecuted those bishops who had been 
 the most connected with Severus. (Eu- 
 sebius vi 28.) In many districts, as in 
 Cappadocia and Ponlus, desolating earth- 
 quakes assisted in waking again the fury 
 of the populace against the Christians. 
 Under such an emperor, this fury would 
 have full play, and in many cases it was 
 also backed by the governors of the pro- 
 vinces. But it was only in particular dis- 
 tricts that the Christians were persecuted, 
 and they were able to escape by flight 
 into others ; and yet this persecution, 
 
 tion; but we do not find a single thing in 
 him to induce us to believe that the ruler 
 of the Roman empire was a Christian, 
 although he had certainly some occasion 
 to mention such a circumstance. It will, 
 perhaps, be said, that the emperor kept 
 concealed his conversion to Christianity 
 from political grounds ; but, then, it does 
 not suit with this view, to suppose that 
 he visited a Christian church, especially 
 at such a time, and still less, that he 
 submitted to the penance of the Church. 
 We find, indeed, the first trace of the story 
 of his conversion to Christianity in an 
 author of reputation, who wrote in the 
 time of Valerian, who reigned very shortly 
 after Philip. Dyonysius of Alexandria* 
 says of Valerian, " He showed himself 
 
 though less severe than those of former | even better inclined towards the Chris- 
 times, made a greater impression, because j lians than those who were themselves 
 
 the long interval of repose had left men 
 unprepared to expect hostile measures.* 
 
 A more favourable season for Chris- 
 tians again appeared on the accession of 
 Philip the Arabian, A. D. 244. This em- 
 peror, it is said, was a Christian himself.t 
 It is expressly related, that when he wished 
 to join a Christian congregation on Eas- 
 ter-eve, the bishopj of the Church met 
 him at the entrance, and declared to him, 
 that in consequence of the crimes which 
 he had committed,§ he could not be al- 
 lowed to approach till he had submitted 
 to the penance of the Church, and that 
 the emperor really pledged himself to the 
 observance of it. This narration, how- 
 ever, does not harmonize well with what 
 we learn of this emperor from other 
 sources. In all his public life, for in- 
 stance, in the money which he coined, 
 there is not a single trace of Christianity ; 
 but, on the contrary, he always appears 
 as a follower of the heathen state religion. 
 Origen, who was in communication with 
 the royal family,|| and wrote his work 
 against Celsus in this reign, gives us to 
 understand, indeed, that the Christians 
 were then in a very comfortable condi- 
 
 * See the Epistle of Firmilianus Cffisariensis 
 in Cyprian, No. 75, and Origen, Comment, in 
 Matth. vol. iii. 857, ed. de la Rue. 
 
 I Euscbius uses the expression, n-^Ti^u wjcc, 
 in his Church History; but in his Chronicle he 
 expressly names him as the first Christian em- 
 peror. 
 
 :t: By a later tradition it would appear that it 
 was Babylos, bishop of Antioch. 
 
 § This must have been an allusion to the mur- 
 der of his predecessor, Uordianus. 
 
 II He wrote letters to the emperor and his wife 
 Severa, which are now lost. 
 
 Christians." We cannot understand, by 
 these words, any other emperors than Alex- 
 ander Severus and this Philip ; and the 
 well-informed Dionysius apparently clas- 
 ses them together. Philip may, probably, 
 have included Christianity in his religious 
 electicism, and then an exaggerated report 
 made him out a Christian. The murder 
 of his predecessor, however, and much 
 besides about him, corresponded very ill 
 with the supposition of his Christianity; 
 and in order to reconcile these conflict- 
 ing accounts, the report added the fiction 
 about Easter-eve. 
 
 Instead of dwelling longer on this ex- 
 aggerated story, before we pass over to 
 the next struggle of the Christian Church, 
 we shall consider the remarkable works 
 of the great Christian pastor, Origen, who 
 wrote in these days, concerning the per- 
 secution which the Church had hitherto 
 endured, its then external condition, and 
 its future prospects. lie says, in regard 
 to the earlier persecutions,! " Although 
 the Christians, who were commanded not 
 to defend themselves by violence against 
 their enemies, complied with this tender 
 and humane precept; yet that which 
 they never could have obtained, however 
 powerful they might have been, had they 
 been permitted to go to war, that they 
 have received from Gor/, who has always 
 fought for them, and who has at times 
 imposed tranquillity on those who opposed 
 them, and would extirpate their religion : 
 for, as a kind of warning and memorial to 
 them, that when they saw some few con- 
 tend for their religion, they might become 
 
 ' Euseb. vii. 10. 
 
 t Lib. iii. p. 119. [p. 116. Ed. Spencer.] 
 
ORIGEN PREDICTS PERSECUTIONS. 
 
 75 
 
 stronger, and despise death, a/cjc (so few 
 that t/iey may easily be numbered) have at 
 times suffered death for the Christian reli- 
 gion ;* and thus God has prevented a war 
 of extermination against the whole body 
 of Christians ; for he wished their con- 
 tinuance, he wished that tlie whole earth 
 should be filled with their salutary and 
 most holy doctrine. And, on the other 
 hand, that the weaker brethren might take 
 breath, and be relieved from the fear of 
 death, God cared for the believers, by so 
 scattering, through his own mere w ill, all 
 assaults upon them, that neither emperor 
 nor governor, nor the multitude, should 
 prevail against them further." lie says, 
 in reference to his own times, "■ God hath 
 constantly caused the number of Chris- 
 tians to increase, their number is still 
 daily on the increase, and he hath already 
 given to them the free exercise of their 
 reUgion^\ although a thousand obstacles 
 opposed the propagation of the doctrine 
 of Jesus in the world. But since it was 
 God who willed that the doctrine of Jesus 
 should become a blessing to the heathen, 
 all the assaults of men against other 
 Christians have been brought to shame. 
 And the more the emperors, the governors, 
 and the multitude, have sought to oppress 
 the Christians, the more powerful have 
 these latter become.''''X He says, that 
 among the multitude of those who em- 
 braced Christianity, were also many rich 
 people, many in high offices, and rich 
 and well-born women ;§ that now a Chris- 
 tian pastor might obtain honour and re- 
 spect, but, nevertheless, that the contempt 
 with which others treated him was greater 
 than the reverence with which he was 
 regarded by believers. || He remarks, that 
 notwithstanding all this, even yet the hor- 
 rible accusations against the Christians 
 obtained belief with many, who abom- 
 inated holding the slightest intercourse 
 with Christians, even speaking to them.lT 
 He writes, that through God's will the 
 persecutions against the Christians had 
 now long since ceased ; but casting a 
 glance into futurity, he adds, that this 
 tranquillity Avould readily cease' in its 
 turn, whenever the calumniators of Chris- 
 tianity should again have spread abroad 
 the opinion, that the cause of the numer- 
 
 * 'Oyjyot aura. KUt^'.vt k-u a-(pcJ^it (ua^S/^moi (/T«g 
 
 j" 'Hjx Si KM T-X^^nyiiV iTTiJlJatKi. 
 
 i Lib. vii. p. yo9. 
 
 § rni; tcdy tv K.^imfJiu<n, kou yutau* ret a^^u. km 
 
 11 Lib. iii. p. 120. ^ Lib. vi. p. 302. 
 
 ous seditions (during the later years of 
 this emperor,) was the great number of 
 the Christians, wiio had increased so much 
 from not being persecuted.* He foresaw 
 also, that the persecutions had not yet 
 reached their limit, and that the opinion, 
 " that the downfall of the state-religion, 
 and that the irresistible propagation of 
 Christianity, were bringing disaster on the 
 Roman empire, would, sooner or later, 
 again revive the flames of persecution ;" 
 
 i but he adds, " when God wills, we enjoy 
 in a wonderful manner peace in a world 
 which hates us, and we confide in Him 
 who says, ' Be of good cheer, 1 have over- 
 come the world.' He has, indeed, over- 
 come the world ! Inasmuch, then, as He 
 who hath overcome the world wills that 
 we should overcome the world, since He 
 hath received power from the Father to 
 overcome the world, we confide in his 
 victory. But if he wills that we should 
 again contend and battle for the faith, let 
 the adversaries come, and we will say to 
 them : — ' We are able to do all things 
 through Him that makes us strong — Jesus 
 Christ our Lord!'" He was persuaded 
 that hereafter all other religions would 
 fall to the ground, and Christianity alone 
 would prevail, as even then it was con- 
 stantly gaining more souls.| 
 
 What the sharp sighted Origen predict- 
 ed, soon happened ; nay, while he was 
 writing this in Caesarea of Palestine, it had 
 already taken place in another district. In 
 Alexandria, an enthusiast or an impostor, 
 who appealed to special revelations, which 
 he had individually received from the 
 gods, excited the rage of the people against 
 the Christians.^ As it had often happened 
 before, that a persecuting government had 
 followed a favourable one, as Marcus Au- 
 relius had followed Antoninus Pius, and 
 Maximin the Thracian, Alexander Severus, 
 so it happened now also, when Decius 
 Trajanus, after conquering Philip the Ara- 
 bian, A. D. 249, had ascended the impe- 
 rial throne. It is exceedingly natural that 
 when an emperor zealously devoted to 
 Paganism, followed one favourable to the 
 
 j Christians, he should feel himself bound, 
 on that very account, to renew with re- 
 doubled strictness and severity, and to 
 execute most thorouglily, the older laws, 
 which had fallen into disuse, against the 
 Christians, who, during his predecessor's 
 reign, had increased so widely. And we 
 can here also with Origen recognise an 
 
 Lib. iii. p. 123. t Tom. viii. 436-7. 
 t Euaeb. vi. 41. 
 
76 
 
 DECIUS TRAJANUS, A. D. 250 — HIS EDICT. 
 
 especial precaution of God's providence; 
 since in the long interval of repose many 
 Christians, unmindful of their call to 
 combat for the faith, had suffered them- 
 selves to grow slothful, since so many, 
 who were destitute of vital Christianity, 
 had crept into the Christian Church, or 
 remained in it because they were descend- 
 ed from Christian parents, it would seem 
 that the power and truth of faith must be 
 awakened and proved by some new terri- 
 ble struggle, the Church at the same time 
 purified, and the real and genuine mem- 
 bers of it separated from the pretended. 
 In many provinces the Christians had en- 
 joyed an undisturbed repose of thirty 
 years, in others even a longer time. Cy- 
 prian, the bishop of Carthage, on this ac- 
 count, (in his Sermo de Lapsis,) complains 
 that this peace had had a soporific influ- 
 ence on a part of the Christians, and that 
 much worldly mmdedness had taken root 
 in consequence among both laity and clergy. 
 The Church, therefore, needed again to 
 go through the purifying influence of the 
 fire. So Cyprian, after the first storm 
 of persecution had subsided, taught his 
 Church to view the matter. " When the 
 cause of the sickness," says he to his 
 flock, " is once known, then the remedy 
 for the wound may be found. The Lord 
 wished to prove his people, because the 
 course of life which God commands had 
 been destroyed in the long time of our 
 tranquillity. A divine chastisement hath, 
 therefore, roused the Church, fast sinking 
 as it then was, into sleep and carelessness. 
 Although by our sins we deserve more, 
 yet the merciful God has so managed that 
 all whicjr befel us appeared to be rather 
 a trial than a persecution. While men 
 forgot what the believers did in the time 
 of the aposdes, and what they ought 
 always to do, they gave their minds, with 
 insatiable desire, to the increase of their 
 temporal possessions. Many of the 
 bishops, who ought by example and ex- 
 hortation to lead the rest, neglected their 
 divine calling, and busied themselves with 
 the administration of worldly afi'airs." 
 Since such, therefore, was the state of 
 many Churches, it is easy to see that a 
 persecution, which in its first course 
 seemed likely to be very severe, must 
 have made a great impression on persons 
 unaccustomed to persecution. 
 
 It was certainly the intention of the 
 emperor entirely to crush Christianity. 
 He ordered* (A. D.250) strict inquiry to 
 
 * [V. Eusel). Hist. Eccles. vi. 39. Pearson, 
 Annal, Cyprian, ad ann. 249, No. 12. H. J. R.] 
 
 be made about all persons suspected of 
 non-observance of the state religions — 
 and Christians were to be required to com- 
 ply with the ceremonies of the Roman 
 state-religion. ]f they refused, threats, 
 and afterwards tortures, were to be made 
 use of, to induce them to give in. ]f they 
 stood steadfast in the faith, then, especially 
 against the bishops, whom the emperor 
 hated the most, sentence of death was pro- 
 nounced : but the intention was at first to 
 try how far they could succeed with the 
 Christians by commands, by threats, by 
 persuasion, and light punishments ; they 
 proceeded gradually to more severe mea- 
 sures, and the persecution gradually ex- 
 tended itself into the provinces from the 
 metropolis, where the presence of the 
 emperor, a declared enemy of the Chris- 
 tians, made the persecution at first the most 
 severe. Wherever the edict of the em- 
 peror was carried into execution, the first 
 step was publicly to appoint a day, before 
 which, all the Christians of any place 
 were to appear before the magistrate, 
 abjure their religion, and offer sacrifice. 
 Those who fled their country before this 
 day, escaped with the confiscation of their 
 property, and a prohibition of their return, 
 under the penalty of death. But with 
 those who were unwdling to sacrifice at 
 once their earthly possessions to a crown 
 of glory in heaven, and waited for some- 
 thing that might open a middle path for 
 them, when they did not appear of their 
 own accord on the appointed day, the 
 court of inquiry,* composed of the magis- 
 trate and five of the principal citizens, 
 began its operation. After repeated tor- 
 tures, those who remained steadfast were 
 thrown into prison, where hunger and 
 thirst were employed to weaken their re- 
 solution. It does not appear that the 
 punishment of death was very commonly 
 resorted to. Many magistrates, who were 
 more interested in extorting money than 
 in executing the laws, or wiio wished to 
 spare the Cliristians, agreed with them,' 
 that although they really (Hd not ofler 
 sacrifice, yet they would suffer a certifi- 
 cate (libellum) to be set forth, declaring 
 that they had complied with the regula- 
 tion of the edict.]'" Others, while they 
 were anxious to escape the putting forth 
 
 * Cyprian, Ep. xl. (Ep. xliii. ea. Ox.) " Quinque 
 primores illi, qui edicto nuper magistratibus fuerant 
 copulati, ut fidem nostram subrucrent." The ex- 
 pression ."edicto" renders it liardiy prof>abIc that 
 this regulation was confined to Carthage. 
 
 f Tliose who received such certificates were 
 cailcd " Libellatici." 
 
FAITH OP THE CHRISTIANS AT CARTHAGE. 77 
 
 such a certificate, yet, without ever even ' tion — some fled, and others were arrested, 
 appearing before tlie magistrates, obtained Among these latter, some went as far as 
 the entry of their names in the magisterial to endure the fixing of the chains and the 
 protocol, or register, among those who arrest; others bore the confinement for a 
 had been obedient to the edict. (*Acta few days, and then abjured, even before 
 facientes.) Many erred ignorantly, think- they had been sent for to jiidgnieiit : 
 ing that they remained true to their faith [ others, after enduring the tortures up to a 
 when they did nothing which was con- certain degree, gave in; but the blessed 
 
 trary to their religion, (neither offered 
 sacrifice nor burnt incense, &.c.) but only 
 allowed others to say that they had done 
 so. The Church, however, always con- 
 demned this as a tacit abjuration of their 
 faith. 
 
 Let us now take a picture of the effects 
 of this bloody persecution among the 
 Cliristians in the large cities, such as 
 Alexandria and Carthage, from the hands 
 of Dionysius,t the bishop of Alexandria, 
 whose very words we are now about to 
 quote. " All were thrown into consterna- 
 tion by this terrible edict, and many of 
 the higher classes of citizens]; presented 
 themselves from fear immediately, partly 
 of their own accord, partly brought by 
 the public§ necessity, which was imposed 
 upon them, and partly as they were 
 brought by their relations and friends. 
 And, as each was called upon by name, 
 they approached the unholy sacrifices, 
 some of them pale and trembling, not as 
 if they were to perform a sacrifice^ but as 
 if they were to be themselves victims 
 slaughtered to the idols; so that the mul- 
 titude around treated them with bitter 
 scorn and ridicule, and it was clear to all 
 that they were alike afraid, either to die 
 or to sacrifice. Others, however, volun- 
 tarily ran up to the altars, boldly averring, 
 that they never had been Christians — in 
 whom the saying of our Lord was verified, 
 that ' the rich can hardly enter into the 
 kingdom of heaven.' The rest of the 
 Christians partly followed the example 
 of these two classes of persons of condi- 
 
 * Cyp. Ep. xxxi. "Qui acta fecissent, licet 
 prssentes cum fierent non adfuissent — ut sic 
 scriberentur mandando." 
 
 -j- Euseb. vi. 41. 
 
 t Oi 5r£g;^av63-T»«, the " personffi insignes," to 
 whom the attention of the heathen was first 
 turned, and who were in greater danger than all 
 others. 
 
 § 0( Si Sn fji'.iTimvnK uTm tim Tr^a^fuv iyitrc. I 
 think these words are a translation of the Latin 
 law phrase, " .\clis publicis convenlri." The 
 translation of Rufinus also favours this supposi- 
 tion, as well as the antithesis of the passage. 
 
 [The note of Valesius on this passage rather 
 supports this interpretation, and is worth consult- 
 ing. He makes it mean, that "some being in 
 public offices, were obliged to appear at the read- 
 ing of the edict.— H. J. K.] 
 
 and steadfast pillars of the Lord, who 
 were strengthened by Him, and received 
 might and steadfastness from Him, as they 
 were worthy of their firm faith, and acted 
 up to it, became wonderful witnesses of 
 his kingdom." Among these, Dionysius 
 mentions Dioscoros,a boy of fifteen years 
 of age, who, by his excellent answers and 
 his firmness under torture, extorted such 
 admiration from the governor, that he let 
 him go free, declaring to him that he gave 
 his tender years time to repent. 
 
 There appeared in most districts glori- 
 ous traits of Christian faithfulness and 
 devotion to the cause. At Carthage, we 
 read of a certain Numidicus, whom Cy- 
 prian, the bishop, took into the presby- 
 tery, because he had so highly dis- 
 tinguished himself during the persecution. 
 After encouraging many others to a mar- 
 tyr's death, after seeing his own wife 
 expire on the funeral pile, he was himself, 
 half-burnt and almost crushed with stones, 
 left for dead. His daughter sought the 
 corpse of her father under the heap of 
 stones, in order to bury him. How rap- 
 tured must she have been to find some 
 signs of life about him still, and to suc- 
 ceed in her dutiful attempt to revive him! 
 A woman had been brought to the altar 
 by her husband, and they compelled her 
 to offer sacrifice by holding her hands, 
 but she cried, "I did it not! I did it 
 not!" and she was accordingly con- 
 demned to banishment.* We read of con- 
 fessors of the faith at Carthage, who Avere 
 in prison, and whom they had en- 
 deavoured for eight days to bring to re- 
 cantation through heat, through hunger 
 and thirst, but who still looked death by 
 starvation in the face unmoved.t Some 
 confessors from Rome, who had endured 
 a year's confinement, wrote to Cyprian 
 thus :J "What can happen to a man more 
 glorious and more blessed, than amidst 
 tortures, and even in the sight of death, 
 to acknowledge God the Lord, and with 
 lacerated body, with a departing but a free 
 spirit, to acknowledge Christ the Son of 
 God, and to become a fellow-sufferer of 
 
 ♦ Cyprian, Ep. xviii. 
 
 f Ep. xxi. Luciani, ap. Cyprian. 
 
 ^ Ep. xxvi. 
 
78 
 
 Christ in the name of Christ. We have 
 not yet shed our blood, but we are ready 
 to shed it! Pray also, dearest Cyprian! 
 that the Lord may daily more richly con- 
 firm and strengthen every one among us 
 with the powers of his might, and that 
 He, our great leader, may at length lead 
 to the battle-field of the fight that is set 
 before us, his warriors whom He hath 
 hitherto practised, and proved in the camp 
 of a prison. May He bestow upon us 
 those divine arms, which never can be 
 conquered !"* 
 
 The bishops were the especial objects 
 of tiie emperor's hatred, and possibly it 
 was only against them that the punish- 
 ment of death was expressly decreed. At 
 the very first outbreaking of the persecu- 
 tion, Fabianus, the bishop of Rome, suf- 
 fered martyrdom. Many bishops, till the 
 first fury of the persecution had subsided, 
 retired from their communities, not from 
 cowardice, but because, as their presence 
 inflamed the fury of the heathen, they 
 esteemed it their duty to secure the repose 
 of their communities by a temporary ab- 
 sence, as well as by all means not incon- 
 sistent with their Christian faith and pas- 
 toral duties, to preserve their lives for the 
 future service of their flocks, and of the 
 Church. Among the number of those 
 who retired for a season, was the bishop 
 Cyprian : and although he was by many 
 reproached as having done this from cow- 
 ardice, yet his subsequent conduct clears 
 him from this imputation, and the open- 
 ness and the tranquillity of conscience 
 with which he speaks of it, are creditable 
 witnesses in his favour, when he writes 
 thus to the Roman Church :f " Imme- 
 diately on the first approach of trouble, 
 when the people with loud outcries con- 
 stantly demanded my death, I retired for 
 a time, not so much from care for my 
 own life, as for the public tranquillity of 
 the brethren, that the tumult which had 
 begun might not be further excited by 
 ray presence, which was offensive to the 
 heathcii."j He acted after the principle 
 which he recommended in regard to all 
 other persons also. "• Therefore, the Lord 
 commanded us to yield and fly in case of 
 persecution ; He commanded this, and 
 practised it himself. For as the martyr's 
 crown comes from the grace of God, and 
 can only be received when the proper 
 time is come, so he denies not the faith, 
 
 MANY BISHOPS WITHDRAW. 
 
 * Ephes. vi. 11. 
 
 f Epist xiv.; fEp. xx. in Bishop Fell's edi- 
 tion. Oxford, 1682.— H. J. R.] 
 4 De Lapsis. 
 
 who, still remaining true to Christ, retires 
 occasionally, but he waits his time." 
 There was, however, certainly a difl^erence 
 in the case of ordinary Christians, and of 
 one who had the administration of the 
 pastoral oflfice on his hands, and duties to 
 fulfil towards the souls confided to his 
 care ; but even this Cyprian neglected 
 not ; he might fairly appeal to his Church 
 and say, that though absent in body he 
 had been present with them constantly in 
 spirit, and sought to guide them by coun- 
 sel and by deed, according to the com- 
 mandments of the Lord.* The letters 
 which he wrote from his retreat, through 
 the means of clergy, who travelled about, 
 and were connected with his Church, 
 show with what right he could say this 
 of himself, and with what anxiety he 
 sought to preserve discipline and order in 
 the Church, and how desirous he was, 
 that the necessities of the poor, who were 
 prevented by the persecution from plying 
 their customary employments, should be 
 attended to, and that the prisoners should 
 be relieved by all possible means. The 
 same principles of Christian resolution, 
 which moved him to yield to the momen- 
 tary danger, were shown in his exhorta- 
 tions to his Church, when in exhorting 
 them to Christian steadfastness, he endea- 
 voured to warn them against all enthu- 
 siastic and exaggerated feelings. He thus 
 writes to his clergyf (Ep. iv.): "I pray 
 you not to allow your prudence and care 
 for the maintenance of tranquillity to fail ; 
 for, although the brethren, in the spirit of 
 love and charity, are desirous to visit 
 those glorious confessors of the faith, 
 whom the grace of God has rendered il- 
 lustrious by such a glorious beginning, 
 yet this must be done with precaution, 
 and not in great numbers at a time, lest 
 we provoke the jealousy of the heathen, 
 and all access be forbidden ; and so while 
 we seek for much, we lose every thing. 
 Take care also that due moderation he 
 kept here for greater security, so that the 
 individual priests who go to administer 
 the communion to the confessors, and 
 the deacons who accompany them, may 
 change after some regular succession, 
 because a change of persons, and a change 
 in those who visit the confessors, will 
 excite less jealousy; and in every thing 
 we must gently and humbly, as becomes 
 the servants of God, humour the times, 
 and provide for the safety and tranquillity 
 
 • Ep. xiv. [Ep. XX. Ed. Ox.] 
 
 j [Ep.v. Bishop Fell's edition.— H. J. R.J 
 
THE PERSECUTION GRADUALLY INCREASES. 
 
 79 
 
 of the Church." He desires liis Church 
 to consider this persecution as an exhor- 
 tation to prayer. (Ep. vii.) ''Let each of 
 us pray to God, not only lor himseir, but 
 for all the brethren, as the Lord taught us 
 to pray; who does not command each 
 individual to pray for himself alone, but 
 all generally for all. When the Lord 
 shall see that we are humble and peace- 
 able, united among ourselves, and ren- 
 dered better by these present sufferings, 
 then will He free us from the persecutions 
 of the enemy." 
 
 By a comparison of the various letters 
 of Cyprian, written at this time, with the 
 letter of Dionysius of Alexandria, it ap- 
 pears probable that, without any further 
 edicts of the emperor Decius, the perse- 
 cution had gradually become more severe. 
 As so many had shown weakness at the 
 first threats, it was hoped that the Chris- 
 tians might easily be entirely crushed, 
 without proceeding to extremities, if they 
 could only manage to deprive them of 
 their bishops, who were constantly in- 
 flaming their zeal for the faith. At first all 
 the dealings with the Christians in this 
 business were committed to those local 
 authorities in the different provinces, who 
 were the best acquainted with the indi-^ 
 vidual citizens, and best knew how to set 
 about the matter, and who would know 
 how to discover the means most likely to 
 work upon and influence each man ac- 
 cording to his individual character and 
 private relations; the most severe punish- 
 ments at first made use of, were imprison- 
 ment and banishment. When, however, 
 the heathen saw that the hopes excited 
 by their success at first, were deceived, 
 the proconsuls themselves took the thing 
 into their own hands; and those, there- 
 fore, by whose firmness these hopes had 
 been dispelled, were now far more liarshly 
 dealt with, in order to force them to give 
 way, as the others had done. They tried 
 hunger and thirst, exquisite and increa- 
 sing, tortures, and in some cases death, 
 even on those who were not spiritual per- 
 sdfcs. [t was, however, natural, that in 
 the course of time people should grow 
 weary of their fury, and their passion 
 should gradually cool. It might also 
 happen that the change in the provincial 
 government, when the old proconsuls and 
 praesides laid down their office in the be- 
 ginning of the year 251, might be favour- 
 able to the Christians. At length Decius 
 was called away from the persecution of 
 the Christians, by more important political 
 events, the rebellion in Macedonia, and the 
 
 Gothic war. He himself lost his life in 
 this war towards the end of the year. 
 The tranquillity which this change pro- 
 cured for the Christians, lasted also during 
 a part of the following year 252, under 
 the government of Gallus and Volusianus. 
 But a desolating pestilence, which having 
 broken out under the former government, 
 was now spreading itself gradually into 
 all parts of the Roman empire, with 
 droughts and famine in various districts, 
 again excited, as usual, the fury of the 
 populace against the Christians.* An im- 
 perial edict was published, requiring all 
 Roman subjects to sacrifice to the gods, 
 in order to obtain salvation from so great 
 a public calamity."!" Men were again 
 struck by the numbers who withdrew 
 themselves from these sacrifices, because 
 they were Christians. Hence arose new 
 persecutions, in order to increase the 
 number of the sacrificers, and generally 
 to further the interests of the old religion. 
 At the approach of this new persecu- 
 tion. Bishop Cyprian wrote a letter of 
 exhortation^ (Ep. Ivi.) to the North Afri- 
 can Church of the Thibaritans, in which 
 he thus expresses himself: "Let none of 
 you, my beloved brethren, when he sees 
 how our people are driven away and scat- 
 tered from fear of the persecution, dis- 
 quiet himself, because he no longer sees 
 the brethren together, nor hears the 
 bishops preach. We, who dare not shed 
 blood, but are ready to allow our blood 
 to be shed, cannot, at such a time, be col- 
 lected together. Wheresoever, in those 
 days, any one of the brethren may be 
 separated for a while by the necessities 
 of the time, and absent in body, not in 
 spirit, let him not be agitated by the 
 dreadfulness of that flight ; and if he be 
 obliged to retire and hide himself, let not 
 the solitude of a desert place terrify him. 
 He, whom Christ accompanies in his 
 flight, is not alone ; he is not alone, 
 who preserving God's temple constantly, 
 wheresoever he is, is not without God. 
 And if in desert places, and on the moun- 
 tains, a robber shall assault the fugitive, a 
 wild beast attack him, or hunger, thirst or 
 cold destroy him ; or if, when he passes 
 over the sea in haste, the fury of the 
 storm shall sink his vessel, yet Christ, 
 in every place, beholds his warrior 
 fighting !" 
 
 * See Cyprian's Defence of the Christians 
 against the accusations of Demctrianns. 
 
 -(- Cypriani Epist. Iv. ad. Corrul. Sacrificia, 
 qua; edicto proposito celehrare populus jubebatur. 
 
 + [Ep. Iviii. cd. Ox. 1682.] 
 
80 
 
 PERSECUTION UNDER VALERIANUS. 
 
 The bishops of the metropolis, under 
 the very eyes of the emperor, were natu- 
 rally the first objects of the persecution, 
 for how could people hope to put down 
 Christians in the provinces, while they 
 suffered their Bishops to remain in Rome ? 
 Cornelius who had entered on his office 
 under Decius, at the danger of his life, 
 ■was at first banished, and then condemned 
 to death. Lucius, who had the Christian 
 courage to succeed him in his office, at 
 this time of danger, was soon also his fol- 
 lower in banishment and in martyrdom. 
 
 Nevertheless, the war and the rebellion, 
 with which Gallus was busied, prevented 
 him from carrying through with vigour a 
 general persecution of the Christians in 
 the provinces, and these events, which 
 ended with his murder, in the summer of 
 tlie year 253, at length restored universal 
 repose and tranquillity to the Christians. 
 
 The emperor Valerianus, in the first 
 years of his reign, from 254, showed him- 
 self very favourable to the Christians, but 
 from the year 257, he changed his con- 
 duct, and began to persecute them. The 
 persecution, however, was at first by no 
 means a bloody one, and only required 
 the removal of teachers and pastors, and 
 especially bishops, from their flocks. We 
 have before observed the notion which in 
 the former persecution prevailed among 
 the heathen governors, that if they could 
 first remove the bishops out of the way, 
 they should have less difficulty in strang- 
 ling Christianity ; then the assembling of 
 the congregations was forbidden, and it 
 was hoped that thus their aim might be 
 attained without bloodshed. The course 
 of proceeding in this first persecution 
 under this emperor we ascertain immedi- 
 ately by an inspection of the minutes of 
 the trials of the bishops Cyprian and 
 Dionysius.* Tlie proconsul Paternus 
 brought Cyprian before his tribunal, and 
 said to him, " The emperors Valerianus 
 and Galienus have sent me a rescript, in 
 which they command that all those who 
 do not observe the Roman religion, shall 
 now take upon them the Roman ceremo- 
 nies. I therefore ask what are you .? 
 what do you answer .'" Cyprian : " I am 
 a Christian and a bishop; I know no 
 God but the one true God, who created 
 the heaven aiul the earth and the sea, and 
 all that is in them. This God we Chris- 
 tians serve ; to this God we pray day and 
 night for ourselves; for all mankind, and 
 for the prosperity of the emperor him- 
 
 self." The proconsul : " Is this, then, 
 
 [Passio Sti Cypriani— H. J. R.] 
 
 your fixed resolution .^" Cyprian : " A 
 good resolution, which proceeds from the 
 knowledge of God, can never change.'" 
 The proconsul on this, in compliance 
 with the imperial edict, pronounced a sen- 
 tence of banishment upon him, and added 
 instandy, " this rescript relates not only 
 to the bishops, but also to the priests. [ 
 desire, therefore, to know from you, who 
 the presbyters are who dwell in this city .^" 
 Cyprian: "Your laws have justly con- 
 demned the laying of informations ; I can- 
 not, therefore, give them up; but in the 
 places over which they have authority, 
 you will be able to find them." The 
 proconsul : " J am speaking now of this 
 place, and in this place, this very day, 
 will I begin the search." Cyprian : '' As 
 our doctrine forbids men to give them- 
 selves up, and it is also contrary to your 
 orders, therefore they cannot give them- 
 selves up ; but if you seek them you will 
 find them." The proconsul released him 
 with a declaration, that the assembling of 
 the Christians, be it where it might, and 
 the visiting Christian places of interment 
 (which usually inflamed the zeal of Chris- 
 tians,) were forbidden under pain of death. 
 ^The intention was now wholly to sepa- 
 rate the bishops from their churches, but 
 the bond of the Spirit would not suffer 
 itself to be broken by earthly power. We 
 very soon after find the bishops and the 
 clergy, and not only these, but laymen 
 also, and even women and children, con- 
 demned, after being ill-treated and beaten, 
 to imprisonment and to labour in the 
 mines : we suppose they had been found 
 at the graves, or in congregations. The 
 bishop Cyprian, from Curubis, the place 
 of his banishment, was most active in pro- 
 viding for their temporal and spiritual 
 wants, and in proving, by words and deeds 
 of love, his sympathy with them. Wliile 
 he sent large sums from his own revenues 
 and from the church-chest, for their sup- 
 port, and for the relief of their distresses, 
 he wrote thus to them (Ep. Ixxvii. :)* " In 
 the mines the body is not refreshed by 
 bed and couches, but by the refreshment 
 and the consolation of Christ. The limbs, 
 weary through labour, lie upon the earth, 
 but it is no punishment to lie there with 
 Christ. Though the outward man be 
 covered with filth, yet the inward man is 
 the more purified by the Spirit of God. 
 
 • [Ep: Ixxvi. cd. Oxon, 1682. This is by a 
 misprint in the edition here referred to made 
 Ixxxvi., but in the Index it is given as it should be, 
 as the Ixxvith.— H. J. R.] 
 
INCREASE OF CHRISTIANITY CRUEL EDICT. 
 
 81 
 
 There is but little bread, but man lives not 
 by bread alone, but by the word of God. 
 There is but little clothing for the cold, 
 but he who has put on Christ, hath 
 clothiu]^ and ornament enough. * * * * 
 Even in this, my dearest brethren, your 
 faith can recieve no injury,* that you are 
 unable to celebrate the communion. You 
 do celebrate the most glorious commu- 
 nion, you do bring God the most costly 
 oiroring, for the Scripture says, 'The sa- 
 crilice of God is a broken spirit ; a contrite 
 heart God doth not despise.' You bring 
 yourselves as holy and pure offerings to 
 God. Your example," he writes to the 
 clergy, " the greater part of the Church 
 has followed, who have confessed with 
 you, and with you been crowned, being 
 bound to you by the ties of the strongest 
 love, so that prison and the mines could 
 not separate them from you, and there are 
 among you even girls and boys. How 
 great now among you must be the strength 
 of your victorious conscience! What a 
 triumph in your hearts, to walk among 
 the mines, with imprisoned body, but 
 with a heart conscious of power, to know 
 tliat Christ is among you, and delights 
 himself in the patience of his servants, 
 who tread in his footsteps and walk in 
 his ways to the kingdom of eternity !" 
 
 The emperor must soon have found, 
 that nothing could be accomplished by 
 these measures. The local separation of 
 the bishops could not break up their con- 
 nection with the Churches ; by letters, 
 by clergy travelling backwards and for- 
 wards, they were active among their peo- 
 ple, as if they had been in the midst of 
 them, and their exile only rendered them 
 dearer to their Churches. Wherever they 
 were banished, they collected a little con- 
 gregation around them ; in many places, 
 where as yet no seed of the Gospel liad 
 been sown, the kingdom of God was first 
 erected by these banislied persons, whose 
 lives, and not their lips alone gave wit- 
 ness to their faith. So the Bishop Dio- 
 nysius was able to say of his banishment 
 to Cephar, a remote place of Libya,| "At 
 first we were persecuted and stoned, but 
 then not a few of the heathen left their 
 idols and turned to God. By us the seed 
 of the word was first brought thither; and, 
 as if God had brought us thither only for 
 
 * [Dr. N. has here only paraphrased the orgi- 
 nal, " quad illic nunc xaccrr/otibtis Dei facultas non 
 datur eiferendi et celebrandi sacrificia divina," and 
 so throughout this passage the original is much 
 abridged.-H. J. U.] 
 
 t Euseb. vii. 11. 
 
 11 
 
 that purpose, he led us away again as 
 soon as we had fulfilled that purpose." 
 Valerianus, therefore, believed that to sup- 
 press Cliristianity, he must resort to more 
 decided and severe measures. In the fol- 
 lowing year, 258, appeared this edict: — 
 "The bishops, priests, and deacons, shall 
 immediately be put to death by the sword, 
 the senators and knights shall lose their 
 dignities and property, and if, after this, 
 they remain Christians, they shall suffer 
 the same punishment of death. Women 
 of condition, after confiscation of their 
 property, shall be banished ; the Chris- 
 tians in the service of the imperial court, 
 especially slaves and freedmen, who have 
 formerly made profession of Christianity, 
 or do so now, shall be considered as the 
 property of the emperor, and shall be* 
 distributed in chains to labour in the va- 
 rious imperial public works." We see 
 by this rescript,! that the emperor's pe- 
 culiar object was, to deprive the Christians 
 of their c/ergy, and to stop the spread of 
 Christianity among the higher orders. He 
 did not wish to use unnecessary cruelty ; 
 but clearly the people and the governors 
 did not always abide by the spirit of these 
 instructions, as we learn from some of the 
 martyrdoms of this persecution, against 
 
 * A various reading here gives the sense of 
 branded besides. [See the necst note.] 
 
 ■|- The original rescript of llie etnperor to the 
 senate, is found in Cyprian, Ep. Ixxxii. ad Suc- 
 cessum, (Ep. Ixxx. ed. Ox.) "Ut episcopi etpres- 
 liyteri et diacones in continenti animadvertantur, 
 senatores vcro et egregii viri et* (the second et is 
 a spurious addition, for the egregii viri are the 
 cqxtites as the senatores are clarissimi) dignitate 
 amissa etiam bonis spolientur, et si, ademptis fa- 
 cultatibus. Christian! esse perseveraverint, capite 
 quoque mulctentur; matronsB vero, ademptis bonis, 
 in exsilium relegentur ; Ctesariani autein quicun- 
 que vel prius confessi fuerant vel nunc confessi 
 fuerint, confiscentur et vincti in Cssarianas pos- 
 sessiones descripti mittantur." Instead of dc- 
 scripti (allotted or distributed,) there is a various 
 reading ; scripti or inscripti, branded. We see 
 by the following passage in Pontius's Life of Cy- 
 prian, that in the persecutions of Decius, Chris- 
 tians had been branded on the forehead : " Tot 
 confessores frontium notatarum secunda inscrip- 
 tione signatos." The " prima inscriptio" was the 
 " inscriptio crusis," p^^^aKTH^, <np^a.yi; tcv tPTMj^c-j re- 
 ceived in baptism. In the passage of Cyprian the 
 collocation of the words rather favours the common 
 reading. 
 
 * [I find the passage thus printed in both edi- 
 tions of Dr. Neander. It appears that the printer 
 must have left out the words " cquitcs Romani,'' 
 which follow the second el in the passage of 
 Cyprian. This will make Dr. Neander's remark 
 in the parenthesis quite intelligible. But he may, 
 perhaps, mean to condemn the words equilcs Bo- 
 matii also. — H. J. R-] 
 
82 
 
 CYPRIAN GALLIENUS HIS EDICT OF TOLERATION. 
 
 the genuineness of which no cogent ar- 
 guments can, upon the whole, be pro- 
 duced. 
 
 Sextus, the bishop of Rome, and four 
 deacons of his Church, were the first who, 
 in consequence of this edict, suffered mar- 
 tyrdom, on the 6th of August, A. D. 258. 
 
 The new governors in the provinces 
 had in the interim recalled those who had 
 been banished by their predecessors in 
 oflice, and they allowed them in the re- 
 tirement, in which they were obliged to j 
 remain, to await the decision of their fate 
 by the new rescript which was expected 
 from Rome. Cyprian kept himself at a 
 small country place near Carthage, until 
 he heard that he would be conducted to 
 Utica, in order to receive his sentence 
 from the proconsul, who happened then 
 to be staying there. Like a true shepherd, 
 he was most anxious to give his last tes- 
 timony by word and by suffering in the 
 presence of his own flock ; and he, there- 
 fore, complied with the entreaties of his 
 friends who urged him to retire till the 
 return of the proconsul. From the place 
 of his concealment, he wrote his last 
 letter to his Church. (Ep. Ixxxiii.)* " I 
 allowed myself to be persuaded to with- 
 draw for a time, because it becomes the 
 bishop, in that place where he is set over 
 the Church of the Lord, to confess the 
 Lord, that all the Church may be ren- 
 dered glorious by the confession of their 
 pastor. For whatsoever the confessing 
 bishop declares in the moment of confes- 
 sion, that he declares by the inspiration 
 of God from the mouths of all. Let me, 
 in this retired spot, await the return of 
 the proconsul to Carthage, to hear from 
 him, what the emperors have commanded 
 in relation to the Christian bishops and 
 laity, and to speak to him what the Lord 
 in that hour will that I should speak. 
 But you, dearly beloved brethren, keep 
 peace and tranquillity in conformity with 
 the discipline whicli you have always 
 received at my hands, according to the 
 commands of tlie Lord -, let no one of you 
 bring the brethren into trouble, nor give 
 himself up of his own accord to the hea- 
 then. Every man must then only speak, 
 ^vhen he is apprehended, for in that hour 
 the Lord who dwells in us, speaks in us." 
 When Cyprian, on the return of the pro- 
 consul on the 14th of September, received 
 from his mouth the sentence of death, 
 his last words were " God be thanked."f 
 
 * Ep. Ixxxi. ed. Oxon. 
 
 •}■ He was condemned as an "inimicus Diis 
 
 This persecution ended with the reign 
 of him from whom it proceeded. Vale- 
 rianus, by the unfortunate issue of the 
 war, having been taken prisoner by the 
 Persians, A. D. 259, his son Gallienus, 
 already joined in the government, obtained 
 the undivided sovereignty. He was more 
 indifferent than his father, as well with 
 respect to all public affairs, as with regard 
 to the maintenance of the state religon. 
 He instantly published an edict, by which 
 he granted to the Christians the {ree ex- 
 ercise of their religion, and commanded 
 that all the burial grounds belonging to 
 their Churches, and the otiier houses and 
 grounds, which had been confiscated 
 under the foregoing government, slioukl 
 be restored to tliem. He thus recognised 
 the Christian Church as a legalhj existing 
 corporate body^ for none but such a body 
 could, according to the Roman constitu- 
 tion, possess a common property. As, 
 however, Macrianus had set himself up 
 for emperor in the east, and in Egypt, in 
 these countries it was only till after his 
 fall, in A. D. 261, that the toleration edict 
 of Gallienus could come into effect.* 
 Hence, while the Christians in the West 
 were already in the enjoyment of repose, 
 persecutions may have lasted in those 
 countries in compliance wth the edict of 
 Valerianus. Eusebins relates a remark- 
 able instance of this, which took place at 
 this time in Palestine. Marius, a Chris- 
 tian soldier at Coesarea Stratonis, was to 
 receive the place of a centurion. Just as 
 the centurion's staff (the vi/!is,) was about 
 to be entrusted to him, another soldier, 
 who had the next promise of this promo- 
 tion, stepped forward and declared that, 
 according to the old laws, Marius could 
 not hold any Roman military ranli, be- 
 cause he was a Cliristian, and did not 
 sacrifice to the gods and to the emperor. 
 On this they granted Marius a delay of 
 three hours, in the course of which he 
 must decide v)hcthcr he rooiild remain a 
 Christian. In the meantime tlie bishop 
 Theotecnus led him to the Church, he 
 pointed on the one hand to the sword 
 which the soldier bore upon his side, on 
 the other to the book of the Gospel, 
 which he laid before him. " He must 
 choose between the two, between the 
 
 Komanis et sacris legibus." [So Pontius in Vita 
 Cypr. p. 13. Comp. also the Passio Cypriani. — 
 H. J. K.] 
 
 * Euscinus, vii. 13, has preserved to us, not the 
 original edict of this emperor, but the rescript, by 
 which the edict was introduced also into Egypt, 
 after the conquest of Macrian. 
 
CHRISTIANITY A RELIGIO LICIT A AURELIAN. 
 
 83 
 
 military rank and the Gospel !" Marius, 
 without hesitation, lifted up his right 
 hand and laid hold of the Gospel. "Now," 
 said the bishop, "hold fast on God, and 
 mayest thou obtain what thou hast chosen. 
 Depart in peace." After a most cou- 
 rageous confession he was beheaded. 
 
 Tlie law of Gallienus must necessarily 
 have wrouglit a change in the condition 
 of die Christians, most essential in itself, 
 and fraught with most important con- 
 sequences. The important step, which 
 many emperors, more favourable to Chris- 
 tianity than Gallienus, who can hardly 
 have had any peculiar religious interest 
 in the case, had never hazarded, was now 
 made. Christianity had now become a 
 " religio licita ;" the Christian Church had 
 now received a legal existence; and many 
 a governor who, in former times, under 
 the then existing laws, would have had 
 no scruples in persecuting the Christians, 
 would now dread laying his hands on a 
 corporate body, constitutionally recog- 
 nised. This was exactly shown in the 
 case of Lucius Domitius Aurelianus, the 
 next emperor but one to Gallienus, in the 
 year 270. This emperor sprung from the 
 lower orders; and, educated in heathen 
 superstition, had, from the beginning, 
 scarcely any but hostile feelings towards 
 the Christians ; for he was not only most 
 fanatically devoted to the eastern worship 
 of the sun, with which he might easily 
 have blended a toleration of many foreign 
 sacra, but he \vas in every respect a blind 
 supporter of the old heathen worship. 
 The welfare of the state appeared to him 
 to be most intimately connected with the 
 proper performance of the old sacra. 
 AVhen, during the threatening danger of 
 the war with the German tribes, some of 
 the members of the Roman senate had 
 proposed in that body, that, after the old 
 custom, the sybilline books should be 
 opened, and their counsel asked, some of 
 the senators said that there was no need 
 to take refuge there; the power of the 
 emperor was so great, that there was no 
 need to ask counsel of the gods. The 
 matter dropped for this time, and was after- 
 M'ards again taken up afresh. But the 
 emperor, who might very well have heard 
 of these transactions in the senate, ex- 
 pressed his displeasure, and wrote to 
 these people thus : *" I wonder that you 
 should have hesitated so long to open the 
 
 " These words seem to convey a suspicion, that 
 there might be some Christians even among the 
 senators themselves, and that they had influenced 
 the deliberations. 
 
 sybilline books, as if you had been con- 
 sidting in a Cliristian Church, and not in 
 the temple of all the gods." He called 
 upon them to support him by religious 
 ceremonies of every kind; for it could be 
 no shame to conquer with the help of the 
 gods. He ofTered to defray all costs in- 
 curred by the ofiering of every kind of 
 victim, and also to give toicards it ]>riso7i- 
 crs from all nations^ and thus also, human 
 victims* We can easily perceive, from 
 these circumstances, that tliis emperor 
 was not disinclined to shed the blood of 
 Christians to the honour of his gods ; and 
 that from the dictates of his own spirit, 
 he would be disposed towards harsh and 
 severe measures. In the first years of his 
 reign, however, he undertook no persecu- 
 tion of the Christians. He even showed 
 by his conduct on one occasion, in the 
 third year of his reign, that he considered 
 the Christian Church as a leg*dlly existing 
 corporation ; for when a contention having 
 arisen among the Christians of Antioch, 
 who should be the bishop of that place, 
 the Church appealed to Uie emperor him- 
 self, and requested that the bishop, Paulus 
 of Samosata, who had already been dis- 
 placed on account of his doctrinal opi- 
 nions, but had hitherto found support in 
 Zenobia, (who was now conquered by 
 Aurelian,) might be compelled at last to 
 lay down his office, this emperor decided 
 that he, ivhom the bishop of Rome, his 
 court, recognised, should be the bishop. 
 
 It was in the year 275, when he was 
 busied with the warlike preparations in 
 Thrace, that he first determined (probably 
 to show his thankfulness to the gods, who 
 had hitherto, he thought, so favoured him, 
 and to win their further favour,) to banish 
 all his scruples, and to proceed to extre- 
 mities against the Christians, but he was 
 murdered in a conspiracy before he could 
 carry his plan into execution.! 
 
 The Christian Church remained in this 
 state of repose and tranquillity above forty 
 years, and the number of Christians in 
 this interval increased among all classes; 
 but among the multitude of those who 
 
 * Flavius Vopisc. c. x.^c. 
 
 f Eusebius says in his Ecclesiastical History, 
 that Aurelianus died at the very time that he was 
 about to publish an edict against the Christians. 
 In the book De Mortibus Persecutorum, the story 
 runs, that the edict had been published, but that 
 it could not reach the distant provinces of the em- 
 pire before the death of the emperor. Other writers 
 iiiakethe persecution already begun. The account 
 of Eusebius, vviio says the least, is by far the most 
 probable, and tiie other part of the story may have 
 arisen from exaggeration. 
 
84 
 
 DIOCLETIAN'S EDICT AGAINST THE MANICHEES. 
 
 embraced Christianity at a time when it 
 required no struggle to be and to remain 
 a Christian, there certainly entered also 
 into the Christian Church many counter- 
 feit Christians, wlio brought with them 
 heathenish crimes. The outward form of 
 the Christian Church was also changed, 
 in consequence of their greater prosperity, 
 and in the large towns splendid churches 
 succeeded the former modest and simple 
 houses of assembly. The emperor Dio- 
 cletian, who reigned from the year 284, at 
 first alone, but from the year 286 in con- 
 junction with Maximianus Herculius, 
 showed himself, at least as far as external 
 appearances go, no other than favourable 
 to Christians, for the relations of the per- 
 secutions in the earlier years of this em- 
 peror's government, are at variance with i 
 credible historical documents, and are [ 
 altogether unworthy of credit. Christians 
 were employed in offices of importance 
 in the imperial court ; some were found 
 among the eunuchs and chamberlains (cu- ! 
 bicularii ;) from which, however, we are I 
 not entitled to infer that the emperor had 
 any particular partiality for the Christians ; 
 for there had been for a long time some ' 
 Christians among the Caesariani, and if at ; 
 first only one of these was a Christian, 
 yet he would probably use his influence, 
 as well as that Lucius, who having ob- | 
 tained the confidence of the emperor, was 
 made by him the Praepositus Cubicula- 
 riorum, to extend Christianity among the 
 people of the court.* These Christians 
 
 * Theonas, bishop of Alexandria, who gave 
 this Lucius much excellent advice as to the duties 
 of his office, charges liim particularly not to be 
 lifted up and to pride himself, because many in the 
 palace of the prince had been brought to a know- 
 ledge of the truth through him, but far rather to 
 give God thanks that He had made him the instru- 
 ment of a good work. But we cannot here deter- 
 mine with certainty that this emperor was Diocle- 
 tian. At all events it is quite clear that the em- 
 peror, in whose court he was, was no Christian; it 
 is not even clear, that he had any prevailing incli- 
 nation to Christianity, but only that there were 
 hopes of winning him over to the cause by means 
 of his chamberlain. The Christians, about the 
 court were recommended to use the utmost pre- 
 caution, not to offend the heathen emperor. If a 
 Christian was appointed librarian, he was to take 
 good care not to show any contempt for worldly 
 knowledge and the old authors ; he was to recog- 
 nise the excellence of the poets, philosophers, ora- 
 tors, and historians of old, taking into considera- 
 tion the condition under which they lived, but then 
 he was sometimes to take an opportunity of prais- 
 ing the Scriptures, to mention Christ, and by de- 
 grees to liint that He is the only true God. In- 
 surgere poterit Christi mentio, explicabitur paul- 
 lat'uii ejus sola divinitas. Omnia hsec cum Chriti 
 
 immediately around the emperor might 
 also have great eflfect in rendering him 
 favourable to their fellow-believers. 
 
 It was always a notion near the heart 
 of the Roman statesman, that the old po- 
 litical glory of the Roman empire was 
 closely dependent on the old state religion, 
 and that the former could never be re- 
 stored without the latter. As Diocletian, 
 therefore, wished again to renew the 
 former splendour of the Roman empire, 
 it might appear to him necessary for that 
 end, to restore the old religion, which 
 was daily sinking into neglect, and to ex- 
 tirpate the un-Roman religion, which was 
 constantly spreading wider and wider, and 
 which threatened at last to attain an un- 
 divided sway in the world. In a later 
 inscription, in which the emperor prides 
 himself on the annihilation of Christianity, 
 the Christians are accused of destroying 
 the state.* In the edict by which Galerius, 
 the instigator of the persecution, after- 
 ward.^ countermanded it, he declares that 
 it had been the intention of the emperors 
 to correct every thing after the old laws 
 and the public constitution of the Roman 
 state.l Persuaded a.? the emperor Avas of 
 this, he cannot have been restrained from 
 persecuting the Christians by any just 
 notion of the general rights of man, of 
 the limits of the power of the states in 
 matters of conscience, nor by more just 
 views of the nature of religion. This is 
 proved by the principles which he declares 
 in a law against the sect of the Manichees, 
 A. D. 296, which was especially obnoxious 
 to him on account of its being derived 
 from his enemies the Persians. "The 
 immortal gods," says he,J " have, by their 
 providence, ordained and established that 
 which is true and good. Many wise and 
 good men are imited in the opinion that 
 this must be maintained without altera- 
 tion. These we dare not oppose, and no 
 new religion ought to venture to blame 
 the old ; for it is an enormous crime to 
 pull down that which our forefathers es- 
 tablished, and which has dominion in the 
 
 adjutorio provenire possent. Galland. Bibl. Patr. 
 T. iv. 
 
 * Christiani, qui rempublicam evertebant. 
 
 j- Nos quidem volueramus juxta leges veteres et 
 publicam disciplinam Romanorum cunctacorrigere. 
 
 t This edict, which was known to Hilarius, the 
 author of the Commentary on the Epistles of St. 
 Paul, bears every internal mark of genuineness, 
 and one is at a loss to imagine any motive, which 
 should induce either a Christian or a heathen to 
 invent .luch an edict. The extension of the re- 
 ligion in Africa, which it declares, is not at all a 
 matter of impossibility. 
 
REASONS OP GALERIUS FOR NOT PERSECUTING THE CHRISTIANS. 85 
 
 state."* Must not the principles here 
 professed have made Diocletian an enemy 
 and a persecutor of Christianity } 
 
 The grounds, however, on which, (ac- 
 cording to the judgment of the book, de 
 Mortibus Persecutorum) the emperor af- 
 terwards opposed his son-in-law on their 
 meeting at Nicomedia, which was just 
 about to take place, might, perhaps, in 
 conjunction with the personal influence 
 of people immediately about him, have 
 withheld him from a persecution of the 
 Christians; namely, that the Christians 
 had now long since become a legally ex- 
 isting religious society, that they were so 
 M idely spread, that so much blood would 
 necessarily be shed, that the public tran- 
 quillity would immediately be disturbed, 
 and that all former bloodshed liad rather 
 had the eflect of furthering the progress 
 of Christianity, than of repressing it. 
 Although Diocletian wished to restore 
 the old Roman religion, he would proba- 
 bly never have overcome these objections, 
 had not a more powerful motive carried 
 him on. 
 
 The heathen must have seen the season 
 of the downfall of their old temples, and 
 of the dominion of Christianity, which 
 they detested, daily approaching nearer 
 and nearer, and they must have set all 
 their engines to work to obtain this latter 
 determination, (the determination to per- 
 secute Christianity.) This last struggle 
 of heathenism against Christianity would 
 necessarily, from the very nature of things, 
 become the most violent and passionate. 
 The heathen party, to which statesmen 
 and priests, and men who aspired to be 
 philosophers, as Hierocles,! belonged, 
 required only a powerful instrument to 
 obtain their ends. They found one in 
 the son-in-law of Diocletian, the emperor 
 Caius Galerius Maximianus. This prince 
 had raised himself, by his military abilities, 
 from a low condition ; he had been edu- 
 cated in blind heathen superstition, and 
 was devoted to it, and attached great vir- 
 tue to sacrifices and auspices. When he 
 made use of these in war, and Christian 
 officers were present, they were accus- 
 tomed, from the persuasion that the hea- 
 thens in their idols worshipped evil spirits, 
 which seduce men from God, to sign 
 themselves with the cross in order to 
 
 ward off the influence of evil spirits, 
 by the presumed supernatural power of 
 this token of Christ's victory over all 
 the empire of evil. The heathen priests 
 also agreed to this notion of the Chris- 
 tians, but on wholly diflerent grounds in- 
 asmuch as they said " that the gods were 
 no longer present at the sacrifices, not 
 because they feared the cross, but because 
 this hostile and profane sign was hateful 
 to them ;" an argument which they may 
 have used, because they believed it, or 
 perhaps have made use of only as a pre- 
 tence to excuse auguries and predictions 
 that had failed, and to embitter the emperor 
 still more against the Christians. By 
 these, they said, the good fortune and 
 success of all heathen ''sacra" were pre- 
 vented.* 
 
 There had been, till now, many Chris- 
 tians in the army, both in the higher and 
 lower ranks, and they had never been 
 compelled to do any thing against their 
 conscience. This is clearly shown from 
 what Eusebius relates, as well as from a 
 remarkable circumstance which, as we can 
 determine with certainty from the name 
 of the consul given in a narration prepared 
 by eye-witnesses, took place in the year 
 295.1 It is one of the instances of an 
 absolute refusal of a part of the Christians 
 to enter into military service, on the plea 
 that it was, by its very nature, incompati- 
 ble with their religion ; instances which, 
 although their force was weakened by 
 many others on the opposite side of the 
 question, might very easily serve as an 
 argument to the enemies of Christianity, 
 to support their assertion that Christianity 
 was detrimental to a state. At Sevesla, 
 in Numidia, a young man of the name of 
 Maximilian was brought before the pro- 
 consul, as bound to serve in the army ; as 
 he entered, and was about to be measured, 
 to see if he had the stature required, he 
 declared at once, " I cannot be a soldier, 
 1 can do nothing wicked, I am a Chris- 
 tian I" The proconsul, without noticing 
 his protestations, coolly ordered him to 
 be measured, and when he was found to 
 be of the standard height, the proconsul 
 said to him, " Let them put the insignia 
 
 * Ncque reprehend! a nova vetus rcligio deberet. 
 Maximi enini, criminis est retractare quae semel ab 
 antiquis tractataet definita sunt, statuin et cursum 
 tenent ct possident. 
 
 f Not the author of the Commentary on the 
 Golden Verses. 
 
 * De Mortib. Persecut. r. x. ; comp. with Lac- 
 tant. Institut. iv. c 27. Consfantin. in Euseb. 
 Vit. Const, ii. 50. [In our own times the Papists 
 at Naples have attributed the delay in the lique- 
 faction of the blood of St. Januarius to the presence 
 of heretics, i. e. English people. — H. J. R.] 
 
 f [This account is found in Ruinart .\cta Sine, 
 p. 299—302. See also Gibbon, ch. xvi. p. 680, 
 4to ed.— H. J. R.] 
 
 H 
 
86 
 
 REFUSAL TO SERVE IN THE ARMV. 
 
 of ihe military service round your neck, 
 and become a soldier;" without taking 
 any further notice of his profession of 
 Christianity. The young man said, " I 
 will bear no such badge, I bear already 
 the badge of Christ, my God." The 
 proconsul, who was an heathen, sarcas- 
 tically threatened him, ''■ I will send you 
 instantly to your Christ." The young 
 man said, "■ I hope you may, this would 
 be a glory to me." The proconsul, with- 
 out further debate, ordered them to put 
 the soldier's leaden badge upon his neck. 
 The young man struggled against this, 
 and answered in the ardour of youthful 
 laith indeed, but with some deficiency of 
 Christian humility and consideration, " I 
 will not take upon me the badge of the 
 world's service ; and if it be put upon me, 
 I will break it, for it is unavailing. I 
 cannot bear this leaden token about my 
 neck, after once receiving the saving badge 
 of our Lord Jesus, of whom ye know 
 nothing, who died for us." The proconsul, 
 though a cold heathen statesmen, showed, 
 nevertheless, humanity in this instance, 
 by endeavouring to persuade the young 
 man by kind arguments ; he himself en- 
 deavoured to represent to him, that he 
 might become a soldier without violating 
 his duty as a Christian, that there were 
 Christians, who performed military ser- 
 vice without scruples, in the body-guards 
 of all the four emperors, Diocletian, Maxi- 
 mianus Herculius, Constantius Chlorus, 
 and Galerius. As, however, this young 
 man of one-and-twenty years of age would 
 not submit his own conviction to the ex- 
 ample of otiiers, he was sentenced to 
 death ; yet in his sentence of death,* no 
 notice was taken of his Christianity, and 
 his non-compliance with die duty of mili- 
 tary service was alleged as the only ground. 
 This is a clear proof, that the soldiers 
 also might openly profess their Christi- 
 anity, and tliat if tliey would only fulfil 
 their other duties, it would not be ex- 
 pected of them to participate in heathen 
 ceremonies. 
 
 But a few years after this occurrence 
 tlie case was diflerent. Religious and po- 
 litical reasons determined Galerius to ban- 
 ish from tlie army all those who would 
 not offer sacrifices. An order in the army, 
 that every soldier should offer sacrifices, 
 could easily be procured by him. Pos- 
 sibly the festival of the fifteenth year, the 
 nomination of Maximianus Herculius to 
 tlie imperial dignity, the "dies natilis 
 
 * Eoquod indcvotoaiiiinosacramentummilitiffi 
 recusavcrit, gladio animadverli plaucuit. 
 
 Caesaris,"* in the year 298, was selected 
 for the purpose of issuing such a command 
 to the army ; for this time would be ex- 
 actly adapted to the purpose, as sacrifices 
 and feasts would be held for the celebra- 
 tion of the festival, in which all the sol- 
 diers might be compelled to participate. 
 According to Eusebius, (viii. 4.) many 
 gave up their military rank, both high and 
 low left the service, tliat they might re- 
 main true to their faith. Only a few were 
 sentenced to death ; probably only in those 
 cases, where other peculiar circumstances 
 were added, so that they might find occa- 
 sion, at least in appearance, not merely 
 to cashier them as Christians, but also to 
 punish them under a charge of high trea- 
 son. Among people, who, in their hon- 
 est indignation at the suspicion to which 
 they were exposed, were unguarded in 
 their language and other behabiour, it 
 was not difficult to find such occasions, 
 and to represent them, under the military 
 code, as mutineers, deserving of punish- 
 ment. An instance of this is afforded to 
 us in the case of the centurion, Marcel- 
 lus, at Tingi, in Africa (now Tangier.) 
 
 When the festival in honour of the em- 
 peror, after the Pagan custom, was ac- 
 companied by sacrifices and banquets, the 
 centurion, Marcellus, stood up from the 
 soldiers' table, and, throwing down liis 
 centurion's wand, his belt, and his arms, 
 he declared, " From this moment I cease 
 to serve your emperors as a soldier. I 
 despise praying to your gods of wood and 
 stone, deaf and dumb idols. If the con- 
 dition of a soldier requires this^ that one 
 must offer sacrifice to the gods and to the 
 emperors^ I throw away my wand and my 
 belt, I renounce the colours, and I am a 
 soldier no more." All was now put to- 
 gether, — that Marcellus had publicly cast 
 j away the military insignia, and that he 
 had spoken, before the whole people, 
 much that was injurious to the gods and 
 tlie emperor, — and he was sentenced to 
 death. 
 
 This was the first token of the perse- 
 cution. Throughout many years, Dio- 
 cletian could not be prevailed on to do 
 more than this. But when Galerius met 
 his old sick father-in-law, who had al- 
 
 * [The " dies natalis Ctesaris" was the acces- 
 sion-day. The accession of Diocletian took place 
 A. D. 284, but it is a very disputed point wliether 
 Maximianus Herculius was associated with him 
 during that year, or in the year 286. Tillemont. 
 Hist, des emp. vol. iv. p. 7, and 595, (2d ed.) de- 
 cides for the later date, and is followed by Gibbon, 
 ch. xiii.— H. J. R.J 
 
FIRST EDICT OF PERSECUTION — A. D. 303. 
 
 87 
 
 ready designed shortly to lay aside the 
 government, at Nicomedia in Bythynia, 
 in the winter of tlie year 303, he made 
 use ot" all liis powers of persuasion, back- 
 ed by many zealous heathens in state 
 offices of importance, to obtain a general 
 persecution against the Christians. At 
 length Diocletian gave way, and a great 
 heallien festival, the Permiralia, on the 
 2d February, was selected as the time 
 for the commencement of operations. 
 With the first dawn of day, the beautiful 
 church of this city was broken into, the 
 copies of the Bible found in it were burnt, 
 the whole church was given up to be 
 plundered, and utterly destroyed. On 
 the following day, an edict to the follow- 
 ing effect was posted up : — " The assem- 
 blies of the Christians for divine service 
 shall be forbidden, the Clirislian Churches 
 pulled down, and all copies of the Bible 
 burnt ; tliose who have offices of honour 
 and dignity shall lose them, unless they 
 abjure. In the judicial investigations, the 
 torture may be applied against all Chris- 
 tians, of any rank whatsoever, and the 
 Christians of lower ranks shall lose their 
 rights as citizens and freemen, and Chris- 
 tian slaves, as long as they continue Chris- 
 tians, shall be incapable of receiving their 
 freedom." How far the Christians of 
 lower condition were to lose the enjoy- 
 ment of their freedom, is certainly here 
 not siiOiciently defined, but considerable 
 latitude is left in the application of this 
 edict to individual cases. It is certain 
 from the edict, by Avhich the emperor 
 Constantine afterwards annulled all the 
 consequences of this persecution in the 
 east, that, at times, freeborn Christians 
 were converted into slaves, and sentenced 
 to those kinds of slave-labour, which 
 were at once the lowest and the most 
 despised, and to which they would be the 
 least adapted from their former habits of 
 life.* (See Euseb. Vit. Constant, book ii. 
 ch. 32, &c.) 
 
 * In order to understand the meaning of the 
 edict as far as possible, we must compare the two 
 im])erfert and inaccurate statements ^iven by Eu- 
 sehius, H. E. viii. 2, and the writer de Mortib. as 
 well as the translation of Rufinus. IN'o positive 
 interdict of assemblies for the worship of God is 
 expressly given in any of these places ; but the 
 nature of the case shows that it was tacitly implied 
 in the edict : but it is, moreover clear, from credi- 
 ble and official documents relating to this first 
 time of the persecution in Proconsular Africa, that 
 such an interdict was positively expressed in the 
 edict The words of Euscbius, which have caused 
 much dispute, are dilficult enough : r-.ut iv ciniTtut; 
 
 A Christian, of respectable condition, 
 allowed himself to be carried on, by a 
 somewhat inconsiderate zeal, to violate 
 that reverence towards the government, 
 which the Gospel prescribes. He publicly 
 tore down the edict, and tearing it to 
 pieces, cried out, in a sarcastic manner, 
 ''Behold, these are new victories over the 
 Goths and Sarmatians, which are posted 
 up ! The emperor treats the Christians, 
 his own subjects, no otherwise than if 
 they were the conquered Goths and 
 Sarmatians!" This was a ground which 
 the enemies of Christianity were glad to 
 avail themselves of, that they might con- 
 demn him, not as a Christian, but as one 
 who had injured the majesty of the 
 emperor. 
 
 This edict must have made a more ter- 
 rible impression from its having been pro- 
 mulgated in many provinces just about 
 the time of the festival of Easter, and in 
 many districts on the very festival itself.* 
 When they attempted, by burning all the 
 copies of the Bible, to annihilate Chris- 
 tianity, with its sources, forever, they 
 
 <TTi^iTx.irScu. By the words h ointrtxt; we cannot, 
 according to the common use of language, under- 
 stand any thing but persons in the condition of 
 servants, slaves. We must, therefore, if we wish 
 to put any reasonable sense on the passage, seek 
 for some other meaning for the word rxcv9s^/i, than 
 that which first ofTers itself. The words, " shall 
 be deprived of their freedom," may mean, " shall 
 be put into chains and into prison." Compare 
 above the edict of Valerianus against the Ca3sari- 
 ani. But it is safest to follow Rufinus, who may 
 have seen the original of the edict : " Si quis ser- 
 vorum permansisset Christianus, libertatem con- 
 sequi non posset." If this be correct, the trans- 
 lation of Eusebius is verj' defective. 
 
 * Eusebius and Rufinus set the publication of 
 it in the month of March, which suits perfectly 
 with the time of its publication in the then im- 
 perial residence. In Egypt, (which also just 
 suits,) it was published, according to Coptic ac- 
 counts, on the first Pharmuth, i. e. according to 
 Ideler's Tables, the twenty-seventh of March. 
 See Zoega Catalog, codd. Copt. Romae, 1810. 
 Fol. 25; or the fragments of the Coptic Acta 
 Martyrum, edited by Georgi. Roma:, 1 793. ProefaL 
 109, (where Georgi proposes a needless emenda- 
 tion,) and in other places also. But when these 
 Coptic accounts, which are full of fabulous cir- 
 cumstances, make the persecution follow imme- 
 diately on the conijuest of the Persians, as Diocle- 
 tian's expression of thanks to the gods for his 
 victory ; we must conclude that this is an ana- 
 chronism, unless the first persecution of the sol- 
 diers is confused with this second. The cau.se 
 assigned by these Coptic accounts for the j)crse- 
 cution, namely, that a Christian metropolitan had 
 set free the son of the Persian Sapor, who had 
 been entrusted to him as an hostage, can hardly 
 in any way be reconciled to what we know of 
 history. 
 
INTENDED ANNIHILATION OP THE SCRIPTURES. 
 
 certainly made choice of a means which 
 was more efficacious than the extirpation 
 of the living witnesses of the faith among 
 mankind ; for their example only excited 
 a greater number of followers. On the 
 contrary, if they could succeed in anni- 
 hilating all the copies of the Bible, they 
 would by that means have suppressed the 
 very source from which true Christianity 
 and the life of the Church had constantly 
 risen up, afresh and unconquerable. Let 
 them execute as many preachers of the 
 Gospel, bishops and clergy, as they 
 would ; nothing was done as long as this 
 book, which could always form new 
 teachers, remained to the Christians. 
 Considered in itself, indeed, the transmis- 
 sion of Christianity was not necessarily 
 dependent on the letter of Holy Writ. 
 Inscribed, not in tables of stone, but in 
 the living tablet of the heart, the Divine 
 doctrine, once established in the con- 
 sciences of men, by its own Divine 
 power might maintain its ground, and 
 make further progress; but as human 
 nature is at present constituted, tlie testi- 
 mony of history declares, that Chris- 
 tianity, separated from its source, the 
 Avord of God, from which it may always 
 be recalled to its purity, would soon be 
 overwhelmed by the mixture of falsehood 
 and corruption, and become so disguised, 
 as not to be recognised. This means, 
 therefore, after the laws of human calcu- 
 lation, was well chosen ; if only the wil- 
 fulness of man could have defied the 
 almighty power of God, who wished to 
 preserve the treasure of the Holy Word 
 as the best possession of man, and could 
 have brought its deep-laid schemes to 
 effect. But how could it ever be imagined 
 possible, according to the usual rules of 
 human calculation, to find and to annihi- 
 late, by human power, all the copies of 
 the Scriptures, which were not only de- 
 posited in the churclies, but were also in 
 existence in so many private houses .'' 
 We here trace that blind policy which 
 the empire of lies always makes use of, 
 while ifexpects that nothing can escape 
 its search, and that it can annihilate by 
 fire and sword, what is protected by a 
 higher power! The blind zeal for the 
 support of the old religion went so far in 
 many cases, that the heathen would 
 willingly see many of the most glorious 
 monuments of their own literature perish 
 with the writings of llie Christians, those 
 at least in wliich a testimony was raised 
 against the superstition of the popular re- 
 
 ligion, which were constantly used by 
 the Christians in their controversy against 
 heathenism; and they would gladly have 
 drawn up a whole index "Librorum 
 prohibitorum,"'' and "expurgandorum."* 
 One is immediately led to suppose, that 
 where people of this description, or those 
 who would gladly earn imperial favour by 
 doing too much rather than too little, 
 were commonly to be found among the 
 governors and magistrates of provinces; 
 many acts of violence and cruelty must 
 have been committed against the Chris- 
 tians, by the fulfilment of that first edict, 
 in which the delivering up of the Holy 
 Scriptures and the discontinuance of 
 congregations were commanded, and 
 especially since by this edict Christians 
 of all classes were subject to judicial in- 
 vestigations with the use of tortures. 
 
 But many magistrates, who were free 
 from this fanaticism, and this spirit of 
 base flattery, which was ready to sacrifice 
 all higher objects, and who had more 
 humane feelings, endeavoured, as far as 
 possible, to soften the rigour of these 
 measures, and acted with as mucli luke- 
 warmness as they could without openly 
 violating the imperial edict. They either 
 suffered themselves to be deceived by the 
 Christians, or put the means into their 
 hands of evading the edict, and fulfilling 
 it only in appearance. Bishop Mensu- 
 rius, of Carthage, used the precaution to 
 bring all the copies of the Scriptures from 
 the churches of Carthage to his own 
 house, to preserve them there, while he 
 left in the churches only the writings of 
 heretics. When the inquisitors came, 
 they took these writings and went away 
 satisfied. They were assuredly religious 
 writings of the Christians, and in the edict 
 nothing was said of what holy writings, 
 and of what party among the Christians 
 it meant to speak. But some senators of 
 Carthage discovered the imposition to 
 Annulinus, the proconsul, and required 
 him to institute a search in the house of 
 the bishop, where he would find all the 
 
 * Arnobius, who wrote exactly about this time, 
 says in book iii. ch. iv. : " Not a few abhorred the 
 work of Cicero de Natura Deorum, and could not 
 prevail on themselves to read a book, which con- 
 tradicted their ancient prejudices." Others said, 
 in the greatest indignation, that a " Scnatus-con- 
 sultum" ought to he published, that those writings 
 might be annihilated, by which Christianity was 
 confirmed, and the authority of antiquity was 
 unch'rmined. " Aboleatitur ut hsec scripta, quibus 
 Christiana religio comprobetur, et vetustatis op- 
 primatur auctoritas. 
 
DIFFERENT CONDUCT OF THE CHRISTIANS. 
 
 writings. But the proconsul,* who was 
 willing to be deceived, would not comply 
 with this request. When Secundus, an- 
 other Numidian bishop, refused to deliver 
 lip the holy writings, the inquisitors asked 
 him why he could not deliver up some 
 useless extracts, or at least give them 
 something, any thing he pleased.j With 
 the same intention, probably, must the 
 legate of the proconsul have asked the 
 ISJumidian bishop Felix, as he did more 
 than once, "Why, then, do you not give 
 up your superlluous writings ?"J So also 
 in the case of Felix, the African bishop, 
 when the Prsfectus praetori asked him, 
 '• Why dost thou not deliver up the holy 
 writings ? or perhaps, thou hast none :" 
 it is evident enough that he meant to put 
 the latter assertion into his mouth.§ 
 
 In the conduct of the Christians at this 
 critical time, we find the opposite results 
 which, under such circumstances, the 
 different inclinations and imperfections of 
 liuman nature are apt to bring about : 
 some, in the dread of martyrdom and 
 death, gave up their copies of the Bible, 
 which were then burned in the public 
 market-place ; these men were excom- 
 miuiicated under the name of traditores : 
 others — of whicli we find examples more 
 particularly in North Africa, where an 
 enthusiastic disposition was natural to the 
 people — without any necessity, but in a 
 blind zeal, into the composition of which 
 something of earthly warmth entered, 
 gave themselves up to death by declaring 
 that they were Christians, that they had 
 holy writings in their possession, but that 
 nothing should induce them to give them 
 up ; or else they rejected with scorn the 
 means of evasion proffered by governors 
 of humane feelings : in this latter case, 
 we ought to give high honour to a tender 
 conscientiousness, which did not act thus 
 out ofa delusive enthusiasm to become mar- 
 tyrs, but because they held it unchristian 
 to deceive in this manner, or because it 
 appeared to them a tacit denial of the 
 faith, if they delivered up these writings 
 to the heathen, and allowed them to think 
 that these were the Holy Scriptures of the 
 
 * Augustin. brevicul. collat. c. Donatist. d. iii. 
 c. 13. Optat, Milev. ed. du. Pin. p. 174, [vol. i. 
 p. 18.3, ed. Ohcrlhur.— H. J. R.] 
 
 j Aliqua iK/icku. aut quodcunqiie. 
 
 i "Quarc Scripturas non tradis supervacuasi" 
 is, pcrliaps, intentionally ambiguous, so that the 
 words might he understood to mean that the 
 Christian writings in general were something 
 useless. 
 
 § See the Acta Felicis in Ruinart. 
 12 
 
 89 
 
 Christians. Others believed it to be their 
 duty to remain true to their faith \vith the 
 simplicity of doves, and witlt Christian 
 prudence to accommodate themselves to 
 the times. They used every precaution 
 which was not incompatible with the 
 profession of Christianity, to save from 
 danger their own lives, and at the same 
 time, the copies of the Scriptures ; and in 
 order to divert the jealousy of the hea- 
 then, they endeavoured to temper the 
 violent zeal of their brethren. It was 
 likely enough that these men should be 
 condemned by the other party, as men 
 with whom the fear of man and human 
 considerations had too much weight, and 
 as cowardly traitors to the faith — a feel- 
 ing which proved in after days the source 
 of many convulsing struggles in the North 
 African Church. The prudence, however, 
 of this party in the Church, at least had 
 this advantage, that it withdrew from the 
 fanatical fury of the people many copies 
 of the Bible, which otherwise would have 
 been a prey to the flames. 
 
 We shall now, as Ave have before done, 
 consider some individual traits of Chris- 
 tian faith and courage, as they are told in 
 credible accounts. In a country town of 
 Numidia, a body of Christians, among 
 whom was a boy of very tender age, were 
 seized in the house of a reader, where they 
 were assembled for Scriptural instruction, 
 and for the celebration of the communion. 
 They wsre led away to Carthage to the 
 tribunal of the proconsul, singing on the 
 road songs of praise to God. Torture 
 was employed on the greater part of these, 
 in order to wring an avowal from all. In 
 the midst of his torments one of them 
 cried out, " Ye sin, unhappy men, ye sin, 
 ye punish the innocent, we are no mur- 
 derers, we have deceived no man ; God 
 have mercy on thee. I thank thee, God? 
 and give me strength to suffer for thy 
 name ! Free tliy servant from the slavery 
 of this world, I thank thee, and yet 1 am 
 unable to thank tliee.* To the glory of 
 God ! I thank the God of the kingdom. 
 Tiie eternal, the incorruptible kingdom is 
 at hand : oh ! Lord Christ, we are Chris- 
 tians, we are thy servants. Thou art our 
 hope !" On his praying thus, the procon- 
 sul said to him, " You ought to have 
 obeyed the imperial edict;" and he an- 
 swered widi a spirit full of power, though 
 his body was weak and exhausted, " I 
 now revere only the law of God which I 
 
 * ["Zur Herrlichkeit." — Neander. Ad glo- 
 riam. Act. Sat.] 
 
 H 2 
 
HEROIC CONDUCT OF THE CHRISTIANS. 
 
 90 
 
 have learnt. For this law will I die, in 
 this law do I become perfect, and besides 
 it there is no other." Another, in the 
 midst of the torture, prayed thus : " Help 
 me, O Christ ! I praj- Thee, have pity on 
 me; keep my soul, preserve my spirit, 
 that I may not be brought to confusion. 
 O give me strength to. suffer." To the 
 reader in whose house the assemblages 
 had taken place, the proconsul said," You 
 ought not to have received them." He 
 replied, " I could not decline to receive 
 my brethren." The proconsul : " But 
 the imperial edict ought to have out- 
 weighed these considerations." The 
 reader: " God is more than the emperor." 
 Tlie proconsul : " Have you then Holy 
 Scriptures in your house .?" The martyr : 
 "Yes, I have them, but it is in my heart." 
 Tliere was among the prisoners a girl 
 named Victoria, whose father and brother 
 were still heathens. Her brother, Fortu- 
 natianus, took care to be present to move 
 her to an abjuration, and thus obtain her 
 freedom. When she steadfastly avowed 
 that she was a Christian, her brother gave 
 out that she was of unsound mind ; but 
 she declared, " It is my firm and steadfast 
 conviction, 1 have never changed." When 
 the proconsul asked her whether she 
 would go with her brother, she said, " No, 
 for I am a Christian, and they are my 
 l)rethren who obey God''s commands." 
 The proconsul thought that he should 
 easily frighten the boy Hilarianus by 
 threats alone, but even in this boy the 
 power of God showed that it was mighty. 
 " Do what you will," he said, " I am a 
 Christian."* 
 
 When the persecution had once be- 
 gun, it was impossil)le to stop halfway. 
 If these measures failed, they must go 
 further. The first step towards attacking 
 the Christians was the most difficult to 
 make, the second followed quickly upon 
 it. There were also now many addi- 
 tional circumstances of a peculiar nature, 
 which cast a disadvantageous light on 
 Christianity, or at least, might be made 
 use of to do so. A fire having broken out 
 in tlie imperial palace at Nicomedia, it 
 was natural enough that this circumstance 
 
 * The sources from which those accounts are 
 derived are the "Acta Saturnini Dativi ct aliorum 
 iu Africa." See Baluz. Miscell. vol. ii., and Ruin- 
 art, and du Pin, in the collection above quoted. 
 These writint^s have not descended to us in their 
 simple, original state, hut with a preface, inter- 
 spersed remarks, and a conclusion, which were the 
 work of some Donatist ; but it is clear that the 
 groundwork of the whole is the " Acta Proconsu- 
 laria." 
 
 should have been attributed to the re- 
 vengeful spirit of the Christians, and the 
 accusation might have still been true, 
 without attaching any general disgrace to 
 the whole Christian Church. Among so 
 numerous a body as the Christians, there 
 might very likely be many who allowed 
 themselves to be carried away by passion, 
 which they would palliate under the sem- 
 blance of religion, so far as to forget what 
 manner of spirit they ought to be of as 
 disciples of Christ. It is certain, however, 
 that they were unable to prove any thing 
 of the sort against the Christians. The 
 impassioned author of the work on the 
 judgments which befel the persecutors, 
 says, that Galerius himself caused the fire, 
 in order to be able to accuse the Chris- 
 tians of the crime ; but his authority is 
 insufficient to render this credible. Con- 
 stantine attributed the fire to lightning, 
 and sees in it a judgment of God. The 
 truth is, as Eusebius justly confesses, that 
 we do not know the real cause ; it was 
 enough that the Christians were accused 
 of a conspiracy against the emperor, and 
 that many of them were arrested without 
 any distinction as to whom suspicion 
 could attach to or not. Most terrible tor- 
 tures were used in order to obtain a con- 
 fession, but to no purpose. Many were 
 burnt, beheaded or drowned. It is true 
 that fourteen days after, a second fire 
 broke out, which was very soon extin- 
 guished, and that this may make it more 
 probable that the first was intentional.* 
 
 Seditions, which soon after arose in 
 Armenia and Syria, again excited political 
 jealousy towards the Christians; to this 
 the clergy would, of course, as the heads 
 of the party, be more especially obnoxi- 
 ous, and hence, under this pretence, an 
 imperial edict was issued, " that all the 
 clergy should be seized and put into 
 chains ;" the consequence of which was 
 that the prisons were soon filled with 
 clergy. Many circumstances conspire to 
 show how ready men were to charge the 
 Christians with political crimes; and on 
 the other hand, they did not use all the 
 precautions they might have done to 
 avoid pretences for such charges as men 
 wished to lay against titem. A young 
 Egyptian, when the Roman proconsul, at 
 
 • Lactantius de Mortib. relates this circum- 
 stance, but no other writer mentions it. But Lac- 
 tantius, who was probably resident in Nicodcmia, 
 would know these thinpts more circumstantially 
 than any one besides. But it is quite possible, 
 we admit, that he should have been deceived by 
 some report then prevalent in the city. 
 
CHRISTIANS ORDERED TO SACRIFICE. 
 
 91 
 
 Caesarea in Palestine, where he was ar- 
 rested, inquired, '•' What was his country r" 
 answered: "Jerusalem, which is where 
 the sun rises, the land of the pious." 
 The Roman, who probably scarcely knew 
 of the existence of tlie earthly Jerusalem, 
 unless perchance he knew it by its Ro- 
 man name ^^lia Capitolina, and who knew 
 still less about the heavenly Jerusalem, 
 imagined nothing else than that the Chris- 
 tians had founded a town some where in 
 the cast, from whicli they meant to raise 
 a sedition. The thing seemed to him of 
 great importance, and accordingly he set 
 on foot many inquiries, accompanied by 
 the use of torture.* A priest of the name 
 of Procopius, of Palestine, on being re- 
 quired to oiler sacrifices, declared tiiat he 
 acknowledged only one God, to whom we 
 must bring such sacrifices as he com- 
 mands. When on this they required him 
 to oiler his libation to the four rulers of 
 the state, the two August! and the two 
 Caesars, he replied, merely to show that 
 men must worship only one God as Lord, 
 by the Homeric verse, o^x ayaQof TroXu- 
 xoi^avtn, Sj-c. It appears, however, to have 
 been taken up in a political sense, and to 
 have been construed into a crime, as a 
 calumny on the reigning tetrarchy.t 
 
 Wlien the prisons were thus tilled with 
 Christian clergy, a new edict appeared, 
 ordering that those among the prisoners 
 who ollered sacrifice should be set free, 
 and the rest compelled by all means to 
 sacrifice. And at last, in the year 304, 
 appeared the fourth and most severe edict, 
 which made the same regulation in regard 
 to all Christians.;]: In the towns, in which 
 the edict was carried into effect in all its 
 rigour, it was proclaimed through all the 
 streets, that all the men, women, and chil- 
 dren should repair to the temples. Lists 
 were formed, and they were called over 
 by name ; all were carefully examined at 
 the town gates, and those who were 
 known as Christians were detained. In 
 Alexandria even the heathens themselves 
 hid the persecuted Christians in their 
 houses, and many would rather sacrifice 
 their property and their freedom than be- 
 tray those who had taken refuge with 
 thcm.§ The punishment of death was 
 not expressly pronounced against the 
 Christians, but an edict which proclaimed 
 that the Christians should be compelled 
 by every means to offer sacrifice, was 
 
 I surely more calculated than a merely un- 
 I conditional death warrant against all con- 
 fessors of the faith, to render them the 
 victims of all the cruelty which the fanati- 
 cism of a governor, or liis adulaiion of 
 the emperor, might tempt him to inflict. 
 Every one was perfectly aware that, let 
 him go as far as he would against the 
 Christians, he incurred no responsibility 
 by it. The persecutors already believed, 
 j in their blindness, that they were able to 
 I triumpli over Christianity and suppress it; 
 j already in inscriptions the titles of honour 
 : of the emperors were augmented by the 
 j annihilation of Christianity and the resto- 
 I ration of the worship of the gods : "am- 
 j plificato per orientem et occidentem im- 
 I perio Romano, et nomine Christianorum 
 deleto, qui rempublicam everlebant. Su- 
 perstitione Christiana ubique deleta et 
 cultu Deorum propagato." At the very 
 time, however, at which they were in- 
 dulging in these feelings of triumph, the 
 circumstances were already prepared by 
 Providence, from which an entire change 
 in the condition of the Christians was 
 about to result. 
 
 One of the four rulers, Conslantius 
 Chlorus, to whom, under the title of Cajsar, 
 the dominion of Gaul, Britain, and Spain 
 was assigned, from his kind and humane 
 character was not disposed to persecution. 
 Hence, although not decidedly a Christian, 
 he was yet avowedly a friend to Chris- 
 tianity and to Cluistians. We may sup- 
 pose that he really, as Eusebius says, ac- 
 knowledged the futility of heathenism, 
 and was a thorough Monolheist, without 
 being a Christian, or that, like Alexander 
 Severus, he was an eclectic in his religion, 
 which is more probable. To those around 
 him, who proved themselves true to their 
 faith as Christians, he showed especial 
 regard, and placed great confidence in 
 them ; for he used to say, " that he who 
 was untrue to his God would be (ar less 
 likely to be true to his prince;" although 
 the anecdote which Eusebius relates of 
 his method of trying their faith does not 
 appear probable. " As he could not exactly 
 show himself, in his character of Ciesar, 
 disobedient to the edict issued by the Au- 
 gusti, he had some churclies pulled down 
 for the sake of appearances. In Gaul, 
 where he himself usually resided, the 
 Christians enjoyed perfect repose and 
 freedom in the midst of their persecutions 
 in other provinces.* In Spain he migiit 
 
 * Euseb. de Martyribus PalrEstinm, c.xi. 
 
 f Ibid. c. i. t Ibiii. c. iii. 
 
 % Athanasii Hist. Arianor. ad Monachos, § 64. 
 
 * 'J'his is stated by the writer De Mortib. Per- 
 secutor, c. 1 6 ; and in a letter of the Donatists to the 
 emperor Constantinus, in which Ihcy begged for 
 
92 
 
 CONSTANTIUS — MAXIMINUS. 
 
 not be able to efi'ect as much, but certainly 
 in none of his provinces was there a per- 
 secution of tlie same character as those in 
 other districts. This prince, so favourable 
 to the Christians, was nevertheless able 
 to serve them more effectually, when on 
 the resignation of Diocletian and Hercu- 
 lius, in the year 305, he was raised from 
 the dignity of Caesar to that of Augustus, 
 in conjunction with Galerius. 
 
 But, on the other hand, there entered 
 into the number of the Caesars a person 
 whose blind heathenish superstition and 
 cruelty were in perfect keeping with the 
 character of Galerius, who chose him as 
 Cajsar; namely, Caius Galerius Valerius 
 Maximinus. It was naturally to be ex- 
 pected that in the provinces assigned to 
 him in Syria, and the adjoining parts of 
 the Roman empire, and in Egypt, tlie per- 
 secutions should be renewed with fresh 
 vigour. At times, however, men became 
 weary of their own violence, and as their 
 efforts proved unavailing, the execution 
 of the imperial edict slackened of itself, 
 the persecution slumbered, and the Chris- 
 tians began to enjoy a little repose ; but 
 when their enemies perceived that they 
 had taken breath again, their anger arose 
 afresh, because they felt that they had 
 been unable to extinguish Christianity, 
 and again set up heathenism, and then a 
 new and more violent storm arose. Thus, 
 after much bloodshed in the dominions 
 of Maximinus, after his accession to the 
 throne, a seasonof tranquillity, about the 
 eighth year of the persecution, A. D. 308, 
 arose for the Christians. Those condemn- 
 ed to labour in the mines began to expe- 
 rience milder treatment and more consi- 
 deration. But again, on a sudden, the 
 storm of persecution broke out, and 
 startled the Christians from their tempo- 
 rary repose. A new and more strict im- 
 perial edict was issued to all tlie officers 
 of government, from the highest to the 
 lowest, both in the civil and the military 
 service, requiring ihat the fiiWen temples 
 of idolatrous worship should be restored, 
 and that all free men and women, all slaves, 
 and even little children, should be com- 
 pelled to offer sacrifice, and eat the meats 
 offered to idols. All the eatables exposed 
 in the markets were to be sprinkled with 
 water or with wine, which had been used 
 in sacrifice, in order to force the Chris- 
 tians into contact with idolatry in their 
 food. So far did despotism and fanaticism 
 
 go! New bloodshed and new tortures 
 were the consequence. 
 
 Then again, a cessation took place till 
 the beginning of the year 3 19. The Chris- 
 tians in the mines were enabled to assem- 
 ble for the worship of God ; but when 
 the governor of the province, on coming 
 thither once, had observed this, he made 
 a report of it to the emperor. The pri- 
 soners were on this separated from one 
 another, and compelled to more severe 
 labour. Nine-and-thirty confessors, who 
 after enduring a great deal, had obtained 
 a respite from persecution, were at once 
 beheaded. This was the last blood which 
 was spilled in this persecution, while in 
 the western countries the Christians had 
 already earlier obtained repose. 
 
 The exciter of the persecution himself, 
 the emperor Galerius, was softened by a 
 severe and painful illness, the consequence 
 of his debaucheries, and perhaps, he may 
 have thought that, after all, the God of 
 the Christians might be a powerful being 
 whose anger had punished him, and 
 whom he was bound to appease. It 
 might also strike him that all his sangui- 
 nary measures had failed in injuring the 
 cause of Christianity. In the year 311, the 
 remarkal)le edict appeared, by which this 
 last sanguinary struggle of the Christian 
 Church was ended in the Roman empire. 
 
 It was declared that the purpose of the 
 emperors had been, to recall the Chris- 
 tians to the religion of their fathers ; for 
 in deserting this religion they had, accord- 
 ing to their own fancies, created to them- 
 selves peculiar laws, and founded various 
 sects. This is the reproach which was 
 commonly made to Christians : See ! ever 
 since you have departed from the unity 
 of the old traditional religion and the au- 
 thority of our ancestors, you have com- 
 pletely followed your own devices, one 
 innovation rising up after another, and 
 hence comes that great variety of sects 
 among you.* As, however, most of the 
 Christians were now obstinately fixed in 
 their opinions, and it was clearly per- 
 ceived, that they could not honour their 
 own God, and yet at the same time pay 
 due homage to the gods, so the emperors 
 
 Gallic bishops as judges, on that very account. 
 Optat. Milevit. de 8chisiuate Donatistar. I. i. c. 22. 
 
 * The Latin wordss are: " Sicjuideni quadam, 
 ratione tanta eosdem Christianos voluntas (such 
 caprice, ideycB^na-nnu.') invasisget et tanta stultitia 
 occupasset, ut non ilia vctcruni instltuta seque- 
 rentur, qje forsitan primi parcntcs eorundem con- 
 stituerant; sed pro aibitrio suo atquc ut liisdem 
 crat libitum, ita sabinet leges faccrent, quas obser- 
 varerit el pcrdiversa varies populoscongregarent." 
 Compare the objection in Clemens Alcxandr. 
 Stromal, vii. 753. [Sylb. p. 320. Potter p. 866.] 
 
LUCIAN. 
 
 wished to extend to them accustomed! 
 mercv, so that they might again be Chris- 1 
 tians," and hold their assemblies, but only I 
 Oil the condition that they abstain from ^ 
 contravening the discipline of the Roman i 
 state (ita ut ne quid contra disciplinam 
 agant.*) " They must also, after this cle- 1 
 mencv experienced at our hands, pray /o 
 iheir God for our prosperity, the prosperity 
 of the state and their own, that the state 
 may remain well maintained in all respects, 
 and they may live quiet in their homes." 
 
 93 
 
 Now that we have considered the at- 
 tack of mere external power on the Chris- 
 tian Church, we shall give a glance at 
 those who opposed Christianity by their 
 writings, men who often at the very time 
 that Christianity was sufl'ering from the 
 arm of temporal power, attacked it on 
 grounds which, though they wore only 
 [objections in appearance, might be suffi- 
 cient to blind the natural man, and with 
 I all the weapons which ridicule and so- 
 Iphistical acuteness could supply them. 
 
 SECTION I.-PART II. 
 
 The opposition which Christianity met loith from Heathen Wntings. 
 
 Thf. hostile sentiments of the heathens [ ence, which strives to form the heart of 
 towards Christianity were different, ac- man, not mingle itself, before it has fully 
 
 cording to the difference of their philoso- 
 phical "and religious views. There entered 
 then upon the contest the two classes of 
 men, from two opposite points, who have 
 never since ceased to combat the pure 
 Gospel. These were the superstitious, 
 to whom the honouring God in spirit and 
 in truth was a stumblingstone, and the 
 light-minded unbeliever, who, unacquaint- 
 ed with all feelings of religious wants, 
 h'as 'accustomed to'laugh and to mock at 
 every thing which proceeded from such 
 feelings, whether rightly directed or mis- 
 taken^ and at all which supposed such 
 feelings and proposed to satisfy them. 
 Such was Lucian. To him Christianity, 
 like every other remarkable religious 
 phenomenon, appeared only as a fit ob- 
 ject for his sarcastic wit. Without giving 
 himself the trouble to examine and to dis- 
 criminate, he threw Christianity, super- 
 stition, and fanaticism into the same class. 
 It is enough, in any system which lays 
 deep hold on man's nature, to find out 
 some side open to ridicule, if a man brings 
 forward only that which is external in the 
 system, abstracted from all its inward soul 
 and meaning, and without either under- 
 standing or attempting to understand this 
 soul and meaning. Can the richest wine 
 escape receiving some taste from the im- 
 pure vessels into which it is poured .' How 
 then shall the spiritual and godly influ- 
 
 * The emperor had apparently expressed him- 
 self more distinctly on this point in a rescript 
 which has not been preserved. 
 
 effected its work, with some earthly fail- 
 ings, and thence exhibit some strange ex- 
 crescences. When Christianity first at- 
 tempted to act on human nature, as the 
 new principle of life, to attract man's 
 heart with a magnetic force, and set all 
 its powers in motion and ferment, we must 
 expect to find that, before all had been 
 brought into harmonious union, the ex- 
 isting tranquillity could not be destroyed 
 without creating some jarring and discord. 
 He, therefore, who looked on Chris- 
 tianity with cold indifference, and the 
 profane every day feelings of wordly pru- 
 dence, miffht easily here and there find 
 objects for his satire. The Christian 
 miffht, indeed, have profited by that ridi- 
 cufe, and have learned from the children 
 of darkness to join the wisdom of the 
 serpent with the meekness of the dove. 
 In the end the scoffer brings himself to 
 derision, because he ventures to pass sen- 
 tence on the phenomena of a world, of 
 which he has not the slightest conception, 
 and which to his eyes, buried as they 
 are in the films of the earth, is entirely 
 closed. 
 
 . Such was Lucian. He sought to bring 
 forward all that is striking and remarkable 
 in the external conduct and circumstances 
 of Christians, which might serve for the 
 object of his sarcastic raillery, without 
 any deeper inquiry as to what the religion 
 of the Christians really was. And yet 
 even in that at which he scoffed, there 
 was much which might have taught him 
 to remark in Christianity no common 
 
94 THK PLATONISTS. 
 
 power over the hearts of men, had he 
 been capable of such serious impressions. 
 The firm hope of eternal life, which taught 
 them to meet death Avith tranquillity, their 
 brotherly love one towards another, might 
 have indicated to him some higher spirit 
 which animated these men ; but instead 
 of tliis he treats it all as delusion, because 
 many gave themselves up to death with 
 something like fanatical enthusiasm. He 
 scoffs at the notion of a crucified man 
 having taught them to regard each other 
 as brethren, the moment they should have 
 abjured the gods of Greece; as if it were 
 not just the most remarkable part of all 
 this, that an obscure person in Jerusalem, 
 who was deserted by every one, and exe- 
 cuted as a criminal, should be able, a good 
 century after his death, to cause such 
 effects as Lucian, in his own time, saw 
 extending in all directions, and in spite 
 of every kind of persecution. How 
 blinded must he have been to pass thus 
 lightly over such a phenomenon ! But 
 men of his ready wit are apt to exert it 
 with too great readiness on all subjects. 
 They are able to illustrate every thing 
 out of nothing ; with their miserable " nil 
 admirari," they can close their heart 
 against all lofty impressions. With all 
 his wit and keenness, with all his unde- 
 niably fine powers of observation in all 
 that has no concern with the deeper im- 
 pulses of man''s spirit, he was a man of 
 very little mind. But hear his own lan- 
 guage :* " The wretched people have 
 persuaded themselves that they are alto- 
 gether immortal,! and will live forever ; 
 therefore they despise death, and many 
 of them meet it of their own accord. 
 Their first lawgiver^ has persuaded them 
 also to regard one another as brethren, as 
 soon as they have abjured the Grecian 
 gods, and honouring their crucified Master, 
 have begun to live according to his laws. 
 They despise every thing heathen equally, 
 and regard all but their own notions as 
 profaneness, while they have yet embraced 
 
 * De morte Peregrini. 
 
 ■j- He is passing a sarcasm on the doctrine of 
 the resurrection, which, when St. Paul brought it 
 forward at Athens, had met with the same recep- 
 tion. 
 
 i We must here understand Christ, if we judge 
 from the context, and not St. Paul, for we never 
 find Lucian distinguishing two diflerent founders 
 of Christianity from each other, and indeed, it was 
 impossible that witli so superficial a view as his, 
 he should make any such distinction. And here, 
 too, he appears to he thinking pf the exhortations 
 of Christ to his discijjles to love each other, of 
 which he was likely to have heard. 
 
 those notions without suflicient examina- 
 tion." He has no further accusation to 
 make against them here, except the ease 
 with M'hich they allowed their benevo- 
 lence towards their fellow-Christians to 
 be abused by impostors, in which there 
 may be much truth, (see below in the 
 Third Section,) but there is, nevertheless, 
 some exaggeration. 
 
 As for the self-righteous Stoics, the 
 advocates of cold tranquillity, of an apathy 
 founded on philosophical persuasion, they 
 saw, as we have already observed in the 
 case of the emperor Marcus Aurelius, in 
 the religion of the people, nothing but 
 blind fanaticism, because the influence 
 which it exerted over man's spirit did not 
 repose on philosophical grounds of de- 
 monstration and argument. Arrian, in his 
 Diatribe, (B. iv. c. 7,) inquires " whether 
 a man could not, by the inquiries of rea- 
 son into the laws and order of the world, 
 obtahi that fearlessness which the Gali- 
 leans attained by habit and by mad en- 
 thusiasm." 
 
 The Platonists were the nearest of all 
 philosophers to Christianity, and they 
 might find in their religious notions and 
 their psychology many points of union 
 with Christianity. Hence it happened 
 that many of the early teachers of the 
 Church had been prepared by the religious 
 idealism of Platonism for Christianity, as 
 a spiritual religion, and used their philo- 
 sophical education afterwards in its "ser- 
 vice. But it was only natural that many, 
 deeply rooted in their philosophical and 
 religious system, (which they considered 
 perfect and finished once for all,) should 
 struggle the more eagerly against the new 
 doctrines of Christianity, because in what 
 they once possessed they had the com- 
 plete advantage over the rest of the hea- 
 thens. It would be a bitter draught to 
 them to drink the waters of humility and 
 self-denial, as they must have done, had 
 they consented to form their habits of 
 thought on a revelation given as a matter 
 of history. But there were besides de- 
 cided differences in their habits of thought 
 and those which the Gospel requires. 
 I'hey must renounce their superiority in 
 religion, and unite themselves with the 
 multitude,* whom they despised, in one 
 faith, and they must limit their love of 
 speculation by the definite facts of a reve- 
 lation! They must find pure truth in 
 one only religion, and give up their fan- 
 ciful heathenism, open as it was to specu- 
 
 The ■jToXKot, the o^xk. 
 
CELSUS WHETHER HE WAS THE EPICUREAN. 
 
 95 
 
 lation, and decked with all the graces of 
 poetry and rlietoric ! and exchange an 
 imaginative polytheism lor a dry and 
 empty monotheism! Uninstructed Jews 
 must become more to them than their 
 godlike Plato ! Instead of the God of 
 their contemplative conception, their o», 
 from forth of which all existence eter- 
 nally flows by a necessity, agreeably to 
 the dictates of the Reason, from the 
 highest world of spirits down to the very 
 lowest t/A)), that bounds all the varied de- 
 velopments of life, and stands on the 
 extreme limit between existence and non- 
 existence — instead of this god of their 
 speculative conception [speculativer Be- 
 griffs-Gott] they were to recognise a per- 
 sonal God, who created all tilings from 
 nothing, by the act of his own freewill, 
 and who guides all things independently 
 by his free providence, which looks not 
 on the vast whole alone, but on each in- 
 dividual portion of it. The multitude, 
 who are unable to raise themselves to 
 abstract speculation, might have a god so 
 human, but for a philosopher to take up 
 with a god of the people ! This conside- 
 ration shows us plainly, that while the 
 Platonists were attracted by many motives 
 to the hive of Christianity, on the other 
 hand there were many feelings which 
 stirred them up to bitter enmity against a 
 religion which subjected them to humili- 
 ations-, so opposite to all their habits of 
 thought. 
 
 Tlie first, who regularly took it on 
 himself to write against Christianity, was 
 Celsus, and most probably about the time 
 that Marcus Aurelius persecuted Christi- 
 anity with fire and sword. He gave hi% 
 work the presumptuons title of " the 
 Word of Truth," (A070? 'axaS*!?.) It is 
 the more requisite to enter at some length 
 upon the character, the views, and the 
 mode of argument of this person, be- 
 cause, in several respects, we find that 
 he was the forerunner of antagonists of 
 Christianity in general, or at least, of 
 many of its peculiar doctrines, and that 
 his spirit and notions have often made 
 their appearance again ; and lastly, be- 
 cause it is often shown with great clear- 
 ness by his case, what appearance evan- 
 gelical truth assumes in the eyes of the 
 natur.il man, and how, in his judgment 
 upon it, he makes his own blindness and 
 poverty conspicuous. 
 
 Muidi doubt exists, in the first place, as 
 to the person who goes under the name 
 of Ceisus. Origen, who wrote against 
 him, goes on the supposition that he may 
 
 have been Celsus the Epicurean, who 
 lived in the reign of the .Antonines, and 
 was known as the friend of Lucian. But 
 Origen had avowedly no other grounds 
 for this supposition than the sameness of 
 the name; and this, even supposing every 
 thing to lead to the conclusion that tlie 
 book really was written in the time of 
 that Celsus, would be but a very weak 
 argument, unless some proof of a con- 
 formity of views between this book and 
 that Celsus could be established. It is 
 of great importance to ascertain this point. 
 Lucian dedicated the Life of the .Magi- 
 cian Alexander to this Celsus, which he 
 wrote at his request. This suits well 
 with the character of the Celsus who 
 wrote against Christianity — for he too 
 paid great attention to all the exhibitions 
 of enchanters of that period,* in order to 
 be able, as such men always do, to class 
 together the operations of a higher power, 
 and the reveries of fanaticism, without any 
 examination of their internal evidence. 
 He might, therefore, to obtain materials 
 for this comparison, and to use it in his 
 zeal for the propagation of his would-be 
 illumination of the world, wish to know 
 more of this Alexander. The first Cel- 
 sus had written a book against magic, 
 which Lucian 1. c. § 21, praises highly, 
 and which was also known to Origen. 
 The other Celsus expresses himself in 
 more ways than one on the subject of 
 magic. In Book i. p. 54, he says, after 
 citing some miracles of our Saviour, 
 " Well, then, let us grant that thou hast 
 really performed these things !" He then 
 proceeds to compare these miracles with 
 the works of enchanters, who pledge 
 themselves to the performance of far 
 more extraordinary feats, with the super- 
 natural power of wiiicli the Egyptians 
 would give a proof in the market-places 
 for a few halfpence, such as exorcising 
 evil spirits, charming away diseases, call- 
 ing up the spirits of heroes, raising by 
 enchantment splendid meals, and setting 
 the most dead substance in motion, like a 
 living thing. " Shall we, for the sake of 
 these things, consider them as sons of 
 God, or shall we say that they are the 
 tricks of wretched and contemptible 
 men?" In this passage, there is no trace 
 of a belief in magic, as Origen imagined 
 — for the language is not serious, but, as 
 
 * See the long passage, Lib. 348, eJ. Hoeschel, 
 where he ventures to place the prophets of the Old 
 Testament (as well as Christ himself, m other 
 passages) in the same class. 
 
96 
 
 it often happens in Celsus, entirely sar- 
 castic. He considers it all as mere trick- 
 ery, by which the credulity of the mul- 
 titude is easily imposed upon. For he 
 had before doubted generally of the truth 
 of the miracles of Jesus, without as- 
 sicrning any grounds for his disbelief. 
 Where he sneeringly compares the en- 
 dowments of animals with those of men, 
 he says, among other tilings, " If men 
 value themselves on their skill in ma- 
 gic, let them recollect that serpents and 
 eagles have far more skill than they, and 
 are more expert at miraculous cures," 
 &c. Book iii. p. 226, [p. 221. ed. Spen- 
 cer.] Now this, as Origen remarks, is as 
 if Celsus was inclined to laugh at magic 
 altogether. Nevertheless, when he brings 
 forward the opinion of Dionysius, an 
 Egyptian musician, (apparently with ap- 
 probation,) that magic has no power over 
 philosophers, but only over uneducated 
 and corrupted persons, he appears to 
 speak seriously. " It is the opinion of 
 the Platonisls of this day," says he 
 " that the magical operations of the 
 higher powers of nature and demonical 
 agency, which, according to their doc- 
 trine, belong to the empire of blind na- 
 ture, the region of y^», have influence 
 over those only who also belong to this 
 department, and not over those who have 
 raised themselves up to the Divine Being, 
 which is exalted far above all the powers 
 of nature."* Lucian praises Celsus for 
 mildness and moderation — qualities of 
 which we find no trace in his writings, 
 from which he would rather appear a 
 violent and passionate man. One feels, 
 however, that Lucian's judgment of his 
 friend may be a just one ; for persons of 
 a character whose tranquillity is not easily 
 broken and disturbed, are often the most 
 strongly excited when any thing opposes 
 them, which not being reducible to the 
 measure of common every day things, 
 creates an excitement, which they cannot 
 comprehend, in the hearts of men. 
 
 It is not the opinion of Origen alone, 
 that Celsus was an Epicurean, but Lucian 
 also calls him a zealous admirer of Epi- 
 curus. There i.s, however, but little in 
 the work against Christianity, which wears 
 even the appearance of an Epicurean babit 
 of thouglil; and even this little, when ac- 
 curately weighed, contains in it much that 
 is irreconcileable with Epicurism. This 
 was remarked by Origen, and somewhat 
 staggered him in the notion that this 
 
 CELSUS APPARENTLY A PLATONIST. 
 
 • To the dj^«T«/Tci'. 
 
 Celsus was the author of the work. He 
 offers three hypotheses, B. iii. p. 206. [.?] 
 between which people must decide on 
 the subject : first, that the same person 
 chose to conceal his real opinions, ia 
 order to oppose Christianity with more 
 efl'ect, because as an Epicurean, the par- 
 tisans of all religions would be against 
 him ; secondly, that the Epicurean Celsus 
 changed his opinions ; or lastly, that it 
 was a diflerent Celsus who wrote the 
 work. The first supposition is hardly 
 natural, and the second quite gratuitous. 
 It is, however, difficult to collect any con- 
 nected system out of the writings of Cel- 
 sus ; for many contradictory opinions are 
 maintained in them, and he himself ap- 
 pears in general, not as a serious and deep 
 thinker, but as one whom the spirit of 
 controversy drove to express much which 
 he did not really mean ; he often ex- 
 presses himself sarcastically on things of 
 serious import; and we find the same 
 contradiction in him, which was common 
 in his time, namely, that he sometimes 
 played the enlightened philosopher, and 
 at other times he maintained the old re- 
 ligion in downright earnest. It is, how- 
 ever, with all this, still undeniable, that 
 he has appropriated to himself many of 
 the ideas of the then prevailing Platonic 
 philosophy ; and yet it is certain, that he 
 must not be confounded with the deeper 
 school of Platonism. Among the notions 
 he borrowed from Platonism, we must 
 reckon that of the soiiVs relation to God, 
 (p. 8.) Some representations, however, 
 of a higher power, which slumbers in the 
 souls of animals, and sometimes beams 
 through them, (p. 223,) though somewhat 
 opposite in expression, do not contradict 
 this ; for the Platonists themselves say of 
 many of the old philosophers, especially 
 Pythagoras, that they understood the lan- 
 guage of animals. Again, he speaks of 
 the Supreme Existence, (Sc) which no- 
 thing but the contemplation of the phi- 
 losopher can reach, (371 — 374;) of the 
 world, as the Son of the Supreme God, a 
 ©£o; SiVTB^oi, or ©£o? yst^roi, and in this 
 he shows his ignorance of Christianity, 
 for he charges the Christians with having 
 borrowed this notion from the Platonists, 
 and applied it to Christ. Undoubtedly, 
 in other passages, he confuses God and 
 the world, (p. 18, 240,) and he does not 
 always preserve the distinction between 
 Qeoi TT^WTo? and ©eo? Sevre^o;. Again, we 
 find the "notions of the stars as Divine 
 beings, ^(ju, Geo» OavE^ot, (240,) of subor- 
 dinate divinities in individual portions of 
 
CELSUS'S OBJECTIONS AND SELF-CONTRADICTIONS. 
 
 97 
 
 the earth and of nature, the popular gods, 
 to which we must 'be subject as long as 
 we belong to this earth, and to which 
 we must show becoming reverence ; and 
 again the idea, that the only imperishable 
 portion of 7Ha7i's nature, his spirit, is 
 derived immediatehj from the divinitij 
 (205 ;) the idea of an iXn, irhich resists 
 the divine formative princijjk, and is the 
 source of evil ; the notion that evil is 
 necessary in this world, (426 ;) and that 
 of evil spirits, who springing forth from 
 the v^v- oppose the Divine Being, (313.) 
 The popular creed, interlarded with some 
 such scraps of Platonic notions as these, 
 brought forward with an air of the greatest 
 pretension, — this was what Celsus oppo- 
 sed to that spirit, which animated and 
 cheered the Christians even in the sight 
 of death ! 
 
 The charges which he brings against 
 the Christians are full of contradictions. 
 On the one hand he reproaches them with 
 a blind belief,* which despises all exami- 
 nation ; that they have, as a watchword, 
 forever in their mouths the phrase ;| 
 " Believe and you shall become blessed :" 
 and that to all difficulties which are offered 
 for their consideration, they reply that 
 " With God all is possible ;" for the idea 
 of a self-satisfying taith, differing from the 
 mythology of the people, as well as from 
 a religion of philosophical dogmas, and 
 independent of speculation, was utterly 
 strange to the heathens, and he was un- 
 able to distinguish between faith and su- 
 perstition. On the other hand he objected 
 to the number of their sects : " ]f all men 
 should become Christians," he says, " they 
 would soon cease to be so again. For at 
 first when there were few of them, they 
 all agreed ; but now that they have be- 
 come numerous, they separate from one 
 another : every man wishes to found a 
 new sect, and they agree now only in 
 name."J And yet it was hardly consist- 
 ent with the character of a religion, which 
 required only a blind belief, to introduce 
 ao many^various habits of thinking, and 
 by consequence so many various sects. A 
 blind faith, founded only on authority, 
 would require uniformity of views and of 
 the whole spiritual life. Whence then 
 
 The 
 
 ^i<rvK liAcXcf. 
 
 f Just as the celebrated physician Galen, who 
 lived about this time and a little later, and who, 
 although a man of nobler and more profound mind 
 than Celsus, had no perception of what the birth of 
 the spirit is, made their xcy.v^ tvin-JmTcv; a sub- 
 ject of reproach to the Christians. 
 
 i Lib. iii. 120. 
 
 13 
 
 came all this variety, and these opposite 
 developments of spiritual feelings ? Had 
 not Celsus been so superficial an observer, 
 this contradiction must have struck him, 
 and the attempt to solve the difficulty for 
 himself, would have led him to the con- 
 sideration of that which distinguishes 
 Christianity from all former religious ap- 
 pearances. 
 
 Celsus knew that there were various 
 sects among the Christians, but he did not 
 give himself the trouble, as an honest in- 
 quirer after the truth wH)uld have done, to 
 separate them from one another. He had 
 read much of the Scriptures, but in such a 
 temper, as necessarily rendered him in- 
 capable of understanding their divine doc- 
 trines, because he sought in them only 
 objects of ridicule and reprobation. He 
 had classed the Christian sects together 
 without discrimination, and he did the 
 same with their writings ; he set apocry- 
 phal and genuine just on the same fooling. 
 All was received with open arms by him, 
 which could represent Christianity in a 
 hateful point of view, and was gathered 
 from such opposite quarters, as the fanci^ 
 ful dreams of the Gnostics, and the more 
 sensuous notions of the Anthropo-mor- 
 phizing Chiliasts. 
 
 He sometimes reproaches them with 
 having nothing which is to be found in 
 all other religions ; — no temples, no ima- 
 ges, no altars ; then again he calls them a 
 miserable race of sense-bound, sense-lov- 
 ing people, who could recognise nothing 
 but that which can be comprehended by 
 the senses.* Under this point of view he 
 declaims against them on the necessity of 
 excluding and rejecting all sensuous no- 
 tions, in order to contemplate God with 
 the eye of the spirit. Now surely the 
 inquiry might have struck him. How 
 came these men, who are so completely 
 dependent on sensuous representations, to 
 arrive at so spiritual a worship of God ? 
 h' he had asked himself this question, in 
 answering it he must have traced the 
 power of that leaven, which leavens man's 
 nature yrom ivithin ; he wotdd have seen 
 in that covering of a sensible form, in 
 which alone Christianity can at first enter 
 the heart, the inward and higher spirit, 
 which by degrees enlightens and ennobles 
 this outward covering : he would have 
 found that these despised and apparently 
 sense-bound Christians had some higher 
 views and feelings, some higher principle 
 of life, than all his fine-sounding phrases 
 
 AoW.cy Kit <ft?^ca-aifjfjiTov j»cc. ^'ii. 366. 
 
9S 
 
 CELSUS'S OBJECTIONS AND SELF-CONTRADICTIONS. 
 
 could bestow on him. How low and 
 despicable, how groveling and earthly ! 
 ■with all his discourse about the Spirit^ do 
 the feelings of Celsus appear, when we 
 compare them with the high-hearted feel- 
 ings of the Christian martyrs of his time! 
 Celsus shows most aptly what the na- 
 ture of the Gospel is, and that it can be- 
 come a source of holiness to those alone 
 ■who will look within and recognise their 
 own sinfulness, and a source of true riches 
 to those only who will become poor in 
 spirit ; he shows clearly, also, though in 
 his own blindness he saw it not, what it 
 was that prevented him from finding these 
 advantages in the Gospel, when he says, 
 " Those who invite us to other religions 
 proclaim, ' Let him draw near, who is 
 pure from all stains, who is conscious of 
 no evil, and who lives in holiness and 
 righteousness :' but hear what the invita- 
 tion of the Christians is : ' Whosoever is 
 a sinner, whosoever is weak or deficient, 
 in a word, every one that is a wretch, him 
 will the kingdom of God receive !' What 
 then I was not Christ sent also for those 
 who are pure from sin ?"* Most assur- 
 edly not for those who know so little of 
 their own sinfulness and of God's holi- 
 ness, as to imagine themselves pure and 
 holy ! But Celsus, though in candour he 
 cannot be compared with Nicodemus, was 
 one of those to whom the physician of 
 our souls might say, " Art thou wise in 
 thy own opinion, and knowest not this ?" 
 Of any spiritual power, which could 
 triumpli over the flesh and change its 
 nature, he had no conception ; had he 
 only possessed an eye for experience, to 
 whose testimony even then Justin Martyr 
 could fairly appeal ! but, alas ! even with 
 open eyes, man, in a certain condition of 
 mind and spirit, may still be blind ! The 
 secret by which a sinner might become 
 righteous was unknown to Celsus, though 
 he still gives some testimony to the truth, 
 when he confesses that no law and no 
 punishments can accomplish this, the 
 greatest of mir-cles. " Now it is mani- 
 fest to every one," says he, " that those 
 to whom sin has become a kind of second 
 nature, no one can change by punishment; 
 how far less then by mercy ! for wholly 
 to change any 7nan''s nature is the most 
 difficult of all things?''-\ Granted ; but 
 what if a little light had broken in upon 
 the darkness of his mind, and shown him 
 
 * Lib. iii. 152, 
 t Lib. iii. 156. 
 
 3, T/ it 
 
 that the omnipotence of love and grace 
 can effect, what the power of no punish- 
 ment can accomplish ! 
 
 AVe need not, therefore, be surprised, 
 if with such sentiments as these, Celsus 
 was unable to apprehend the real and dis- 
 tinguishing characteristic of the Christian 
 life, humility. But as a Platonist he must 
 have known, what indeed, was foreign to 
 the notions of the other ancient sages, 
 who gave the greatest credit to a feeling 
 of self-confidence, and of power, and who 
 only used the word humility in a bad 
 sense ; he must have known, that accord- 
 ing to Plato, (B. iv. de Legg.) the word 
 Toi'irttvoTn<; is capable of a good sense; al- 
 though he was far from arriving at its 
 true import. He brings a silly accusation 
 against Christianity, that all its notions 
 of humility arose only out of a misunder- 
 standing of this passage. He made use 
 of certain extravagances, of the counter- 
 feit quality, which always is found beside 
 the genuine one, in order to represent 
 Christian humility as something weak and 
 childish, as if the man of humility after 
 the Christian pattern was one " who was 
 constantly upon his knees, rolled upon 
 the ground, put on vretched clothing, and 
 covered himself with ashes."* 
 
 As he was a stranger to the true hu- 
 mility of human nature, so was he, also, 
 to its true dignity ; the feeling of the true 
 elevation of the heart in God, Avhich is as 
 inseparable from true humility, as true 
 humility is from it. Christianity alone 
 can reconcile the two opposite qualities, 
 self-abasement and elevation, lowliness 
 and dignity, the being nothing and becom- 
 ing every thing. This was to Celsus a 
 secret completely closed ; and thence it 
 happens, that Avhile on the one hand 
 he charges the Christians with a disgust- 
 ing and low self-abasement, on the other 
 he reproached them for their immode- 
 rate pride, for daring to attribute to man 
 such importance and dignity in the eyes 
 of God. According to the prevailing 
 views of antiquity, he imagir^ed God's 
 care bestowed on the universe, only as a 
 whole ; on man only as a portion of that 
 whole, and not as an individual. What 
 the Christians declared of God's special 
 and particular Providence, of his care for 
 the salvation of every individual, appeared 
 to him, therefore, idle presumption. "^All 
 that is in the world was not created for 
 man, any more than for lions and eagles, 
 but it was created in order that the world, 
 
 Lib. V. 293. 
 
CELSUS HIS CONTRADICTIONS — PORPHYRY. 
 
 99 
 
 as a work of God, should constitute a 
 perfect whole. God cares only for the 
 whole, and this his Providence never de- 
 serts. This world never becomes worse, 
 and God is not turning to it for the first 
 time after a long interval. He angers 
 himself as little for men, as for apes and 
 Hies .'"* Such was the idol of human 
 reason, with which the Christians were 
 to content themselves ! As a consistent 
 Platonist, Celsus rejected every notion of 
 final causes [alles Teleologische] in re- 
 ference to God, and redemption could 
 never enter into their system, because 
 evil is necessary in this world, it has no 
 beginning and will have no end, it re- 
 mains the same as it always is, just as the 
 nature of the universe constantly remains 
 the same.| All travels round and round 
 again in one perpetual circle. From this 
 point Celsus makes that shallow objection 
 against the doctrine of redemption, which 
 after him has often been made against it 
 by Deists and men of Pelagian sentiments, 
 who, however, avoid speaking out so 
 plainly as Celsus, or are less consistent.;]; 
 It is this, " that God has made his work 
 perfect once for all, and does not need, 
 like a man, to mend it afterwards." This 
 was perfectly consistent in Celsus, who 
 considered the world as a whole, an in- 
 dependent whole, and denied moral free- 
 dom, but his fundamental error lay ex- 
 actly in this perverted view of the relation 
 of the world, and especially of reason- 
 able creatures, to God. 
 
 A nobler and deeper spirit, than that of 
 Celsus, animated another adversary of 
 Christianity in the latter part of the third 
 century. Porphyry, who wrote, perhaps, 
 under the emperor Diocletian, or some- 
 what earlier, was by birth a Phoenician, 
 and recast an Oriental spirit in a Grecian 
 mould. The story which Socrates, the 
 ecclesiastical historian, relates of Por- 
 phyry, that he was originally a Christian, 
 and only became prejudiced against Chris- 
 tianity from the ill-treatment which he 
 received at the hands of some Christians, 
 is too like the usual tales, by which men 
 endeavour to explain an hatred of the 
 truth from external causes, to deserve any 
 credit ; and, certainly, in what we know 
 of Porphyry, no trace of a former belief 
 in Christianity makes its appearance. For 
 many of the notions of Porphyry, which 
 approach, or rather seem to approach, 
 Christianity, certainly cannot be quoted 
 
 Lib. iv. 236. 
 
 Lib.iii.21I. 
 
 tLib.iv.215. 
 
 to prove this point. In part these notions 
 proceed from tliat which Platonism has 
 in common with Christianity, and are the 
 more earnestly cited through his eager- 
 ness to set Paganism in a refined point of 
 view, and to make it keep its ground 
 against Christianity, and in part they serve 
 to illustrate the power which Christianity 
 already exerted even on those spirits who 
 rejected it. Had Porphyry not been the 
 scholar of Plotinus, he might have endea- 
 voured to engraft his theosophic notions 
 on Christianity, and would have become 
 a kind of Gnostic. The speculative turn 
 (so opposed to the Oriental Gnosticism) 
 which he received from Plotinus, and the 
 engrafting of his theosophy on the Gre- 
 cian Paganism, made him a bitter enemy 
 of Christianity, which, recognising only 
 one definite scheme as truth, has nothing 
 eclectic in its nature. 
 
 Porphyry, in his letter to his wife 
 Marcella, calls it the highest fruit of piety 
 to worship the divinity after the manner 
 of one's country.* Thus Christianity, 
 not being the religion of his country, nay, 
 opposing most resolutely that religion, 
 must have been hated by him from the 
 first. Whilst Porphyry, however, desired 
 to maintain a religion which was at va- 
 riance with many of the fundamental 
 doctrines of his philosophy, he necessa- 
 rily fell into many contradictions. He 
 was a zealous defender of image-worship, 
 and while he desired to maintain tho- 
 roughly the old popular religion, he was 
 in fact maintaining the old superstition, 
 because his spiritual exposition of the 
 former was wholly unintelligible to the 
 people, and yet he Avrites thus to his wife 
 Marcella : "He is not so much an Atheist, 
 who honours not the statues of the gods, 
 as he who thinks of God after the manner 
 of the multitude." 
 
 This Porphyry wrote a work against 
 Christianity, in which he endeavoured to 
 point out contradictions in Holy Writ, 
 and contradictions between the Apostles, 
 and especially those between the Apostles 
 Peter and Paid.f He made use of the 
 weak points which an arbitrary allegorical 
 method of interpretation among a par- 
 ticular school of Christians laid open to 
 him, to bring a general accusation against 
 them, that they were obliged to resort to 
 such arts in order to give a reasonable 
 
 * Ep. ad Marcellam, ed Maj., where it is re- 
 commended rifxfV TO 6i/;y nnrn to, rrnr^iA. 
 
 I For which purpose he misapplied the well- 
 known occurrences at Antioch. See GaL ii. 
 
100 
 
 porphyry's work on oracles. 
 
 sense to the Old Testament,* an accusa- 
 tion which came with a particularly good 
 grace, forsooth, from Platonists, who had 
 engrafted so many meanings on the old 
 myths and symbols! 
 
 Anoiher work, of Porphyry is more 
 accurately known to us than this, in 
 which he also speaks of Christianity, and 
 indirectly, at least, endeavours to stem its 
 propagation. This work professes to be 
 a systemt *>!" theology, deduced from the 
 pretended oracles of antiquity. He wished 
 by means of this, as we have above re- 
 marked, to satisfy that longing after a 
 system of religion founded on accredited 
 Divine authority, which led men to em- 
 brace Christianity. There are even now 
 remaining among the oracular responses, 
 some which relate to Christianity, but on 
 this head they speak very differently, 
 according to the different notions of the 
 priests who uttered them. As it was 
 very common in the first century for 
 women to embrace Christianity with zeal, 
 Avhile their husbands w^ere entirely de- 
 voted to Paganism — a man once inquired 
 of Apollo,J what god he must appease in 
 order to lead his wife to renounce Chris- 
 tianity. The pretended Apollo, who knew 
 the firmness of the Christians in their 
 belief, answered the inquirer, that he 
 )night as well attempt to write on running 
 water or to fly through the air, as to 
 change the sentiments of his polluted and 
 godless wife ; let her continue to lament 
 her dead God ! Apollo, therefore, appears 
 to justify the judges, who condemned 
 Jesus to death, for a rebellion against 
 Judaism; for, according to the usual 
 opinion of the heathens§ (see above,) 
 " the Jews knew more of God than the 
 Christians." 
 
 Many heathens, from what they had 
 heard of Christ, imagined that He might 
 
 * Euseb. vi. 19. 
 
 f TTi^i TDc \t,yia)i <fi\oa-c<pt<t;, a work of which 
 many important fragments have been preserved to 
 us in the Xllth Sermo curat. afTect of Theodoret, 
 in AuRustin's work de Civitate Dei (from a Latin 
 translation, in which Augustin had read it,) and 
 last and chiefly in those two great literary trea- 
 sures, the Praiparat. Evang. and Demonstrat. 
 Evangel, of Euscbius. 
 
 i- Majus has most improperly concluded from 
 this passage that Marcella, the wife of Porphyry, 
 was a Christian. Porphyry is here quoting the 
 inquiry of another person, as he often docs in this 
 book. ■ The letter to Marcella contains nothing 
 whatever to lead us to suppose that Marcella was 
 a Christian, but much rather goes to prove the 
 contrary. 
 
 § Augustin. de Civitate Dei, Lib. xix. c. 23, 
 
 properly be ranked among the other gods, 
 as an object of veneration, and asked the 
 opinion of the oracle on this matter. It 
 is worth remarking, that the priest who 
 gave out the oracle, avoided saying any 
 thing disrespectful of Christ himself. They 
 replied,* "The wise man knowsvthat the 
 soul rises immortal from out of the body, 
 but the soul of that man is distinguished 
 for its piety." When they further asked, 
 why Christ had suffered death, the answer 
 was, " To be subject to terrible torments 
 is the fate of the body, but the souls of 
 the pious go and take their station in the 
 heavenly mansions."]" Porphyry himself 
 here avows that we must not calumniate 
 Christ, but only deplore those who 
 honour him as a God. " That pious soul 
 which is now raised to heaven, has been 
 by a kind of destiny a source of error to 
 those souls, which the gifts of the gods, 
 and the knowledge of the eternal Jupiter, 
 have never reached." 
 
 The series of writers who opposed the 
 Gospel is closed by Hierocles, the governor 
 of Bithynia, and afterwards of Alexandria, 
 who chose for his attack on Christianity 
 the season when persecution against the 
 Christians was in full operation ; a time 
 which a man of tender feelings and noble 
 sentiments would have been the last to 
 choose. It was also peculiarly unbecom- 
 ing in Hierocles to set himself up as a 
 teacher of the Christians, for he was him- 
 self the founder of the persecution, and 
 bore a principal share in it. And yet he 
 lays pretence to an impartial love of truth, 
 and kindly feelings towards the Christians, 
 for he entitles his work " A truth-loving 
 
 * Euseb, Dem. Evang. Lib. iii. p. 134. 
 'Ott; /uiY dSaviTK -^v^n fxm. <Taif/.± 7rg:/3:uvs(, 
 "X iyyoi:TH.ii iT',^iv\ TiTiHfAiic(:, dxA* yt -^uX" 
 
 'AH^O; VJtJ-ifitiJ TrgJj^i^iTTii^.t imv iKllVCU. 
 
 j" Ittjuit /um cj^'xvio-iy 0-j.Txvoii am 7r^:0i0K>irr:u- 
 
 It may be that Porphyry has sometimes allowed 
 himself to be deceived liy oracles, forged by Jews 
 of Alexandria or by other and older heathen Pla- 
 tonists. It is equally possible that such oracular 
 responses as these might be forged under the name 
 of the god or goddess by some other reasonable and 
 thinking heathen ; but by far the most natural sup- 
 position is, that they were really delivered on the 
 above occasion. At all events it is quite inadmis- 
 sible to suppose them forged by a Christian, for 
 the Christians would never have had the tact to 
 say so little of Christ. The example of these hea- 
 then responses may, perhaps, have induced the 
 Christians to compose others. In that which Lac- 
 tantius quotes (Instit. iv. 26,) other expressions, 
 and especially this, Svwtoc env k-zta o-x^kx, <ro<fo( 
 T^ctTaxTeyfv igyotg, betray a Christian author. 
 
HIEROCLES PHILOSTRATUS. 
 
 Discourse, addressed to the Christians."* 
 He here brought forward again much 
 which had been said by Celsus and Por- 
 phyry ; and allowed himself to indulge in 
 the most shameless falsehoods about the 
 history of Christ. In order to deprive the 
 Christians of their argument from the 
 miracles of Christ, he carries on a com- 
 parison between Him and Apollonius of 
 Tyana, allowing full credit to all the fa- 
 bles which the rhetorical Philostratus 
 chose to narrate from unauthenticated 
 sources, and from his own fancy ; as for 
 example, that he understood the language 
 of animals — while he takes it for granted 
 that the apostles, uneducated and lying 
 impostors, as Hierocles chose to say with- 
 out proving it, told only untruths : "You 
 regard," says he, " Christ as a God, be- 
 cause He restored a few blind men to 
 sight, and did a few things of a similar 
 kind, while Appollonius, who performed 
 so many miracles is not on that account 
 held by the Greeks as a God, but only as 
 a man especially beloved by the gods." 
 Such was the peculiar line of argumenta- 
 tion adopted by Hierocles.| 
 
 An hostile feeling towards Christianity 
 has also been supposed to pervade the 
 biography of that same Apollonius, writ- 
 ten by the rhetorician Philostratus, one 
 of the favourites of Julia Domna, the wife 
 of Septimius Severus. We are, however, 
 imable to discover definite traces of such 
 a feeling in any passages of the work, 
 although occasions were not wanting on 
 which to introduce it, as for example, 
 where he speaks of the Jews. He speaks, 
 however, far more of the anger of God in 
 the calamities which befel Jerusalem (B. 
 IV. c. 29,) which the Christians reckoned 
 favourable to their cause. It may, indeed, 
 be said, that Philostratus, while he paint- 
 ed in exaggerated colours the character 
 of a hero of the old religion, as others 
 did that of Pythagoras, was endeavour- 
 ing to give a new turn to a sinking reli- 
 gion ; and such an attempt might certainly 
 have been produced by the general exten- 
 sion of Christianity, and it may have 
 been his intention to oppose Apollonius, 
 as an Hero of the old religion to Christ; 
 and he may have been led to many indi- 
 vidual features in his story by what he 
 had heard of the miracles of Christ, al- 
 though no prominent allusions of such a 
 
 ■\ About this person consult Lactantius de Mor- 
 tib. Persecutor, v. ii. 16; and Euseb. adv. Hiero- 
 clem. 
 
 101 
 
 sort occur, as would really prove this 
 point. 
 
 While Christianity was thus assailed by 
 persecution and by argument, the argu- 
 ment found, from tJie time of Hadrian, 
 advocates of Christianity and of the 
 Christians ready to cope with it. We 
 shall speak more expressly of their apo- 
 logies in our chapter on the teachers of 
 the Church. We only here mention that 
 these apologies were of two diflerent 
 kinds, and had two different objects; one 
 kind consisted of expositions of Chris- 
 tian truth, destined for all educated hea- 
 thens, the others were more like official 
 documents, the composers of which came 
 forward before the emperor, or before his 
 representatives in the provinces, (the pro- 
 consuls, &.C.,) as the advocates of Chris- 
 tianity. As they could obtain no hearing 
 personally, they were obliged to speak 
 through their writings. The notion that 
 the addresses to the emperor, the senate, 
 or the governor, are merely ornamental 
 dresses for these writings, according to 
 the common practice of rhetoricians in 
 these days to compose set-speeches (de- 
 clamationes) does not suit the circum- 
 stances nor the dispositions of Christians 
 in those days; it is more natural to sup- 
 pose that the Christians, in setting forth 
 these writings, intended to correct the 
 judgment of the governors of districts on 
 the subject of Christianity and Christians. 
 It is not, however, to be wondered at, if 
 these writings, in regard to heathen go- 
 vernors, fell short of their aim ; for they 
 hardly gave themselves the time, and 
 were hardly in the proper frame of mind, 
 to judge with calmness of what was said 
 in these Apologies. Even master-pieces 
 of an apologetic nature, which these Apo- 
 logies, written out of the warmth of be- 
 lief and fulness of persuasion, were not, 
 could here have produced no effect, for 
 they could never recommend Christianity 
 to the eyes of Roman statesmen, who 
 looked on religion only in a political 
 point of view ; they could never ijiake of 
 Christianity a " religio Romana." They 
 might appeal, with all the power of truth, 
 to general rights of man, unknown to 
 men accustomed to look on religion as a 
 matter of politics ; they might make good 
 the principle which, near as it scc7ns to 
 lie to the human heart and feelings, was 
 first brought into full light by Christianity, 
 that religion is a matter of free persua- 
 sion and feeling, that belief cannot be 
 forced, and that God cannot be honoured 
 by a service extorted by force. " It is," 
 i2 
 
102 
 
 FORMATION OP THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 
 
 says Tertullian, (ad Scapul. ch. u.) "a 
 matter of liuman right, and is a power 
 which naturally belongs to every man, to 
 worship the God on whom he believes: 
 it is no business of religion to force reli- 
 gion, for it must be received voluntarily, 
 and not compulsorily insisted on." All 
 this they might urge; but the Roman 
 statesman concerned himself only with 
 outward obedience to the Imvs, and nothing 
 could teach him to separate the man from 
 the citizen. The apologist might appeal 
 to the blameless life of the Christians, 
 and, demanding the strictest investigation 
 
 of their conduct, challenge punishment 
 on all that was criminal: this too would 
 be of no avail. The better informed no 
 longer believed these popular and fabulous 
 stories; like Pliny, they found altogether 
 in the Christians no crime against mo- 
 rality. But notwithstanding this, the 
 Christian life appeared to them irrecon- 
 cileable with the " mores Romani" and 
 the " disciplina Romana," and they still 
 regarded Christianity as a feverish en- 
 thusiasm, which might be dangerous 
 to the safety and order of the Roman 
 state. 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH, CHURCH DISCIPLINE AND 
 CHURCH DIVISIONS. 
 
 I. The History of the Constitution of the Church. 
 (1.) The History of the Organization of Congregations [or Churches'] in general. 
 
 I. In the history of the formation of 
 the Christian Church we must carefully 
 distinguish from each other two consi- 
 derations of great importance : 
 
 The first., the epoch of its foundation in 
 the apostolic age, as it arose out of the 
 peculiar nature of Christianity without 
 any extraneous influence — 
 
 The next, the changes 2ohich took place 
 in it, as it proceeded onwards, after the 
 first simple organization of a Church, 
 under various extraneous influences, to 
 the end of this period. 
 
 We are about to speak first of the foun- 
 dation of the organization of a Church in 
 the apostolic age. 
 
 [A.] The first foundation of the organiza- 
 tion of the Christian Church in the Jlpos- 
 tolic age.* 
 
 The formation of the Christian Church, 
 as it developed itself out of the peculiari- 
 ties of Christianity, must essentially differ 
 
 • [From the view taken in this chapter andtlie 
 first [)art of that which follows, of the early gov- 
 ernment of the Christian Church, I feel myself 
 called upon to cx])ress my most decided dissent, 
 which, I trust, I may do without presumption, and 
 without giving oflence. The point at issue be- 
 tween Dr. Neander and those writers whose sen- 
 timents I believe to be founded in Scripture truth, 
 is simply this : Whether the Apostles actually did 
 institute a ministry, and make provision for the 
 continuance of that ministry ? It is indifferent to 
 my argument whether these men are called mini*- 
 
 from that of all other religious unions. 
 A class of priests, who were to guide all 
 other men under an assumption of their 
 incompetence in religious matters, whose 
 
 ters, priests, or presbyters ; the only points I deem 
 it necessary to inquire into are the following : 
 
 1. Did the Apostles ordain ministers by the 
 imposition of hands ] and, 
 
 2. Did they give them authority to ordain 
 others 1 
 
 3. Was it the office of these ministers to teach 
 the people, in short, to be their spiritual guides .' 
 
 For the two first points 1 shall only refer to 
 1 Tim. iv. 14. Tit. i. 5 ; and the marginal refer- 
 ences on those passages, either in the English 
 Testament, or Wetstein's Greek Testament, of 
 1711. (The ed. of Gerard, of Maestricht, printed 
 by Wetstein.) 
 
 For the third point I refer to the descriptions 
 given of the office of an episcopos and a deacon, 
 in 1 Tim. iii. iv. ; and Tit. i. ii. 
 
 Now the next inquiry is, whether this was a 
 mere temporary arrangement for the lifetime of 
 the Apostles, or an institution to continue as long 
 as Christian instruction was needed 1 
 
 Our reason gives but one answer to this ques- 
 tion, and if we look at Christian antiquity, every 
 thing we see tends to confinn that view. We 
 believe we may challenge our opponents to point 
 out any season, however near the apostolic age, in 
 in which there was not a body of ministers duly 
 ordained. I purposely avoid mentioning the epis- 
 copal question, not from any doubts upon it, but 
 because the question here lies between ministers 
 and no ministers. Now the accounts we have of 
 clergy and of bishops come up tolerably near to 
 the apostolic age. Clemens, Polycarp, and Igna- 
 tius, may be supposed able to judge what the in- 
 tentions of the Apostles were in this respect, and 
 
ALL CHRISTIANS A PRIESTLY RACE. 
 
 103 
 
 business it was exclusively to provide for 
 the satisfaction of the religious wants of 
 the rest of mankind, and to form a link 
 between them and God, and godly things; 
 sucli a class of priests could find no place 
 in Christianity.* While the Gospel put 
 away that which separated man from God, 
 by bringing all men into the same com- 
 munion with God through Christ; it also 
 removed that partition-wall which sepa- 
 rated one man from his fellows, in regard 
 to his more elevated interests. The same 
 Uigli Priest, and Mediator for all, through 
 
 to their works we appeal. They were the con- 
 temporaries and the disciples of the Apostles them- 
 selves. As I have already touched on this subject 
 in my preface, I shall only refer again to the valu- 
 able tract of Leslie, intituled, ' An Essay on the 
 Qualifications requisite to administer the Sacra- 
 ments,' where there is a full collection of passages 
 from the fathers relating to this point. This hasty 
 sketch of the outline of the argument which the 
 advocates of a ministry hold, is all to which I can 
 give insertion on the general question, without 
 overstepping the limits to which I must confine 
 myself. During the rest of the chapter, I shall 
 merely point out what appear to me weak points 
 in the view which Dr. Neander advocates, and 
 that as briefly as possible. — H. J. R.] 
 
 * [On this point I must again differ from the 
 learned and amiable author of this work. In es- 
 timating the spirit of the Gospel, we are bound to 
 take in the practice of the Apostles as well as their 
 writings. Their practice could not contradict the 
 tenor of their writings. It was attempted in the 
 last note to hint what that practice was, and also 
 some of the language which they themselves held 
 upon the point. I think Dr. Neander seems to 
 argue as if those who hold our sentiments thought 
 that the clergy alone are to pray to God, and that 
 their prayers are efficacious for the rest of the 
 people, as an " opus operatum." I apprehend that 
 a good Roman Catholic would not entirely ap- 
 prove of this notion, and all good Protestants de- 
 clare their abhorrence of it by ordering the prayers 
 to be offered " in a tongue understanded of the 
 people." What we claim exclusively as minis- 
 ters, is a right to administer the sacraments, and 
 to teach the Church of Christ. Now it is ac- 
 knowledged by Dr. Neander himself, (p. 199, in 
 the German, and in the EngUsh translation, page 
 107,) that the ignorance and the necessary occu- 
 pations of many of the Christian brethren, soon 
 rendered regular ministers necessary. We con- 
 tend that the Almighty foreseeing this necessity, 
 (or for other reasons which we presume not to 
 scrutinize,) provided for it by establishing a body 
 of teachers. 
 
 One word more as to the arguments drawn from 
 the expressions in 1 Pet. ii. 5 : where all Chris- 
 tians are called a royal priesthood. This argu- 
 ment proves nothing against a body of priests, 
 because exactly the same expression is applied to 
 the Jews, when obedient, and it will not, I sup- 
 pose, be disputed that there was a peculiar priest- 
 hood among them. See Exod. xix. !), 6 ; and see 
 Bennett's Rightsof the Clergy, p. 57; Laurence's 
 Lay Baptism Invalid, vol. i. p. 195. — H. J. K.] 
 
 whom all being reconciled and united with 
 God, become themselves a priestly and 
 spiritual race ! One heavenly King, Guide, 
 and Teacher, through whom are all taught 
 from God ! one faith ! one hope ! one Spi- 
 rit, Avhich must animate all ! one oracle 
 in the hearts of all ! — the voice of the 
 Spirit which proceeds from God ! and all 
 citizens of one heavenly kingdom, with 
 whose heavenly powers they have already 
 been sent forth, as strangers in the world I 
 When the Apostles introduced the notion 
 of a priest, which is found in the Old 
 Testament into Christianity, it was al- 
 ways only with the intention of showing, 
 that no such visible distinct priesthood, 
 as existed in the economy of the Old 
 Testament, could find admittance into that 
 of the New ; that, inasmuch as free ac- 
 cess to God and to heaven was once for all 
 opened to the faithful through the one High 
 priest, Christ, they had become, by union 
 with Him himself, a holy and spiritual 
 people, and their calling was only this, 
 namely, to consecrate their whole life, as 
 a sacrifice of thanksgiving for the mercy 
 of God's redemption, and to preach the 
 power and grace of Him, who had called 
 them from the kingdom of darkness into 
 his wonderful light, and their whole life 
 was to be a continued priesthood, a spi- 
 ritual serving of God, proceeding from 
 the affections of a faith working by love, 
 and also a continued witness of their Re- 
 deemer. Corap. 1 Pet. ii. 9. Rom. xii. 1., 
 and the spirit and connection of ideas, 
 throughout the whole Epistle to the He- 
 brews. And thus also the furtherance of 
 God's kingdom, both in general and in 
 each individual community, the further- 
 ance of the propagation of Christianity 
 among the heathen, and the improvement 
 of each particular Church, was not to be 
 the concern of a particular chosen class 
 of Christians, but the nearest duty of 
 every individual Christian. Every one 
 was to contribute to this object from the 
 station assigned to him by the invisible 
 head of the Church, and by the gifts pe- 
 culiar to him, which were given him by 
 God, and grounded in his nature — a na- 
 ture, which retained, indeed. Us indivi- 
 dual character, but was regenerated and 
 ennobled by the influence of the Holy 
 Spirit. There was here no division into 
 spiritual and worldly, but all, as Chris- 
 tians, in their inward life and dispositions, 
 were to be men dead to the ungodliness 
 of the world, and thus far departed out of 
 the world ; men animated by the Spirit of 
 God, and not by the spirit of the world. 
 
104 
 
 THE CHURCH AT CORINTH. 
 
 The peculiar and prevailing capabilities 
 of Christians, as far as they were sanc- 
 tified and consecrated by this Spirit, and 
 employed by it as the organs of its active 
 inrtuence, became Charismata, or gifts of 
 grace. Hence the apostle St. Paul began 
 his address to the Corinthian Church, on 
 the subject of gifts, in this manner, (1 Cor. 
 xii,) "Once, when ye were heathen, ye 
 suffered yourselves to be led blindly by 
 your priests to dumb idols ; ye were dead 
 and dumb as they. Now, while ye serve 
 the living God through Christ, ye have 
 no longer any such leaders, to draw you 
 blindly by leading-strings*. Ye have 
 yourselves now the Spirit of God for 
 your guide, who enlightens you. Ye no 
 more follow in silence, he speaks out of 
 you ; there are many gifts, but there is 
 one Spirit." Who shall arrogate that to 
 himself, which tlie enlightened apostle 
 ventured not to do, to be lord over the 
 faith of Christians ? 
 
 The condition of the Corinthian Church, 
 as it is depicted in the epistles of St. Paul, 
 deficient as it was in many respects, shows 
 us how a Christian Church should act; 
 how all in that Church should mutually 
 co-operate, with tlieir mutual gifts, as 
 members of the same body, with equal 
 honour j\ supplying one another's defi- 
 ciencies. The office of a teacher was 
 not here exclusively assigned to one or 
 more, but every one who felt a call to 
 that office might address a discourse to 
 the assembly of the Church for the in- 
 struction of all. According to the differ- 
 ences in the particular natures of the in- 
 dividual Christians, who served as instru- 
 ments to the working of the Holy Spirit, 
 and by which the difference in the form 
 of its manifestation among them was de- 
 
 * [I must request my readers to compare this 
 passage with the original Greek. I have trans- 
 lated from the (Jermaii of Dr. Neander, as literally 
 as I was ahle, but he has paraphrased the passage, 
 and, I cannot but think, paraphrased it so as to 
 pive it a meaning not to be found in the original. 
 The words, " by your priests," and the passage 
 which I have put into italics, are pure insertions. 
 Willi regard to the first, the heathen priests are 
 probably alluded to; but the clause in italics on 
 which so much of the argument depends, is en- 
 tirely a gratuitous in.scrtion, as far as I can disco- 
 ver. I l(!:ivc the question, therefore, to the reader, 
 requesting him again to compare the original 
 passage. — H. J. K.] 
 
 ■f- [It appears to me that the words, " with equal 
 honour," which I have put in italics, are expressly 
 contrary to tiie sentiments of St. Paul. He says, 
 strongly enough, "Are all Apostles? are all pro- 
 phets! are all teachers T" «&.c. I Cor. xii. 29. — 
 H. J. K.1 
 
 termined, the efficacy of this Spirit came 
 forth, sometimes under a creative form 
 (as in the gift of prophecy), sometimes 
 (as in the gift of trying of spirits, or in- 
 terpretation,) as a receptive or a critical 
 power. We hence find very great varieties 
 and differences in the degrees of inspira- 
 tion, and in the relation of the Human to 
 the Diiiine among them : sometimes the 
 deep, reflecting, purely human energy of 
 the spirit, prevailing; and at others, while 
 this is kept in the back-ground, the Spirit 
 of God, in its omnipotence, outweighing 
 it : and here, too, we find the manifold 
 degrees of the gift of tongues, down to the 
 ordmary, regular gift of teaching (the 
 
 As Christianity did not annihilate the 
 peculiar arrangements of our nature, 
 foinided in the laws of our original crea- 
 tion, but sanctified and ennobled them,* 
 it did not, (although, in reference to the 
 higher life, the partition-wall between 
 man and wife was taken away through 
 Christ, and in Him man and wife became 
 one,) it did not, I say, allow the female 
 sex to step out of the peculiar habits and 
 destination indicated for it' by nature her- 
 self Women alone are interdicted by St. 
 Paul, 1 Cor. xiv. 34, from speaking in the 
 Church — a proof also,| that no other ex- 
 ception from this general right of all 
 Christians existed. This last exception 
 was constantly thus retained in the times 
 that followed ; this even the fanciful 
 Montanists recognised — they only deter- 
 mined that the extraordinary operations 
 of the Spirit did not follow this rule, and 
 they appealed to the case of the women 
 that prophesied, 1 Cor. xi., although with- 
 out good reason, for the apostle is here 
 only speaking of that which actually was 
 the case in the Corinthian Church, with- 
 out approving it, with the intention, at 
 the same time, of settling it afterwards, 
 as appears from a comparison of the pas- 
 sage that follows, which we have cited 
 above.J 
 
 * It is true also, in this respect, that Chris- 
 tianity came not to destroy, but to fulfil. 
 
 j- [It is difficult to imagine how any one could 
 consider this a proof of the assertion in the text. 
 It ordy proves that no woman was allowed to teach, 
 while many men were; but it does not show, in 
 the smallest degree, that all men might teach. — 
 H. J. R.] 
 
 \ Hilary, who wrote a Commentary on the 
 Epistles of St. Paul, is particularly distinguished 
 by his impartial manner of considering Christian 
 anticjuity. Even in this respect he was well able 
 to distinguish the original Christianity from the 
 
OUTWARD FORM NECESSARY. 
 
 105 
 
 Now, alihough all Christians had the 
 same priestly calling, and the same priestly 
 rights,* and although there could not be 
 any distinct class of priests in the first 
 Christian Church ; yet every Church 
 [genieinde, congregation, community or 
 Church,] as a society for establishing and 
 extending the kingdom of God, an union 
 for the avowal of the same faith in word 
 and work, for the mutual conlirmation 
 and animation of this faith, for commu- 
 nion, and for the mutual furtherance of 
 that higher life which flowed from this 
 faith — an union for these most lofty aims, 
 must obtain a form and consistence pro- 
 portioned to them ; for, without this form, 
 nothing can continue to exist among men. 
 Christian Cluirches stood still more in 
 need of such an established order, since 
 they must develope themselves, and make 
 their progress in a world so foreign to 
 them, and under the influence of such 
 various sources of threats and disturbance, 
 or at least of affliction. In them, as in 
 every society, a certain government and 
 conduct of the common interests must 
 exist. That form of government must 
 have corresponded best to the spirit of 
 Christianity and the purposes for which 
 Churches were formed, which was calcu- 
 lated the most to further their free deve- 
 lopment from within outwards, and also 
 the most to further the collected and mu- 
 tual efficacy of all individual powers and 
 gifts. The monarchial form of govern- 
 ment would have too much tendency to 
 repress and overwhelm the free develop- 
 ment of different peculiarities, and to in- 
 troduce a system by which one definite 
 human form should be stamped on every 
 thing, instead of allowing the Spirit free 
 choice to develope itself under a variety 
 of human forms, and these mutually to 
 lay hold of each other. It would too, 
 probably, lead to a result, by which that 
 whicli is human would be prized too 
 highly, and one man have too much 
 weight, so that he should become the 
 centre around which every thing would 
 gather itself, instead of the one invisible 
 shepherd of all becoming the centre of 
 all. How anxiously do the Apostles 
 strive to keep olT such a danger! How 
 much does the Apostle St. Paul, in his 
 first Epistle to the Corinthians, insist on 
 
 later, when he says, " Prirnum omnes docebant et 
 omnes baptizihant, ut cresceret plebs et multipli- 
 caretur, omnibus inter initia concessum est, ct 
 evanijcllizare et baptizare et Scripturas explorare." 
 Hilar, in Epist. Ephes. c. iv. v. 12. 
 
 • [See above, note *, p. 103.— H. J. R.] 
 14 
 
 the free co-operation of all, that no one 
 power or disposition might overwhelm 
 the rest and reign triumphant! The 
 Apostles themselves, conscious as they 
 were of that higher degree of illumina- 
 tion, which was necessary for them alone 
 in their capacity of founders of the first 
 Church and teachers of pure Christianity 
 for all times, conscious as they were of a 
 higher degree of authority and power, 
 delivered to them by the Divine Founder 
 of the Church himself, such as was given 
 to no other men, yet came forward as 
 little as possible in a commanding manner,* 
 and endeavoured, as much as in them lay, 
 to act with the free co-operation of the 
 Churches in all the circumstances which 
 concerned the Church, as we shall have 
 occasion hereafter to notice more parti- 
 cularly. St. Peter and St. John, in their 
 Epistles, placed themselves in the same 
 rank| with the leaders of the Churches, 
 instead of claiming to be the general go- 
 vernors of the Churches over them. How 
 difficult must it have been in the Churches 
 to find one individual who united in him- 
 self all the qualities requisite for the con- 
 duct of the affairs of the Churches, and 
 who alone possessed tlie confidence of all 
 men ! Far easier must it have been to 
 find a number of fathers of families in 
 each Church, whose peculiarities were 
 calculated to supply each other's defects 
 in the administration of the various offices, 
 and of whom one possessed the confi- 
 dence of one part of the community, and 
 another that of others. The monarchial 
 principle in spirilual iliings accords ill 
 with the spirit of Christianity, which con- 
 stantly points to the feelings of mutual 
 need, and the necessity and blessing of 
 common deliberation, as well as of com- 
 mon prayer. Where two or three are 
 gathered together in the name of the 
 Lord, there also, He promises, will He be 
 among them. 
 
 In addition to this, it was the custom 
 of Christianity to appropriate to its own 
 use existing forms, when it found any 
 which suited its spirit and its essence. 
 Now there was actually a form of govern- 
 ment existing in the .Tewish synagogues, 
 
 * [But they by no means declined to use autho- 
 rity when needful, and to enjoin others, as Timo- 
 thy and Titus, to do the same. See Tit. i. 10 — 14. 
 1 Tim. i. 3—8 ; iii. 5. Heb. xiii. 7, &c.— H. 
 J.R.] 
 
 ■}• [St. Peter, indeed, 1 Pet. v. 1, calls himself 
 an elder, but he elsewhere styles himself an Apos- 
 tle, and we can hardly fail to observe that this title 
 implied somethins; more, "Are all Apostles 1" 
 1 Cor. xii. 29.— H. J. R.] 
 
106 
 
 PRESBYTERS OR BISHOPS — DEACONS. 
 
 and in all the sects which had their origin 
 in Judaism ; and this was in no respects 
 a monarchial, but an aristocratical form ; 
 a council of the elderly men D*^P.?' 
 -rrfiff^vn^oi, which conducted all common 
 allairs. It was most natural for Chris- 
 tianity, developing itself from out of Juda- 
 ism, to embrace this form. This form 
 must also, wherever Churches were es- 
 tablished in the Roman empire among the 
 heathen, have appeared the most natural ; 
 for men were here accustomed from of 
 old to see the affairs of towns carried on 
 by a senate, the assembly of decuriones. 
 That the comparison of the ecclesiastical 
 administration with the political, really 
 took place here, is shown by this, that 
 the spiritual persons were afterwards 
 named an ordo, the leading senate of the 
 Church, for ordo was a word peculiarly 
 appropriated to this rank of senators, ordo 
 senatorum* 
 
 ]n compliance with this form a council 
 of elders was generally appointed to con- 
 duct the affairs of the Churches ; but it 
 was not necessary that it should be strictly 
 composed of those who were the most 
 aged, although age was taken very much 
 into tne account, but age was rather con- 
 sidered here as a sign of dignity, as in the 
 Latin scnahis, or in the Greek, yi^ovffvcx.. 
 Besides the usual appellation of these 
 governors of the Churches, namely, Trgecr- 
 ^vri^oi, there were many others also in 
 use, designating their peculiar sphere of 
 action, as iroifjisn^ shepherds ]*D^'n£)' 
 iyofjusnoj, TTgoscTTWTE? TWf uli'K(pvvi and one 
 of these appellations was also iTrKrv-owos, 
 denoting their office as leaders and over- 
 seers over the whole of the Church. 
 
 That the name also of episcopus was 
 altogether synonymous with that of pres- 
 byter is clearly collected from the pas- 
 sages of Scripture, where both appellations 
 are interchanged, (Acts xx. compare ver. 
 17 with ver. 28. Epistle to Titus, ch. i. 
 verses 5 and 7,) as well as frotn those, 
 where the mention of the office of deacon 
 follows immediately after that of " epis- 
 copi," so that a third class of officers 
 could not lie between the two."]" 
 
 i. 1 ; 1 Tim. iii. 1—8. This interchange 
 of the two appellations is a proof of their 
 entire coincidence ; if the name bishop 
 had originally been the appellation of the 
 president of this church senate, of a ;;r/- 
 mits inter pares, such an interchange could 
 never have taken place. In the letter also, 
 which Clement, the disciple of St. Paul, 
 wrote in the name of the Roman Church, 
 after the bishops, as presidents of the 
 Churches, the deacons are immediately 
 named. See chap. xlii. 
 
 These presbyters or bishops, had the 
 superintendence over the whole Church, 
 the conduct of all its common affairs, but 
 the office of teacher was not exclusively 
 assigned to them ; for, as we have above 
 observed, all Christians had the riglit to 
 pour out their hearts before their brethren 
 in the assemblies of the Church, and to 
 speak for their edification. At the same 
 time, it does not hence follow, that al! the 
 members of the Church were fitted for the 
 ordinary office of teaching; there is a 
 great distinction between a regular capa- 
 bility of teaching, always under the con- 
 trol of him who possessed it, and an out- 
 pouring (like prophecy or the gift of 
 tongues) proceeding from a sudden in- 
 spiration, and accompanied with a pecu- 
 liar and elevated but transient state of 
 mind, and the latter might very probably 
 descend from above on all vital Christians 
 in those first times of extraordinary ex- 
 citement from above, when the divine life 
 first entered into the limits of this earthly 
 world. On such transient excitements of 
 a peculiar state of mind in individuals,* 
 care for the maintenance, propagation, and 
 advancement of clear religious knowledge 
 could not be made safely to depend, any 
 more than the defence of the pure and 
 
 times used for a pastor in a single parish at first, 
 as well as for the ordaining ofiicer, yet this name 
 might very shortly after be ajjpropriated to the higher 
 order, who had the power of ordaining. Immedi- 
 ately after the apostolic age, episcopus was used 
 for one, among a number of other clergy, and it 
 must surely then have designated one of higher 
 power than the rest. — H. J. R.] 
 
 * [The considerations adduced here lead us to 
 Philipp. I on*^ o'' two reflections of some importance. If 
 
 ^ these gifts constituted the warrant of unordained 
 
 [This surely requires more than mere asscr- 1 brethren to address the Church, when these gifts 
 fion and conjecture to support it. What ought of an extraordinary nature had ceased, none but 
 
 first to l)c made out is this: that the presbyters 
 were the rulers rather than the teachers of the 
 Church, and that they ruled the Church by a col- 
 li'gf, or council ; and next, that the name ordv 
 arose from that circumstance. Why might not 
 ordo he applied to any body of men? — H. J. R.] 
 
 I [This admits of a very dilfercnt explanation. 
 Suppose it granted that " episcopus" was some- 
 
 the ordained ministers would have a right to teach 
 the Church. Again, we are led to think, that if a 
 regular ministry was necessary even while these 
 gifts were bestowed on the Church, it must have 
 been doubly necessary after they were withdrawn. 
 I must refer my readers to the preface to this trans- 
 lation for a few more remarks on these ^^^ta^fxxra.. 
 H. J. R.] 
 
GIFT OF KvB!^>na-K;. 
 
 107 
 
 genuine apostolic doctrine against tl»e 
 manifold false tendencies of Jewish or 
 heathen views which had already thns 
 early begun to threaten the Church. Al- 
 though oil Christians must be taught only 
 by the one heavenly Guide, yet regard to 
 the weakness of human nature, which is 
 destined to keep the treasures of heaven 
 in earthen vessels, made it requisite that 
 persons should never be %vanting in the 
 Church, who were peculiarly qualified 
 constantly to set strongly before their 
 brethren their relation to the common 
 guide and Redeemer of all, to impress it 
 on their hearts forcibly, to show them 
 how every thing ought to be viewed in 
 connection with this one relation, and to 
 warn them against every thing which 
 threatened to withdraw them from this 
 fundamental principle of Christian life. 
 Such a capability of expounding, which 
 was always under the control of him who 
 possessed it, pre-supposed a certain culti- 
 vation of the intellect, a certain clearness 
 and acuteness of thought, and a certain 
 power of communicating its impressions 
 to others, which, when they were present 
 and penetrated and animated by the power 
 of the Spirit of God, became the yf^x^te^ixx 
 StSuffKciXici;. Those who possessed this 
 Charisma M'ere on that account appointed 
 to provide for the constant maintenance of 
 pure doctrines in the Church, and for the 
 confirmation and advancement of Christian 
 knowledge, without excluding the co- 
 operation of others, each in his own sta- 
 tion, according to the gift bestowed upon 
 him. In the apostolic age, therefore, the 
 X^^^io-fji-ci Siiaa-Kcc>.tx<; and the rank of 
 teachers of the Church, SiSuatcxXoi, who 
 were distinguished by that gift, are men- 
 tioned as something quite peculiar, I Cor. 
 xii. 28; xiv. 6. Ephes. iv. 11. All the 
 members of the Church might feel them- 
 selves impelled at particular moments, to 
 address the congregation of brethren, or 
 to cry out to God and praise Him before 
 them, but only a few had that p^a§»cr/A« 
 
 ^»^«(7y.aX(«;, and were StSnaxxXoi. 
 
 But it is also clear, from the case itself, 
 that this talent of instruction is quite a 
 diflerent thing from the talent for admi- 
 nistering the affairs of the Church, the 
 Xcic^iSf/.a, Kv^i^vrihui, which was particu- 
 larly required for the office of an assessor 
 of the council, a presbyter or bishop.* 
 
 [* Here again there is a pointof great importance 
 disposed of most unsatisfactorily. Can it be grant- 
 ed at all that the nfiice of presbyter was merely of 
 this kind 1 Does it not appear from all that the 
 apostles say of episcopi and presbyters, that they 
 
 A man might possess to a great extent 
 dexterity in outward matters, and Chris- 
 tian prudence, and in general tliose more 
 practical capacities whicli are required for 
 such an office in the Church, without 
 uniting to them the turn of mind and the 
 cultivation of the understanding requisite 
 for that of a teacher. In the first Apos- 
 tolic Church, to whose spirit all arbitrary 
 and idle distinction of ranks was so fo- 
 reign, in which offices being considered 
 only in regard to the object which they 
 were destined to obtain, were limited by 
 an inward necessity, the offices of govern- 
 ing and those of teaching the Churches,* 
 the office of a ^jiJaa-xaXof, and that of a 
 voifAVP were accordingly separated from 
 each other.l 
 
 The perception of this distinction so 
 clearly laid down, might lead us to the 
 supposition that originally those teachers 
 of the Church, expressly so called, did 
 not belong to the class of rulers;}; of the 
 Churches, and certainly it is not capable 
 of proof that they always belonged to 
 the presbyters. Thus much only is cer- 
 tain, it Avas a source of great satisfaction 
 when, among the rulers of the Church, 
 there were men qualified also for teachers. 
 Although to the presbyters in general (as 
 in St. Paul's parting speech to the presby- 
 ters of the Church of Ephesus, Acts xx,) 
 the guardianship over the maintenance of 
 pure doctrine was assigned, it does not 
 thence follow that they had to execute 
 the office of teacher in the stricter sense 
 of the word, for the question here may 
 merely have concerned the general care 
 of the government of the Church. But 
 when, in the Epistle to Titus, it is re- 
 quired of a bishop not only that he should 
 for his own part hold fast the genuine 
 pure doctrine of the Gospel, but that he 
 should also be capable of confirming 
 others in it, and of gainsaying the adver- 
 saries of it, it clearly follows that the 
 bishop was required to possess also that 
 gift of teaching. This might, under many 
 circumstances of the Churches, as under 
 
 were especially to see to the maintenance of sound 
 doctrine in the Church, that is be its teachers 1 
 See Tit. i. 1 Tim. i. iu., &c.— H. J. R.] 
 
 * The ^upto-fjix iiSctTKxXiXi and the x^^'^l^"- 
 
 f Compare Rom. xii. 7, 8, (for the distinction 
 between the hixTHM^ and the w-giwToic) and the 
 above cited passages. 
 
 \ [Gemeindevorsteher. This is the same word 
 used in page lOG, and applied to the presbyters 
 which IVcander makes synonymous with bishops 
 (in his explanation of the word PDi'^fl) — ^- 
 
108 
 
 DEACONS DEACONESSES. 
 
 those which are spoken of in this Epistle, tresses of families, experienced and tried 
 perhaps be particularly desirable on ac- in all the trials that belonged to women, 
 count of the danger wliich threatened the they \veye to^iiphold the younger women 
 Church from the propagation of heresies, 
 which the paternal authority of the elders 
 of the Church, supported by their pre- 
 eminence as teachers, was to oppose. 
 Thus also in the first Epistle to Timothy. 
 V. IT, tiiose presbyters who were able to 
 unite with the power of ruling (the 
 xv^t^vricru) also that of teaching (the 
 o'.^ajx«Xi«) were especially honoured, 
 which gives us at the same time a proof 
 that both were not necessarily and always 
 united.* 
 
 Besides this we find only one Church 
 office in the apostolic age, the office of 
 deacon. The business of this office was 
 at first only external, as according to 
 Acts vi., it was instituted to assist in the 
 administration of alms : care for the poor 
 and the sick, belonging to the Church, to 
 which afterwards many other external 
 cares were added, was peculiarly the bu- 
 siness of this office. Besides the deacons 
 there were also established for the female 
 part of the community deaconesses, where 
 the free access of men to females, espe- 
 cially as the sexes are so carefully sepa- 
 rated in the east, might excite suspicion 
 and give ofience. Although women, in 
 conformity to their natural destination, 
 were excluded from the offices of teach- 
 ing and governing the Churches, yet in 
 this manner the peculiar qualities of fe- 
 males were brought into demand, as pecu- 
 liar gifts foi* the service of the Church. 
 Bv means of these deaconesses the Gos- 
 pel might be brought into the inmost re- 
 cesses of family life, where, from eastern 
 manners, no man could have obtained ad- 
 miltance."!" As Christian mothers and mis- 
 
 * [It may be well to mention that this passage 
 has given rise to much controversy, and is very 
 liiffercntly interpreted. For the satisfaction of 
 the reader I here transcribe a very different inter- 
 ])rr'tation of it from the celet)ratod work of bishop 
 Bll.son, on the " Perpetual Government of Christ's 
 (Jhurch," now become a scarce book. 
 
 » Prrslii/fcr.<!, if t/ai/ rule will, arc ivarthy of 
 double liiituiur, especi<tllii if tlici/ liiliimr in the 
 
 VMird : or jjrtwlji/tcrs for ruliiiir well are ivortlry 
 (f (/iiuhle honour; especially for labouring in the 
 irord. Here are not two sorts of elders (as they 
 ciinceivej the one to govern, the other to teach; 
 but two duties of each presbyter; namely, to 
 teach and govern, before he can be most worthy of 
 double honour." Bilson, Epistle Ded. p. 8, 9. 
 Compare p. 131 — H. J. R.] 
 
 f A proof of tlii.s cccurs in Clement of Alex- 
 andria, Str. iii. p. 448, on Christian women : 
 ii Lv K-JU 4/5 T»iy -ywHiuttiTi)/ Jtu^\>iTai; Trxftta-tiurro )i 
 
 of the Church by their counsels and con- 
 solations.* 
 
 So far as regards the election to these 
 offices, we are without sufficient informa- 
 tion to decide certainly, how it was ma- 
 naged in the first apostolic times, and it 
 is very possible, that from a diffi;ience in 
 circumstances, the same method of pro- 
 ceeding was not adopted in all cases. As 
 the apostles, in the appointment of the 
 deacons, allowed the Church itself to 
 choose; and as this also was th^ case, 
 when deputies were sent by the Churches 
 in their name to accompany the apostles 
 (2 Cor. viii. 19.) we may conclude that a 
 similar proceeding was resorted to in the 
 appointment to other Church offices. It 
 may nevertheless have happened, that 
 where the apostles could not place im- 
 plicit confidence in the spirit of the first 
 new Churches, they gave the important 
 office of presbyter to those.who appeared 
 to them, under the light of the Holy 
 Spirit, the most fitted for it; their choice 
 would also deserve the highest confi- 
 dence on the part of the Church, com- 
 pare Acts xiv. 23. Tit. i. 5: although 
 when St. Paul gives Titus power to ap- 
 point rulers of the Church, who had the 
 requisite qualities, nothing is thereby de- 
 termined as to the nature of the election; 
 it does not necessarily follow that an 
 election by the Church itself is absolutely 
 excluded. It appears to have been part 
 of the system of discipline, that the 
 Church offices should be confided to the 
 first converted men, if they had the pro- 
 per qualifications. 1 Cor. vi. 16.t Cle- 
 ment of Rome brings forward the rule, as 
 if laid down by the apostle, for the ap- 
 pointment to Church offices, " that they 
 should be possessed after the judgment of 
 approved men, vnth the consent of the 
 
 * Tertullian de Virginn. velandis, c. 9, ut ex- 
 perimentis omnium atVectuum structa;, ficcile no- 
 rint caeteras et consilio et solatio juvare, et ut nihil- 
 ominus ea decucurrerint, per quae fremina probari 
 potest. 
 
 i So also Clement of Rome, ch. xlii., says of 
 the apostles, that »*t* ;^w§*c Jt-u mKuq kh^uts-cvtk 
 x.ufit(rTUMoy Tic L'Tag;t«c a^Taiv, tfcxi^xa-^tvTac tm 
 7r\ejfy.-XTi a; ivUK'^vwi xa/ JisLn'^viu; tuiv //eXAiVTODr 
 Tri^rtsyiiv. 
 
 [This appears to be quite natural, nay, almost 
 necessary. Of whom could the apostles make 
 bishops and elders but of some of those first con- 
 verted T Of those not yet converted ? It must 
 be from one of these classes, unless they had a 
 KU|)ply ready to be sent to any point they visited 
 themselves. — H. J. K.] 
 
BISHOPS BECOME PRIM! INTER PARES. 
 
 whole ChurchP The usual custom might 
 be, that on a vacancy in any of these 
 offices the presbyters themselves present- 
 ed to the Church another to supply the 
 place of the deceased, and tliat it was left 
 to the Church to ratify their choice, or to 
 reject on definite grounds* Where the 
 request to the Church for her consent was 
 not a mere formality, tliis method of ap- 
 pointing to Church offices had this bene- 
 ficial influence, that by its means the voice 
 of the larger multitude would be guided 
 by those who were capable of judging, 
 all schisms would be suppressed, and yet 
 no person would be obtruded on the 
 Church, who was not affectionately look- 
 ed upon by them. 
 
 As to what further regards the relation 
 of these presbyters to the Churches, 
 they were destined to be not unlimited 
 monarchs,! but rulers and guides in an 
 ecclesiastical republic, and to conduct 
 every thing in conjunction with the 
 Church assembled together, as the ser- 
 vants and not the masters of which they 
 were to act. The apostles saw these re- 
 lations in this manner, because they ad- 
 dressed their epistles, which treated, not 
 merely of doctrinal circumstances, but of 
 things pertaining to the ecclesiastical life 
 and discipline, not to the rulers of the 
 Churches only, but to the whole of the 
 Church. Where the apostle St. Paul pro- 
 nounces an exclusion from the commu- 
 nion of the Church, he represents himself 
 as united in spirit with the whole Church, 
 ( 1 Cor. V. 4,) supposing that for an affair of 
 such general concernment the assembling 
 of the Church would be regularly requisite. 
 
 [B.] The changes in the Discipline of the 
 Christian Church after the apostolic age. 
 
 The change which had the most exten- 
 sive influence on the form of the Chris- 
 tian Church, in this period, related parti- 
 cularly to three points. 
 
 (a.) The separation between bishops 
 and presbyters, and the development of 
 the monarchico-episcopal government. 
 
 (h.) The separation between spiritual 
 persons and the laity, and the formation 
 of a caste of priests, in contradiction to 
 the evangelic notion of the Christian priest- 
 hood. And, 
 
 * Clemens, 44. Tcwc K^ritcrTu.bfv'Tuc utto ra>v 
 
 \ [This is surely rather strangely put. In one- 
 half of the sentence the presbyters are rulers and 
 guides, in the other they are only servants of the 
 Church.— H. J. R.l 
 
 100 
 
 (c.) The multiplication of Church of- 
 fices. 
 
 With regard to the first we are without 
 precise and perfect information as to the 
 manner in which this change took place 
 in individual cases, but, nevertheless, it is 
 a thing which analogy will make quite 
 clear on a general view. It was natural 
 that, as the presbyters formed a delibera- 
 tive assembly, it siiould soon hap'pcn that 
 one among them obtained the pre-emi- 
 nence.* This might be so managed that 
 a certain succession took place, according 
 to which the presidency should change, 
 and pass from one to the other. It is 
 possible that in many other places such 
 an arrangement took place, and yet we 
 find no historical trace of any thing in 
 the kind; but then, as we have above re- 
 marked, there is, on the other hand, no 
 trace to be found by which we should 
 conclude that the office of the president 
 of the college of presbyters was distin- 
 guished by any peculiar name. However 
 it may appear with regard to this pouit, 
 Avhat we find in the second century leads 
 us to conclude that, immediately after the 
 apostolic age, the standing office of pre- 
 sident of the presbyters must have been 
 formed, to whom, inasmuch as he had 
 especially the oversight of every thing, 
 was the name of ETrnrxoTro? given, and he 
 was thereby distinguished from the rest 
 of the presbyters. This name was then, 
 at last, exclusively applied to this presi- 
 dent, while the name of presbyter remain- 
 ed common to all : for the bishops, as the 
 presiding presbyters, had as yet no other 
 official character than that of presbyters, 
 they were only "primi inter pares."| 
 
 * [It will not fail to be observed here, that our 
 author has recourse to conjecture as to what may 
 have been the case, and that in the next sentence 
 he honestly admits that there is no hisforical trace 
 whatever of any such arrangement. As far as I 
 have examined the subject, I find this admission 
 fully confirmed. Its importance need scarcely be 
 pointed out. — H. J. R.] 
 
 f Many later writers properly recognise this 
 course of things. Hilar, in Ep. i. ad Timoth, c. 
 3. Omnis episcopus presbyter, non tamen omnia 
 presbyter episcopus; hie enim episcopus est, qui 
 inter presbyteros, primus est. Jerome says, (146 
 ad Evangl.) it was the custom in the Alexandrian 
 Church, till the time of the bishops Heraclius and 
 Dionysius, up to the middle of the third century, 
 that the presbyters chose one of their number for 
 their president, and called him bishop. And so 
 also there may be some truth at bottom in the story 
 told by Eutychus, who was patriarch of Alexan- 
 dria in the first half of the tenth century, although 
 it cannot be altogether true, and is certainly false 
 in chronology ; viz. that in the Alexandrian 
 Church, to the time of the bishop Alexander, in 
 K 
 
110 
 
 FORMATION OP A PRIESTHOOD. 
 
 This relation of the bishops to the pres- 
 byters we see continuing even to the end 
 oi' the second century : Irenaeus, therefore, 
 uses* the name of '* bishop" and " pres- 
 byter" sometimes as wholly synonymous, 
 and at other times he distinguishes the 
 bishop as the president from the presby- 
 ters. Even Tertullian calls the leaders of 
 the Christian Churches by the one general 
 name of Senoires, while he comprehends 
 in that name both bisliops and presbyters, 
 although that father was very particular 
 about the difference between bishops and 
 presbyters.t Indeed, in many respects 
 TcrtuUiun stands generally at the line of 
 demarcation between the old and the new 
 time of the Christian Church. 
 
 The situation of the Churches during 
 the persecutions, and the numerous op- 
 pressions in which the energetic conduct 
 of one man at the head of affairs might 
 prove of great use, furthered the formation 
 of the monarchial government in the 
 Church. And yet even in the third cen- 
 tury the presbyters were at the side of 
 the bishops as a college of councillors, and 
 the bishops undertook nothing weighty 
 without gathering together this council.;|; 
 When Cyprian, bishop of the Church at 
 Carthage, separated from it by his flight 
 during the persecution, had any thing of 
 consequence to transact, he instantly im- 
 parted it to the presbyters, who remained 
 behind him, and he apologised to them 
 for having been obliged at times to decide 
 without being able to call them together. 
 To do nothing without their advice, he 
 declares to be his constant principle.§ , 
 
 the beginning of the fourth century, the following 
 arrangement had existed : there was a college of 
 twelve presbyters, among whom one, as bishop, 
 had the pre-eminence, and these presbyters had 
 always chosen one out of their own body as bishop, 
 and the other eleven had given him ordination. 
 
 • Both names arc used synonymously, iv. 26, 
 where he attributes the "successio episcopatus 
 prcsbyteris." He distinguishes the names in iii. 
 14. When it is related in the Acts xx. 17, that 
 Paul had called to him the presbyters of the 
 Churches of Asia Minor, Irenaeus reckons among 
 them the liishops also, under the view that these 
 were then only the presiding presbyters. "In 
 Miloto convocatis episcopis ct jiresbyteris." The 
 confusion which exists in regard to the succession 
 of the first bishops of Rome, may perhaps, also be 
 attributed to this cause, that originally these names 
 were not so distinguished, and therefore, many 
 might bear at the same time the names of bishops 
 or presbyters. 
 
 f Apologet. [c 39. Praesident probati quique 
 scniores. 
 
 i Presbytcrium contrahere. 
 
 ^ Ep. V. A primordio episcopatus mei statui, 
 nihil sine consilio vestro mea privatim sententia 
 
 Reminding them of the original relation 
 of the bishops to the presbyters, he calls 
 them his " compresbyteros." And it was 
 doubtless, natural enough, that before this 
 episcopal system of government could 
 firmly establish itself, many struggles must 
 have taken place^ because the presbyters 
 would be inclined to maintain the original 
 power which belonged to them, and re- 
 fuse to subject themselves to the authority 
 of the bishops. Often, indeed, many 
 presbyters made a capricious use of this 
 power, which was very prejudicial to the 
 discipline and order of the Church. — 
 Schisms arose, of which we shall have to 
 speak hereafter, and the authority of the 
 bishops, closely connected as they were 
 one with another, triumphed over the op- 
 position of presbyters, who acted without 
 concert. The power and activity of a 
 Cyprian contributed much to promote 
 this victory, but we should do him wrong, 
 and pervert the proper view of the whole 
 matter, if we accuse him of having acted 
 from the beginning with a decided inten- 
 tion of raising up the episcopacy, as it 
 rarely happens in such matters that one 
 individual can succeed in fashioning the 
 occurrences of a whole period after a 
 scheme arranged to forward his own love 
 of rule. Cyprian rather, without being 
 conscious to himself of any scheme, acted 
 here in the spirit of a whole party, and of 
 a whole ecclesiastical disposition, that ex- 
 isted in his time. He acted as the repre- 
 sentant of the episcopal system, the strug- 
 gle of which against the presbyterian sys- 
 tem was a fundamental feature of the 
 whole progress of the Church. The con- 
 tention of the presbyterian parties among 
 one another, might have become utterly 
 prejudicial to discipline and order in the 
 Church ; the victory of the episcopal sys- 
 tem especially promoted unity, order, and 
 quiet in the Churches-, but then, on the 
 other hand, it was prejudicial to the free 
 development of habits of the Churchly 
 life, and the formation of a priesthood, 
 altogether foreign to the Gospel economy, 
 was not a little furthered by it. Thus 
 this change of the original form of the 
 Christian Church stands in close connec- 
 tion with another change, which takes still 
 deeper root, tJie formation of a caste of 
 priests in the Christian Church. The 
 more a Christian Church answered its 
 proper destination, and corresponded to 
 its true model, the more must it be shown 
 
 gerere. Sicut honor mutuus poscit, in commune 
 tractabioius. 
 
CONFUSION OP THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 Ill 
 
 in the mutual relations of all its members, 
 that all, taught, led, and filled by the One, 
 all drawing from the same fountain, and 
 mutually imparting, as equal members of 
 the one body, stand in reciprocal relation 
 to each other under the one general Head; 
 and the less, therefore, can any difference 
 exist among them between some to give 
 and others to receive, teachers and learners, 
 guides and those who let themselves be 
 guided, — as we find it was in the early 
 Churches. Now the very nature of things 
 is such, that as the first Christian spirit 
 died away, and as the Human became 
 more prominent in the progress of the 
 Church, as in the increasing Churches the 
 difference of education and Christian 
 knowledge manifested itself more clearly, 
 this difference would also more clearly 
 develope itself. The leading preponder- 
 ance of individuals would of itself take 
 continually deeper root, and it would 
 happen of itself, that the presbyters would 
 exercise a continually increasing influence 
 over the administration of Church affiairs ; 
 and that the ltleiay.a.Xoi continually more 
 and more exclusively took the task of ad- 
 dressing the Church. All this might fol- 
 low of itself, from the natural progress of 
 affairs in the Church, although it must 
 have been the earnest endeavour of those 
 influential individuals, if they had been 
 animated by the true spirit of the Gospel, 
 and not by an unevangelic spirit of 
 party and caste, (which springs up so 
 easily from the selfishness of human na- 
 ture, the source of all Popery,) to restore 
 continually that original relation of reci- 
 procity between themselves and the 
 Church, and continually to promote the 
 general participation of all in the affairs 
 of the Church. And yet, besides that 
 which followed of itself from the natural 
 course of affairs, there was still another 
 idea mixed up imperceptibly with it, 
 which was utterly foreign to the Christian 
 economy, and the inffuence of which be- 
 came very important ; and it was an idea 
 which in aftertimes was constantly intro- 
 ducing usages utterly repugnant to the es- 
 sential views of the Gospel. We now 
 proceed to notice this idea. 
 
 The notions of the theocracy of the 
 Old and of the New Testament, which 
 were so decidedly kept distinct from one 
 another by the apostles and the first 
 Christians, became again gradually inter- 
 changed and confused ; the source of 
 theoretical and practical errors, which 
 lasted through many centuries, and which 
 (if we except the scattered witnesses to 
 
 the truth in each century) was first again 
 opposed by the pure light of genuine 
 Christianity by means of the Keformation. 
 As, in virtue of this interchange, many 
 notions of government, foreign to the 
 Gospel, were brought from the Old Tes- 
 tament into the Church of Christ, so also 
 was the Old Testament notion of the 
 priesthood introduced. The false con- 
 clusion was drawn, that as there had been 
 in the Old Testament a visible priesthood 
 joined to a particular class of men, there 
 must also be the same in the New, and 
 the original evangelical notion of a general 
 spiritual priesthood fell, therefore, in the 
 back-ground. This error is to be found 
 already in Tertullian's time, as he calls 
 the bishop " sumnius sacerdos," (de Bap- 
 tismo, c. xvii.,) an appellation which was 
 certainly not invented by him, but taken 
 from a habit of speaking and thinking 
 already prevalent in a certain part, at 
 least, of the Church. This name also 
 imports, that men already compared the 
 presbyters with the priests, and the dea- 
 cons, or spiritual persons generally, with 
 the Levites. We can judge from this, 
 how much the false comparison of the 
 Christian priesthood with the Jewish 
 furthered again the rise of episcopacy 
 above the office of presbyters. In gene- 
 ral, the more they degenerated from the 
 pure Christian view into the Jewish, the 
 more the original free composition of the 
 Christian Church became changed. We 
 see Cyprian already wholly penetrated by 
 this intermixture of the Old and New 
 Testament notions. 
 
 In the names by which the Church 
 officers were distinguished from the re- 
 maining part of the community, we find 
 no trace of this interchange. The Latin 
 expressions " ordo" and " plebs" only 
 denoted the guiding senate of the Chris- 
 tian people; the Greek names xA»fo?, 
 xAu^txoj, had even in Cyprian's time been 
 applied in this unevangelic sense. By 
 this application they were made to desig- 
 nate "• men consecrated to God's service," 
 like the Levites of the Old Testament, 
 men who busied themselves only with the 
 affairs of religion, and not with earthly 
 things, who did not gain their livelihood, 
 like other men, by worldly business, but 
 on this very account, that they busied 
 themselves with God only for the advan- 
 tage of others, were maintained by the 
 others, just as the Levites in the partition 
 of the land had received no inheritance in 
 land ; but had the Lord only for their 
 inheritance, and weie to receive tithes 
 
112 GOSPEL VIEWS. 
 
 from the others for their management of 
 the Temple worship, ot tltnv h x^jj^o? rov 
 ©sow or u* x>.rj§o« Q^o<; f5-T» See Deu- 
 teronomy, ch. xviii. This notion of a 
 peculiar people of God, so particcularly 
 applieii to a particular class of men among 
 Ch;isiian?, as a xA»)^o? rov ©sot^, is certainly 
 ill this sense wholly unevangelic, for all 
 Christians ought in this sense to be a 
 body of men consecrated to God, a x^^)Jo? 
 Toy 0£ot;, and even all their earthly callings 
 ought to be sanctified by the spirit in 
 which they pursue them ; their whole life 
 was to become, by the sanctification by 
 which they were animated, a spiritual 
 service to God, a Xoytxu ?i«T^£»a. Such 
 was the original Gospel notion. But the 
 inquiry is still to be made, whether that 
 meaning, which contradicts tliis original 
 Gospel notion, was really connected from 
 the first with the name of xAjj^sxoi for 
 spiritual persons; and if we follow the 
 history of the use of the word, we shall 
 be rather inclined to conclude that this 
 meaning was introduced in later times 
 into an expression, whose original mean- 
 ing had been forgotten. The name xX^p? 
 originally denoted the situation bestowed 
 on each one in the Church, either by 
 God's appointment or by a choice deter- 
 mined under his influence ; and thus the 
 Church offices were particularly called 
 x^»Jfo^, to be chosen to them was called 
 yM^ovff^xi, and the men chosen to these 
 offices, x>i*)gixot.* 
 
 • We may thus explain how the stricter sense 
 of " Lot" was lost sight of in this word, although 
 the fc§p^5u xxngavTi) were opposed to i p;^a(c yapcrov)!- 
 T£uc. So at lirst in the Acts i. 17, xxwgoc tjjc Siakc- 
 tKtf : in Irenasus iii. 3, nxsigouvb^t tuv iTrt^KO-mv : 
 Clemens Alex. Quis Dives salv. c. 42, xxwgo? and 
 KKx^Mv are used reciprocally. We find no doubt 
 in Clemens Komanus, c. 40, the relations of the 
 Old Testament applied to the Christian Church, 
 but certainly this letter (as well as those of Igna- 
 tius, although Clemens is in a less degree) has 
 been interpolated by some one who was prejudiced 
 in favour of the hierarchy.* In other passages of 
 the same letter, we rather meet with the free spirit 
 of the original presbyterian constitution of the 
 Church. How simply in c. 42, is the appointment 
 
 * [It must be remembered that any assertion 
 of interpolation, unsupported by evidence, is of no 
 value. 1 do not deny the fact, I oiilv require proof 
 of it, if it can be obtained. The latter sentence 
 01 the autiior's note only states what he thinks 
 Clement ought to have written: our question lies 
 solely with what he did write. We may also ask. 
 What contemporary writings are there, by a com- 
 parison with whicli this charge can be supported ? 
 It may also be observed that MSS. can give us no 
 a.ssistance in such nn inquiry, as there is, I believe, 
 only one MS. of Clemens Ilomaniis in existence. 
 See Mr. .lacobson's very useful edition of the 
 
 See Mr. .lacobson's very useful 
 Fatres Apostolici, p. i. — II. J. II. 
 
 Although the idea of the priesthood 
 in a pure evangelic sense, was, in other 
 respects, constantly more and more dark- 
 ened and driven into the back-ground by 
 the prevalence of that unevangelic view 
 of it, yet was it too deeply engrafted into 
 the very essence of Christianity, to be 
 wholly overwhelmed. At the time of 
 Tertullian, who stands on the boundary 
 between two different epochs in the de- 
 velopment of the Church, we still find 
 more definite traces of the powerful op- 
 position, which the original Christian 
 consciousness of the universal and spirit- 
 ual priesthood, and of the Christian rights 
 founded thereon, made to the hierarchy, 
 which was establishing itself. In his work 
 on Baptism, which he wrote before his 
 conversion to Montanism, Tertullian, in 
 regard to the use of the general rights of 
 the priesthood by all Christians, declares 
 the true principle by which Divine right 
 and human order should be maintained. 
 " As far as the thing itself is concerned, 
 the laity have the right to administer the 
 sacraments, and to teach in the Churches. 
 The word of God and the sacraments 
 were communicated by God's grace to all 
 Christians, and may, therefore, be commu- 
 nicated by all Christians, as instruments 
 of God's grace. But the inquiry is here 
 not merely, what is lawful in general, but 
 also, what is convenient under existing 
 circumstances. We must here apply the 
 declaration of St. Paul, 'all things which 
 are lawful, are not convenient.' With a 
 view, therefore, lo the maintenance of that 
 order which is necessary in the Church, 
 the laity should make use of their priestly 
 rights as to the administration of the sa- 
 craments only where time and circum- 
 stances require it.* 
 
 Sometimes the laity in their struggle 
 against the spiritual body, made good 
 their original rights to the priesthood, 
 as we see from those words of Tertul- 
 lian, as a Montanisl., in which he requires 
 from the laity, in a certain case, that if 
 they claimed the same rights as spiritual 
 persons, they should also bind themselves 
 by the same duties ; Avheit he says to 
 them, I" When we elevate ourselves, and 
 
 of bishops or presbyters and deacons related with- 
 out any hierarchical pride. We cannot for a mo- 
 ment think of any such confusion of the Old and 
 New Testament ideas in a disciple of St. Paul. 
 
 * De Baptisimo, i. c. 81. 
 
 ■\ De Monogamia, 12. 
 
 [The German is here " Wenn wir uns gcgen 
 die Geistlichkeit erheben und aufbliihen," &c. 
 
 I subjoin the original passage with some of the 
 
ALL LAWFUL THINGS NOT EXPEDIENT. 
 
 113 
 
 are puffed up against the clergy, then are 
 we all one, then are we all priests, for he 
 makes us all kings and priests before God 
 and his Father." (Rev. i. 6.) Although 
 the office of teaching in the congregations 
 was constantly more and more limited to 
 the bishops or presbyters, we find, nev- 
 ertheless, many traces of that original 
 equality of spiritual rights among all 
 Christians. When, about the middle of 
 the third century, two bishops in Pales- 
 tine had no scruple in allowing the learned 
 Origen to expound the Scriptures before 
 their congregations, although he had re- 
 ceived no ordination, and Dionysius of 
 Alexandria, a bishop of hierarchical prin- 
 ciples, reproved them for it ; they defend- 
 ed themselves by alleging, that many of 
 the Eastern bishops required the laity, 
 who were capable of it, to preach.* Even 
 in the spurious Apostolical Constitutions, 
 (otherwise a very hierarchical work,) 
 which consists of multifarious elements, 
 gradually collected together, there is an 
 order under the name of St. Paul to this 
 effect : If any man^ even a laytnan, be 
 skilled in the expounding of doctrines, 
 and of reputable life, let him teach, for 
 all must be taught by God.'f 
 
 At first, it is highly probable that those 
 who undertook the Church offices in va- 
 rious congregations, continued their for- 
 mer calling, and maintained themselves 
 and their families by it afterwards, as they 
 liad done before. The congregations, 
 which consisted for the most part of poor 
 members, were not in a state to provide 
 for the maintenance of their presbyters 
 and deacons, especially as they had from 
 the very beginning so many other de- 
 mands on their Church chest, for the sup- 
 
 context, from the edition of Georgius. " Si nojj 
 oinnes MonogamisE tenentur, unde Monogami in 
 clerum 1 An ordo aliquis seorsum debebit insti- 
 tuti Monogamorum, de quo adlectio fiat in clerum 1 
 Sed quum extoUimur et inflamer adversus clerum, 
 tunc unum sumus, tunc omnes sacerdotes ; quia 
 Bacerdotes nos Deo et patri fecit; quum ad perte- 
 quationcm discipline sacerdotalis provocamur, de- 
 ponimus infulas et impares sumus." Now the 
 part " tunc unum sumus," &c., is clearly ironical. 
 It is the argument which the persons he addresses 
 were too fond of using, and Tertullian speaks 
 their language, and turns it upon themselves. 
 Tertullian complains that those who were so 
 ready to claim an equaidy of spiritual rights 
 vjilh the priesthood, were by no means equally 
 ready to share any burdens incumbent on it. It 
 was necessary to quote thus much to put the rea- 
 der in full possession of the whole sense of the 
 passage. — H. J. R.] 
 
 * Euscbius, vi. 19. 
 
 t Book viii. ch. 32, 
 
 15 
 
 port of helpless widows, of the sick, and 
 of orphans. It might happen that tlie 
 presbyters belonged to the most wealthy 
 part of the community, and this must 
 have been often the case, because their 
 office required a certain previous secular 
 education, which would be more easily 
 met with among the higher or the middle, 
 than the lower orders. Since the pres- 
 byters, or bishops, were to distinguish 
 themselves among the Christians, to whom 
 they were to afford a pattern in all re- 
 spects, by hospitality, (1 Tim. iii. 2,) they 
 must have belonged to the wealthier 
 classes, of whom there were not many 
 in the first Churches, — and how could 
 persons of that kind have borne to re- 
 ceive their maintenance out of funds that 
 arose from the hard savings of their poorer 
 brethren ! St. Paul,* indeed, expressly 
 declares that those who travelled about 
 to preach the Gospel were justified in 
 suffering themselves to receive the sup- 
 ply of their earthly wants from those for 
 whose spiritual advantage they were la- 
 bouring ; but we have no right from this 
 to draw the same conclusion with regard 
 to the Church ofiicers of particular com- 
 munities. The former could not well 
 unite the business necessary to earn their 
 livelihood with the labours of their spi- 
 ritual calling, although the self-denial of 
 a Paul rendered even this possible ; the 
 others, on the contrary, might perfectly 
 well unite, at first, the continuance of 
 their employments with the execution of 
 their duty in the Church ; and the primi- 
 tive ideas of Christians might find nothing 
 offensive in such an union, as men were 
 persuaded that every earthly employment 
 may be sanctioned by the Christian feel- 
 ing in which it is carried on, and they 
 knew that even an apostle himself had 
 united the exercise of a trade with the 
 preaching of the Gospel. But when the 
 members of the Churches became more 
 numerous, and the duties of the Church 
 officers were increased, especially when the 
 office of teaching was limited, in great mea- 
 sure, to the presbyters ; when the calling 
 of spiritual persons, if they performed it 
 duly, began to require their whole time 
 and activity ; itwas often no longer possible 
 
 * [I suppose the passage here alluded to is 
 1 Cor. ix. 1 — 14, and I would request those who 
 are interested in these questions to read it atten- 
 tively, and say whether there is any thing in it 
 which applies only to persons tti^o travelled about 
 to preach the Gospel, or rather whether it does 
 not concern all ministers, especially ver. 13. — 
 J H. J. R.] 
 
 k2 
 
114 
 
 ELECTION OF CHURCH OFFICES, 
 
 for them to provide at the same time for 
 their own support, and the richer Churches 
 were also in circumstances to maintain 
 them. From the Church fund, which was 
 formed by the voluntary contributions of 
 every member of the Church, at every 
 Sunday service, or, as in the North Af- 
 rican Church, on the first Sunday of every 
 month,* a part was used for the pay of 
 the spiritual order. It was then sought 
 expressly to detach spiritual persons from 
 employing themselves with earthly busi- 
 ness ; in the third century they were 
 already strictly forbidden to undertake 
 any employment, even a guardianship-! 
 This regulation might certainly have been 
 founded on good grounds, and have an 
 useful object, namely, to prevent spiritual 
 persons from forgetting their spiritual 
 calling, in consequence of their earthly 
 employments ; for we may see from Cy- 
 prian de Lapsis,J how much even then 
 the worldly spirit had made its way among 
 the bishops during the long season of 
 tranquillity, and that they were swallowed 
 up with worldly affairs, and neglected their 
 spiritual employments, and the advantage 
 of their congregation. But here also the 
 unevaiigelic notion of a separate priest- 
 hood, and a separate class of priests, made 
 its appearance again clearly, as well as 
 an unevangelic contrast between spiritual 
 and secular persons. Now Ms false se- 
 paration and distinction of the spiritual 
 persons very possibly might not contribute 
 to instil into them a genuine evangelical 
 feeling, but might, on the contrary, fur- 
 ther worldly feelings, hidden under the 
 pretended holiness of spiritual pride ; if 
 the clergy thought that, by a magical sanc- 
 tity communicated to their order, inde- 
 pendent of personal conduct, they were 
 beings of a higher order, and if they fan- 
 cied that by the " opus operatum" of their 
 outward duties alone, independently of 
 their heart and conduct, they could draw 
 
 • The "divisiones mensurnse," as the pay of 
 spiritual persons in this Church, correspond to 
 the monthly collection. 
 
 j^ Cyprian, Kp. Ixvi. to the Church at FurniB. 
 (Ep. i. cd. Ox.) 
 
 \ Also, in the eighteenth chapter of the Coun- 
 cil of Elvira (Illil)eris,)i. 305. " Episcopi,presl)y- 
 tcri, pt diaconi de locis suis negotiandi causa non 
 deccdant nee circumcuntcs provincias quscstuosas 
 nundinas sectentur." And yet it is here, also sup- 
 posed, that in many cases ihcy might be compelled 
 " ad victum sihi conquircndum," as when for in- 
 stance, if they received any pay at all, they received 
 none in money; but then in these cases they only 
 exercised their trade by means of a son, or a freed- 
 mun, or a person hired for the purpose, and then 
 not beyond the limits of their own province. 
 
 down and spread around them Divine 
 graces ; and if they looked upon them- 
 selves not as the servants of the Church, 
 in the spirit of self-denial, but thought 
 themselves supernatural mediators and 
 priests for it. Cyprian quotes as the foim- 
 dation of his prohibition, the passage from 
 2 Tim. ii. 4, but he feels thoroughly (a 
 feeling which would then more naturally 
 strike every one, because the character of 
 a "miles Christi" was then considered the 
 general calling of all Christians,) that these 
 words are to be applied to all Christians, 
 who, as soldiers of Christ, were to per- 
 form their service faithfully, and to pre- 
 serve themselves from every thing worldly 
 and uncongenial, which might take pos- 
 session of their hearts, and render them 
 untrue to their " sacramentum militiae :" 
 he, therefore, only concludes thus : — 
 " How far, rather, inasmuch as Ms is 
 addressed to all Christians, must those 
 remain unentangled in worldly business, 
 who, busied with Divine and spiritual 
 things, do not stir from the Church, and 
 ought to have no time for earthly and 
 worldly affairs." The clergy ought also 
 in the application of that passage to them- 
 selves, to shine before the Church as its 
 pattern ; and this, indeed, is a just appli- 
 cation of the passage! Only then the 
 unevangelic fancy would instantly fasten 
 itself on, that man approaches nearer to 
 God by an outward withdrawal from 
 earthly things, and can become desecra- 
 ted by the mere use of these things, as if 
 sanctification and desecration did not con- 
 sist solely in the disposition of the spirit 
 and the heart to God or to the world. 
 
 In regard to the election into Church, 
 offices, the old principle was, nevertheless, 
 constantly abided by, that the consent of 
 the Church was required to ratify such an 
 election, and that the Church was at liberty 
 to bring forward objections against it. The 
 emperor Alexander Severus was aware of 
 this regulation of the Christian Church, 
 and he appealed to it, when he wished to 
 introduce a similar course in the election 
 of the civil magistrates in towns. When 
 Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, separated 
 from his Church by calamitous circum- 
 stances, named to Church offices, men of 
 his neighbourhood who had particularly 
 distinguished themselves in the persecu- 
 tion, he apologised for this arbitrary con- 
 duct, which had been wrung from him by 
 necessity, before the laity and the clergy, 
 and he writes to both :* " We are accus- 
 
 Ep. xxxiii. [Ep. xxxviii. ed. Ox.] 
 
tomed to call you together to consult pre- 
 viously to the consecration of spiritual 
 offices, and to weigh the character and 
 merits of all in a general consultation." 
 
 That principle was also recognised in 
 the appointment to the episcopal office; it 
 was the prevailing custom in the third 
 century, and Cyprian deduced it from 
 apostolic tradition, that the hishops of 
 the province, with llie clergy of the vacant 
 Church, made the choice in presence of 
 the congregation, who having seen the 
 conduct of every one who could possibly 
 be chosen, could give, therefore, the most 
 sure testimony about them. Cyprian 
 ascribed to the Church the right of 
 choosing worthy bishops, or rejecting 
 unworthy ones.* This right of approval 
 or rejection, which belonged to the 
 Church, was not an empty formality ; it 
 sometimes happened that before the usual 
 arrangements for an election could take 
 place, a bishop would be called upon by 
 the voice of the Church, and the influence 
 caused by this upon the elections was the 
 cause of many divisions. 
 
 In other affairs of the Church also, the 
 participation of the laity was not altogether 
 excluded. Cyprian declares (Ep. v.,) that 
 he had determined from the beginning of 
 his episcopal office to do nothing without 
 the consent of the community .-f One of 
 these Church affairs, in which all had an 
 interest, was the reception again of those 
 who had fallen away; and the inquiry 
 which regarded this matter was to be un- 
 dertaken with a meeting of the whole 
 Church ; for, according to Cyprian's judg- 
 ment, this respect was due to the faith 
 of those who had stood steadfast during 
 the persecution.^ There were, besides, 
 individuals who did not belong to the 
 clergy, and yet had obtained for them- 
 selves, by the reverence which they per- 
 sonally enjoyed, such an influence over 
 the administration of Church affairs, that 
 even the clergy themselves could not 
 easily oppose them. These were the 
 heroes of the faith, those who had made 
 their confession of faith before the heathen 
 magistrates, in the sight of the tortures 
 and of death, or under the torture — the 
 " confessores." (We shall, in the course 
 of the history of the divisions of the 
 Church, have further occasion to consider 
 
 SENOIRES PLEBIS. 115 
 
 the greatness of their influence more pre^ 
 cisely.) 
 
 There is, however, here to be mention- 
 ed a peculiar arrangement, which we find 
 in the North African Churches at the be- 
 ginning of the fourth century, and which 
 may, very probably, be the remains of an 
 older and more general one. There were 
 a class of leaders of the Church under 
 the name of elders, " seniores plebis," 
 who were expressly distinguished from 
 the clerical body, and yet were considered 
 as ecclesiastical persons, (personae eccle- 
 siasticae,) who, as the representatives of 
 the congregation, formed a middle class 
 between the clergy and the laity, who 
 were assembled together by the clergy in 
 consultations on any matters of general 
 interest, and who spoke in the name of 
 the congregation, when any complaint was 
 to be made against the clergy.* 
 
 It may, perhaps, be said, that this was 
 no old arrangement, but rather one which 
 took its rise at a very late period, namely, 
 after Christianity had become the prevail- 
 ing religion in many cities and districts of 
 northern Africa, and that, as civil forms 
 had often been transferred to ecclesiastical 
 business, the civil burgesses or aldermen 
 became also Church officers, and that a 
 particular place was assigned to them in 
 the discussion of matters relating to the 
 Church. But it is hardly probable, judg- 
 ing merely from the thing itself, that in a 
 time, when the hierarchial principle was 
 so prevalent, an arrangement so foreign to 
 the spirit of hierarchy, and more conso- 
 nant to the oldest and free constitution of 
 the Church, should have been first set on 
 foot. It is far more probable of itself, 
 that this regulation should have been re- 
 tained as a remnant of a freer spirit of 
 Church government, and propagated with 
 some change in its circumstances. 
 
 There is a remarkable declaration to 
 this purpose by Hilary, who wrote a com- 
 
 * Cyprian, in the name of a Synod, to the 
 Churches of Leon and Astorga. 
 
 ■}• Nihil sine consensu plebis gerere. 
 
 I Ep. xiii. [Ep. xviii. ed.] Ox. prtesente etiam 
 stantiuin piebe, quibus et ipsis pro fide et timore 
 Euo honor habendus est. 
 
 * In a leUer from a Numidian bishop, Pur- 
 purius, to another bishop, Silvanus of Cirta in 
 Numidia, occurs the following passage . " Adhi- 
 bete conclericos, et seniores plebis ecclesiasticos 
 viros." They were required to make inquiry into 
 some differences which had arisen between the 
 bishop and a deacon. In another letter of the 
 same bishop to the " clericos et seniores" of this 
 city Cirta, all these persons being classed together, 
 are desired to make inquiry into these differences, 
 and compared in this respect to the elders, whom 
 Moses called together to counsel. " Sine consilio 
 seniorum nihil agebatur. Itaque et vos, quos scio 
 omnem sapientiam coclestem et spiritalem habere, 
 omni vestra virtute cognoscite, qua; si dis sensio 
 Ikec et perducite ad pacem.' Optat. Milevit. de 
 schismate Donatistar. cd Du Pin. fol. 169, 
 
116 
 
 SOURCE OF SUBORDINATION SYSTEM. 
 
 mentary on the epistles of St. Paul in the j 
 fourth century. He says, "Among all | 
 people age is honoured, and hence the 
 synagogues, and afterwards the Church, 
 had elders, without whose counsel noth- 
 ing was undertaken in the Church. I 
 know not by what neglect this has he- 
 come obsolete, unless it be by the laziness, 
 or rather by the pride of the teachers, 
 -who fancy that they alone are of any con- 
 sequence."* 
 
 The third, but less important change in 
 the constitution of the Church, was in re- 
 gard to the increase of the Church offices. 
 This arose partly from the circumstance 
 that when the congregations became more 
 numerous, and the deacons' business was 
 much increased, much which had hitherto 
 been transacted by them passed away from 
 them, and was put into the hands of other 
 officers; partly because many new em- 
 ployments in regard to the Churches arose 
 in the great towns ; and partly, because 
 what had hitherto been esteemed the free 
 gift of the Spirit on all, or on particular 
 Christians, was now connected with one 
 particular office. There were the fol- 
 lowing Church offices ; the sub-deacons, 
 who attended the deacons in the execu- 
 tion of their outward duties ; the " lec- 
 tores," {uva.ypua-Ta.h) who had to read the 
 Holy Scriptures in the congregations, and 
 to keep the copies of them used for this 
 purpose, a duty, which probably at first 
 either the presbyters themselves or the 
 deacons had performed, for even in later 
 times it remained the custom for the dea- 
 cons particularly to read the Gospels ; the 
 acolyths (ixoXovQoj,) persons, as the name 
 ■ implies, who attended on the bishop in 
 the duties of his office: the exorcist, who 
 . I 
 
 * Ecclesia seniores habuit, quorum sine consilio 
 nihil agebatur in ecclesia. Quod qua neRligentia 
 obsolverit nescio, nisi forte doctorum desidia, aut 
 mads superbia, dum soli volunt aliqui videri." In 
 order to evade the force of this passage, it may be 
 said that here, under the name of seniores, the 
 presbyters arc understood, and that the disuse 
 consisted in this, that these persons were no more 
 called to debate by the doctors, /. e. the bishops, in 
 all matters, as thty had formerly been. But this 
 explanation is by no means the most natural, 
 neither is it apposite to the manner in which the 
 word "doctores," nor that in which the word 
 " senoires" is here used. This is more especially 
 the case here, because the emphasis is expressly I 
 laid on the circumstance, that the " senoires" were | 
 literally the elder members of the Church; and 
 this was certainly not true in regard to the pres- 
 byters, who were not usually above thirty years 
 of age; and still more also because the passage 
 alluded to (1 Tim. v.,) has nothing in it to Ica^ 
 one to think of presbyters. 
 
 perfoi-med the duty of prayer over those 
 whom men believed possessed by evil 
 spirits, (see above,) i.e. the '' energumeni ;" 
 and the 6yg«go», vvXa^oi.^ " ostiarii," who 
 had the management of such matters as 
 related to the places of assembly, their 
 cleaning, &c.,and the opening and shutting 
 of the Church doors, &c. 
 
 The office of reader is, perhaps, the 
 oldest among these, it is mentioned by 
 TertuUian (Praescript. Haeret. c. 41,) at the 
 end of the second century ; the others 
 made their appearance together about the 
 middle of the third century, and are all 
 fully mentioned for the first time in a let- 
 ter of the Romish bishop CorneUus, in 
 Euseb. vi. 43. The office of an acolyth 
 most probably arose from the hierarcliial 
 love of splendour in the Romish Church, 
 and it did not extend to the Greek ; and 
 the Greek name is quite compatible with 
 a Romish origin, by means of the Greek 
 extraction of so many of the Romish 
 bishops. As far as regards the office of 
 exorcists, that which was performed by 
 him, was originally considered as a work 
 of the Holy Spirit, not connected with 
 any outward institution, whether it was 
 thought a work that might be performed 
 by every Christian in faithful reliance on 
 the overcomer of all evil, the Saviour, by 
 calling on his name, or whether it was 
 thought a peculiar gift of individual 
 Christians. Now, it seems, the free work 
 of the Spirit was to be connected with a 
 lifeless mechanism ; and yet the Apostolic 
 Constitutions properly express the spirit 
 of the old Church in opposition to such 
 an order, when they say, "an exorcist 
 cannot be chosen, for it is the gift of free 
 grace."* 
 
 We pass now from the general consti- 
 tution of the Churches, to the means of 
 union in the several Churches between 
 each other. 
 
 (2) The bonds of connection between the 
 various Churches with one another. 
 
 Christianity produced among its 
 genuine professors from the first a lively 
 Catliolic spirit, and thence also an inward 
 and mutual as well as outward connec- 
 tion. This connection must, from the 
 nature of human things, assume a definite 
 form, and this form was modelled after 
 the existing form of those social connec- 
 tions, among which Christianity first 
 made its appearance, A sisterly system 
 
 * Lib. viii. c. 26, o'u ^u^oTcvtirea, t'jvoki^ ytg 
 
DAUGHTER-CHURCHES — METROPOLITAN. 
 
 117 
 
 of equality, in the relation of the Churches 
 to each other, would, independently of 
 these particular circumstances, have best 
 corresponded to the spirit of Christianity, 
 and might have been most advantageous 
 to its free and undisturbed publication. 
 But these circumstances soon introduced 
 a system of subordination into the rela- 
 tions of the Churches to each other, into 
 which Christianity might enter, just as 
 into all other human institutions, which 
 contain nothing that is sinful by its very 
 nature ; but this system afterwards obtain- 
 ing too great sway, exercised a restraining 
 and destructive influence on the develop- 
 ment of Christian doctrines and life. 
 
 We have before remarked, that in many 
 districts Christianity early extended itself 
 into the country ; and where this hap- 
 pened, and the Christians were numerous 
 enough in a village or country town to 
 form a separate Church, it was most na- 
 tural that they should at once choose 
 their own presidents, presbyters, or 
 bishops, who Avould be as independent as 
 those of the Churches in the cities. In 
 the very first centuries, however, from a 
 want of documents relating to these times, 
 we cannot point out any thing of the 
 kind, but in the fourth century we find in 
 many parts of the east those called coun- 
 try bishops {^u^iTrKT-KOTTot.) who certainly 
 derive their origin from the earliest times, 
 for in later periods, when once the sys- 
 tem of Church subordination had been 
 formed, and when the country churches 
 were accustomed to receive their presi- 
 dents from the city, a relation of this kind 
 certainly could not have sprung up ; which 
 is proved by the struggle of the country 
 bishops of this time with the bishops of 
 the cities, who endeavoured to limit their 
 power. But the more common case was, 
 as we have before remarked, that Chris- 
 tianity extended itself first from cities to 
 the country round, and as there were at 
 first but few Christians in the country, in 
 the neighbourhood of the city, it was 
 most natural that they should at first go 
 to the city on a Sunday, in order to fre- 
 quent the assemblies held there. But 
 when afterwards their number so increased, 
 that they could form a church of their 
 own, they allowed the bishop of the 
 Church in the city, which they had been 
 accustomed to join, to appoint them a 
 presbyter, who thence remained always 
 subject to the bishop. Thus arose the 
 first great Church union between the 
 Churches [Gemeinden] of the city and of 
 the country, which together formed one 
 
 whole.* In the greater cities it might 
 have already become necessary to divide 
 the congregations in the city into different 
 portions, as in Rome, where in the report 
 of the Romish bishop Cornelius, which 
 we have quoted, we find already six and 
 forty presbyters, although the account of 
 Optatus of Mileve, that in Rome, at the 
 beginning of the fourth century, there 
 were more than forty churches [Kirchen] 
 is an exaggeration. Nevertheless, it did 
 not always happen that difl^erent Daughter- 
 Churches, subject to the head and Mother- 
 Church, were formed, but it was oftener 
 the case that the Church remained as one 
 whole, and it was only on Sundays and 
 festivals, when one church could not con- 
 tain them all, that they were divided 
 among different churches, where the dif- 
 ferent presbyters conducted divine service 
 after a certain cycle. We are, however, 
 deficient in accounts of all that relates to 
 this matter for this period, and we can 
 only draw any conclusions by reasoning 
 back from what we find in later times. 
 
 We may further remark, that as Chris- 
 tianity generally first spread from the 
 towns into the country, so also did it 
 generally extend itself (see above,) from 
 the capitals (MjiT^oTrcXei?) into the other 
 towns of the province. As now these 
 latter were politically subject to the 
 former, there was gradually formed be- 
 tween the churches of the provincial 
 towns and those of the metropolis, a 
 closer connection and a relation of subor- 
 dination. The Churches of the province 
 formed a whole, at the top of which was 
 the Church of the metropolis, and the 
 bishop of the latter was, in regard to the 
 other bishops of the province, " primus 
 inter pares." In consequence, however, 
 of local causes, this relation did not al- 
 ways develope itself in the same manner, 
 and for the most part it took place during 
 this period only in the east. 
 
 In the same relation, in which these 
 metropolitan towns stood to the provin- 
 cial towns, were also the chief cities of 
 the greater divisions of the Roman empire 
 to these latter, as the seats of government, 
 and the head-quarters of commercial and 
 other intercourse. From such chief cities 
 Christianity had spread itself into a whole 
 great division of the enornious Roman 
 empire ; here the apostles themselves had 
 founded Churches, appointed pastors, 
 
 * Such presidents of country Churches were 
 those, of whom Cyprian spoke at the tribunal of 
 the proconsul, when he said, "Invenientur in civi- 
 tatibus suis." 
 
118 
 
 ECCLESI.E APOSTOLIC^. 
 
 preached the Gospel with their own 
 mouth, and they had written Epistles to 
 the Churches founded here by themselves. 
 These Churches were regarded with pe- 
 culiar reverence, under the name of " ec- 
 clesicB, sedes apostolicae, matrices eccle- 
 sice." When any contest arose about 
 Church discipline or doctrine, the first 
 inquiry was, "• How do people look on 
 the matter in those Churches, where the 
 principles delivered there by the apostles 
 themselves, which have descended from 
 generation to generation, have been faith- 
 I'ully maintained r" Such " ecclesiaj apos- 
 tolica" were especially Rome, Antioch, 
 Alexandria, Ephesus, Corinth. 
 
 But all these circumstances, which met 
 together in the Churches of the great 
 chief cities, centered in a peculiar degree 
 in the Church of Rome, the capital of the 
 world. It was known that the two great 
 apostles, St. Paul and St. Peter, had taught 
 in this Church, and had ennobled it by 
 their martyrdom.* From Rome a large 
 portion of the west had received the 
 Gospel, from Rome all the general con- 
 cerns of the Christian part of the Roman 
 empire could best be directed; the Roman 
 bishops, as pastors of the richest churches, 
 had early distinguished themselves by 
 their benevolence to the most remote 
 Churches,! and a general interest united 
 all the Churches of the Roman empire 
 willi that of the capital. In Rome was 
 the " ecclesia; apostolica," to which, as 
 the common Mother-Church, the greater 
 part of the West must appeal. For the 
 most part, whatever took place in this 
 '' ecclesiae apostolica," would be best 
 known to all, for Christians were con- 
 stantly flocking to Rome from all quar- 
 ters. Tlius Irenaus, who wrote in Gaul, 
 as he sometimes appeals to other " eccle- 
 siai apostolica;," in one passage particu- 
 larly appeals to the " ecclesia apostolica" 
 in Rome, as the greatest and the oldest, 
 ( ihougli tliis last may be doubted,) as one 
 known to all, and founded by the two 
 most celebrated apostles, where Christians 
 meet together from the churches of the 
 wliole world, and the doctrines delivered 
 
 • It is hyporcritical to call in question the tra- 
 dition prrscTvcd l)y the harmonious testimony of 
 eccU-siastical anti(iuity,that St. Peter was at Rome, 
 'i'his tradition clearly comes down to us from a 
 time in which men had not yet thought of up- 
 holding the supremacy of the Roman Church by 
 means of the primacy of St. Peter. 
 
 t Euseb. Lib. iv. c. 23. 
 
 by the apostles would necessarily be ob- 
 served.* 
 
 By means of letters, and of brethren 
 who travelled about, even the most remote 
 Churches of the Roman empire were con- 
 nected together. When a Christian ar- 
 rived in a strange town, he first inquired 
 for the Church [Gemeinde, literally con- 
 gregation,] and he was here received as a 
 brother, and provided with every thing 
 needful for his spiritual or corporeal sub- 
 stance. But since deceivers, spies with 
 evil intentions, and false teachers, who 
 sought only to propagate their unevan- 
 gelical doctrines among the simple-minded 
 Christians, abused the confidence and the 
 kindness of Christians, some measures of 
 precaution became necessary, in order to 
 avert the many injuries which might re- 
 sult from this conduct. An arrangement 
 was, therefore, introduced, that only such 
 travelling Christians should be received, 
 as brethren, into Churches where they 
 were strangers, as could produce a testi- 
 monial from the bishop of the Church 
 from which they came. They called these 
 Church letters, which were a kind of 
 
 * Lib. iii. c. 3, in the Latin translation, for, 
 alas ! the Greek original is lost. " Ad banc cc- 
 ciesian propter potiorem principalitatem necesse 
 est, omneni convenire ecclesiam, hoc est, eos, qui 
 sunt undique fideles, in qua semper ab his, qui 
 sunt undique, conservata est ea, quae est ab apos- 
 tolis traditio." If we understand "convenire" in 
 an intellectual sense, thus — All the Churches must 
 agree with the Romish Church, as that which has 
 the pre-eminence, — the passage atTords no natural 
 meaning, and far less such an one as would suit 
 the other ideas of Irenteus. What would be the 
 sense of saying : The Churches in the whole world 
 have in the Romish Church retained the aposto- 
 lical traditions'! This could only be understood 
 to mean, that the Romish Church was the central 
 and representative point of all Christian Churches, 
 as if (which was said in later times) the whole 
 Church was " virtualiter" contained in the Romish ; 
 a notion of which no trace whatever can be found 
 in IrensEUs, and an expression which is entirely 
 foreign to this whole period. And, besides, what 
 need would there then have been of the explana- 
 tory addition, "eos qui sunt ubique fideles," as 
 with such a context there could be no misunder- 
 standing about the word "ecclesia." But all be- 
 comes quite clear, if we understand " convenire''' 
 of appearing personally, and then this addition is 
 quite in place to show that here he is speaking of 
 the Churches, not as a whole, but only of indivi- 
 dual believers out of all Churches. Instead of 
 " conservare" we must then read " observare." 
 Compare the similar passage of Athenaeus, lib. iii. p. 
 20, about the confluence of all cities and people to 
 the cig-jivcvoKi; Rome, ort o'uojjuivh Sh/uc; n fa^x, » 
 pa>/unjet>v TrrjXK iTrncfui rui oinw/utvui, ev « avvsJuv icrTU 
 '■jlmt! 7ra.7a; to.: Trohit; lifufjiefx;. 
 
PROVINCIAL SYNODS FIRST IN GREECE. 
 
 "tesserae hospitales," by which the Chris- 
 tians of all quarters of the world were 
 brought into connection, " epistolae" or 
 "• literai formatrc," (y^a^/^ara riTviruif/.ttoi,) 
 because, in order to avoid forgery, they 
 were made after a certain schema,* (twtto;, 
 forma,) or else " epistolae communicatoriaj, 
 y^ccfA.y.ctTct xoiKUKj^a." because they con- 
 tained a proof that those who brought 
 them were in the communion of the 
 Church, as well as that the bishops, 
 who mutually sent and received such 
 letters, were in connection together by the 
 communion of the Church ; and afterwards 
 these Church letters (epistolae clericae) 
 were divided into different classes, ac- 
 cording to the difference of their purposes. 
 As we above remarked that a closer 
 bond of union was early formed between 
 the Churches of the same province, so 
 also the Christian catholic spirit [Gemein- 
 geist] introduced the custom that, in all 
 pressing matters, controversies on doc- 
 trinal points, things relating to the eccle- 
 siastical life, and very commonly in those 
 relating to Church discipline, general de- 
 liberations should be held by deputies 
 from these Churches. Such assemblies 
 become familiar to us in the controversies 
 about the time of celebrating Easter, and 
 in the transactions about the Montanistic 
 prophecies, in the last half of the second 
 century. But these provincial synods do 
 not appear, as a constant and regular 
 institution, fixed to definite times, until 
 about the end of the second or the be- 
 ginning of the third century ; and it was 
 in this case the peculiarity of one coun- 
 try, where particular local causes may 
 have introduced such an arrangement ear- 
 lier than in other regions. This country 
 was in fact exactly Greece, where, from 
 the time of the Achaic league, the system 
 of confederation had maintained itself; 
 and as Christianity is able to connect 
 itself with all the peculiarities of a peo- 
 ple, provided they contain nothing immo- 
 ral, and entering into them, to take itself 
 a peculiar form resembling them, so also 
 it might easily happen, that here the civil 
 federal spirit, which already existed, work- 
 ed upon the ecclesiastical catholic spirit, 
 and gave it earlier than in other regions a 
 tolerably good form, so that out of the 
 representative assemblies of the civil com- 
 munities, (the Amphictyonic councils,) 
 were formed the representative assemblies 
 
 * We may see from Cyprian, Ep. iii. (vii. ed. 
 Ox.) and Euseb. iv. 23, how necessary it was to 
 guard against counterfeits of these letters. 
 
 119 
 
 of the ecclesiastical communities, (i. e. 
 the provincial synods.) As the Chris- 
 tians, in the consciousness that they are 
 nothing, and can do nothing, without the 
 Spirit from above, were accustomed to 
 begin all important business with prayer, 
 they prepared themselves here also for 
 their general deliberations by common 
 prayer, at the opening of those assemblies 
 to Him, who has promised that He will en- 
 lighten and guide, by his Spirit, those who 
 believe in Him, if they will give them- 
 selves up to Him wholly, and that He will 
 be amongst them, where they are gathered 
 together in his name.* 
 
 It appears that this regular institution 
 met at first with opposition as an inno- 
 vation, so that Tertullian felt himself 
 called upon to stand up in its defence.! 
 Nevertheless, the ruling spirit of the 
 Church decided for this institution, and 
 down to the middle of the third century, 
 the annual provincial synods appear to 
 have been general in the Church, if we may 
 draw this conclusion from the tact, that we 
 find them prevalent, at the same time, in 
 parts of the Church as far distant from each 
 other as North Africa and Cappadocia.J 
 
 These provincial synods might certainly 
 become very useful for the Churches, and, 
 in many respects, they did become so. 
 By means of a general deliberation, the 
 views of individuals might mutually be 
 enlarged and corrected ; wants, abuses, 
 and necessary reforms, might thus more 
 easily be mutually communicated, and be 
 deliberated on in many different points of 
 view, and the experience of every indivi- 
 dual, by being communicated, might be 
 made useful to all. Certainly, men had 
 every right to trust that Christ would be 
 among them, according to his promise, 
 and would lead those, who were assem- 
 bled in his name^ by his Spirit. Certainly, 
 it was neither enthusiasm nor hierarchical 
 presumption, if the deputies collected to- 
 gether to consult upon the affairs of their 
 Churches, and the pastors of these 
 Churches, hoped that a higher Spirit than 
 
 * The following passage is from Tertullian, in a 
 book written at the beginning of the third century, 
 De Jejuniis, c. xiii. " Auguntur per Gra!cias ilia cer- 
 tis in locis concilia, per quse cl altiora qua^que in 
 commune tractantur et ipsa irprnesentatio totius 
 nominis Christian! magna vcncratione celebratur." 
 
 j Ista solemnia, quibus tunc proesens palroci- 
 natus est sermo. 
 
 i Cyprian, Ex. xl., and Firmilianus of Cffisa- 
 rea, in Cappadocia, in Cyprian, Ep. Ixxv. " Ne- 
 cessario apud nos fit, ut per singulos annos 
 seniores et prtepositi in unum conveniamus, ad 
 disponenda ea, quae curse nostrjE commissa sunt." 
 
120 
 
 OUTWARD AND INWARD UNITY CONFUSED. 
 
 that of man by His illumination, would 
 show them wliat they could never find 
 by their own reason, whose insufficiency 
 thev felt deeply, if it were left to itself. 
 It would far rather have been a proud 
 self-confidence, had they been so little 
 acquainted with the shallowness of their 
 own heart, the poverty of human reason, 
 and the self-deceits of human wisdom, as 
 to expect that, without the influence of 
 that higher Spirit of holiness and truth, 
 tliey could provide sufficiently for the ad- 
 vantage of their Churches. 
 
 But this confidence, in itself just and 
 salutary, took a false and destructive turn, 
 when it was not constantly accompanied 
 bv the spirit of humility and self-watch- 
 fulness, with fear and trembling ; when 
 men were not constantly mindful of the 
 important condition under which alone 
 man could hope to share in the fulfilment 
 of that promise, in that Divine illumina- 
 tion and guidance — the condition, that 
 they were really assembled in the name 
 of Christ, in lively faith in Him, and 
 honest devotion to Him, and prepared to 
 sacrifice their own wills ; and when peo- 
 ple gave themselves up to the fancy, that 
 such an assembly, whatever might be the 
 hearts of those who were assembled, had 
 unalienable claims to the illumination of 
 the Holy Spirit ; for then, in the confu- 
 sion and the intermixture of human and 
 Divine, men were abandoned to every 
 kind of self-delusion, and the formula, 
 '' by the suggestion of the Holy Spirit," 
 (Spirito sancto suggerente) might become 
 a pretence and sanction for all the sug- 
 gestions of man's own will. 
 
 And further, the provincial synods 
 would necessarily become prejudicial to 
 the progress of the Churches, if, instead 
 of providing for the advantage of the 
 Churches according to the changing wants 
 of each period, they wished to lay down 
 unchanging laws in changeable things. 
 Evil was it at last, tliat die participation 
 of the Churches [Gemeinden] was entirely 
 excluded from tlicse synods, that at length 
 the bishops alone decided every thing in 
 them, and that their power, by means of 
 their connection with each other in these 
 synods, was constantly on the increase. 
 
 As tlie provincial synods were also ac- 
 customed to communicate their resolu- 
 tions to distant bishops, in weighty mat- 
 ters of general concernment, they were 
 serviceable, at the same time, towards 
 setting distant parts of the Church in con- 
 nection with each other, and maintaining 
 that connection. 
 
 (3.) The Union of the lohole Church into 
 one whole, closely bound together in all its 
 parts — The external Unity of the Rornisk 
 Church. 
 
 Thus, from the obscure grain of mus- 
 tard-seed, sown in the world's field, did 
 the tree proceed, which increased above 
 all the produce of the earth, and its 
 branches extended themselves in all direc- 
 tions; namely, this great whole of the 
 Catholic Church, which in all its scattered 
 parts was still firmly united, and which, 
 in its origin, its development, and its con- 
 stitution, was utterly different from all 
 mere human institutions. The conscious- 
 ness of being a member of such a body, 
 victorious over every opposition of earthly 
 power, and destined for eternity, must 
 have been more lively and more powerful 
 in those who, having, in their earlier 
 years of heathenism, known no bonds of 
 union except those of a political and se- 
 cular nature, had been blessed with no 
 feelings of such a moral and spiritual 
 bond of unity, which bound mankind 
 together, as all members of the same hea- 
 venly community. Therefore, must this 
 feeling have been stronger and more lofty, 
 when all powers from without sought in 
 vain to tear this bond in sunder. Justly 
 might this unity, which revealed itself 
 outwardly, this close bond of outward 
 connection, be of great importance to 
 Christians, as the symbol of that higher 
 life, by the participation in which all 
 Christians were to be united together, as 
 the revelation of the unity of the king- 
 dom of God. In the outward communion 
 of the Church they perceived the blessing 
 of the inward communion of the invisi- 
 ble kingdom of God, and they struggled 
 for the maintenance of that unity, partly 
 against the idealistic sects, who tlireatened 
 to tear in sunder tlie inward bond of reli- 
 gious communion, the bond of faitli, to 
 introduce also into the Christian Church 
 the old division between a religion for 
 those in a high state of cultivation and a 
 religion for the people (wio-TK a»cl a^wo-j?,) 
 and, as Clement of Alexandria justly ac- 
 cused them, to distract the one Church, 
 and divide it into a multitude of theoso- 
 phic schools;* and partly against those 
 who, blinded by self-will or passion, 
 founded divisions on mere outward causes, 
 while they agreed in faith with the rest. 
 
 But this polemical spirit, though it pro- 
 ceeded from a lively Christian feeling, 
 
 * The words of Clement (Str. vii. 755,) arc, 
 
OUTWARD AND INWARD UNITY CONFUSED. 
 
 which deeply felt the blessing of religious 
 communion, this inward life in the 
 Church, though it proceeded from a truly 
 Christian source of warmth, was apt to 
 seduce men into the opposite extreme 
 of overprising the external unity of the 
 Church, and of overprising the existing 
 forms in the Church, with which that 
 unity was combined. As men in the 
 churchly life, as long as it proceeded from 
 inward feelings of Christianity, and was 
 still animated and penetrated by them, 
 and ere it had been benumbed in dead 
 forms, became conscious of this intimate 
 connection between the visible and the in- 
 visible Church ; as men, in the commu- 
 nion of this visible Church, felt deeply 
 the blessing of communion with the Re- 
 deemer and with the whole body of saints, 
 which receives its Divine living powers 
 from Him, its head, and spreads them 
 among its individual members ; it was 
 more likely on that account, in this po- 
 lemical contrast, that they should be led 
 away, so as too closely to interweave 
 in idea also, that which had been thus 
 joined and melted together in the experi- 
 ence and the feelings of every one, and 
 also to lay it down in theory, that it was 
 bound together in a necessary and indis- 
 soluble union. And thus then arose the 
 confusion between the visible and the in- 
 visible Church, the confusion of the in- 
 ward union of the invisible Church, an 
 imion of spirit which consists in faith and 
 love, with the outward unity of the visible 
 Church, which is dependent on certain 
 and outward forms. As these forms of 
 the Church were the instruments through 
 which, by means of the feelings engen- 
 dered on these forms, men had received 
 the blessing of communion with the in- 
 visible Head of the Church, they were 
 more easily induced too closely to join 
 together form and essentials, the vessel 
 of clay and the inestimable heavenly 
 treasure, to attribute too much to the 
 earthly form, and to consider a subjec- 
 tive union, in the life and hearts of in- 
 dividuals, as an objective and necessary 
 one. The principle would form itself in 
 the following mode : the external Church, 
 which exists in this visible outward form, 
 is, with all these outward forms, a Divine 
 institution ; we cannot make a distinction 
 here between human and Divine; under 
 this form has the Church received Divine 
 things from Christ, and only under this 
 form does she communicate them, and he 
 alone can receive them who receives them 
 from her in this outward form. The in- 
 16 
 
 121 
 
 visible Church, the kingdom of God, is 
 represented in this outward form ; and in- 
 ward communion with that invisible 
 Church, as well as the participation of all 
 her advantages, is necessarily connected 
 with outward communion with this ex- 
 ternal Church, which exists in these 
 forms. 
 
 The confusion between the views of 
 the Old and those of the New Testament 
 on the theocracy, which we remarked 
 above in the notions of the priesthood, 
 also made its appearance again here. As 
 in the Old Testament, the establishment 
 and the extension of tlie theocracy Avas 
 necessarily connected with many outward 
 earthly things, which vvere only shadows 
 and figures of that which was to appear 
 in all its reality in Christianity, men 
 Would have it, that the theocracy of the 
 New Testament must also depend for its 
 establishment and propagation on similar 
 visible and earthly things ; as the theoc- 
 racy of the Old Testament was necessarily 
 joined with a definite outward and visible 
 priesthood, so also they would have it, that 
 that of the New Testament was also ne- 
 cessarily joined with an outward priest- 
 hood of the same sort, divinely founded 
 also. Men forgot that tlie difference be- 
 tween the Church of Christ and the the- 
 ocracy in the Old Testament, did not 
 merely consist in the difference of out- 
 ward signs and forms, but tliat there was 
 a far more important distinction in the re- 
 lation of the outward to the inward, of 
 earthly things to heavenly and spiritual 
 things. This is a most essential error, 
 and has been the source of many other 
 errors, with consequence of practical im- 
 portance, which afterwards gradually un- 
 folded themselves. 
 
 We find this confusion between the 
 conception of the invisible and the visible 
 Church, and the doctrine which M'as de- 
 duced from it, of an outward Church 
 which could alone confer salvation, and 
 hence of a necessary outward unity of 
 that Church, first most decidedly pro- 
 nounced and carried through most logic- 
 ally, in the remarkable book on the unity 
 of the Church, (de unitate ecclesia;,') which 
 Cyprian, the bishop of Carthage, wrote 
 after the middle of the third century, in 
 the midst of the divisions with which he 
 had to contend. This book contains a 
 striking mixture of falsehood and truth. 
 If we understand what Cyprian says, as 
 referring to the communion of a higher 
 life, to the necessary inward union with 
 1 the one divuie source of life in Christ, 
 
CYPRIAN DE tNITATE. 
 
 122 
 
 from which alone true life can flow forth 
 on all the members of the communion of 
 saints, and to the necessary communion 
 between this body and their head, through 
 llie direction of the heart in faith and 
 feelings : — if we introduce into the con- 
 clusions of Cyprian, the difference be- 
 tween a visible and an invisible Church, 
 between the inward unity of the kingdom 
 of God, and tiie outward unity of a visible 
 Church ; between an inward communion 
 witli the Church of the redeemed, and an 
 outward connection with a certain out- j 
 ward form, under which that Church, 
 whose foundations are in the inward 
 heart, in faith and in love, appears ; — then, 
 indeed, we shall find much truth in what 
 he says against a proud and self-seeking 
 spirit, whicli struggles to get free from its 
 connection with the one kingdom of God, 
 wliose licad, foundation, and centre-point, 
 is Christ, and is anxious to set itself up 
 as something independent. "Only en- 
 deavour," says Cyprian, "to free the 
 sunbeam from the sun ! the unity of light 
 Avill not be broken. Break the branch 
 from the tree, and it can bear no fruit ! 
 Dissever the stream from the source, and 
 it dries up! Thus also the Church, 
 beamed upon by the light of the Lord, 
 extends its beams over all the world, but 
 it is still only one light, which spreads 
 itself into all directions ; from the bosom 
 of that Church are we all born, nourished 
 by her milk, and animated by her spirit. 
 That which is torn asunder from the ori- 
 ginal stem, can neither breathe, nor live 
 separate and independent."* 1'his is cer- 
 tainly all just enough, if we understand by 
 that original whole, in connection with 
 which alone each individual can thrive, 
 the invisible Church of the redeemed 
 under their invisible head, Christ; if we 
 attribute that unity only to spiritual com- 
 munion, and that separation only to a 
 separation in heart ; but the fundamental 
 error, by which every thing which is 
 really true in itself received a false appli- 
 cation, was the transference of these 
 notions from all this to an external 
 Church, appearing under distinct outward 
 forms, and necessarily dependent on them ; 
 a Church, which had maintained itself 
 from the time of the apostles, under its 
 existing constitution, by means of the 
 bishops, its pillars, the successors of the 
 apostles, and the heirs of the power, 
 
 • [See Cyprian, p. 108, ed. Fell. Thia is the 
 substance of a part of Cyprian's treatise, hut not 
 a literal translation of any part of it. — H. J. R.] 
 
 which had been delivered to the apostles. 
 Christ, according to this view, had im- 
 parted to the apostles, and the apostles, by 
 ordination, had imparted to the bishops, 
 the power of the Holy Ghost ; by means 
 of this external transmission, the power 
 of the Holy Ghost, by which alone all 
 religious acts can receive their true effi- 
 ciency, was shed abroad and preserved 
 to all times through the succession of 
 bishops. Thus by this living and con- 
 stantly progressing organization of the 
 Church, was maintained that Divine life, 
 which is imparted by this intermediate 
 step from the head to all the members 
 that remain in union with this organiza- 
 tion ; and he who cuts himself oft" from 
 outward communion with this outward 
 organization, shuts himself out from that 
 Divine life and from the way to salvation. 
 N o one can, as an isolated individual, by 
 faith in the Redeemer, receive a share in 
 the Divine life, which proceeds from Him ; 
 no one can, by this faith alone, secure for 
 himself all the advantages of the kingdom 
 of God, but to all this man can alone 
 attain by the instrumentality of the Catho- 
 lic Church, which has been preserved by 
 the succession of bishops. 
 
 Now those who conceived the spirit 
 of the New Testament with a more un- 
 prejudiced and purer mind, appealed with 
 justice against this confusion of the visi- 
 ble and the invisible Church, to the pro- 
 mise of our Saviour, that, "where two or 
 three are gathered together in his name, 
 there is he in the midst of them :" Matt, 
 xviii. 20 ; and they contended that every 
 union of the really faithful, under what- 
 soever fonn it might be, was a true 
 Church. But Cyprian answers this objec- 
 tion by saying, that Christ has at the same 
 time set forth harmony among the faithful, 
 the unity of hearts in love, as the condition 
 on which the fulfilment of this promise 
 rests. He, therefore, concludes," How can 
 such a one be in harmony with any one 
 when he is not in harmony with the body 
 of the Church itself, and with the whole 
 host of the brethren } How can two or 
 tliree be gathered together in the name 
 of Christ, if they are severed Irom Clirist 
 and Irom his Gospel .'" Taken by itself, 
 undoubtedly, the remark is just, tliat the 
 being together in the name of Christ in- 
 cludes alike the communion of brotherly 
 love and the communion of faith. He 
 might also justly say, that those only, in 
 wliom this mark was present, could apply 
 this proniise to themselves, and he might 
 justly oppose the application of it to those 
 
SALVATION EXCLUSIVELY IN THE CHURCH. 
 
 123 
 
 who, impelled by a self-seeking and an 
 unkindly qjirit, had founded divisions in 
 the Church. But he was wrong also 
 here, because he was confounding cause 
 and effect; these separatists were not ex- 
 cluded from the fulfilment of that promise, 
 because they had departed from outward 
 communion with the great body of the 
 Church; not through this outward sepa- 
 ration, but through the feeling from which 
 their outward separation had proceeded : 
 yes ! through that feeling were they ex- 
 cluded from inward communion with 
 Christ, and from his kingdom, even before 
 they had outwardly separated from the 
 visible Church. And, therefore, none 
 but the Judge who can search the inward 
 heart, could decide whether such persons 
 were excluded from the kingdom of God 
 by their evil heart ; but that outward act 
 was always a fallacious token to deter- 
 mine that such an evil heart existed. As 
 the visible Church, considered in itself 
 alone, is not the spotless Church of 
 saints, and always bears many marks of 
 the old and sinful nature upon her, which 
 may have led men to mistake the charac- 
 ter really belonging to her ; therefore, 
 many may have been actuated by inno- 
 cent motives, to quit a Church in which 
 they could not recognise the Church of 
 the saints. There might be right and 
 wrong on both sides, and misunderstand- 
 ings on both sides, and neither party was, 
 therefore, justified in judging the other, 
 and instantly to condemn on account of 
 outward acts, which may have proceeded 
 out of very different motives. 
 
 As a false principle, by means of the 
 deductions which develope themselves 
 from it, is the source of many errors, so 
 the error of a necessary visible unity of 
 the Church led to the erroneous idea of 
 a necessary outward representation of this I 
 unity. This notion, in its first germ I 
 apparently very indistinct, and of little 
 signification, became, as it was further 
 unfolded, full of important consequences. 
 Such a representation of the unity of 
 the Church, men found at first in the re- 
 lation of St. Peter to the other apostles, 
 a conclusion to which an unprejudiced 
 consideration of history and Scripture 
 could not give rise. No trace is there 
 found of any pre-eminence assigned to 
 St. Peter over the other aposdes, and such 
 pre-eminence would have been contrary 
 to the brotherly relation, in which the 
 apostles stood to each other, and to the 
 spirit of the economy of the New Testa- 
 ment, in which all, looking only to one 
 
 Guide and one Master, were to serve each 
 other mutually. Such worldly thoughts 
 of grandeur, proceeding from carnal pride, 
 had, indeed, scattered their seeds into the 
 breasts of the apostles, but it was before 
 they had been born again of the Spirit ; 
 but how completely did their Divine 
 Master condemn such thoughts; how 
 expressly did He show them that they 
 should speak of nothing like pre-emi- 
 nence, but only of a contest of humility, 
 of self-denial, and mutual service. With 
 Him, none should make himself the first, 
 but each the least among them all. Luke 
 xxii. 24. St. Peter had his own peculiar 
 charisma; He who looks into man's in- 
 most lieart, had recognised in him from 
 the very beginning the future rock of 
 faith : He brought into the service of the 
 holiest things the fiery disposition of St. 
 Peter, and his thorough going activity, 
 qualities we must avow, which first re- 
 quired the influence of the Spirit from on 
 high to change their carnal turn into a 
 spiritual, to purify and to ennoble them. 
 Through these means, Peter might be- 
 come, in a peculiar degree, an instrument 
 capable of furthering the kingdom of God ; 
 after becoming, through that purification 
 of his earthly fire of disposition, the rock 
 of faith and power, he was to strengthen 
 and confirm the weaker brethren. Luke 
 xxii. 32. But, for all this, he had no 
 pre-eminence above the rest of the apos- 
 tles, the others had again other charis- 
 mata, by which they would be enabled to 
 eflect what his graces might be unfitted 
 for. When Christ called Peter the Rock 
 on which He would build his Church, 
 (Matth. xvi. 18,) this significant declara- 
 tion did not refer to any station among the 
 aposdes, peculiarly assigned to St. Peter, 
 nor on the person of St. Peter alone, 
 but on St. Peter, as the real and lively 
 confessor of faith in Jesus, as our Mes- 
 siah, the Son of the living God, — that 
 faith, which is the inviolably firm founda- 
 tion of a Church, against which even the 
 gates of hell shall not prevail. All who 
 have received this lliith not merely in the 
 letter by human teaching, which can never 
 give' such a faith, but in spirit and in 
 truth through the inward revelation of the 
 heavenly Father, therefore become, like 
 St. Peter, rocks and pillars of the Church 
 of Christ, which all the powers of hell 
 shall never conquer. To all such, in the 
 person of St. Peter, as Tertullian and 
 Origen have well remarked, is this word 
 of the Lord spoken. The same spiritual 
 power which Christ bestows in this place 
 
124 CATHEDRA PETRI. 
 
 on St. Peter, He attributes in the same | to rest upon in individual passages, which 
 manner to the rest of the apostles in other | they dissevered from the historical and 
 i\Iatt. xviii. 18. John xx. 22. j logical context, and which they made to 
 in"tliie conversation which our Saviour i mean every thing, which the mere words, 
 
 held with this apostle after the resurrec- 
 tion, (John xxi. 15,) He certainly had no 
 intention of investing him with any pre- 
 eminence over the rest; but it was by far 
 rallier his intention, to try a mild reproof 
 of St. Peter's former self-confidence, 
 whicli his subsequent conduct had con- 
 tradicted and shown to be unfounded, to 
 exhort him to faithfulness in his calling, 
 •which was no other than that of the rest 
 of the apostles, and, indeed, of all 
 preachers of the Gospel. As before, St. 
 Peter, hurried on by his impetuous tem- 
 per, in rash self-confidence, without rightly 
 Avcighing the import of his words, had 
 promised, that even if all the rest should 
 yield to the fear of man, yet he would 
 remain true to his Lord, and willingly give 
 up his life for him, (John xiii. 37. Matt. 
 xxvi. 35,) our Lord here reminds him, in 
 words of mild reproof, but full of love, 
 of this promise, which, because it had not 
 proceeded from a spirit of humility had 
 come to shame : " Sayest thou still," He 
 says to him, " that thou lovest me more 
 than these thy fellow-disciples ?" And 
 St. Peter, now brought to a knowledge of 
 himself, and to a spirit of humility, is in 
 a totally diflerent mood, and far from mea- 
 suring himself with others, say.s, with a 
 
 taken by themselves, could possibly sig- 
 nify. So did it here happen, that when 
 once the idea of a necessary visible unity 
 of the Church had been formed, an idea, 
 from which the notion of a visible repre- 
 sentation of this unity in some definite 
 spot in the Church could easily develope 
 itself, this latter notion found support and 
 foundation in a misunderstanding of the 
 passages relating to St. Peter. 
 
 Cyprian justly remarks, in his book on 
 the Unity of the Church, that all the apos- 
 tles had received from Christ the same 
 dignity and power as St. Peter ; but yet, 
 in one place, thought he, Christ imparts 
 this power especially to St. Peter; he 
 says in particular of him, that He will 
 build his Church on him ; He commits 
 the care of his sheep to him in particular, 
 to show how the development of the 
 Church and of the priesthood should pro- 
 ceed from one point, and to point atten- 
 tion to the unity of the Church and of 
 the episcopal power. The apostle Peter 
 is here the representative of the one 
 Church, remaining steadfast in her unity, 
 which proceeded from a Divine founda- 
 tion, and of the one episcopal power, a 
 power which, although it be diffused 
 among many organs, still is, and remains 
 
 trembling spirit, " Oh! thou that knowest \ only one in its origin and nature. And 
 the heart, thou knowest how, notwith- [ therefore, he who departs from outward 
 standing that momentary fall, my heart communion with the one visible, catholic 
 burns with love to thee!" Our Saviour I Church, tears himself away from that re- 
 now points out to him, how this love must j presentation of the unity of the Cliurch, 
 show itself in actively fulfilling the duties which was annexed, by Divine appoint- 
 of his calling, and what proof of his love i ment, to the person of St. Peter. How 
 he must one day be ready to give. This | then can any one expect to remain a 
 love must show itself in a faithful care of i member of the Church of Christ, while 
 the souls of men, who are to be brought, i he quits the Cathedra Petri, on whom 
 by the preaching of the Gospel, to the I the Church is founded.* 
 
 one true common Shepherd,* who alone 
 
 But although we should agree to re- 
 
 can satisfy all tlieir wants. He who, ! cognise the apostle Peter as the represen- 
 when his hour of suffering was at hand, j tative of the unity of the Church, it by no 
 deserted his Lord, was, through love to I means follows that a similar representative 
 
 Him, to receive the power as a true shep- 
 herd of human souls, after the example 
 of Christ, to sacrifice his life in the call- 
 ing of a preaclier of the Gospel. 
 
 History, and the interpretation of Scrip- 
 ture, therefore, never could have given 
 rise to the notion of an apostolic primacy 
 of St. Peter, imlcss, as often happens, men 
 had .sot out from preconceived ideas, and 
 souglit and found a foundation for them 
 
 * See the parable in John x. 
 
 must exist in all the ages of the Church. 
 It follows still less, that this representa- 
 tive must necessarily be in connection 
 
 * One trace of this method of explaining the 
 pxpressions relating to St. Peter, is found in Ter- 
 tullian, Pncscript. Hmret. c. xxii. This is a proof 
 of the non-Montanistic spirit of that work, because, 
 on the contrary, in his work, de Pudicitia, where 
 he speaks as a Montanist, he apphcs these pas- 
 sages to tlve person of St. Peter only as an " homo 
 spiritali;;," and makes them also applicable to all 
 who were " spiritales," as well as St. Peter. 
 
ASSUMPTION OP ROMISH BISHOPS. 
 
 125 
 
 with the Romish Church; for although 
 the tradition that St. Peter visited tlie 
 Church at Rome has never been called in 
 question on any sufficient grounds, yet it 
 is quite certain that he did not found this 
 Church, and that he had never been in any 
 particular manner its president. This 
 Church can as little be called the Cathe- 
 dra Petri, as the Cathedra Pauli. Irenajus 
 and Tertullian are aware that St. Peter 
 and St. Paul founded this Church and 
 gave it a bishop, and that they ennobled 
 it by making it the scene of their martyr- 
 dom ; but they were quite ignorant of any 
 pre-eminence of the Romish Church over 
 other " sedes apostolicae," as the Cathe- 
 dra Petri. Hence, as the idea of the out- 
 ward unity of the Church might generate 
 that of an outward representative of that 
 unity, so also the conception of this re- 
 presentative, in the person of the Apostle 
 Peter, might easily receive such an appli- 
 cation, as if such a representative of the 
 outward unity of the Church in one defi- 
 nite spot in the Church, essentially be- 
 longed to the outward unity of the Church, 
 and to all periods. And as most of the 
 Western Churches were now accustomed 
 to consider the Church of Rome as their 
 mother-Church, as the "ecclesia apos- 
 tolica," to whose authority they specially 
 appealed ; as they were accustomed to 
 call St. Peter the founder of the Romish 
 Church, and to quote the tradition of that 
 Church as proceeding from him ; as Rome 
 was then the seat of the political unity of 
 dominion ; it came to pass, that men be- 
 came accustomed to look upon the Church 
 of Rome as the Cathedra Petri, and to 
 transfer what Avas usually said of St. 
 Peter, as the representative of the unity 
 of the Church, to this Cathedra Petri. In 
 Cyprian we find this connection of ideas 
 already thus formed. We need not refer 
 to the passage in the book de Unitate Ec- 
 clesiae, in which the reading is doubtful ■* 
 
 * Even if the suspected words in the following 
 passage, which are here inclosed in brackets, are 
 genuine : " Qui ecclesiie renititur et resistit, [qui 
 cathcdram Petri, super quern fundata est ecclesia, 
 deserit,] in ecclesia se esse confiditi:" we have 
 no right immediately to conclude that he was here 
 directly thinking of the cathedra Petri in the 
 Church of Rome, as existing in his time, but ac- 
 cording to the context, the clauses, " ecclesis re- 
 niti," and " cathedram Petri deserere," would be by 
 far better taken in apposition, so as to make him 
 say, " He who breaks loose from the one Church, 
 invades and injures the representation of the unity 
 of the Church, bound up in the person of St. Peter 
 by Christ himself. The whole apostolical and 
 episcopal power and might, although it b set forth 
 
 in a passage beyond all controversy, (Ep. 
 Iv. ad Cornel. Ep. lix. ed. Ox.,) he calls 
 the Church of Rome " Petri cathedra, ec- 
 clesia principalis, unde unitas sacerdotalis 
 exorta est." 
 
 It must be confessed that this idea was 
 at first very confused and indefinite, but 
 after the false principle had once been ad- 
 mitted and firmly rooted, it might be just 
 so much the more introduced into such 
 an indefinite representation, and unfold 
 itself the better therefrom. This idea ap- 
 pears early to have obtained a firm and 
 definite form in the minds of the bishops 
 of Rome, and Roman ambition also ap- 
 pears early to have mingled itself with 
 ecclesiastical matters, and to have come 
 forward in a spiritual garb. 
 
 We observe that already, in early times, 
 there were traces in the Romish bishops 
 of an assumption, that a peculiarly deci- 
 sive authority was due to them, as the 
 successors of St. Peter, in Church contro- 
 versies, and that the " cathedra Petri" was 
 to have a prevailing sway before all other 
 " ecclesise apostolicae," as the source of 
 apostolical tradition. The Romish bishop 
 Victor, gave a specimen of this assump- 
 tion, when he excommunicated the 
 Churches of Asia Minor, about A. D. 190, 
 in consequence of a trifling dispute about 
 a mere external point.* In the Montanis- 
 tic writings of Tertullian, we find that 
 the Romish bishops had already issued 
 peremptory edicts in ecclesiastical matters, 
 and wished to make themselves considered 
 as "episcopi episcoporum,"! and that 
 they were in the habit of appealing to the 
 authority of their "antecessores."| 
 
 The Romish bishop Stephanus, allowed 
 himself, after the middle of the second 
 century, to be carried away by the same 
 spirit of hierarchial encroachment as his 
 predecessor Victor, and in a controversy 
 of no importance,§ he also was desirous 
 
 in many different organs, is represented as one, in 
 the spiritual power given by our Lord to St. Peter. 
 To renounce obedience to the whole cpiscopatus, 
 or the cathedra of all the bishops, considered as one 
 whole — the Cathedra Petri — is here the meaning of 
 the phrase to assault or invade the Cathedra Petri. 
 
 * A controversy about the time of celebrating 
 Easter, which we shall have to mention in its pro- 
 per place. 
 
 f Tertullian, do Pedicitia, c. 1. "Audio, edic- 
 tum esse propositum et quidem peremptorium ; 
 pontifex scilicet maximus, quod est episcopus epis- 
 coporum, edicit." 
 
 + Tertull. de Virgg. Velandis. 
 
 § The controversy, which we shall also have to 
 treat of in another place, about the validity of bap- 
 tism administered by heretics. 
 L 2 
 
126 
 
 Cyprian's declarations and the Spanish bishops. 
 
 of imposing the tradition of the Romish 
 Churrh as an invariable and decisive rule 
 for all other Churches; and he excom- 
 municated the Churches of Asia Minor 
 and Africa, which would not submit to 
 this rule.* 
 
 But it was far from being the case, that 
 these assumptions of the Church of Rome 
 had penetrated the whole body of Chris- 
 tians : in the first mentioned controversy, 
 the Churches of Asia Minor, without be- 
 ing led into even a momentary error by the 
 high language of a Victor, declared their 
 principles, and they opposed the tradition 
 of the Church of Rome by those of their 
 " sedes apostolicse." Irenasus, the bishop 
 of Lyons, in a letter to the Romish bishop 
 Victor, expressly blames his unchristian 
 arrogance, although in the thing itself, 
 ■which was the point in dispute, he agreed 
 with hini. He disapproved of the attempt 
 of Victor to impose one form of churchly 
 life upon all Churches ; he declared that 
 nothing was needed but agreement in faith 
 and love, and that this, so far from being 
 injured by differences in outward things, 
 ■would only shine forth more clearly 
 through these very differences, and he 
 recognised the right of all Churches freely 
 and independently to follow their ancient 
 customs in such matters. Although 
 Cyprian, as we have remarked above, con- 
 sidered the Romish Church as really the 
 " cathedra Petri," and the representation 
 of this outward unity of the Church, he 
 was, nevertheless, far from deducing from 
 these grounds that a right of decision, in 
 controverted Church matters, belonged to 
 this Church. On the contrary, he firmly 
 and powerfully maintained the indepen- 
 dence of individual bishops in the admin- 
 istration of their Churches after their own 
 principles, and he carried through what he 
 acknowledged as right, even against the 
 opposition of the Romish Church. In the 
 beginning of the second of those contro- 
 versies to which we have alluded, when 
 he communicated the principles of the 
 North African Church, which he well 
 knew were at variance with the usage of 
 the Romish, to Stephanus, the bishop of 
 Rome, he wrote to him in the name of a 
 synod, as a college, which considered 
 itself quite equal in dignity and rights, 
 would do to another ; and he said, " We 
 have communicated these things to you, 
 dearest brotlier, in virtue of our common 
 dignity and in sincere love, for we trust 
 
 • Kihil iiinovclur, nisi quod tradituin est. He 
 gave out, "so succfissioncm cathedram Petri ha- 
 bere." Cypr. Ep. Ixxiv. Ixxv. 
 
 j that, out of your own religion and faith, 
 those things will be well pleasing to you 
 which are agreeable to religion and truth. 
 We are, however, aware that some men 
 are unwilling to lay aside what they have 
 once taken up, and are unwilling to change 
 their principles, but that they retain some 
 peculiarities of their own, without break- 
 ing the bond of peace and concord which 
 binds them to their colleagues. In such 
 matters we put no restraint on any man, 
 nor do we lay down any law, since every 
 president of a Church has tlie use of his 
 freewill in the administration of his 
 Church, for which he will hereafter have 
 to give an account only to the Lord."* 
 
 After the violent declarations of the 
 Romish bishop had been delivered, he 
 proclaim'ed the same principle before an 
 assembly of more than eighty bishops of 
 Northern Africa, when he required of each 
 of them to give his sentiments freely, for 
 no one should make himself a bishop over 
 the bishops. When Stephanus appealed 
 to the authority of the ancient Romish 
 tradition, and s])oke against innovations ; 
 Cyprian said in reply,t that it was far 
 rather Stephanus, who made innovations, 
 and fell away from the unity of the Church. 
 " Whence, then, is that tradition ? Is it 
 deduced from the words of the Lord, and 
 from the authority of the Gospels, or from 
 the doctrine and the epistles of the apos- 
 tles ? Custom, which has crept in with 
 some people, must not prevent truth from 
 prevailing and triumphing, for custom 
 without truth is nothing but inveterate [or 
 antiquated] error." He very properly 
 remarks, that it is by no means beneath 
 the dignity of the Romish bishop, any 
 more than of any other, to allow himself 
 to be set right where he has gone wrong. 
 " For the bishop must not only teach^ but 
 also ham, for he surely teaches best, who 
 is daily learning something, and advancing 
 by learning what is best." Firmilianus, 
 the bishop of Cssarea, in Cappadocia, in 
 testifying his agreement with Cyprian, 
 (Ep. Ixxv.) expressed himself also very 
 strongly against the unchristian conduct 
 of Stephanus, when this latter forbade the 
 Romish Church to receive the deputies of 
 the North African Synod into their houses. 
 He accuses him, while he boasts of being 
 
 * Pro communi honorc et pro simplici. dilec- 
 
 tionc Qua in re ncc nos 
 
 vim cuiquam facimus aut legem damus, quando 
 habeat in ecclcia; administratione voluntatis sua; ar- 
 bitrium liberum unusquiffique pra^positus, rationem 
 actus sui Domino redditurus. Cyprian. Ep. bcxii. 
 
 ■f Ep, Ixxiv. ad Pompej. 
 
MIXTURE OF GENUINE AND FALSE CHRISTIANS. 
 
 12T 
 
 the successor of St. Peter, on whom the 
 unity of the Church was built, of destroy- 
 ing the unity of the Church, by his un- 
 charitable and ambitious conduct. He 
 opposes the tradition of other old Churches 
 as well as dogmatical arguments, to the 
 tradition of the Romish Cliurch, which 
 had been brought forward, and in order 
 to show that the Romans did not observe 
 the apostolical traditions in all things, he 
 observes that, in many Church matters, 
 they departed from the customs of the 
 Church of Jerusalem and other old apos- 
 tolical Churches, but that men had not 
 thought it worth while to disturb the unity 
 and the peace of the Catholic Church on 
 account of these differences.* 
 
 Cyprian had already shown, on a for- 
 mer occasion of a different kind, how far 
 he was from attributing a supreme au- 
 thority in the Church to the bishop of 
 Rome, and from supporting him in the 
 exercise of it. Two Spanish bishops, 
 Basilides and Martialis, had been deposed 
 from their office by the synod, as libella- 
 ticif and on account of other faults, and 
 they had themselves acknowledged the 
 validity of the sentence. The provincial 
 bishops, having convoked the Church 
 over which Basilides had presided, had 
 already chosen another in his place. But 
 the two deposed bishops went to Stepha- 
 nus, the bishop of Rome, and he, assum- 
 ing to himself the authority of a superior 
 court, reversed the sentence of the Spa- 
 nish Church, and replaced both of them in 
 their office; whether it was that he found 
 the grounds of justification, which they 
 alleged, satisfactory, or whether it was 
 the custom at that time in the Romish 
 Church, to take the part of those who 
 appealed to it. A contest now arose in 
 Spain, whether the first sentence or the 
 reversal should be valid, and an appeal 
 was made to the North African Church, 
 to ascertain their sentiments. The North 
 African synod, at Carthage, in whose name 
 Cyprian answered, had no hesitation in 
 declaring the sentence of the Romish 
 bishop invalid, and they strongly charged 
 the Spanish synod not to continue the 
 two unworthy bishops in their offices. 
 Cyprian did not enter into the question 
 whether the Romish bishop had any riglit 
 to make any such a judicial inquiry, but 
 he declared without any further discus- 
 sion that this unjust sentence, founded on 
 
 * Eos autem qui Romre sunt, non ea in omni- 
 bus observaie, qua; sunt ali orignic tradita, ctfrus- 
 tra apostolorum auctoritatcm prsctendcre. 
 
 insufficient grounds, was void. In Ep. 
 Ixviii., (Ep. Ixvii. ed. Ox.,) he writes thus : 
 " The regular ordination (of the .successor 
 of Basilides) cannot be rendered invalid, 
 on the ground that Basilides, after the 
 discovery and the avowal of his fault, 
 went to Rome and deceived our colleague 
 Stephanus, who lives at a distance, and 
 is unacquainted with the true circum- 
 stances of the case, so that he, who had 
 been deposed by a just sentence, was able 
 to obtain an unjust sentence to reinstate 
 him." Perhaps the mortified hierarchical 
 ambition of Stephanus, in this event, al- 
 though Cyprian spoke of him as yet with 
 great tenderness, may have had some influ- 
 ence in exciting him to the stubborn part 
 which he took in (he second controversy, 
 which we have just been mentioning. 
 
 II. Church Discipline. — Excommunication 
 from the visible Church, and re- admission 
 into it. 
 
 The Divine Founder of the Church, 
 whose penetrating glance could trace its 
 progress through the succession of ages, 
 by the significant parable in which He 
 represented its condition, (Matt, xiii.) had 
 proclaimed, that it would consist, accord- 
 ing to its earthly composition, of a mix- 
 ture of true and false members, of such 
 as, although united by the outward bond 
 of the Church, were separated from one 
 another by their inward dispositions, and 
 in part belonged to the kingdom of God, 
 in part to the ungodly world. He had 
 before declared that this mixture should 
 endure to the end of earthly things, and 
 He reserved the public sifting and sepa- 
 ration of this mass of men, so different in 
 their dispositions from each other, to his 
 final judgment alone. He had blamed 
 that hasty and intemperate zeal of man, 
 which, while it would separate the tares 
 and the good seed before the proper sea- 
 son comes, is apt to pull up the hidden 
 seed of the wheat with the tares, for much 
 which is but weeds at first, may become 
 changed to good fruit in the bosom of the 
 Church. Many who at first had been 
 members only of this visible Church, 
 being gradually attracted by its influence 
 from outward to inward things, might be 
 formed into members of the invisible 
 Church ; and the outward Church may 
 and ought in this manner to be not only 
 the revealer and representation of the 
 kingdom of God, which she is constantly 
 for her genuine members, but also an in- 
 structress to educate man for the kingdom 
 of God. Now no human eye is in a con- 
 
128 
 
 CHURCH DISCIPLINE. 
 
 dition to effect such a separation in real 
 tnuh ; every human eye may be deceived 
 by appearances, to which the inward 
 thoughts do not correspond. But accord- 
 ing to our Lord's expression, (Matt, vii.) 
 tlie good and the evil tree are necessarily 
 distinguished by their fruits, but the iii- 
 ward condition of this fruit, the disposi- 
 tion from which the works proceed, and 
 on which, as far as the moral worth of 
 actions is concerned, every thing depends, 
 often cannot be inquired into by a mere 
 human judgment. All evil does not show 
 itself by gross outbreaks of passions and 
 desires, so as to strike the eye, and much 
 may appear to be done in the name of 
 Christ, with Cliristian intentions, to the 
 honour of Christ, and seem to produce 
 
 great temporary resu 
 
 Its for the further- 
 
 ance of his kingdom, which did not truly 
 proceed from the Spirit of Christ, and is 
 not recognised by Him as the work of 
 His Spirit, as He says, that many will 
 appear to have wrought great deeds in 
 his name, whom He will not acknow- 
 ledge as belonging to him. Matt. vii. 22. 
 Nevertheless, although no human judg- 
 ment can fully separate the genuine mem- 
 bers of the Church from those who are 
 not so, yet even mere human judgment, 
 if it would only have followed the rules 
 of the Gospel, might have been in a con- 
 dition to recognise as really evil much 
 foreign matter, which had attached itself 
 to the outward form of the Church, and 
 showed itself in the open outbreaks of an 
 unregenerated and ungodly heart, and then 
 to eject it from the bosom of the visible 
 Church. It belongs to the natural rights 
 of every society, to exclude those who 
 are untrue to its principles from the 
 society, and hence this was one of the 
 natural rights of every Christian Church. 
 In regard to the exercise of this right, the 
 Christian Church had only to follow the 
 e.xample of the Jewish, for there were 
 already in the Jewish synagogues formulae 
 for the exclusion of those who had de- 
 parted from the principles of true religion, 
 either in theory or practice, and there 
 were, liesides, regular gradations of this 
 exclusion. 3Iany difficulties and disad- 
 vantages, which rendered the exercise of 
 this riglit more didlcult in aflertimes, 
 when civil aiul ecclesiastical society had 
 become more united, would perhaps have 
 no existence while the Church remained 
 one independent whole, entirely severed 
 from the heallien state. In order to pre- 
 serve the Church from the contagion of 
 heathen immorality, to keep it as pure as j 
 
 possible in its inward parts, and to dis^ 
 countenance the notion, that a man might 
 be a Christian, and yet continue in hea- 
 thenish habits of sin; the Churches, from 
 the beginning, renounced all communion 
 with those who had violated their pledges 
 to a God-devoted life, and their baptismal 
 vow of renouncing the kingdom of evil 
 and all its works, by any great and noto- 
 rious sins, or whose conduct openly 
 showed that they were strangers to the 
 practical influence of Christianity, and 
 that they had continued to live like un- 
 converted men, in the service of sin, or 
 having left it, had relapsed again into it. 
 These men were to be shown, that under 
 these circumstances, they would be neces- 
 sardy excluded, by their conduct, from 
 the enjoyment of the rights and advan- 
 tages which belonged to the Christians. 
 By this exclusion of unworthy members 
 from the society of Christians, the heathen 
 would also be deprived of an opportunity 
 of laying the crimes of individuals, who 
 falsely called themselves Christians, to 
 the charge of religion itself. 
 
 St. Paul, therefore, declared the Chrisr- 
 tian Churches not only justified in eject- 
 ing from their society those whose con- 
 duct rendered them clearly unworthy of 
 the name of Christian brother, but abso- 
 lutely bound to do so. 1 Cor. v. The 
 Christians might eat with all the heathen, 
 and live in any sort of intercourse with 
 them ; but they were to avoid entirely all 
 dealings of every kind with those brethren 
 who had fallen away from their religion, 
 to show them, in the most pointed man- 
 ner, that they had renounced all brotherly 
 communion with them. Tertullian, there- 
 fore, might say to the heathen, "Those 
 who are no Christians, are improperly 
 called so. Such men take no part in our 
 congregations ; they do not receive the 
 communion with us ; they arc become 
 yours again through their sins ; for we 
 have no intercourse, even with those 
 whom your cruelty has compelled to 
 recant ; and we should by far rather en- 
 dure among us those who have departed 
 from the principles of our faith by com- 
 pulsion, than those who have done so of 
 their own accord. Moreover, you have 
 no right to call those men Christians who 
 have never been recognised as such by 
 the Christians, who are unable to dissem- 
 ble themselves."* 
 
 But the Church must also prove an in- 
 structress, she must never give up the 
 
 Ad. Nation, i, 5. 
 
PCENITENTES ABSOLUTION. 
 
 129 
 
 hope of recovering those who have fallen 
 away ! By this very exclusion from inter- 
 course with the brethren, those persons, if 
 they had still a single spark of faith with- 
 in them, if they had ever received any 
 wholesome impressions in their hearts, 
 ought to be brought to a consciousness 
 of their guilt, and awakened to a fruitful 
 repentance. If there be any signs, as far 
 as man can judge, of such a change in 
 their life, then their brethren must offer 
 them consolation, and receive them again 
 into tlieir communion. This was the 
 arrangement of St. Paul. Many regula- 
 tions were afterwards gradually made 
 about the cases, in wliicli exconununica- 
 tion was to take place, and on the kind 
 of life which the excommunicated ought 
 to lead, when they desired to be re-admit- 
 ted to the communion of the Church ; 
 the proofs of repentance and penitence 
 which they ought to give ; the length of 
 time which they ought to remain under 
 excommunication : and all these things 
 were arranged with due regard to the 
 difference of the transgressions, and the 
 different conduct manifested by the offend- 
 ers. (Gefallenen. Lapsi.) That class of 
 them who had been excommunicated for 
 their oflences, and by penitence, were 
 earning for themselves at iirst re-admis- 
 sion into the Church, and admittance to 
 the communion, were called the Poeni- 
 tentes. Tertullian says, (de Pcenitentia, 
 c. ix.,) "that they should express their 
 contrition by their whole appearance, and 
 with fasting;" (which, in these early 
 days, usually accompanied the special 
 gathering up of the heart for prayer,) 
 " they should pray to God for the for- 
 giveness of their sins, make confession of 
 their sins before the Church, and begging 
 all dieir Christian brethren to pray in 
 their behalf, they should throw them- 
 selves at the feet of the presbyters, and 
 the known friends of God."* Origen (in 
 the third book of his work against Cel- 
 sus, p. 147,1) writes thus: "The Chris- 
 tians mourn for those who are carried 
 away by lust, or any other passion, as if 
 they were dead ; and when they have 
 given proofs, for a long time, of their real 
 change of sentiments, they receive them 
 again for catechumens, just as they would 
 receive men that rose from the dead." 
 After their repentance had been proved 
 genuine for a length of time, absolution 
 and re-admission into the Church was 
 
 * [This is a loose translation of the original 
 passage. I have followed the German.] 
 t [P. 143, ed. Spencer.— H. J. R.] 
 17 
 
 imparted to them by the sign of peace 
 and blessing, the laying on of hands by 
 the bishop and the clergy. 
 
 The pastors of the Christian Church, 
 who were animated by the spirit of vital 
 Christianity, did not fail to point to the 
 inward nature of Christian penitence, and 
 to represent those outward acts of pen- 
 ance, as tokens of the inward feelings and 
 sensations of the heart. " If a man con- 
 demns himself," says Tertullian, (de Poe- 
 nit. c. ix.,) "God acquits him; so far 
 as thou sparest not thyself, believe me, 
 God will spare thee." They laid great 
 stress on the difference between the abso- 
 lution of the priests and the Divine for- 
 giveness of sins, and they declared that 
 absolution can only reach its proper end 
 in regard to him on whom it is bestowed, 
 when he is really fitted for the forgive- 
 ness of his sins by the feelings of his 
 heart, which are open to God alone, who 
 can look upon the inward man. Thus 
 Firmilianus, the bishop of Caesarea in 
 Cappadocia, in the latter half of the third 
 century, speaks after this manner : " The 
 bishops and presbyters meet every year 
 with us, in order to take counsel together 
 on matters of general interest, and to con- 
 sult for the spiritual cure of our fallen 
 brethren, by means of penitence : not as 
 if they received from us the forgiveness 
 of their sins, but that they may be brought 
 to a consciousness of their sins by us, 
 and compelled to make a more perfect 
 satisfaction to the Lord." (Cyprian, Ep. 
 Ixxv.) Cyprian himself declares, (Ep. lii. 
 ad Antonian. Ep. Iv. ed. Ox.,) " We do 
 not prejudice God's jurisdiction in this 
 matter, so that He should not be the 
 ratifier of what we determine, if He find 
 the penitence of the sinner true and per- 
 fect. But if any man has deceived us by 
 a counterfeit repentance, then let God, 
 who is not mocked, and can look upon 
 the heart of man, decide on ihat in which 
 we are unable to judge, and correct the 
 sentence of his servants." 
 
 But even here, in this Church peni- 
 tence, there was, in some degree, a mis- 
 chievous taint of that confusion between 
 outward and inward which we have above 
 remarked ; of that confusion between the 
 visible and the invisible Church, and of 
 that false representation of a New Testa- 
 ment priesthood, analogous to that of the 
 Old. According to the pure evangelic 
 view of this matter, it is an exclusion from 
 the invisible Cliurch alone that can pre- 
 judice the salvation of the sinner; and 
 this, each man can only bring down upon 
 
130 
 
 INWARD AND OUTWARD CONFUSED. 
 
 himself by his own dispositions; and, 
 according 'to this view, there is only one 
 means for him to obtain forgiveness of 
 his sins, and admittance to the communion 
 of the invisible Church— that is, penitence 
 with faith, by which the sinner appro- 
 priates to himself what Christ hath done 
 for the salvation of mankind. He who 
 thus obtains communion with the Re- 
 deemer, is a member of the invisible 
 Church, whether he be received into any 
 visible Church or not. Every Christian 
 for himself, every Christian, without any 
 distinction, for others, can administer the 
 priestly office, of announcing to himself 
 or to his brother the forgiveness of sins, 
 obtained for all mankind, and assured to 
 them by the one eternal High Priest. 
 This declaration can never properly be 
 made, without the presupposed condition 
 of a genuine repentance in faith. All 
 must depend on this heartfelt penitence; 
 all that is outward can have no meaning, 
 except as a spontaneous fruit of that in- 
 ward feeling, as a free declaration of that 
 feeling, not dependent on any thing ar- 
 bitrary whatever. These outward acts 
 may be different, according to the differ- 
 ence of men's hearts, relations and cir- 
 cumstances. The feelings of the heart 
 will not bear to have it prescribed, in 
 what uniform mode, and by what outward 
 demeanour of a settled and prescribed 
 character, they shall be shown out- 
 wardly. 
 
 But then, after that error had once taken 
 deep root, men must have attributed a 
 greater importance to excommunication 
 from the visible Church, than they ought 
 to do, when considered in itself, in a pure 
 and evangelical point of view, because this 
 visible Church appeared to them the only 
 means by which they could enter into 
 communion with tlie invisible. This fun- 
 damental error might easily lead men to 
 confound the confession of their sins be- 
 fore the outward Church,* which is no 
 essential part of true penitence, the humi- 
 liation before an outward ('hurch, before 
 a visible priesthood, before men and crea- 
 tures, an liumiliation which cannot be pre- 
 scribed fairly to any man — with an inward 
 confession of sins before God, with an 
 
 might easily induce men to confound acts 
 of penitence required by an outward 
 Church, acts which no human authority 
 was justified in exacting as part of the 
 Divine law, acts which might be done in 
 hypocrisy, and in which, as an " opus 
 operatum," that satisfied the law, men 
 were apt to forget inward penitence ; it 
 might lead men, [ say, to confound these 
 acts with that true inward penitence of the 
 heart, which is an indispensable condition 
 of forgiveness of sins ; and to confound 
 likewise re-admission into the outward 
 communion of the Church with a recep- 
 tion into the inward communion of the 
 invisible Church ; and lastly, the priestly 
 absolution with the forgi^'eness of sins 
 tlirough God.* Absolution was, under 
 this point of view, to be a peculiar act 
 of the Judaeo-Christian priesthood, which 
 every Christian was not capable of per- 
 forming, and it must have been looked 
 upon as something more than the mere 
 announcement of God's forgiveness of sin, 
 which every Christian, as a preacher of 
 the Gospel, was competent to make for 
 himself and others. The spiritual power 
 of the apostles, also, in this respect, would 
 be conceived transferred to the bishops by 
 means of ordination, and the power of 
 binding and loosing committed to the 
 apostles, was appealed to, although this 
 promise of our Lord contained nothing to 
 justify such an interpretation of it. It may 
 be imagined that these words presupposed 
 a gift bestowed by the power of the Spirit 
 of God on the apostles, — a gift of looking 
 into the hearts of men, — in virtue of 
 which they were able to distinguish, in 
 each individual case, the dispositions 
 which made men fitted to receive the for- 
 giveness of their sins, from those which 
 excluded them from such a mercy ; and 
 therefore, was it, that theirf spiritual sen- 
 tence of condemnation or acquittal, being 
 founded on an infallible knowledge of 
 men's hearts, by which they judged, must 
 
 * [This accusation has sometimes been made 
 against the Church of England hy those who will 
 understand her forms of absohuion in a sense 
 which by far the greater part of her writers utterly 
 disclaim, and a sense which in the form most as- 
 spiled (the form in the visitation of the sick) is 
 I .,. ,, , .,. .- I f ^ f^ \ ,.,;,i.„,.f quite incompatible with the prayer which imme- 
 heartfelt humiliation before God, witiiout J;^^^,^ ^^j, J^ .^ g^^^ ^^^^^'^ ^,^„^, ^i.represcn- 
 
 /hich there can be no true penitence ; it 
 
 ♦ As in the following words of the confessors, 
 in a letter to Cyprian, Ep. xxvi. (Ep. xxxi. cd. 
 Ox.,) where they bring forward, as a mark of true 
 {(cnitence, the " huniilitas atque Pubjectio, qua; 
 alienum de se expcctat judicium, alienam dc suo 
 •UBlinet sentcntiam." 
 
 tations on this subject arc noticed in an article in 
 the number of the British Critic for July, 1831, on 
 Stratten's Book of the Priesthood.— H. J. K.] 
 
 f ["Ihr verdammender, oder friesprechender, 
 ,S;eisllichcr Richtcrspruch." Germ. "Gcisllicher" 
 is, perhaps, here to be taken in tho sense of eccle- 
 siastical. I therefore, quote tho original, that my 
 readers may judge. — H. J. K.j 
 
POWER OP BINDING AND LOOSING. 
 
 necessarily harmonise with the judicial 
 sentence of God, who declared his judg- 
 ment by tliem, as his organs, and it would, 
 therefore, infallibly be ratified and rendered 
 efficacious. And in this case the Monta- 
 nists, and in some degree, Origen,* would 
 have had a full right to apply this promise, 
 but to those only who had the same mea- 
 sure of illumination as the apostles. This 
 would be a gift of a nature, of which we 
 find some examples certainly among the 
 apostles, as in the conduct of St. Peter 
 towards Ananias and Sapphira; but then 
 such a gift could only be required or ser- 
 viceable for the peculiar calling of an 
 apostle, and we cannot conclude from any 
 passage in the New Testament, that sucli 
 a gift should continue forever in the 
 Church, and least of all that a priesthood 
 should be propagated in the Church as the 
 possessors of such a gift. And yet, after 
 all, we do not so much as once find that 
 even the apostles ascribed to themselves 
 any abiding gift, by which their judgment 
 on men's hearts was to be preserved in- 
 fallible in every case. 
 
 If we now compare particularly the 
 context of this promise, in John xx. 21, 
 and similar passages, where Christ pro- 
 claims the apostles his trust-worthy or- 
 gans in the preaching of the Gospel ; we 
 shall be led to see nothing in the power 
 of the keys, as regards the kingdom of 
 heaven, than the power which lies of it- 
 self in the power of preaching the Gospel, 
 the power of proclaiming remission of I 
 sins and admission into the kingdom of j 
 
 * Origen, who had experienced in his own per- 
 son the prejudicial effects of the ecclesiastical 
 power of judgment, assumed by the bishops, con- ' 
 tends against it, (T. xii. Matth.) and says, that 
 this power, committed to St. Peter, could only be 
 conceded to those who partook with St. Peter of 
 all the " predicates" contained in that passage, 
 who alone enlightened like him by the Spirit of 
 God, could pass an infallible sentence, through 
 which God himself would judge. "But as for those 
 who, in order to make themselves of consequence as 
 bishops, made use of this passage and applied it to 
 themselves, as to St. Peter, as if they had them- 
 selves received the keys of the kingdom of heaven 
 from our Saviour ; they must be told that they are 
 quite right, iftheij possess those tki7ii^s, on account 
 of which this was said to St. Peter — Him. who is 
 not bound by the chain of his sins, neither God 
 himself, nor he, that is St. Peter himself, can bind. 
 But if a man be no St. Peter, and hath not that 
 which is there named, he misunderstands the sen- 
 tence of Scripture in his pride, and judges in his 
 pride like Satan."* 
 
 * [The passage from which this is abridged oc- 
 curs in Huet's edition, vol. i. p. 279, 280, iu ^ xii. 
 on Matth.— H. J. R.] 
 
 131 
 
 heaven to believers, in as far as they do 
 believe, and of proclaiming condemnation 
 and exclusion from the kingdom of God 
 to the unbelievers, in as for as they ex- 
 clude themselves by their guilty desires 
 and dispositions from the only justifying 
 and saving means, and from the only 
 means of admission into that kingdom; 
 for the Gospel, by its very nature, (2 Cor. 
 ii. 14,) is a savour of life unto life, or of 
 death unto death, just as men make it by 
 their own dispositions. And thus there 
 will be found in that promise nothing 
 more than what is competent to every 
 Christian, who preaches the pure Gospel. 
 If men had made clearly the distinc- 
 tion between the visible and the invisible 
 Church, and declared clearly, that absolu- 
 tion is nothing else than the announce- 
 ment of the forgiveness of sins, which is 
 bestowed by Christ under the condition 
 of faith and repentance, then the contro- 
 versy between the milder and the stricter 
 party, as to penance, might have been 
 more easily set at rest. All were agreed 
 on the distinction between those sins, 
 into which all Christians might fall, in 
 consequence of the sinfulness of their na- 
 ture which clings to them, and those 
 which clearly show, that he who com- 
 mits them, is still living in the service of 
 sin, as a constant habit, and that he is 
 none of the redeemed nor regenerate, that 
 he is no Christian, and is in the land of 
 destruction — in short, the distinction be- 
 tween " peccata venialia" and " peccata 
 mortalia," or "ad mortem." This dis- 
 tinction was found in the first Epistle of 
 St. John ; besides the denial of the faith, 
 men reckoned as sins of the second class 
 — deceit, theft, incontinence, adultery, &c. 
 Now the principle of the milder party, 
 which gradually obtained the upper hand 
 was this : — the Church must receive every 
 fallen member into whatever sins he may 
 have fallen, she must hope for the for- 
 giveness of the sins of all, under the con- 
 dition of a sincere repentance, and, at 
 least in the hour of death, the absolution 
 and the communion must be given to all 
 such as have shown true penitence up to 
 that time. The other party would never 
 consent to the re-admission into Church 
 communion of those who had violated 
 their baptismal covenant by sins of this 
 latter kind. They said : — these men have 
 despised the forgiveness of sins which 
 Christ obtained for them, and which was 
 assured to them in baptism, no decree of. 
 God is revealed in regard to them, the 
 Church is, therefore, in no case justified 
 
132 
 
 in proclaiming to them the forgiveness 
 of their sins, and she must leave them m 
 the hands of God. The one party would 
 not suffer anv limits to be put to the grace 
 of God towards repentant sinners; the 
 oilier wished to uphold the holiness of 
 God, and feared that men should make 
 their brethren secure and easy in a sinful 
 life, by a false reliance on the power of 
 the absolution of the priest. 
 
 III. The History of Divisions in the Church, 
 or Schisms. 
 
 The schismata, or what in stricter lan- 
 guage are called divisions of the Church, 
 mus't be carefully distinguished from what 
 are properly called heresies. The former 
 are such separations from the prevailing 
 Church, as arise from certain outward 
 occasions and circumstances, which re- 
 late to the constitution and discipline of 
 the Church ; the latter are such separa^ 
 
 CHURCH DIVISIONS. 
 
 The former had its source, remote in- 
 deed, but lying deep, in the circumstances 
 which accompanied the election of Cy- 
 prian to the bishopric of Carthage : this 
 person had been chosen by the voice of 
 the Church ; but a part of the clergy, from 
 reasons with which we are unacquainted, 
 and on which we can, therefore, pass no 
 judgment, were discontented with this 
 choice, (perhaps, because some one or 
 other of the opponents of Cyprian had 
 promised himself the episcopal office,) 
 and the chief persons at the head of this 
 party were five bresbyters.* Now these 
 five presbyters continued their efforts, to- 
 gether with their supporters, to contend 
 against the episcopal authority of Cyprian ; 
 and as the presbyters were still mindful 
 of their former rights, and desirous to 
 preserve their old influence on the gov- 
 ernment of the Church, it was impossible 
 to avoid a contest between a bishop like 
 tions^fVom^Vas^sprin'ff from "differences I Cyprian, a bishop who would act deci- 
 
 and controversies on points of doctrine 
 While, therefore, what we have to say of 
 the latter is intimately connected with 
 the genetic development and progress of 
 Christianity, as far as regards its doctrines, 
 the representation of the former is in the 
 closest connection with the history of the 
 constitution and discipline of the Church, 
 and both illustrate each other mutually. 
 In a dogmatical point of view, indeed, the 
 history of the Church divisions is only 
 important as serving to illustrate the pro- 
 gress of the doctrine about the Church, 
 but then the development of this doctrine 
 is completely interwoven with the history 
 of the constitution of the Church, so that 
 it seems the most suited to our purpose, 
 to bring forward the history of schisms 
 in connection with the chapter which 
 treats generally of the constitution of the 
 Church 
 
 In this period we have to record two j warmtli 
 
 dedly with strong views of the highest 
 spiritual power, which he believed him- 
 self to possess by Divine right, and his 
 antagonists in the college of presbyters. 
 
 It usually happens, where men, even 
 those in whom a life proceeding from God 
 has begun, but in whom the old man is 
 not utterly destroyed, contend for their 
 rights, instead of striving to excel in the 
 execution of their duties in the spirit of 
 charity and self-denial, that on both sides 
 prejudice and passion make them look on 
 wrong as if it were right : and this was 
 the case here. But then, Ave are here 
 deprived of the knowledge of all the cir- 
 cumstances necessary to enable us to de- 
 cide and separate right from wrong on 
 both sides, because we have only the par- 
 tial account of one side of the question ; 
 and that too, an account which bears upon 
 it, at times, plain marks of a passionate 
 
 remarkable divisions in the Church, both 
 
 An unprejudiced consideration will cer- 
 
 of which, as well in regard to the time m tainly not fail to recognise in Cyprian a 
 
 which they arose., as to the Churches and 
 persons v/ho bore part in them, are in- 
 timately connected together. In the his- 
 tory of both these divisions, the monar- 
 chical episcopal system is seen coming 
 forth victorious from the struggle with 
 presbytcrianism : in both, Catholicism 
 rises victorious over separatism, and both 
 divisions tended to the establishment of 
 the system of the unity of the Church. 
 
 disciple of Christ, a man animated by the 
 
 I spirit of love to the Redeemer and his 
 
 I Church. It is not to be denied that he 
 
 was affected towards his flock, as a trua 
 
 pastor ought to be, that their advantage 
 
 * We see this from the words of Pontius, where 
 he speaks of the election of Cyf)rian : " Quidam. 
 ilh restiteruiit, etiam ut vinceret :" compared with 
 the passage in Ep. xl., where he speaks of tlie ma- 
 chinations of the five presbvtcrs : " Conjurationis 
 These divisions are those of Felicissimus ! ''"«' '"''"^^'^''^ ct antiqua ilia contra episcopatura 
 ,,,„,-,, r 1- meum, uno contra suflragmm vcstrum ct Uei 
 and of Novatian, the former pr9ceeduig L^j.^i^^^ • .etj^cnte instaurant veterem 
 /• <i-- /-iL K -rTVT__»i A r_: ^,i •" . ' .. .^ 
 
 from the Church of Northern Africa, and 
 the other from the Romish Church 
 
 contra noa impugnationem suam. 
 cd. Ox.) 
 
 (Ep. xliii. 
 
THE CHARACTER OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 Jay sincerely at his heart, and that he 
 wished to exercise his episcopal office so 
 as to maintain discipline and order in his 
 Church ; but then, it is also certain, that 
 he was not enough upon his guard against 
 the fundamental evil of human nature, 
 which is always ready to fix itself on 
 some of the best quaUties in man, and by 
 which these best qualities of man may be 
 adulterated and corrupted, — an evil which 
 is exactly the most dangerous to those 
 who are furnished with the choicest gifts 
 and powers for the service of the Lord, 
 and is then most dangerous when it takes 
 a spiritual form ; it is certain that he was 
 not sufficiently upon his guard against 
 pride, with all its overheated suggestions. 
 That for which he struggled, the full 
 power of the episcopacy, was exactly the 
 rock on which his spiritual life made ship- 
 wreck ; in the bishop '■' appointed by God 
 himself, and acting in the name of Christ," 
 he forgot the man, living in the flesh, and 
 exposed to all the tempatations to sin, 
 which others undergo ; in the bishop 
 called to govern, and gifted with inviolable 
 authority from God, he forgot the disciple 
 of Christ, the tender-hearted and humble 
 Christ, appearing in the form of a ser- 
 vaiit^for the service of his brethren. Had 
 he always remained true to tliis spirit of 
 discipleship to Christ he would have been 
 able, with more ease to himself, and more 
 salutary fruits to the Church, to have con- 
 quered his enemies, than by all his insist- 
 ing on the inalienable rights of episcopacy, 
 and all his appeals to supernatural reve- 
 lations, visions, and dreams, in which it 
 might happen to him, to confound the 
 self-delusions of prejudice and pride with 
 the inspirations of the Holy Spirit. It 
 was, for example, undoubtedly, a different 
 spirit which allowed him to conceive the 
 pretended heavenly voice to be a warning 
 to his opponents, when it said : " He who 
 believes not Christ, who appoints the 
 priest, will hereafter be obliged to begin 
 to believe Christ, who avenges the priest."* 
 Well might Cyprian take to heart the re- 
 proof which a layman who had joined 
 the opposite party, gave him, by remind- 
 
 * See Ep. Ixix. ad Florientum Pupianum. 
 (Ep. Ixvi. ed. Oxon.) In these cases his adver- 
 saries had a right to blame him for the " somnia 
 ridicula et visiones ineptas," to which he was in 
 the habit of appealing, although every thing of 
 this sort need not have been the delusive reflection 
 of prejudice and pride. There may have been 
 gifts of grace present to him, on which self-delu- 
 sion fixed itself, because they served to nourish 
 pride, instead of being used with humility. 
 
 133 
 
 ing him that "Me priests ought to be hum- 
 ble, for even Christ and his apostles were 
 hmnblc.''''* 
 
 These five presbyters, or at least some 
 of them, were probably presidents of se- 
 parate Churches in or near Carthage, and 
 had indulged themselves, in defiance of a 
 bisliop whom they hated, in many inde- 
 pendent proceedings in the management 
 of Church affairs, or at least in such pro- 
 ceedings as Cyprian, who looked upon 
 the matter from the episcopal point of 
 view, might consider an infringement of 
 the bishop's rights. One of them, by 
 name Novatus, a rnan,! it would seem, of 
 
 * Cyprian, Ep. Ixix. (Ep. Ixvi. ed. Oxon.) 
 This layman was Florentius Pupianus, probably 
 a confessor, who joined himself to the party of 
 Felicissimus. The letter of Cyprian to him is not 
 calculated to contradict the accusation of a want 
 of humility. Pupian had declared that he had a 
 scruple in his heart about Cyprian, which must 
 first be removed, before he could acknowledge 
 Cyprian for his bishop in real sincerity, (scrupu- 
 lum sibi esse toUendum de animo, in quern inci- 
 derat.) Instead of applying himself to investigate 
 and remove what might be a subject of reproach 
 to Cyprian, in the opinion of this layman, who 
 seems a well-intentioned person, although led 
 astray by the hasty opponents of Cyprian, this 
 letter appeals only, with episcopal pride, to the 
 judgment-seat of God, who had appointed him 
 bishop, and declaims against the iniquity of any 
 man making himself a judge over the priest called 
 to his office by God himself. 
 
 f This is all which we feel justified in saying 
 of Novatus after an impartial investigation, as far 
 as we can judge from the deficient and partial 
 documents we possess. The accusations which 
 Cyprian himself brings against him, Ep. xlix. 
 (Ep. lii. ed. Ox.,) would, we confess, if they are 
 founded on fact, make him appear in a most un- 
 favourable point of view ; but these accusations 
 bear completely the stamp of blind passion, which 
 without investigating the matter competently, 
 trusts deceitful rumours, and gives itself up to a 
 most unjust mode of drawing conclusions. The 
 usual mode of controversy was here employed : 
 to attribute bad motives to the opposite party, and 
 to assume these as certain, just as if man's in- 
 ward heart had been laid open, without giving a 
 single proof in support of these suppositions. 
 According to this representation, Novatus was 
 about to be called before an ecclesiastical tribunal 
 on account of his offences ; his conscience con- 
 demned him, and he was rejoiced at the outbreak 
 of the Decian persecution, which stopped all pro- 
 ceedings against him, and in order to escape the 
 sentence of condemnation, which awaited him 
 after this was over, he set on foot all those distur- 
 bances of which we shall have to speak hereafter, 
 and broke loose from the niling Church. How 
 well put together are all these accusations, but 
 how improbable are they ! During the Decian 
 persecution, indeed, Cyprian himself acknow- 
 ledges Novatus as a proper presbyter. Ep. v. [I 
 believe the Letter here alluded to is Ep. vi. (ed. 
 Ox. xiv.) in ed. Painel.— H. J. R. j 
 
 M 
 
134 
 
 NOVATUS — ORDINATION OF FELICISSIMUS. 
 
 restless and enterprising character, and one | monarchical principles of Church govern- 
 who rejected, with the strong spirit of jnient. Cyprian allowed Felicissimus to 
 freedom that belongs to the Church, the remain in his office, whether it was out 
 
 of deference to a strong party, or whether 
 it was only afterwards that the hostile 
 conduct of Felicissimus induced him to 
 represent his ordination as irregular and 
 invalid, and a violation of his episcopal 
 rights. This anti-Cyprian party now 
 sought an occasion of coming forward 
 openly against the bishop, and it was of- 
 
 voke of episcopal monarchy, but one who 
 'irave way too much to his passionate dis- 
 position", being the president of a congre- 
 gation and Church on a hill at, or near 
 to Carthage, had without being first com- 
 missioned by the bishop, ordained one of 
 his followers, by name Felicissimus, to 
 be deacon of his Church.* This Feli- 
 
 cissimus was one who was just calculated Ifered to them on the breaking out of the 
 to become an enterprising partisan, and persecution of Decius, which took place 
 
 one who would possess an extensive m- 
 iluence among the congregation, from his 
 personal connections. Cyprian declares 
 this an infringement of his episcopal 
 rights ; but Novatus, with his views, and 
 accorditig to his presbyterian system, 
 might tliink himself qualified, as a pres- 
 byter and president of a Church, to per- 
 form this. Which was right and which 
 was wrong, was here not so clearly made 
 out at that time, when the struggle was 
 undecided between the aristocratical and 
 
 In order to judge of the conduct of Novatus in 
 these controversies, the following is an important 
 inquiry: Whether he was one of the five pres- 
 byters who opposed Cyprian from the beginning 1 
 Moshiem has brought nmch to combat this suppo- 
 sition, and the most weighty of his arguments 
 will be adduced below. We are unable here to 
 decide with certainty upon this point; but still, 
 the whole connection of the history is in favour 
 of an afTirmative answer. In the Letter of 
 Cyprian, Ep. v., we have just quoted, five presby- 
 ters write to Cyprian, in order to make a request 
 to him. One of those here mentioned, namely. 
 Fortunatus, belonged to the five presbyters, ac- 
 cording to Cypirian's own declaration, Ep. Iv. [I 
 believe this is Ep. lix. ed. Ox. v. p. 131.— H. J, R.] 
 As Novatus was then with Fortunatus, it is highly 
 probable that all the four presbyters who here ap- 
 pear as one party, were no others than the old 
 opposition party, the five presbyters, the Presby- 
 terium Fclicissimi. Also, in the answer, by anti- 
 cipation, which Cyprian returns to their request, 
 we may, perhaps, discover a new source of irrita- 
 tion against the bishop. The comparison of what 
 Cyprian says of the machinations of Novatus, 
 Ep. xlix. (Ep. Hi. cd. Ox.,) with what he says of 
 the machinations of the five presbyters, Ep. xl. 
 (Ep. xliii. ed. Ox.,) and also with what Pontius 
 says of the old enemies of Cyprian, will bespeak 
 the existence of only one anii-Cyprian party from 
 the very beginning — a party which held together, 
 and in which Novatus took a conspicuous part. 
 
 * .Sec Cyprian, Ep. xlix. (Ep. hi. ed. Ox.,) on 
 Novatus: "Qui Felicissimum satellitein suum 
 (haconum, nee permitteiitc me nee sciente sua 
 trtctionc, et ambitione, constituit." All this tends 
 to show, that the naming Felicissimus to a dea- 
 con's ollice, preceded the division caused by No- 
 vatus ; but in the absence of more circumstantial 
 accounts of the matter, there is still considerable 
 doubt on this point. 
 
 very shortly after these events. 
 
 We have before observed, that at the 
 beginning of this persecution Cyprian had 
 withdrawn himself for a time from his 
 Church, but he had, as we then saw, good 
 grounds to justify this step, and the very 
 best justification of it was afTorded by his 
 martyrdom afterwards ; but still it was a 
 conduct on which, of course, a difference 
 of opinion might exist. Cyprian's ene- 
 mies were glad to look upon the thing in 
 the worst light, and accused him of hav- 
 ing been induced by cowardice to violate 
 his duty as a pastor.* 
 
 We must observe, besides, that this 
 party of adversaries to Cyprian had many 
 opportunities, from what happened during 
 the persecution to increase their own 
 number, and to instigate men's minds 
 against the bishop. As we have before 
 observed in the history of this persecution 
 many were driven, by fear or force of the 
 torture, to conduct which was considered 
 as a denial of the faith, and involved an 
 " ipso facto" excommunication. But most 
 of them were afterwards disturbed by se- 
 vere remorse for their guilt, and longed to 
 return to the congregation of their breth- 
 ren, and to partake with them of the Lord's 
 Supper. An inquiry now arose; shall 
 
 * We may perceive by the manner in which 
 the Roman clergy spoke of this matter in their 
 first Letter to the Church of Carthage, Ep. ii. (Ep. 
 viii. ed. Ox.,) that some person had been able to 
 put it in a disadvantageous light before them, and 
 that hence at Rome they were not inclined entirely 
 to approve of the motives assigned by Cyprian ; for 
 they say, " in which he may have done well" (quod 
 utique recte fecerit.) Cyprian, in consequence of 
 this, expresses a suspicion that this Letter, in 
 which things so strange to him appeared, might be 
 a counterfeit. Ep. iii. (Ep. ix. ed. Ox.) After- 
 wards, when he learnt that his opponents had re- 
 presented his conduct in an unfavourable light at 
 liome, he thought it necessary to justify himself by 
 a proper explanation of the whole course of the 
 business, and he writes thus to the Roman clergy; 
 "Quoniam comperi, minus simpliciter et minus 
 fideliter vobis" renuntiari, quffi liic a nobis et gesta 
 sunt et geruntur." Ep. xiv. (Ep. xx. ed. Ox.) 
 
CHANGE IN Cyprian's sentiments. 
 
 1S5 
 
 we instantly accede to their wishes, or 
 shall we wholly reject their petition ? or 
 shall we devise a middle course, by open- 
 ing to them a hope of re-admission into 
 Church communion; but before it be 
 granted in reality, try their conduct for a 
 long season of time, and demand contin- 
 ued proofs of contrition at their hands ? 
 Shall w^e treat all these fallen brethren 
 (lapsi) in the same manner, or shall we 
 act differently by them, according to the 
 difference of circumstances, and the differ- 
 ence of their offences ? The Church was 
 at that time without any general, recog- 
 nised principles as to Church penitence in 
 these respects ; there was (see above) one 
 party which would grant absolution to no 
 man, under any conditions whatever, if he 
 had once broken his baptismal covenant 
 by a mortal sin, (as the phrase went.) and 
 among these sins they reckoned every 
 kind of denial of the faith and every re- 
 lapse into heathenism. Cyprian,* who 
 used to consider Tertullian as especially 
 his teacher, might perhaps, from the study 
 of his writings, have received a bias to- 
 wards the principles of the stricter party, 
 in respect to penitence. Many passages 
 in those of his books which were written 
 before the Decian persecution, lead us to 
 conclude, that he had formerly been an 
 advocate of the principle, that no man, 
 who had committed a mortal sin, should 
 receive absolution. As for instance, when 
 he says,| ''•These are the words of the 
 Lord in warning : ' See ! thou art become 
 whole ; sin no more, lest a worse thing 
 befall thee !' He gives the rule of life 
 after he has bestowed soundness, and he 
 does not allow men afterwards to run 
 about unbridled ; but rather as the man is 
 bound to serve Him for having been cured 
 by Hira, He threatens him the more se- 
 verely, because the guilt is less if a man 
 sins before he knows the doctrine of the 
 Lord ; but there is no rnore forgiveness for 
 sins when a man sins after he has begun 
 to know the Lord.'^'' It may be alleged, 
 that Cyprian here only wished to mark 
 strongly the greater guilt of a sin commit- 
 ted by a Christian^ and that this passage 
 is only to be understood relatively ; but 
 certainly more is intended in one of' the 
 positions laid down in his collection of 
 
 Biblical Testimonies :* " That to those 
 who have sinned against God no forgive- 
 ness can be imparted by the Church."| 
 And from the passages'.}; which are there 
 quoted from Scripture, we see that by sin 
 against God he understood nothing but a 
 falling away from Christianity, which is a 
 very unsuitable description of such trans- 
 gressions, as if every sin were not a sin 
 against God, and a falling away from 
 God I but Cyprian judged more properly 
 in this respect afterwards, as we shall see 
 in the course of our history. 
 
 But, although Cyprian was an advocate 
 of this principle, when he first entered 
 upon his episcopal office, yet now the 
 great number of the fallen brethren, who 
 asked for absolution, and some of them 
 with the bitterest tears of repentance, must 
 in some degree have shaken him as a man 
 of tender and fatherly feelings towards 
 his Church. Were all these, — some of 
 whom had only sinned from want of 
 knoM'ledge, and others had only yielded 
 to the flesh under the severity of the tor- 
 ture, — were all these to remain forever 
 excluded from the blessed communion of 
 their brethren ; that is, according to Cy- 
 prian's mode of view, from the Church, 
 in which alone is the road to heaven ? 
 The paternal feelings of the bishop strug- 
 gled against such a resolution ; but he 
 dared not here to act on his own respon- 
 sibility. In this state of indecision, he 
 gave it as his opinion, that they should 
 receive the fallen brethren, and exhort 
 them to penitence ; but that the decision 
 on their fate should be postponed till the 
 time when, after the restoration of tran- 
 quillity, the bishops, clergy, and Churches, 
 might unite in some general principle on 
 this matter, which so materially affected all 
 Christians, by means of some general and 
 considerate deliberation, after a due exam- 
 ination of the thing in all its bearings. It 
 was also to be remembered, that there was 
 a great difference between the off"ences 
 of these fallen brethren, some of whom 
 had run to the altars of the gods, without 
 making the smallest resistance, only to 
 avoid sacrificing any thing earthly, while 
 others had only failed out of pure ignorance, 
 
 * According to Jerome, de V. I., when he asked 
 for Tertullian's books, he used to say to his sccre- 
 letary, " Da magistratum." 
 
 •j- Dc habitu Virginum. 
 
 \ Nulla venia ultra delinquere, postquam Deum 
 nosse cccpisti. 
 
 * De Testimoniis, lib. iii. c. 28. 
 
 f Non posse in ecclesia remitti ei, qui in Deum 
 dehquit. 
 
 \ The same passages which Cyprian introduces 
 in the epistle to the clergy of Carthage, Ep. ix. 
 (Ep. xvi. cd. Ox.,) on the subject of denial of the 
 faith under j)er.socution. So also in Ep. xi. (Ep. 
 xvii. cd. Ox.,) we find the contrast: " Minora de- 
 licta, quse non in Deum comurituntur." 
 
THE LAPSI SUSTAINED. 
 
 136 
 
 or by the weakness of the conquered flesh ; 
 and the unquiet of the times ot persecu- 
 tion prechided any accurate discrimina- 
 tion between the offences and the moral 
 state of individuals,— and yet to a proper 
 judgment on the part of the clergy, re- 
 gard must be had to these points particu- 
 larly. And then, too, the fallen brethren 
 themselves vvere to make themselves 
 worthy of re-admission into Church com- 
 munion, by active proofs of repentance 
 which the persecution itself gave them the 
 best means of doing. " He who cannot 
 bear delay," says Cyprian, "may obtain 
 for himself the martyr's crown." Under 
 these impressions it was that he acted, in 
 comforting all the fallen brethren, who 
 desired absolution, by directing their 
 thoughts to the end of the persecution, 
 when their circumstances should be in- 
 quired into. But some of the clergy, and 
 as Cyprian afterwards learned, his old ad- 
 versaries, took up these men, strengthened 
 them in their demands, instead of exhort- 
 ing them to submit quietly to the bishop's 
 decision, and made use of this opportu- 
 nity to excite the schism in the Church 
 which they were anxious to see. 
 
 If these fallen brethren had only been 
 supported in their impetuous demands by 
 the presbyters opposed to Cyprian, with- 
 out finding any other support, their op- 
 position against the bishop's measures 
 would have had less weight. They found 
 means, however, to win over to their 
 cause a voice which then had very great 
 influence among the Christians, the voice 
 of those " Witnesses of the Faith," who 
 had made confession of their faith under 
 torture, or who went to meet a martyr's 
 death after making confession. It was 
 altogether in the character and spirit of 
 Christian martyrs, to make their last legacy 
 a legacy of love, to speak with their 
 latest breath rcords of love to their breth- 
 ren ; it was quite consonant to their spirit, 
 that those who were about to enter into 
 glory after a firm and victorious struggle, 
 should show a sympathy with their 
 weaker brethren, who had yielded in the 
 fight; and, lastly, should commend these 
 fallen brethren to the benevolent accept- 
 ance of the Church. And it was just 
 also, that the word of these witnesses of 
 the faith slmnld be held in especial esteem, 
 if men would only remember, that they 
 also were sinful men, needing, like all 
 others, the forgiveness of their own sins, 
 and that they, as long as they were in 
 the flesh, had slill to struggle constantly 
 with the flesh ; and if these witnesses 
 
 would themselves also remember this; 
 and if they would avoid being blinded by 
 the excessive honour paid to them, and 
 so being given up still more to the power 
 of the hidden enemy, against whom they 
 had still to fight as sinful men, and if 
 they would take care not to use the mo- 
 mentary victory, which they had won 
 through the grace of God, to the nourish- 
 ment of a spiritual pride. Many yielded 
 to this temptation; they granted the peace 
 of the Church, to those who asked it of 
 them, in an imperative manner, and acted 
 as if there needed nothing but their voice 
 for the absolution of the fallen brethren. 
 The clergy, who ought to have set them 
 right, in consequence of Cyprian's exhor- 
 tation, and to have led them to humility, 
 only strengthened them still more in their 
 notions, and used them as instruments to 
 further their own machinations against 
 the bishop. They put the bishop very 
 often in no small embarrassment by their 
 imperative, and often very indefinitely 
 expressed, declarations. Such, for exam- 
 ple, was the following : "Let this or that 
 person be received into Church commu- 
 nion, together with those that belong to 
 him :"* an expression which allows of 
 such various and indefinite explanations 
 and applications! Those who applied 
 these indefinite expressions to themselves 
 were very proud in the notion, that the 
 j confessors or the martyrs had given them 
 absolution, and they would hear of no 
 I delay, and suffer no trial of their conduct 
 ! to take place. The less they showed 
 i proper contrition and humility, the less 
 Cyprian was inclined to accede to their 
 impetuous demands, and hence he was 
 easily held up to odium as an enemy to 
 the honour due to the heroes of the faith. 
 He was fulfilling his duty as a pastor, 
 when he powerfully and firmly opposed 
 the exaggerated reverence paid to those 
 
 * " Communicet ille cum suis." According to 
 Cyprian, Ep. xiv. (Ep. xx. ed. Ox.,) thousands of 
 these " liBelli pacis" were set forth every day by 
 the confessors without examination. In the end 
 of the second century, TertuUian speaks of this 
 custom as of an ancient one. " Pacem in ecclesia 
 non habentes, a mattyribus in carcere exoiare con- 
 sueverunt." Ad. Martyr, c. i. As a Montanlst, 
 he speaks violently against the misuse which took 
 place in this matter, and he hints that many were 
 confirmed in their sins, by means of the " libelli 
 pacis" granted to them inconsiderately by the con- 
 fessors. De Pudicitia, c. xxii. The Council of 
 Elvira expresses itself thus against the abuses, 
 which were caused by these letters of recommen- 
 dation of the confessors, whether real or counter- 
 feit; " quod' omnes sub hac nominis gloria passim 
 concutiunt simplices." Can. xxv. 
 
HONOURING THE MARTYRS. 
 
 137 
 
 witnesses of the faith, (which was likely 
 to become the source of much supersti- 
 tion,) as well as the false confidence on 
 their decision, which seduced men into 
 security while in a life of sin. He pointed 
 out to the confessors, that a true confes- 
 sion cannot be an " opus operatum," but 
 that it muse consist in the whole course 
 of tlieir conduct. [Ep. xiii ed. Ox.] 
 ''•The tongue which has confessed Christ 
 must be maintained pure and undefiled in 
 its dignity ; for he who speaks that which 
 conduces to peace, that which is good and 
 right, according to the command of the 
 Lord, confesses Christ daily." When he 
 warns them against false security and 
 against pride, he writes thus to them. 
 (Ep. vi.) "Ye must lay it much to 
 heart that what ye have happily begun, 
 may be perfected in you. It is but little 
 to be able to ohtain some advantage^ it is 
 more to keejj what one has gained. The 
 Lord taught us this, when He said : 'See! 
 thou art now whole ! henceforth sin no 
 more, lest a worse thing befall thee." So 
 also think thou, that He says to a confes- 
 sor : 'See! thou hast become a confessor! 
 sin no more, lest a worse thing befall 
 thee !' Solomon, indeed, and Saul, and 
 many others, were able, as long as they 
 walked in the way of the Lord, to keep 
 the grace besioAved upon them. As soon 
 as the Lord's discipline was away from 
 them, his grace went away also. 
 . . . . I hear that some are swelling 
 with pride •, and yet it is written : ' Be 
 not proud, but fear.' (Rom. xi. 20.)* Our 
 Lord was brought as a lamb to the 
 slaughter; and as a sheep before his 
 shearers is dumb, so He opened not his 
 
 mouth And shall then 
 
 any one, who lives through Him and in 
 Him, dare to be proud and high-minded, 
 unmindful alike of the conduct which He 
 pursued, and of the commands which He 
 laid on us, either by his own mouth or 
 by the apostles ? The servant is not 
 greater than his master; let then those 
 who follow the Lord be humble, quiet, 
 and silent, and so walk in liis footsteps; 
 the lower each man makes himself, the 
 higher will he become !"t 
 
 When a certain Lucian, a confessor. 
 " in the name of Paul, a martyr," in com- 
 pliance with whose last commands he 
 
 * [St. Paul's expression is ^» C-^tiKi-.ipgiiw, which ' 
 Cjiirian has made into"IVoIi altum sapere." — i 
 H. J. R.] ! 
 
 \ [This passage is taken with some abridgment ' 
 from Cyprian. Ep. xiii. ed Ox. — H. J. li.l J 
 
 18 
 
 pretended to be acting, bestowed the peace 
 of tlie Church on the fallen brethren, and 
 gave them what were called certificates 
 of communion, (libellos pacis,) Cyprian 
 would not allow these to be valid, but 
 said on the contrary, "Although the Lord 
 has declared, that the nations must be 
 baptized in the name of the Father, the 
 Son, and the Holy Ghost, and receive 
 forgiveness of their sins; yet this man, 
 forgetful of the law of God, preaches 
 peace and forgiveness of sins in the name 
 
 of Paul He remembers 
 
 not, that the martyrs do not make the 
 Gospel, but the Gospel the martyrs." 
 Ep. xxii. [Ep. xxviii. ed. Ox.] He also 
 made the same declaration expressly, in 
 the discourse* which we have quoted 
 above, after his return to tlie Church : 
 "Let no man deceive himself; the Lord 
 alone can show mercy. He alone can 
 grant pardon to sins which are committed 
 against himself, who bare our sins, who 
 suffered for us, whom God gave up for 
 our sins. Man cannot be greater than 
 God ; nor can the servant forgive the sins 
 committed against his master; lest a new 
 crime be added to the guilt of the fallen 
 brethren, because they know not that 
 which is written : ' Cursed is he that 
 putteth his trust in man.' Jerem. xvii. 5. 
 We must pray to the Lord; the Lord 
 must be appeased for our satisfaction, who 
 declares that He will deny those who deny 
 Him, who alone has received all judg- 
 ment from the Father Do 
 
 the martyrs give any commands .> It is 
 well, if what they command be lawful 
 
 and just Do the martyrs give 
 
 any commands.' That which they com- 
 mand ought to be what is written in the 
 law of God ; we must know beforehand 
 that they have obtained, at the hands of 
 God, what they desire ; and then we are 
 to do what they command, but not before; 
 for it does not follow, as a matter of 
 course, that the Divine Majesty lias granted 
 whatever human promises have declared. 
 
 Thus either the martyrs 
 
 are nothing, if the Gospel can be annulled, 
 or they who are martyrs by the Gospel 
 can have no power against that Gospel. 
 [Let none of you, my beloved brethren, 
 tarnish the fame of the martyrs ; let none 
 destroy their glories and their crowns. 
 The strength of uncorrupted faith remains 
 unimpaired ;] nor can he speak or do any 
 tlimg against Christ, ichose hope and 
 
 Sermo de lapsis. 
 M 2 
 
138 
 
 faith^ whose virtue and glory are all in 
 ChriatP* 
 
 And yet Cyprian was not firm and 
 consistent enough in the opposition which 
 he made to the extravagant honour paid 
 to the martyrs; and lie himself was in 
 some degree carried away by the spirit 
 that prevailed among the multitude, which 
 he ought to have conquered and guided 
 by tlie spirit of the Gospel. The heat of 
 the summer in the climate of Africa pro- 
 ducing many sicknesses, he yielded so 
 far as to give absolution to those among 
 the fallen brethren, who desired the com- 
 nmnion in sickness and in the fear of 
 death, and supported their claim to it by 
 one of the certificates of peace (libelli 
 pacis) conferred upon them by a witness to 
 the faitLJ In his report to the Roman 
 Church he gave, as his grounds for this 
 conduct, that he wished, by means of this 
 compliance, in some degree to assuage 
 the violence of the multitude, and thus to 
 counteract the machinations of those who 
 were at the bottom of the mischief, and 
 to remove from his own character the 
 imputation of having refused the due 
 and becoming share of honour to the 
 martyrs.J 
 
 We see from this how injurious any 
 compromise with a prevailing prejudice, 
 any halfway defence of truth, must always 
 be, whether it proceed from a want of 
 independence and firmness in our own 
 opinions, or from fear of man and a false 
 policy. If, on the one hand, Cyprian 
 combatted the false confidence in the in- 
 tercession of the martrys by the weapons 
 of truth, he supported it, on the other, by 
 yielding; for it is evident that the recom- 
 mendation of the martyrs must have had 
 a peculiar force and meaning, as soon as 
 all the fallen brethren in a like condition 
 and in the same moral state were not 
 treated alike, but only those who had 
 this recommendation were to receive the 
 peace of the Church and the communion 
 at the hour of death, solely on account 
 of this recommendation ; while it was still 
 highly probable that many, whc had 
 
 * [I have taken the liberty of supplyincr one 
 lacuna from the original of Cyyman, and inclosed 
 it in a parenthesis, page 7G. — H. .1. R.] 
 
 -[- p]p. xii. xiii. xiv. (Ep. xvili. xix. xx. cd. Ox.) 
 t Ep. xiv. (E[). XX. ed. Ox.) "Ad illorum vio- 
 
 Icntiam interim quodcjuo genere niitigandam , 
 
 cum vidcietur et honor niartyribu.s habendus, et 
 eorum, qui omnia turbare cupicbant, impetus com- 
 jirimendurt." Of tlic other lapsi, on the contrary, 
 lie speaks thus, Ej). xiii. (xix.,) " Qui nullo libello 
 a martyribus acccpto invidiam faciunt ;" and this 
 
 APPARENT VICTORY OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 sought no support from this one means, 
 had nevertheless, distinguished themselves 
 by repentance and penance more than 
 those who had received this support. 
 Now this conclusion, to which his con- 
 duct would give a very fair handle, is 
 favoured by the language which he made 
 use of in granting this permission, "to 
 those who might be assisted in regard to 
 their sins in the eyes of God by the help 
 of the martyrs,"* instead of pointing the 
 attention of all, without distinction, to 
 reliance only on one Mediator, and of 
 blaming most unreservedly the fanciful 
 self-confidence of those who believed that 
 they had really gained something of con- 
 sequence by means of the human medi- 
 ation, of which they had been assured. 
 This inconsistency was exactly the thing 
 to lay him open to his enemies in a manner 
 which they well knew how to use. 
 
 Another circumstance, which would of 
 course serve to give greater weight to the 
 opposition party in its connection with the 
 fallen brethren, was the powerful voice of 
 the Church of Rome, which had declared 
 itself in favour of the milder principle, not 
 in the case of all the fallen, but of those 
 who had become sick afterwards. Cyprian 
 declared also, that regard for the Roman 
 Church, with which he was always un- 
 willing to have any differences, had partly 
 moved him to this compliance.! But this 
 Church had acted more in the spirit of 
 evangelic truth, because she directed the 
 fallen brethren to the one only Media- 
 tor, and allowed of no distinction among 
 them except that of repentant and unre- 
 pentant. In that first letter addressed to the 
 clergy of Carthage, she had declared in re- 
 gard to the fallen brethren. Ep. ii. (Ep. 
 viii. ed. Ox. ) "We have separated them 
 from us, yet we have not left them to them- 
 selves, but we have exhorted them, and do 
 exhort them, to be penitent, if they may 
 thus be able to receive pardon from Him, 
 ivho alone can hestow it : that they may not, 
 being deserted by us, become worse. . . 
 
 If, therefore, any who have 
 
 fallen into this temptation are seized with 
 sickness, show repentance, and desire the 
 communion, they must be assisted." 
 
 And yet, by Christian prudence in the 
 rest of his conduct, by uniting mildness 
 with earnestness, by instructions and by 
 
 I ' ~ 
 
 Auxilio eorum adjuvari apud Dominum in 
 dclictis suis possunt. 
 
 f f^p.xiv. (Ep. XX. ed.Ox.,)to the Roman clergy; 
 " Standum putavi et cum vestra sententia, ne actus 
 nostcr,qiii adunatus esse et consentire circa omnia 
 " invidia" or "odium" he was, therefore, afraid of. ] debet, in aliquo discreparet." 
 
THE VISITATION FELICISSIATDS. 
 
 139 
 
 friendly, fatherly representations, by which I 
 he won the better spirits among the con- 
 fessors, by the firmness with which he 
 opposed the obstinate resistance of the 
 presbyters, by the love and the respect 
 with which the greater part of the com- 
 munity viewed him, bishop Cyprian ap- 
 peared already to have restored tranquillity 
 to Carthage, and he was enjoying the hope 
 of returning, as soon as the Decian perse- 
 cution ceased, to the Church, from which 
 he had unwillingly been absent a whole 
 year, and of celebrating with them the feast 
 of Easter, A. D. 251. But before this hope 
 could be realized, he had to learn that the 
 machinations of the party had been of a 
 deeper nature, and that they were too 
 closely bound together to allow of their 
 being separated so easily. The fire which 
 was smouldering in secret, only wanted 
 an opportunity to break, out openly. Cy- 
 prian afforded them this opportunity, by 
 the exercise of his episcopal power in a 
 matter of considerable importance. 
 
 He despatched, it seems, before he re- 
 turned to his Church, two bishops and 
 two presbyters, as his deputies, with full 
 powers to hold a visitation : they were to 
 assign to the poor, who from age or sick- 
 ness were unable to do any thing for their 
 own support, so much out of the Church 
 chest, as might be necessary for the sup- 
 ply of their bodily necessities ; they were 
 to give whatever might be needful to those 
 who, though they had an employment, 
 were unable to earn a livelihood by it, or 
 who wanted money in order to enable 
 them to buy the tools and materials ne- 
 cessary to carry on their trade, or who, 
 having been ruined in their business by 
 the persecution, were inclined to begin it 
 again ; and lastly, they were to prepare a 
 description of all the poor to be maintained 
 by the Church chest, distinguishing their 
 ages, circumstances, and conduct during 
 the persecution, in order that the bishop, 
 whose business it was to learn to know all 
 of them accurately, might promote the 
 worthy ones, and what was here particu- 
 larly designed, the tender and humble- 
 minded, to such offices in the Church as 
 they were capable of filling. The latter 
 regulation had this advantage, that the 
 powers of tliese persons would be suitably 
 employed for the service of the Church, 
 that they would also receive a proportion- 
 ate degree of care, and at the same time a 
 burden would be removed from the Church 
 chest. The qualities, which were parti- 
 cularly to be attended to, mildness and 
 humiliti/j were peculiarly requisite, during 
 
 this time of ferment and unquiet in the 
 Church, for those who were to enter its 
 service, that thus the peace of the Church 
 might be restored on a safe foundation, 
 and the seeds of dissension choked. The 
 presbyterian opposition party might not 
 concede to the bishop the right of under- 
 taking such a visitation, and making such 
 a distribution of the Church chest of his 
 own power, without calling together the 
 whole college of presbyters, or at least 
 they might object to such a right being 
 exercised by Cyprian, on the ground that 
 they did not any longer acknowledge hi?n 
 as their bishop ; but it would have been 
 utterly against their plan to allow him to 
 carry through such an act of episcopal 
 Church government, by which his own 
 autliority would he confirmed in the 
 Ciiurch, and the Church would be united 
 more closely with him, and thus his party- 
 would gain a considerable accession of 
 strength. The deacon Felicissimus, who 
 might very well possess considerable in- 
 fluence over some part of the Church in 
 his capacity of deacon, (for the deacons 
 appear to have had greater power in the 
 North African Church, as well as in its 
 cognate Church,* the Spanish, than else- 
 where,) who was, also, from some circum- 
 stances which we do not know very 
 accurately, a very influential organ of that 
 party, and, perhaps, particularly so in con- 
 sequence of having the administration of 
 part of the Church chest| under his care : 
 
 * Concil. Illiberit. c. hxvii. " Diaconus regens 
 plebem." 
 
 f We may learn from Ep. xlix. (Ep. lii. ed. Ox.,) 
 of Cyprian, that in the North African Church, the 
 deacons had to keep and administer the funds of the 
 Church chest. The accusations made against 
 Felicissimus of " fraudes" and " rapine," Ep. Iv. 
 (Ep. lix. ed. Ox.,) " pecuniae commissse sibi frau- 
 dator," relate to this point. There were similar 
 accusations against Novatus, the presbyter and 
 president of the Church, to which Fehcissimus 
 was appointed deacon. Cyprian was, however, 
 an enemy to both of these men, and we must not 
 take these accusations from his mouth, as the 
 evidence of an unimpeachable witness. An inde- 
 pendent apphcation of part of the Church funds, 
 which were deposited in this Daughter-Church, in 
 which, according to their views, they might be- 
 lieve themselves justified by their relations to the 
 bishop, an application of these funds perhaps di- 
 rected by party spirit, and partial views, would 
 probably be represented by Cyprian as an unfaith- 
 fulness in their duty. At all events, we are too 
 destitute of unprejudiced accounts, to be able to 
 decide with any thing like certainty on the subject. 
 
 [It appears* from the following passage of Ori- 
 
 * [This addition to the note is incorporated from 
 the addenda in vol. iii. — H. J. R. 
 
140 
 
 NORTH AFRICAN SYNOD, A. D. 251. 
 
 this deacon tliought that he was justified 
 in speaking a word or two, in a matter 
 ■ which concerned the appHcation of Church 
 fmijg ; — he used all his persuasion, all his 
 influence and power to excite a determined 
 spirit of opposition to this episcopal ordi- 
 nance ; he declared in particular to the 
 poor, who belonged to the Church of 
 Novatus, in wliich he was appointed dea- 
 con, that he would soon contrive to satisfy 
 all their wants ; and he threatened them, 
 that if they appeared before the episcopal 
 commissioners, he would never afterwards 
 admit them to the communion of the 
 Church.* This Church became now the 
 assembling place of all tlie fallen brethren, 
 who would not wait with patience till the 
 lime for the decision of the whole matter ; 
 here they were all received into Church 
 
 gen, Commentar, in Matth. f. 443, that the deacons 
 had to attend to the distribution of the Church 
 funds; o« Si fJt» kiKcd; Si-Mt-.vot Jk/xcuvtsc tu. t«c 
 
 x.tKa>: <!( -xiiTX oUcnfAouvTiu i:XA* <ra)§c/ivT5c Tov vc/ut- 
 
 tl( K-.yOV TTTCe^OKV SJof/.cVCeV. K. T. X.] 
 
 * Every thing here depends on what is the 
 genuine reading and the proper explanation of the 
 difficult words in Cyprian: Ep. xxxviii. (Ep. xli. 
 ed. Ox.,) whether we should read " comminatus, 
 quod secum in niorte,"' or " in monte non commu- 
 nicarent, qui nobis obtemperare voluissent." Ac- 
 cording to the reading " in morte" two explanations 
 may be offered : the one by referring the words 
 " in morte," to Fclicissimus, and then the sense 
 would be, that he himself, even in his dying hour, 
 would never recognise them as Christian brethren, 
 that he would excommunicate them, and never be 
 reconciled to them. We do not, however, in this 
 case, see very well, why such a threat should be 
 so very dreadful to the Christians of Carthage. 
 Again, if we refer the words " in morte" to the sub- 
 ject contained in the verb " conmmunicarcnt," 
 which certairdy comes nearer to the run of the 
 whole passage, then the sense will be this : — that 
 they should never, even in their dying hours, be 
 received into Church communion by him ; that is 
 to say, they should never receive the communion 
 from him as deacon, an office in which it was his 
 business to bring the consecrated sacrament to 
 those who were sick. This last explanation makes 
 good sense, if we bear in mind that Felicissimus 
 was deacon of one particular parish Church, and 
 had a good understanding with Novatus, the pas- 
 tor of that Church, so that he would have the 
 power of refusing the communion to those who 
 dwelt in this part of the Church diocese. An en- 
 tirely similar sense will result from the reading 
 " in monte." We must then suppose that the 
 Church, to which Novatus and Felicissimus be- 
 longed, was situated on an eminence in or near 
 Carthage (in monte,) and in this case we should 
 be reminded of the Donatists at Komc, who were 
 called Montcnses, from holding their congrega- 
 tions on a hill. Felicissimus threatened to exclude 
 all those, who chose to obey Cyprian, from com- 
 munion in this Church. 
 
 communion without any preparatory steps, 
 and here, therefore, was a rallying point 
 for all discontented spirits, which could 
 not fail to have the most prejudicial con- 
 sequences in regard to the discipline and 
 order of the Church. 
 
 Cyprian was induced, by these troubles, 
 to delay his return to Carthage till after 
 Easter, A. D. 251, until he could reckon 
 on meeting with his North African col- 
 leagues for the purpose of holding the 
 yearly synod, and thus find a support in 
 them against the obstinacy of his oppo- 
 nents, and be able to unite himself with 
 them, under the circumstances of the pre- 
 sent controversy, after mature considera- 
 tion, in some firm and consistent line of 
 conduct, based on general principles. This 
 Council of the North African Church 
 decided on a middle plan between the 
 extravagant harshness of denying all hope 
 to the fallen brethren, and the opposite 
 extreme of weak compliance ; so that they 
 might uphold Christian discipline, and 
 yet not drive the fallen brethren to de- 
 spair, by refusing them unconditionally, 
 and forever, absolution and re-admission 
 into Church communion, in such wise as 
 to bring them, perhaps, at last, to give 
 themselves wholly up to their vices, or 
 relapse into heathenism. First, the dif- 
 ferent nature* of their offences was to be 
 well weighed, and the communion was 
 to be administered to all, even the " sacri- 
 ficati" (those who had sacrificed to the 
 heathen idols,) if they showed repentance 
 in their conduct, at least in any case of 
 mortal sickness. If these persons after- 
 wards recovered, they were not to be cur- 
 tailed of the benefit bestowed upon them 
 by the grace of God, but were to continue 
 in the communion of the Church.l When 
 the persecution broke out again with in- 
 creased violence, a relaxation of this rule 
 was voluntarily made, which was prompt- 
 ed by the spirit of Christian love and wis- 
 dom, which was this — the communion 
 was to be administered to all who had 
 shown proofs of repentance in their con- 
 duct, in order that they might not go into 
 the struggle unarmed, but strengthened by 
 communion with the body of the Lord.;}; 
 But those who, while they had shown no 
 single mark of repentance in their whole 
 beliaviour, first expressed their wish for 
 the communion of the Church on the bed 
 
 * The diflerent guilt of the " sacrificati," ac- 
 cording to the different modes in which they had 
 been brought to recaait, and of the " libellatici." 
 
 \ Cyprian, Ep. Hi. (Ep. Iv. ed. Ox.) 
 
 i Ep. liv. (Ep. Ivi. ed. Ox.) 
 
CHURCH COMMUNION — SCHISM OF NOVATIAN. 
 
 41 
 
 of sickness, were not then to receive the 
 communion, because it was not sorrow 
 for their sins, but the warning of death 
 hanging over them which induced this 
 wish ; and he deserves no consolation in 
 death, who does not think of death before 
 it is close at hand. In this exposition, 
 the truly Christian endeavour is decidedly 
 made, to call men's attention to the es- 
 sentials of a true repentance, and to warn 
 them against a false reliance on the ' opus 
 operatum' of absolution and the commu- 
 nion.* But yet, in many cases, neverthe- 
 less, a true repentance may be produced by 
 the near approach of death, which He 
 alone, who can look into the inward heart 
 can distinguish from a hypocritical peni- 
 tence, which is so much more common ; 
 and therefore, they might well have avoided 
 this harshness, without giving any room 
 for false security, if they would only 
 have explained, more justly and clearly 
 the real nature of absolution, (see above.) 
 In this Church synod, a sentence of con- 
 demnation was also pronounced against 
 the party of Felicissimus, and Cyprian 
 was thus able, by his connection with 
 the North African bishops to crush this 
 division. But the party did not imme- 
 diately give up their opposition ; they 
 endeavoured to spread themselves more 
 widely in this part of the Church ; and 
 several individual African bishops, who 
 were at variance with their colleagues, or 
 had been deprived for their bad conduct, 
 joined them. They elected Fortunatus, 
 one of the five rebellious presbyters, to 
 the bishopric of Carthage, in the place of 
 Cyprian. They sent deputies to Rome to 
 win over this chief Church [Hauptkirche] 
 of the west to their side, and they ob- 
 tained there a hearing for their accusa- 
 tions against Cyprian ; but they were 
 unable to dissolve the bond of union be- 
 tween him and Cornelius, the bishop of 
 Rome, although their outcry had caused 
 a momentary impression. So, in a letter, 
 in which the spirit of the episcopal theo- 
 cracy, a Jewish, rather than an evangelical 
 notion, which is, in fact, the fancy of the 
 Old Testament priesthood in the Christian 
 Church, is very prominently displayed, 
 Cyprian urges it on the Romish bishop, 
 that he should defend the imity of the 
 Church, founded on the mutual connec- 
 tion of the bishops against schismatics ; 
 and in the same letter he also zealously 
 advocates the independence of bishops, 
 in their dioceses ; " for, since it is agreed 
 
 upon by all of us," he writes, " that it 
 is just and right that each man's cause 
 should be tried in the place in which the 
 offence was committed, and since to every 
 pastor a •portion of the Jlock is assigned 
 for him to govern^ and render up here- 
 after an account to the Lord of his gov- 
 ernment ; those who are under our ju- 
 risdiction ought not to run about, and, 
 by their delusive arts and boldness, de- 
 stroy the unity of the bishops, who are 
 united together; but they ouglit to plead 
 their cause there, where they can have 
 also accusers and witnesses of their 
 offence."* 
 
 The second schism arose in the Church 
 of Rome ; and as Cornelius of Rome co- 
 operated with Cyprian of Carthage, to 
 quash the first, so in this, Cyprian joined 
 with Cornelius to maintain the unity of 
 the Church. Like the former, this second 
 dissension arose from a contest about the 
 election of a bishop, and from a conten- 
 tion of opposite opinions on the subject 
 of Church penance; only with this dif- 
 ference, that there the schism was set on 
 foot by the laxer, and here by the stricter 
 party. Much which had taken place 
 during the Decian persecution, gave the 
 outward occasion to the outbreak of this 
 schism, as it had done with the other. 
 We have before observed, that the prevail- 
 ing tendency in the Roman Church, on tlie 
 subject of penance, was to the milder doc- 
 trine ; but still, it had also a stricter party, 
 at the head of which was Novatianus, 
 who had made himself known as a theo- 
 logical witer. We are without accurate 
 accounts of the character of this man, 
 from which we could obtain sufficient 
 light to enable us to judge properly of 
 his notions on this point, and his whole 
 conduct in this matter, when considered 
 with relation to his individual disposition : 
 I for what his angry enemies have said of 
 j him, and what completely bears upon it 
 I the mark of passion and exaggeration, 
 naturally deserves no credit. If we en- 
 deavour to eliminate the real facts from 
 the disfiguring and spiteful representations 
 made by the enemies of Novatian, the 
 following seems to be the most probable 
 statement of the case: Novatian, in con- 
 sequence of mental struggles, which pro- 
 ceeded from tlie earnestness of his dispo- 
 sition, had fallen into a nervous disease 
 or phantasy ; such a condition, in short, as 
 was then considered a case of demoniacal 
 possession. Having probably beforehand, 
 
 Ep. lii. (Iv. ed. Ox.) 
 
 Ep. Iv. ad Cornel. (Ep. lix ed. Ox.) 
 
142 
 
 novatian's character. 
 
 by his inward stnicfgles, been prepared to 
 believe in the divinity of Christ, and the 
 Divine nature of Christianity, he had to 
 thank the prayers of an exorcist for a tem- 
 porary relief from his calamity. From this 
 powerful convulsion of his whole nature, 
 he fell into a severe illness, from which, 
 in the first instance, his real and radical 
 cure proceeded, hi this sickness his faith 
 was decided, and when he thought him- 
 self near his end, he was baptized on his 
 sick bed. hi Christianity he found peace 
 and tranquillity, and a healing power. As 
 he distinguished himself by his firmness 
 in the faith, by the clearness of his Chris- 
 tian knowledge, to which his writings 
 bear witness, by a happy power of teach- 
 ing, and by a zeal for holiness, which 
 afterwards led him to an ascetic life, 
 bishop Fabian ordained him presbyter, 
 overlooking the circumstance that he had 
 first made known his faith, and been bap- 
 tized on the bed of sickness. The clergy 
 of Rome, were from the first, discontented 
 •with this proceeding, because they main- 
 tained firmly the letter of the law of the 
 Church, which was, that no man, who 
 Avas baptized on the bed of sickness no 
 "clinicus," should be ordained; but Fa- 
 bian judged more wisely, according to the 
 spirit of this law, the only intention of 
 which was, to keep out of the clerical 
 profession all those who, without real re- 
 pentance, persuasion, and knowledge, had 
 been induced to be baptized by the tem- 
 porary agitation caused by the fear of 
 death. In Novatian, the necessity for 
 such a precaution was contradicted by his 
 subsequent conduct. For a considerable 
 time, he exchanged the active life of a 
 practical member of the clergy, for the 
 still, retired life of an ascetic ; yet, never- 
 theless, he afterwards suffered himself to 
 be induced to return to the active duties 
 of his office, but, perhaps, not until they 
 wished to put him at the head of a party.* 
 
 I Some slight intimation of Cyprian's by 
 no means amount to a proof, that Nova- 
 tian, before his conversion, had been a 
 Stoic philosopher, and that in some de- 
 
 • Wc must here take particular notice of the 
 synodal letter of Cornelius, bishop of Rome, to 
 Tabius, bishop of Antioch, of which Eusebius 
 (vi. 43,) has preserved a fragment. 'J'his letter is 
 well worthy of attention, as characteristic of that 
 tendency of the churchly spirit to confuse the 
 outward and the inward, which began to prevail 
 so Kfrikingly at Home from early times. It is 
 made a matter of reproach to Novatian, that the 
 healing of the so-called demornacal possession (sec 
 above) by the exorcists of the Roman Church was 
 the first cause of his believing. Whether this he 
 true or not, it cannot bring a taint on Novatian's 
 Christianity in any case. Itwa.« indifferent through 
 what channel he was led to Christianity, provided 
 that, when he had once become a (Jhristian, he 
 
 attained a living faith, a genuine Christian dispo- 
 sition, and a pure Christian knowledge. This 
 reproach of CorneUus, that Satan had been the 
 occasion of Novatian's faith (^ yi cp-.p/un t'm ttio-- 
 rwa-at y«y(,\» o o-otT^tvatc,) was as foolish as it was 
 unworthy of a Christian; just as if the workings 
 of evil must not often serve as the foundation of 
 the kingdom of God. ' After the cure of this de- 
 moniacal possession, he fell into a severe sick- 
 ness,' (which may be explained naturally enough; 
 the crisis in his whole organic frame, to which 
 he may attribute the cure of his state of phan- 
 tasy, being the cause of the sickness,) ' and, being 
 in danger of death, he received the rite of baptism 
 only by sprinkling, as his condition required,' 
 (the baptismus clinicorum — not the baptism by 
 immersion^ as then usually practised,) <if one 
 can properly say, that such an one as he was 
 really baptized.' (How carnally and grossly does 
 the prejudice of passion and the narrow-hearted 
 spirit of the Romish hierarchy here make the 
 bishop speak.) ' After this he received none of 
 those things, which the Church requires to be re- 
 ceived, and he was not confirmed by the bishop; 
 and how, tberefore, could he thus expect to receive 
 the Holy Spirit!' A bishop of Rome, appa- 
 rently Fabian, afterwards ordained him presbyter, 
 although the rest of the clergy would not allow 
 the ordination of a person baptized by sprinkling 
 to be valid. The bishop here must have wished 
 to make an exception — apparently a person of a 
 more free and evangelic spirit who acted quite 
 rightly in accordance with the spirit, if not the 
 letter, of that ecclesiastical law against the ordi- 
 nation of persons so baptized. (The council of 
 Laodicea, which expressed this ancient law in its 
 twelfth canon, gives as the reason for it, — that 
 such a faith, first making its appearance when a 
 man lies on a bed of sickness, does not arise from 
 free persuasion, but is something forced: which 
 may be true in many cases, and the council, there- 
 fore, allowed an exception to be valid in the case 
 of any one, who gave proofs of zeal and faith ; 
 and such an exception may have been made in re- 
 gard to Novatian.) Cornelius further reproaches 
 him with having shut himself up in a chamber 
 out of fear, during the persecution, and refusing 
 to leave it in order to exercise his priestly office in 
 favour of those who needed assistance. When 
 his deacons required him to do this, he sent them 
 back with this answer, ' that he was now the 
 votary of a diflferent philosophy.' W'e must here, 
 we acknowledge, have recourse to conjecture to 
 separate the facts, which are the groundwork of 
 this part of the history, from the form in which 
 the hatred of Cornelius has represented them. By 
 the words iTig^a. <f>/xc<r;pw, we are probably to under- 
 stand the more retired life of the ascetic, as con- 
 trasted with the clerical profession; Novatian 
 might have retired for a time into solitude, as an 
 ascetic, and have withdrawn himself from public 
 business. This answers well to the strict charac- 
 ter, which his principles of penitence bespeak, 
 and, as an ascetic, he was likely to be held in con- 
 siderable reverence by the Church. Novatian 
 
A CONTEST OP PRINCIPLES, 
 
 o^ree the spirit of the Stoic morality, 
 mingling itself with his Christianity, had 
 produced the sternness of his notions in 
 these tilings. As his principles are so 
 clearly to be explained from the sternness 
 of his Christian character, and as he was 
 acting in this instance in the spirit of a 
 whole party of the Church, existing at 
 that time, there is the less need to resort 
 to an explanation, deduced from an exter- 
 nal cause, which is supported by no his- 
 torical proof.* 
 
 The passionate adversaries of Novatian 
 accused him of being induced by ambitious 
 desires of the episcopal dignity, to excite 
 these disturbances, and set himself up for 
 the head of a party. But this is in the 
 usual style of theological polemics : 
 namely, to deduce schisms and heresies 
 from external and unhallowed motives, 
 although they have no proof of their ex- 
 istence. Novatian, on some opportu- 
 nity after the vacation of the Roman .see 
 by the death of Fabian, had pledged him- 
 self by an oath, that he would not sue for 
 the episcopal dignity, nor desire such an 
 office, although he might, through the 
 reverence entertained for him, as an asce- 
 tic and a dogmatical theologian, by a great 
 part of the Church, perhaps have obtained 
 
 may have been wrong in allowing himself to he 
 seduced by a false asceticism, and to forget Chris. 
 tian charity, so as to refuse to leave his spiritual 
 tranquillity and solitude, and assist his brethren, 
 who needed his priestly assistance ; but Cornelius 
 allowed himself to ascribe to this conduct a diffe- 
 rent motive, which was utterly unsuited to the 
 character of Novatian.-j" 
 
 * It is by no means clear that the enemies of 
 Novatian themselves believed in this account of 
 the source of his notions. Though Cyprian ac- 
 cused his notions of being more stoical than Chris- 
 tian, (Ep. Hi. ad Antonian.; Ep. Iv. ed. Ox,) yet 
 this may very naturally be explained as alluding 
 to the nature of these notions, and not to their 
 source ; and though he reproaches him thus : " Jac- 
 tet se licet et philosophiam vel eloquentiam suam 
 Buperbis vocibus praedicet ;" yet the first part of 
 this sentence alludes to the rg^i^v, the pallium of 
 the tlo-^JcT/ic, (see the foregoing note,) or to the fome 
 of an admirable dogmatical writer, which Novatian 
 had acquired as the author of the book " de Regula 
 Fidei," or "de Trinitate," as even Cornelius says 
 of him, in the letter we have quoted in the forego- 
 ing note. cJtoc ioyfAa.Ttv'TK, o ms iK>aJia-/ao-riK>i; 
 
 [t I have distinguished the passages which Dr. 
 Neander has taken from the letter of Cornelius 
 in Eusebius, by inverted commas, to distinguish 
 them from his remarks upon them, which are in 
 parentheses. He has left them in the German 
 without any marks of quotation ; but I felt them 
 requisite for the sake of clearness in English. The 
 theological reader need not be reminded, that in 
 Eusebius and other Greek writers, Novatian is 
 commonly called Novatus. — H. J. R.] 
 
 143 
 
 it easily. We have no reason here, with 
 bishop Cornelius, to accuse Novatian of 
 perjury. An ascetic who loved repose, 
 and a theologian, who busied himself un- 
 disturbedly with his dogmatical specula- 
 tions, he might be in good earnest, when 
 he declared, that he had no inclination for 
 an office so overwhelmed with business, 
 as the bishopric of Rome then was. .How- 
 ever, Cornelius knew that he sighed in 
 secret, after the episcopal dignity ; but 
 whence, we may ask, had Cornelius the 
 eyes to see in secret and penetrate the 
 hidden recesses of his adversary's heart! 
 Cyprian himself gives us a hint that a 
 party controversy about principles, which 
 at first was considered wholly of an ob- 
 jective kind, had preceded, and tliat when 
 a schism was by this made unavoidable, 
 the opposite party then first set up another 
 bishop, as their head, in opposition to 
 Cornelius.* Novatian's zeal oidy out of 
 regard for the supposed purity of the 
 Church, moved him to contend against 
 the decay of Church discipline, without 
 wishing or meaning any thing further. 
 This man, therefore, firm in his persuasion, 
 and violently zealous in defence of that per- 
 suasion, but as far as natural disposition is 
 concerned, utterly removed from all rest- 
 
 ' less and outward motives, was made the 
 head of a party, against his own will, by 
 those who agreed with him in principles, 
 and compelled to take upon himself the 
 rank of bishop. He might, therefore, in 
 this respect, in his letter to Dionysius, 
 bishop of Alexandria, justly appeal to his 
 having been carried on against. Jiis will.'f 
 The man who was really the active soul 
 of this party, and whose influence pro- 
 
 j bably causecl the party to break loose from 
 Cornelius entirely, and create another 
 bishop for itself, came from a different 
 quarter. That Carthaginian presbyter, 
 Novatus, who had been the soul of dis- 
 sension in the North African Church, had 
 removed himself thence, when Cyprian 
 obtained the upper hand ; whether it was 
 that he was no longer contented with the 
 principles of the party of Felicissimus, and 
 yet would not be reconciled to Cyprian, 
 and acknowledge him for his bishop; or 
 whether it was 07ihi the failure of his 
 machinations against Cyprian which drove 
 
 • Cyprian, Ep. Ixii. (Ep.xlv.ed. Ox.) " Di ver- 
 sa; partis obstinata et inflexibilis pertinacia runt 
 tantunt matris sinum recusavit; sed etiam glis- 
 cente et in pejim rccrudescenie discordia, cpisco- 
 pum sibi constituit." 
 
 [A few words, of no great importance, are left 
 out in this quotation. — H. J. R.] 
 
 I or/ dxaiy )i;:^fi)t. 
 
144 
 
 CORNELIUS NOVATIAN DIONYSIUS. 
 
 him to this step. He had betaken him- 
 self to Rome, and tliere he found tlie seeds 
 of that contention ah-eady sown. It was 
 in his very nature not to be quiet and 
 neutral, while strife and agitation were 
 going forward. According to the princi- 
 ples which he had defended at Carthage 
 in connection with the four presbyters and 
 Felicissimus, he ought to have espoused 
 the cause of Cornelius. But whether it 
 was, that he had entirely changed his sen- 
 timents on the subjects in dispute — which 
 might have happened through the influ- 
 ence of Novatian as his superior in theo- 
 retical theology, or from his own violent 
 disposition, so ready to go from one ex- 
 treme to another — or whether he only 
 took an interest in one object of conten- 
 tion,* at Rome as well as Carthage, and 
 that he was from disposition constantly a 
 friend to the party in opposition, that he 
 was inclined to join that party, at the head 
 of ichich there was no bishop^ and that 
 Cornelius was hated by him from some 
 other grounds ; — it is enough for us, that 
 Novatus passionately espoused the prin- 
 ciples of the party of Novatian, and en- 
 tered warmly into the contest. It was 
 his mode of proceeding, Avhelher at Rome 
 or at Carthage, to be the moving spring 
 of all troubles, and yet not to set himself 
 but another, at the head of the party. It 
 might, therefore, be in consequence of his 
 active influence, that the breach grew still 
 wider, and that the honoured Novatian 
 was obliged to take the lead, and assume 
 the rank of bishop. 
 
 In respect to those who had fallen away 
 from the faith during the Decian persecu- 
 tion, Cornelius had acted according to the 
 milder principle, and had admitted many 
 to the communion of the Church, who 
 were, at least, accused by the other party 
 a.s " sacrificati." Novatian, and his ad- 
 herents, made this a subject of accusation 
 against him, as having polluted the Church 
 
 by the reception of unclean persons into 
 it; and (after the usual way of passionate 
 controversialists) as on the one hand, Cor- 
 nelius had accused Novatian of having 
 made all this stir out of an ambition 
 which thirsted after the episcopal office ; 
 
 j so on the other, a part at least of the fol- 
 lowers of Novatian, imputed the mildness 
 
 I of Cornelius towards other men, to the 
 circumstance that his own conscience 
 accused him of a similar offence, for he 
 was a " libellaticus." Cyprian, Ep. lii. 
 [Ep. xlv. ed. Ox.] Both parties endea- 
 voured, as is usual in contentions like 
 these, to win over to their side the voice 
 of those great head Churches at Alexan- 
 dria, Antioch, and Carthage, and sent 
 deputies to them. The zeal for the strict- 
 ness of Church discipline, and the purity 
 of Christian conduct, which Novatian 
 showed, and the weighty influence of cer- 
 tain confessors who were at first in con- 
 nection with him, procured him access 
 hither and thither, and even a bishop of 
 Antioch, Fabius, was on the point of join- 
 ing his party. Dionysius, the bishop of 
 Alexandria, a man of mild, moderate, and 
 free spirit, was from the beginning an op- 
 ponent of the principles of Novatian, but 
 he endeavoured at first to move Novatian 
 to give in, by means of friendly persuasion. 
 He wrote thus in reply to him :* " If thou 
 art, as thou sayest, carried away against 
 thy will, prove it by retracting of your 
 own accord; for thou oughtest to have suf- 
 fered any thing, rather than have founded a 
 schism in the Church. And a martyrdom, 
 in order to avoid a schism, would not be 
 less glorious than one to escape offering 
 to idols,t nay, in my opinion, it would be 
 something greater; for in the one case a 
 man becomes a martyr for the sake of his 
 own soul ; in the other, he does so for 
 the sake of the whole Church. If, there- 
 fore, thou wilt now persuade or constrain 
 the brethren to return to unanimity, the 
 
 * Mosheim defends Novatus against the accu- 
 sation of contradicting himself, by supposing that 
 he did not belong to the five presbyters, and that 
 he did not agree with them and with Felicissimus 
 in this respect, but only in a common opposition 
 to Cyprian. But the proofs cited above make 
 against this supposition. The strongest ground 
 which Mosheim brings forward for his opinion is 
 this ; — that Cyprian who raked up all possible 
 grounds of accusation against Novatus, neverthe- 
 less docs not charge him with contradicting him- 
 self, when he had a capital opportunity of doing so. 
 But we may, perhaps, imagine, that Cyprian would 
 be tender of touching on this point, because he 
 might fear a retort, reminding him of tlie change 
 in liis own sentiments. 
 
 * Euseb. vi. 45. 
 
 "1" [Km iiv oi/K i^c^cT-s^ct <n; iviH.fr tcu f^n a-^ia-au 
 juaeru^iA, KAr \fAi Si x/u fjLii^m. 
 
 The passage stands thus in the edition of Read- 
 ing, but it gives then no reasonable sense. There 
 is a note from Pearson and W. Lowth, recom- 
 mending the reading fluo-ct/ instead of o-^ktm, which 
 the translation of Rufinus seems to support. In 
 the elaborate edition of Euseb. H. E. just pul)- 
 lished by Heinichcn (Lips. 1829), he has adopted 
 the reading supported by Stroth, aJ^^oTi^-j. tmc 
 svBcsv Tou fxii £!VaiAc\*T§)ia-a( yiv.fxivni li svstfv tm fM 
 <7)(j7cu /xngTuefj., and supposes this line to have 
 l)ecn omitted in Valesius by a typographical error. 
 It is to be hoped that this work may be followed 
 up by the other ecclesiastical historians. — H. J. R. 
 
I. NO ABSOLUTION FOR PECCATA MORTALIA. 
 
 145 
 
 good thou doest by this means, will be 
 greater than the evil thou hast caused. 
 The one will not be reckoned to thee ; 
 but the other will be praised; even if thou 
 art unable to persuade them, and fail in 
 tliy purpose, yet at any rate try to save 
 thy own soul. Mayest thou keep peace 
 in the Lord! I wish thee heartily fare- 
 well." But as Novatian was too deeply 
 rooted in his opinions, and too much 
 occupied by his polemic zeal, to be able 
 to listen to such representations, the kind- 
 hearted Dionysius now declared himself 
 more strongly against him, and endea- 
 voured also to draw away others from his 
 party. He accused him* of bringing for- 
 ward the most unhallowed doctrines about 
 God, and of calumniating the merciful Je- 
 sus Christ as an unmerciful being. 
 
 Novatian might have better hopes of 
 finding support in North Africa, because 
 Cyprian himself had been inclined, in 
 earlier days, to principles of the same kind 
 in regard to penitence; but he had, in the 
 meantime, as we above remarked, changed 
 his opinions and his line of conduct, on 
 account of which he was accused of in- 
 consistency and variableness,! and he saw, 
 ai the same time, in Novatian, the disturber 
 of the unity of the Church, a man who 
 opposed a bishop regularly chosen, ap- 
 pointed by God himself, and one who 
 wished to prescribe his own principles to 
 the Church, as its law. 
 
 The controversy with the party of No- 
 vatian turned upon two general points: — 
 
 1. On the principles of penitence. 
 
 2. On what constitutes the idea and the 
 essence of a true Cliurch. 
 
 In regard to the first, Novatian has often 
 been unjustly accused of maintaining the 
 following doctrine: No one who has vio- 
 lated his baptismal covenant by a sin, can 
 ever obtain again the pardon of his sin, he 
 is sure of eternal condemnation, hi the 
 first place, Novatian never maintained that 
 a Christian was a perfect saint, and lie was 
 not here speaking of all sins, but he pre- 
 supposed the distinction of" peccata mor- 
 talia," and "peccata venialia," and only 
 spoke of the former. And in the next 
 place, he was not speaking at all of the 
 forgiveness of sins by God, but only of 
 the judgment of the Church, of the absolu- 
 tion of the Church. The Church, he 
 meant to say, has no riglu to give absolu- 
 tion to a man, who, by a mortal sin, has 
 
 forfeited the forgiveness of sins obtained 
 by Christ, and appropriated to him in 
 baptism. God has revealed no determina- 
 tion in regard to such men; for the for- 
 giveness of sins promised in the Gospel, 
 relates only to sins committed before bap- 
 tism. These fallen brethren must certainly 
 be taken care of; but nothing more can be 
 done for them than to exhort them to re- 
 pentance, and commend tliein to the mercy 
 of God. According to Socrates, (iv. 28,) 
 Novatian wrote thus : — " We must not 
 receive the ' sacrificati' to the communion, 
 but only exhort thom to repentance, and 
 leave the forgiveness of their sins to God 
 I alone, who has the power to forgive sins." 
 Even Cyprian supposes these to be the 
 principles of Novatian, although, in the 
 heat of controversy, he did not always 
 remember it, as we see when he says, 
 Ep. lii. (Ep. Iv. ed. Ox.,) "Oh! what 
 mockery of the deluded brethren ! oh ! 
 what a vain deception of those unhappy 
 men, who are lamenting! to exhort them 
 to a penitence by which they are to give 
 satislkction to God — and to withdraw from 
 them the medicine, which might give them 
 the means of this satisfaction ! To say to 
 your brother : lament and shed tears, sigh 
 day and night! do all the good in thy 
 power, to wash away thy sins, but after 
 all, thou shalt die without the Church. 
 Thou must do the things pertaining to 
 peace, but the peace thou seekest thou 
 shalt never attain !* Who would not perish 
 instantly? Who would not give up from 
 mere despair.^ Dost thou believe, that the 
 husbandman could labour, if a man were 
 to say to him : ' Spend all thy care and 
 labour on the culture of thy field, but thou 
 shalt never reap an harvest!'" 
 
 As we see from the above quoted ex- 
 planation of Novatian, from the work of 
 Socrates, at first the controversy regarded 
 only one of the offences, which went under 
 the name of " peccata mortalia ;" they 
 were only debating about the conduct 
 which implied a denial of Christianity. 
 On the supposition, that Novatian was 
 at first so severe on this kind of trans- 
 gression, Cyprian was perfectly justified 
 in combating die whole moral view, 
 which was the foundation of this line of 
 conduct, he was quite justified in con- 
 tending against the notion, that only 
 
 • Euseb. vii, 8. 
 
 \ Ep. lii. (Ep. Iv. ed. Ox.) "Nc me aliquis 
 existiinet, a ptoposito meo leviter reccssisse." 
 
 19 
 
 * To say the truth, this w<w an opinion not 
 quite suited to Novatian, whose language would 
 rather be: " Do all in thy power to attain again to 
 thy lost peace with (lod ; but no man can give 
 you a certain pkdge that you have attained it." 
 N 
 
146 
 
 CHRISTIAN CHARITY OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 such offences, as a denial of God, or 
 a denial of Christianity, were to be called 
 offences affainst God, as if every sin were 
 not an offence against God, and a prac- 
 tical denial of God and Christianity : 
 '^Now the offence," says Cyprian, Ep. 
 lii. (Ep. Iv. ed. Ox.,) " of the adulterer 
 and deceiver, is far worse than that of 
 the 'libellalicus;' the one sins by com- 
 pulsion, the other by choice; the 'li- 
 bellaiicus' is deceived by the notion, 
 that it is enough not to have sacri- 
 
 He puts the supposition, that many of the 
 "libellatici,' whose conscience did not 
 reprove them, would be led away by 
 despair, to tear tliemselves away from the 
 Church, and to ask for admittance into 
 some sect of heretics : and he says, " It 
 will be laid to our charge, in the day of 
 judgment, that we cared not for the sick 
 sheep, and that we have lost many healthy 
 sheep on account of one that was sick. 
 While the Lord left the ninety and nine 
 whole sheep to seek that which was wan- 
 
 liced Adulterers and de- dering and weary, we, it would seem, not 
 
 ceivers, according to the saying of the ; only do not seek the lost sheep, but when 
 apostle, (Ephes v. 5,) are as idolaters, it returns, we reject it." He then opposes 
 For as our bodies are members of Christ, this harshness by passages from the writ- 
 and as every one of us is a temple of j ings of the apostles, 1 Cor. ix. 22 ; xii. 
 Christ, he Avho injures the temple of 126; x. 33, Stc; and he adds, "The Case 
 God by adultery, injures God; and he j stands quite differently with the philoso- 
 who does the will of the devil in Com- ' " 
 
 phers and stoics, who say, that all sins 
 
 offences serves the devils and | are equal, and that a steadfast man must 
 
 ot easily be brought to bend. But there 
 
 > a vast difference between Christians 
 
 mittni^ 
 
 idols. For evil works came not from the 
 
 Holy Spirit, but from the instigation of 
 
 the adversary ; and evil desires, born of ■ and philosophers We 
 
 the evil spirit, compel men to act against j must avoid what comes not from the 
 
 God, and to serve the devil." But after- | mercy of God, but from the presump- 
 
 ards, at least, the party of Novatian | tion of cruel philosophy. 
 
 applied their principle to the whole class } . . The Lord says in his Gospel, ' Be 
 of ' peccata mortalia,' which most pro- j ye merciful, even as your Father has 
 bably Novatian himself had intended from mercy on you;' and again, ' the whole 
 the very first, although the immediate I have not need of a physician, but they 
 subject of controversy led him only to j that are sick.' What healing can he per- 
 speak of aiie sort of "peccata mortalia.' form who says, ' I care only for the heal 
 We cannot suppose an ascetic, like him- i ing of the whol 
 self, to be very much inclined to treat ! no physici 
 
 of those who need 
 See ! there 
 
 voluptuous sins too mildly. 
 
 lies thy brother, wounded by the enemy 
 
 And besides, Novatian in the extract j in battle. On the one side, Satan endea- 
 from Socrates, speaks only of such as had j vours to kill him, whom he has wounded; 
 
 sacrificed. Bui if Cyprian does not mis- 
 represent Novatian, he most unjustly 
 classed together, at least at first, all who 
 had been unfaithful, in any way whatever, 
 during the persecution, " libellatici," as 
 well as " sacrificati," without regard to 
 the various gradations of their olFences, 
 and tlie diflerent circumstances which 
 accompanied them : and without consid- 
 ering that so many among the " libel- 
 
 on the other, Christ exhorts us not to 
 allow him to perish, whom He has re- 
 deemed. To which of these two do we 
 give our assistance } on whose side are 
 we standing .? Do we further the devil's 
 work, and allow him to kill, do we pass 
 by our brother, lying half dead, like the 
 priest and the Levite in the Gospel ? or 
 do we, like priests of God and Ciirist, 
 following what Christ has both taught 
 latici," were guilty of an error and a mis- 1 and done, carry off' the wounded man 
 understanding, ratlier than of a sin, he i from the fangs of his adversary, that we 
 utterly refused absolution to all the " li- '• may reserve hiiu for God's final judg- 
 ment, when we have done what we can 
 for his cure .^"* 
 
 Beautifully and truly as all this was 
 
 bellatici" as well as to the " sacrificati." 
 
 Beautifully, in tlie maimer in which 
 Cyprian combated these principles of 
 Novatian,* does the paternal and loving 
 heart of the pious shepherd, who fol 
 lowed the example of iiis Lord 
 forth, as well as the spirit of Christian 
 love and tenderness whicli animated him. 
 
 Ep. lii. (Ep. Iv. ed. Ox.) 
 
 " Ut curatum Deo judici reservemus,' that is 
 peak j to say, upon the supposition that absolution can- 
 not forestall the judgment of God, but only, that, 
 if (iod, who looks upon the inward parts, finds 
 man's heart corresponding to this absolution, and 
 fitted for it, it is valid at God's own judgment- 
 seat. 
 
II. A MIXED CHURCH NO TRUE CHURCH. 
 
 14T 
 
 said against the spirit of Novatianism, ! 
 yet the principles of Novalian could not 
 be met and contradicted by it. Even 
 Novatian declared that the fallen breth- 
 ren must be received and exhorted to 
 penitence. He also acknowledged the 
 mercy of God towards sinners, and he 
 ^vould also allow men to commend these 
 fallen brethren to that mercy, but he 
 would not allow men again with cer- 
 tainty to announce to them that forgive- 
 ness of sins which they had once for- 
 feited, because he found no objective 
 grounds for such a confidence. The 
 only method of eflectually answering 
 him, was by showing him such an ob- 
 jective ground of contidence for all sin- 
 ners, namely, in the merits of Christ, 
 which the sinner always needed only to 
 appropriate to himself, by penitence unit- 
 ed with faith, and bv a tirm reliance on 
 those merits. But on this point the op- 
 ponents of Novatian were not themselves 
 explicit enough, because in opposing his 
 principles they sometimes appealed to 
 1 John i. 1, 2, but then they so expressed 
 themselves, as if the forgiveness of sins, 
 obtained for man by Christ, only related 
 to sins committed before baptism, and as 
 if in respect to sins, committed after it, 
 there was need of a peculiar and per- 
 sonal satisfaction by good works. Once 
 lay down this position, and Novatian 
 was ftiirly entitled to ask, '•' And who 
 will give us a pledge that any such satis- 
 faction is available V 
 
 As far as concerns the second point* in 
 dispute, the notion of the Church, No- 
 vatian held the following opinion : As 
 the mark of purity and holiness is one of 
 the essential marks of a true Church, 
 every church which, neglecting the right 
 use of Church discipline, suffers those 
 who have violated their baptismal vow 
 by great sins, to remain in the midst of 
 her, or receives them into her again, 
 ceases thereby to be a true Church, and 
 loses all the rights and advantages of 
 such a Church. The Novatianists, there- 
 fore, as they claimed to be the only un- 
 stained, pure Church, called themselves, 
 ol xa9a§oi, " the pure." Tt was justly said, 
 in opposition to Novatian, that each man 
 could be answerable and punishable only 
 
 * Pacianus, of Barcelona, who wrote in the 
 latter half of the fourth century, shortly com- 
 prises the two principles of ISovatian in the fol- 
 lowing words ; " Quod mortale peccatum ec- 
 clesia donare non possit, iinmo quod ipsa pereat 
 recipicndo peccantcs." Ep. iii. contra. Nova- 
 tian. Galland. Bibi. Patr. t. vii. 
 
 for his own sins, and no man for those 
 of another, in Mhich he had no share ; 
 I that only the inward conmiunion widi 
 sinners, by the dispositions of the heart, 
 not the outward association with them, 
 was deriling in its nature ; and that it was 
 a piece of arrogance and human pride, to 
 wish to exercise that judicial power of 
 separating the real and false members of 
 the Christian Church, which the Lord 
 had reserved to himself Beautifully does 
 Cyprian say on this subject, " Although 
 there appear to be tares in the Church, 
 let not this disturb our faith nor our 
 charity, so as to induce us to leave the 
 Church, because there are tares in the 
 Church. We must labour to belong to the 
 wheat, that, when the wheat is gathered 
 into the garners of the Lord, we may 
 receive the recompense of our labours. 
 The Aposde says, 'in a great house, 
 there are not only vessels of silver and 
 gold, but vessels of wood and clay, and 
 some to dishonour, some also to honour.' 
 Let us, therefore, labour, as far as we are 
 al)le, to be those golden or silver vessels. 
 To destroy the vessels of clay, is only 
 given to the Lord alone, to whom the 
 rod of iron has been given also. The 
 servant cannot be greater than his Master, 
 and no one can appropriate to himself 
 what the father has given only to his 
 Son, namely, to believe himself capable 
 of carrying the winnowing fan, to cleanse 
 and purify the threshing-floor, or of sepa- 
 rating the tares from the wheat."* 
 
 But here, again, men were unable to 
 fmd the only direct argument to oppose 
 Novatianism on this point, and the ene- 
 mies of Novatian were, in fact, in the 
 same fundamental error with himself, 
 only that they dilTered in the application 
 of their principle. That error was a con- 
 fusion between the ideas of the visible and 
 of the invisible Church; and from this 
 error it was that Novatian, while he trans- 
 ferred the attribute of purity and unstained 
 holiness, which belongs to the invisible 
 Church, the communion of saints, as such 
 (see Ephes. v. 27), to the visible form of 
 the invisible Church, drew the conclusion, 
 that every Church, which has unclean 
 members in it, ceases to be a true Church. 
 Of the invisible Cliurch alone could he 
 maintain, and that justly too, that she 
 would belie her nature, and lose her marks 
 
 * [Dr. Neander has made no reference here to 
 Qyprian. The passage to which this quotation 
 appears to approach the nearest, is in Ep. Iv. p. 
 H2,ed. Ox.— H. J. R.1 
 
148 
 
 CYPRIAN AND NOVATIAN UNDER THE SAME ERROR. 
 
 and her rights, if she admitted false mem- 
 bers into her; but this would be a false 
 conclusion if it were applied to the visible 
 Church, in wliich the members of the in- 
 visible Church, who are united by the 
 bond of the Spirit, lie scaltered. It was a 
 confusion of outward and inward, when 
 he maintained, that men became them- 
 selves unclean by mere outward society, 
 in the same outward communion of the 
 Church, with the unclean. But the ad- 
 versaries of Novatian were unable to dis- 
 cover this fundamental error, from which 
 all the other single ones proceeded, be- 
 cause they were themselves the slaves of 
 the very same error. Instead of appeal- 
 ing to an entirely difterent application of 
 the idea of the Church, Cyprian contents 
 himself with opposing Novatian only by 
 bringing forward a twofold condition of 
 the Church — one, her condition here be- 
 low; the other, her condition in glory, 
 after that separation has been completed 
 by the last judgment. As Cyprian him- 
 self was entangled by tlie same error of 
 confusing the outward with the inward, 
 it liappened also that he himself, on an 
 after-occasion, where he had not the con- 
 
 troversy against Novatianism before his 
 eyes, came very close to the principles of 
 Novatian ; this was in Ep. Ixviii. [Ep. Ixvii. 
 ed. Ox.,] where he declared to tlie Spanish 
 bishops, that they were themselves defiled 
 by suffering unworthy priests among them, 
 and that those who remained in connec- 
 tion with sinners, became themselves par- 
 takers of their sins.* Here Cyprian, not 
 distinguishing mere outward communion 
 from inward communion of feelings, has 
 expressed himself indistinctly, and with 
 only half truth."!" 
 
 From this contention also, the Catholic 
 system of the Church, firmly established, 
 and thoroughly compact in all its parts, 
 came forth victorious, and the Novatian- 
 ists extended themselves, in later centu- 
 ries, only as a small separate sect. 
 
 * Consortes et participes alienorum delictonim 
 fieri, qui fuerint delinquenlibus copulati. 
 
 j- [Mosheim, in his hook de Rebus Christiano- 
 ruin ante Constantinum, has treated the contro- 
 versies about Novatus, Novatian, and Stephanus, 
 very fully. Stec. iii. § 11 — 17. His views nearly 
 coincide with those brought forward here. — 
 H. J. R.] 
 
THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
 
 SECOND PART.* 
 
 To the readers, who have given to the first half of the first volume of my Church 
 History such a reception, as makes me still more responsible to them, as an author; I 
 here communicate the continuation of my work. On the object at which I have aimed 
 in treating the History of the Church I need not add any thing further, after what I have 
 slated in the preface to the first part; to him, who finds himself on too opposite a posi- 
 tion, in regard to knowledge and to life, to be able or willing to understand what is here 
 advanced, I cannot expect to make myself intelligible by further explanation; our dis- 
 agreement is unavoidable. Even with regard to those readers, for whom I have written, 
 I need not express more fully my gratitude to them. The word which comes /row the 
 heart and the spirit, finds, as it can, without further preface, its way to the heart and 
 spirit; discourse must find its own hearers, and writings their own readers,^ nothing 
 further can be done to recommend and attract. 
 
 I feel only that it is a duty to add a word on one subject; viz. the extent to which 
 this volume has proceeded, which may appear disproportionate to many. It was from 
 the beginning my plan to treat the History of the Church in the three first centuries at 
 great length, because this period appeared to me the most weighty for every Christian 
 and every theologian; because I believed that the establishment and the propagation of 
 just and unprejudiced views on the composition of the Christian Church, on Christian 
 worship, on Christian life, and Christian doctrines, would be particularly important and 
 salutary, both in a general point of view, and in particular for our times in opposition to 
 different kinds of errors now in circulation from many different quarters. The fermen- 
 tation which the appearance of Christianity produced in the moral, religious, and intel- 
 lectual nature of mankind, is of particular service in directing attention to the peculiar 
 nature of the Gospel in the greatest number of different points of view,J and therefore, 
 this extraordinary object certainly requires and deserves consideration in the greatest 
 number of lights. We recognise here the different directions of the human mind and 
 spirit, which are repeated in following periods, often only under other forms, and often 
 in a less free and original manner. When these foundations of the whole History of 
 the Church, are more fully developed, in the following centuries much may be presup- 
 posed and handled in a shorter and more compressed manner. The history of the sects 
 
 * This preface belongs to the second of the three brochures in which this first portion of the His- 
 tory of the Church was written. It contains Sections iii. and iv. 
 
 + Dax Wort muss sich seine Borer und die Schrift. ihre Leser selhsf snchen. This seems to be 
 a proverbial phrase, especially a,s it is printed in what are equivalent to our italics. 
 
 X The literal translation would here be ' ii^the most many-sided manner ;' and ' the most many- 
 sided consideration. ' 
 
 N 2 149 
 
cI AUTHOR S PREFACE. 
 
 of ihis period, in which the differences and contradictions proceed from the inmost 
 
 depth of the human spirit and heart, and, being as yet uncontrolled and forcibly re- 
 pressed by the deadening influence of a court, and State Church, can develope them- 
 selves with more breadth and freedom — is so much the more interesting and instructive 
 than the doctrinal controversies of the Oriental Church in the succeeding centuries, 
 which often lose themselves in dry dialectics, and are often debased by the mixture of 
 the miserable elements of the party- squabbles of the Byzantine court. 
 
 These and similar grounds induced me to treat this first volume of the Church His- 
 tory with greater fulness, and we are, therefore, by no means to reckon the number of 
 volumes likely to follow upon the same scale. The third part, which is about to appear 
 D. v., at Easter next, will contain the conclusion of the first volume, and, if possible, the 
 representation of the Apostolic age, of which I spoke in the preface to the first part. I 
 must request the learned reader to suspend his judgment on the arra.ngement of the 
 whole to the conclusion of the first volume. 
 
 A. Neander. 
 
151 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 CHRISTIAN LIFE AND WORSHIP. 
 
 (1.) Christian Life. 
 
 Ever since Christianity has been intro- 
 duced as an element of human nature, it 
 has acted in all cases, where it has taken 
 root, with the same Divine sanctifying 
 power; and wretched would be the state 
 of the Church if this Divine power were 
 liable to become extinct by the lapse of 
 ages. In regard to the sanctifying power 
 which resides in the Gospel, this period, 
 therefore, in which Christianity first ap- 
 peared to work on human nature, could 
 have no advantages over the succeeding 
 ages of the Christian Church. The only 
 difference between the first ages of the 
 Church and the succeeding centuries, was, 
 that men, who in these early days turned 
 from die sinful service of paganism to 
 Christianity, felt the power of Christianity 
 to form and reform man's nature more 
 deeply, by comparing what they had been 
 and what they were, and that this change 
 of life, which had taken place in them, 
 was more conspicuous to the rest of the 
 world : as the aposde St. Paul, in writing 
 to Christians converted from heathenism, 
 reminds them of what they once were — that 
 they once walked after the course of this 
 world, after the spirit who hath his work 
 in the children of unbelief — and as he, 
 after relating the prevailing crimes of the 
 corrupted heathen world, says to them, 
 "And such were some of you, but ye are 
 waslied, but ye are sanctified, but ye are 
 justified in the name of the Lord Jesus." 
 (1 Cor. vi. 11.) The church-teachers, 
 who had previously been heathens, often 
 appealed to these effects, which they had 
 experienced in their own case. The lan- 
 guage of Cyprian,* in the first warmth of 
 feeling, after his conversion, is to this ef- 
 fect: " Hear that which is felt before it is 
 learnt, that which is not collected together 
 by long study, but which is received in a 
 moment by the power of grace, which 
 hastens its work. While I lay in dark- 
 ness and in blind night, and while I was 
 driven about with uncertain and wander- 
 ing feet by the waves of the world, doubt- 
 ful of the conduct of my life, a stranger to 
 
 * AdDonat 
 
 truth and liglit, that which the Divine 
 mercy promised for my salvation, seemed 
 to me, after my then way of thinking, 
 something altogether hard and difiicult, 
 that a man should be born again, and lay- 
 ing aside what he had once been, the 
 whole corporeal frame still remaining the 
 same, should become in soul and mind an 
 entirely different man. How, said I, is so 
 great a change possible, that what has so 
 long taken root, should at once be done 
 away. .... As I was bound and 
 entangled by the errors of my former life, 
 from which I believed that there could be 
 no deliverance, so I gave myself up to the 
 vices which beset me, and while I des- 
 paired of amendment, I encouraged my 
 evil dispositions as if they had been a part 
 of myself. But when, the water of regen- 
 eration having washed away the stains of 
 my former life, the light from above shed 
 itself into a heart freed from guilt, and 
 purified, when the Spirit from heaven had 
 been breathed into me, and formed me by 
 a second birth into a new man, then most 
 wonderfully that became certain to me, 
 which had been doubtful before ; that was 
 open which had been closed ; that was 
 light where I had before seen only dark- 
 ness ; that became easy whicli had been dif- 
 ficult ; that became practicable which be- 
 fore had seemed impossible ; so that I can 
 now perceive that the life I led, when be- 
 ing born after the flesh I lived subject to 
 sin, was a worldly life ; but the life which 
 I have now begun to lead, is the begin- 
 ning of a life proceeding from God, a life 
 animated by the influence of the Holy 
 Spirit. From God, I say, from God is all 
 our might, from Him we receive life and 
 power." Justin Martyr paints the change 
 which took place in Christians thus:* 
 " we who once delighted in debauchery, 
 now love only purity; we who once used 
 magic arts, have now consecrated our- 
 selves to the good and unbegotten God ; 
 we who once loved gain beyond all things, 
 now give up to the common use even 
 what we have, and share it with every 
 
 • Apolog. ii. c. 17. [Apol. i. p. 20. ed. Thirlb. 
 -H. J. R.] 
 
152 
 
 CHRISTIANITY AND HEATHENISM CONTRASTED. 
 
 one that has need; we who once hated j custom which makes men cleave to a 
 
 and murdered one another, we who would 
 not enjoy the hearth in common with 
 strangers on account of the difference of 
 our customs, now live in common with 
 them, since the appearance of Christ: we 
 pray for our enemies, we seek to persuade 
 those wlio liate us unjustly, that they 
 mav direct their lives according to the 
 o-lorious doctrine of Christ, and may share 
 with us the joyful hope of enjoying the 
 same privileges from God, the Lord of all 
 things." Origen* says, ''The work of 
 Jesus Christ is shown in the whole world, 
 where the Churches of God founded by 
 Christ, and consisting of men reformed 
 from a thousand crimes, exist; and the 
 name of Jesus still further has a wonder- 
 ful efficacy in introducing mildness, de- 
 cency of manners, humanity, goodness 
 and gendeness among those who embrace 
 the belief of the doctrine of God and 
 Christ, and of a judgment to come, not 
 for any worldly advantage nor purpose, 
 but honestly and uprightly ."| 
 
 As the contrast of heathenism and 
 Christianity, which is no other than that 
 between the old and the new man, was 
 so strongly marked in the different pe- 
 riods of the lives of individuals, so was 
 it also with regard to the relation be- 
 tween Christians, considered collectively, 
 and the corrupt heathen world in which, 
 after the flesh, they still lived, and from 
 out of which, after the spirit, they were 
 already departed. Although in later times 
 the world, still heathenish in disposition 
 and feelings, had put on the garb of 
 Christianity, and it was difficult to dis- 
 tinguish the few genuine and upright 
 Christians from the general mass of nom- 
 inal ones, yet at this earlier period hea- 
 thenism stood forth in all its naked de- 
 formity, the prevailing party in the world, 
 in distinct opposition to Christianity. To 
 this contrast Origen appeals when he says, 
 "Compared with the communities of the 
 people among whom they are placed, the 
 communities of Christians are as lights 
 in the world."J 
 
 Whatever inducements there may have 
 been in later times to a mere outward 
 Christianity — the external advantages 
 connected with the profession of Chris- 
 tianity, as the religion of the state, and 
 
 • Contra Cels. Lib. i. § 67. [(p. 53. ed. Spen- 
 cer.) This quotation is abridged from the original. 
 — H. J. R. 
 
 j" 'F.I' TO(c fJi-M ii^ Ta ^lanTUta. « Ttvom X^U'.t'; JvS^aiT/xac 
 vTroufivofjiitoi;, 
 
 i Contra Cels. Lib. iii. c. 29. [p. 138, ed. Spen.] 
 
 religion inlierited from their ancestors, 
 without any peculiar inward call and 
 feelings in their own case — all these in 
 this period (especially in the first half of 
 it) had no existence. The greater num- 
 ber of converts in these days was from 
 a religion which education, the reverence 
 for antiquity, the power of custom, and 
 the external advantages united to its ob- 
 servance recommended to them, and it 
 was a conversion to a religion which 
 had every thing against it, which the 
 other had in its favour, and which from 
 the very first required many sacrifices 
 from its converts, and set before them 
 many dangers and sufferings. 
 
 And yet we should altogether mistake 
 the essential qualities of mmi's nature 
 which, in its relation to Christianity, is 
 always the same, we should altogether 
 mistake the nature of Christianity, which 
 uses no magical means to work on man's 
 vvill to attract and reform him, and we 
 should also mistake the nature of this 
 age, if we expected to find, in any point 
 during this period, a time when the 
 Church consisted, I will not say of per- 
 fect saints, for there are none of these on 
 earth, but wholly of genuine Christians, 
 animated entirely by pure Christianity, or 
 fliith working by love. Although the in- 
 ducements to an hypocritical profession 
 of Christianity were fewer, yet they were 
 not wholly wanting. The support which 
 the poor received in Christian communi- 
 ties, may, perhaps, have proved a means 
 of attraction to many, who had no reli- 
 gious interest in the matter ; and there is 
 a hint to this effect in the above cited 
 passage of Origen, where he says, that 
 the name of Christ can show its Divine 
 efficacy only among those, who do not 
 feign their belief from human motives. 
 
 But without considering these feigned 
 Christians, yet even among those, in 
 whose hearts the seed of the Gospel had 
 really fallen, our Lord's parable of the 
 sow-er must often have proved itself true. 
 This seed could not find, in every heart 
 into which it fell, the ground fitted for its 
 reception, the ground in which it could 
 spring up as it ought, and bring forth 
 fruit. It might well happen in this age, 
 as in every otlier, that men, who were for 
 a moment touched by the power of truth, 
 might not use these impressions as they 
 ought, might become faithless to tlie truth, 
 and instead of consecrating to it their 
 whole life, might wish to serve God and 
 the world at the same time, and thence, 
 
FALSE SELF-CONFIDENCE. 
 
 at length, again be completely enslaved 
 by the world. He who did not watch 
 over his own heart, who did not con- 
 stantly with tear and trembling, endea- 
 vour, in his inward being under the gui- 
 dance of the Divine Spirit, to separate 
 that which is of the Spirit from that 
 which is of the world, was exposed to 
 the same sources of self-deception, and 
 thence to the same danger of falling as in 
 other times. Some sources of self-decep- 
 tion, to which, in fact, ultimately, all , 
 others are to be referred, are grounded in 
 human nature itself; and these only show I 
 themselves in a dilferent manner under j 
 different relations, and attach themselves, 1 
 sometimes on one set of outward circum- 
 stances, sometimes on another ; others, | 
 again, are peculiar to different centuries, I 
 and, indeed, all external circumstances, I 
 however desirable, considered in them- i 
 selves alone, they may be for man, may, [ 
 if true light be not shed on liis inward 
 heart, and he watch not over himself, be- 
 come means of self-delusion to him. It 
 cannot be unconditionally declared of 
 any circumstances or condition, consid- 
 ered abstractedly, that hj them vital Chris- 
 tianity must he furthered ; all depends 
 constantly on the tendency of man\s own 
 will, to which the use or misuse of these 
 circumstances is entrusted. The very 
 same circumstances wliich further Chris- 
 tianity in one man, may, if tliey are 
 not used as they ought to be, become 
 the cause of stumbling in the case of an- i 
 other. [ 
 
 The striking opposition between Chris- ' 
 tianity and the heathenism which was ' 
 then the prevailing rule of life, between t 
 the Christian Church and the world, pre- I 
 served the Christians from many of those 
 intermixtures between the Church and the 
 world, between spiritual and worldl)- [ 
 things, which became so common in later 
 days; but to many, who did not view 
 this opposition in the proper light, it be- 
 came a source of dangerous self-delusion. 
 When they had sternly renounced every 
 thing which externally came to them in a 
 heathen shape ; when they had outwardly 
 renounced the service of heathen supersti- 
 tion and heathen profligacy, they believed 
 that they had doneenougli; and so, while 
 they made of this outward renunciation a 
 kind of opus operafum, which served to 
 cherish and support a pride, which was 
 utterly a stranger to the spirit of love, and 
 a false confidence, they overlooked, on 
 that account, tlie still more severe struggle 
 20 
 
 153 
 
 with the spirit of heathenism within them, 
 the manifold springs of selfishness and of 
 a more refined love of the world, which 
 are the more dangerous, because they are 
 more concealed, and because they come 
 in the shape of a friend. The plain and 
 open contrast between Christianity and 
 heathenism, the Church and the world, 
 might mislead many into priding them- 
 selves, after a fleshly manner, on their su- 
 periority over the heathen ; as if, by the 
 mere outward profession of the faith, and 
 the habitual use of the outward observ- 
 ances of Christianity, they were raised far 
 above the heathen, as servants of Satan, 
 and might fairly consider themselves 
 already citizens of that heavenly kingdom, 
 from which the heathen were excluded. 
 And even among those who made being a 
 Christian no opus operatum, but who 
 justly estimated the requirements of this 
 calling, and seriously strove to fulfil them, 
 there was still a source of danger in the 
 violence of spiritual pride and bitter en- 
 mity, with which they regarded the hea- 
 then, because it gave room in their hearts 
 for other feelings than those of humility 
 and thankfulness, arising from the con- 
 sciousness that they once lay in tlie same 
 corruption, and the same spiritual death 
 as their heathen brethren, from which tlie 
 grace of God had now delivered them; 
 and other feelings than those impulses of 
 love which would urge them to endeavour 
 to lead their still unhappy brethren, with 
 whom they were connected by so many 
 ties of nature, and for whom Christ had 
 also died, into that blessedness which had 
 been bestowed on themselves by the grace 
 of God. When once such feelings had 
 been taken up, how easily would they 
 find means of making their way among 
 men, who were still living in the flesh, 
 and of extending themselves widely ! 
 
 The outward fight against the world, 
 which reminded the Christians of their 
 calling to battle (as milites Dei et Christi,) 
 might serve to awaken their faith and 
 Christian virtue ; but this very fight also, 
 if the inclinations of the old man were not 
 constantly repressed by the power of the 
 Holy Spirit and the ardour of love, might 
 generate and maintain a certain gloomy 
 and austere temper, utterly repugnant to 
 that spirit of love and friendship, which 
 the apostle names aiuong the fruits of the 
 Spirit, and calls ^^na-rorrn. In the out- 
 ward battle the inward might be forgotten, 
 and the victory in it, as we have often 
 had occasion to remark, might become 
 
154 
 
 FALSE RELIANCE ON BAPTISM COMBATED. 
 
 the means of cherishing pride, false con- 
 fidence, and fleshly security. 
 
 Many, however, were induced, by the 
 consciousness of sin, to seek I'orgiveness, 
 and ttiis want led them to Christianity ; 
 but they could not resolve to give to the 
 Gospel that sacrifice of the heart which 
 it requires, and without which none of its 
 blessed, sanctifying, and happy influence 
 can be revealed. They conceived the 
 (h)Ctrine of the forgiveness of sins and of 
 grace in a fleshly manner, pressing Chris- 
 tianity into the service of their fleshly 
 imaginations, and so they wished to have 
 forgiveness of their sins without leaving 
 the practice of them, a fancy against which 
 St. Paul so often had warned mankind, as 
 when he said, " Shall we then continue in 
 sin, that grace may abound ? God forbid ! 
 How shall we that are dead to sin, live 
 any longer therein ?" They transferred 
 their heathenish notion of the magical 
 power of lustrations to baptism, and they 
 thought that by it they should receive at 
 once, without the proper preparation in 
 the heart, a magical extinction of sin, so 
 that under this idea they delayed their 
 baptism, and in the mean time gave them- 
 selves up to their lusts. The teachers of 
 the Christian Church set themselves 
 heartily to work, to combat his notion, 
 'i'ertullian says against it, in his book on 
 Ilepentance, ch. vi., "How foolish and 
 liow wicked is it, not to fulfil the duty of 
 repentance, and yet to expect pardon for 
 sin ! it is exactly this, not to pay the 
 price and yet to stretch the hand out for 
 the goods, for this is the price at which 
 
 God has set the pardon for sin 
 
 As, therefore, those who sell any thing, 
 examine first the money for which they 
 have agreed, to see that it be neither 
 scraped nor worn, nor counterfeit; so we 
 suj)pose also that the Lord makes trial 
 beforehand of our repentance, when he is 
 about to give us so valuable a possession 
 as eternal life. . . . The divine grace, 
 that is, the forgiveness of sin, remains un- 
 impaired for those who are to be baptized ; 
 but then they must perform their part, so 
 as to become capable of receiving it. . , . 
 You may, indeed, easily steal into bap- 
 tism, and by your protestations deceive 
 those, whose business it is, into adminis- 
 tering the rite to you. But God watches 
 over his treasure, and will not allow the 
 unworthy to steal into it. . . . Envelope 
 yourself in whatever darkness you may, 
 God is light. But many think that God 
 is bound to keep whatever he has pro- 
 
 mised, even with those who are unworthy 
 of it, and they bind his free grace in terms 
 of slavery."* Tertullian justly appeals to 
 experience, which shows, that in those 
 who come in such a spirit to baptism, the 
 effects of Christianity could not be shown, 
 and that they often fell away again, inas- 
 much as they built their house upon the 
 sand. Against such persons, Origen 
 argues that the benefits of baptism wholly 
 depend on the hearts of those who receive 
 it, and are only bestowed on those who 
 come to it in a true spirit of penitence ; 
 but, on tlie contrary, that to those with 
 whom this spirit is wanting, baptism only 
 tends to condemnation ; and therefore, 
 that the spirit of renovation, which ac- 
 companies baptism, is not bestowed upon 
 all.j In order to guard against the notions 
 of such unreal Christians, in Cyprian's 
 Collection of Testimonies for the Laity, 
 after he has laid down the position that 
 no one can belong to the kingdom of God, 
 unless he has been baptized and born 
 again, he adds, " And yet it is but of litde 
 use that a man should be baptised and re- 
 ceive the sacrament, unless he shows 
 himself bettered in conduct and in his 
 works :"J and the passages of the New 
 Testament which he adduces, are well 
 calculated to show the worthlessness of 
 such a mere nominal Christianity : 1 Cor. 
 ix. 24. Matt. iii. 10; v. 16; vii. 22. 
 Philip, ii. 15 ; and then he also says, 
 " He that is baptized, may also lose the 
 grace that he has received, if he remains 
 not in a state of purity from sin." And 
 he cites in proof the following passages of 
 the Bible: John v. 14. 1 Cor. iii. 17. 
 2 Chron. xv. 3. 
 
 It must certainly be acknowledged, that 
 however earnestly the teachers of the 
 Church combated a notion so prejudicial 
 to the Christian life, yet the partially in- 
 jurious consequences of that interchange 
 of outward and inward things, are to be 
 traced in the doctrines about the Church 
 and sacraments ; and it was here that this 
 notion would find support, and something 
 to attach itself to. It is, on this account, 
 of great practical importance, that the doc- 
 
 * Exactly like those Jews, so full of fleshly 
 pride, whom St. Paul combats in his Epistle to 
 the Romans,— men who thought that God could 
 never reject them, the trueborn heirs of his king- 
 dojn, and banish them from it. 
 
 t T. vi. Joh. c. 17. 
 
 \ Lib. iii. 25, 26. " Parum esse baptizari et eu- 
 charistiam accipere, nisi quis factis et opere pro- 
 ficiat." 
 
CARNAL CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 155 
 
 trines of religion should be preserved by 
 the clearest development of the ideas be- 
 longing to them, from a perversion, which 
 the fleshly appetites of man are naturally 
 inclined to cherish. 
 
 As one set of persons, by substituting 
 the outward observances of religion for 
 its inward feelings, supported their con- 
 tinuance in the practice of sins which 
 they were unwilling to renounce, another 
 made themselves easy by the semblance 
 of an inward religion, independent of 
 every thing outward. "God," said they, 
 " is satisfied, if He be honoured in heart 
 and soul, although there be a deficiency 
 of works in consequence of human weak- 
 ness." " This is," says Tertullian, in 
 holy indignation, "to sin without vio- 
 lating the reverence due to God, and with- 
 out violating our faith; hut then, such 
 persons may be condemned without any 
 violation of God's mercy."* 
 
 It was peculiar to Christianity, that it 
 could find its way into men's hearts by 
 addressing the fleshly knowledge and feel- 
 ings of man, and form this fleshly gradu- 
 ally into a spiritual nature, while it worked 
 upon the inmost foundations of human 
 nature, and by communicating a Divine 
 principle of life, produced a conduct, the 
 consequences of which, in relation to the 
 whole spiritual and moral life, coidd only 
 develope themselves gradually in their full 
 extent. In our estimate, therefore, of the 
 men of this time, who received this new 
 and abundant spirit in the form which 
 clung to them from their former carnal 
 education and modes of thought, we must 
 be careful not to judge harshly of their 
 hiward feelings from many of the rude 
 notions that still remained to them, and 
 from which they could only be freed 
 gradually by the spiritualization of their 
 whole habits of thought. • The great say- 
 iog of the apostle may here often find a 
 just application in this sense; that God's 
 treasures are received into earthen vessels, 
 and there preserved for a long time in 
 order that the abundant power may be of 
 God, and not of men. It is, therefore, a 
 very superficial and unjust judgment to 
 pass on men, who formed to themselves 
 •wonderful imaginations about God, and 
 Divine things, and the kingdom of God, 
 immediately to conclude, that they had 
 nothing of Christian life within them. 
 When, indeed, men of this sort, having 
 been induced to believe by some outward 
 or inward motives, did not, in conse- 
 
 * Tertullian, de Poenitentia, c. v. 
 
 quence, give themselves up to the Spirit 
 of Christ, so that He might complete his 
 work of regeneration in them ; when they 
 still obstinately adhered to the fleshly 
 j Christ of their own fancy, and expected 
 I from Him, though not now, yet hereafter, 
 only carnal things; and when they would 
 not be of those who having known Christ 
 only according to the flesh, would know 
 Him thus no longer? we may conclude 
 that they belong to those, with whom the 
 seed fell among thorns, and the thorns 
 grew up and choked it; they had heard 
 and received the word, but their fleshly 
 thoughts, which they would not renounce, 
 choked the word, so that it could produce 
 no fruit. Even although the expectation 
 of a sensual happiness in a remote futurity, 
 of which, with all the enthusiastic powers 
 of imagination, they formed to themselves 
 such conceptions as would enchant their 
 sensual notions, was sufficient to induce 
 them to deny the appetites of the moment, 
 and even to bear tortures and to meet death, 
 they might, nevertheless, be far from that 
 real new birth, by which alone man can 
 enter into the kingdom of God ; and the 
 spirit of ennobling love, which is the es- 
 sential mark of a disciple of Christ, and 
 which, even where something of earthly 
 dross remains, comes forth in such mani- 
 festations as are not to be mistaken, at 
 least by the spiritual eye, — this spirit 
 could never have found, in that sort of 
 life, access to their hearts. 
 
 We must, therefore, be cautious, on the 
 one hand, that we do not expect to find, 
 in these first days of the Church, any ex- 
 clusively golden age of purity ; nor, in the 
 visible Church, any community, entirely- 
 glorious, and without spot or wrinkle,* 
 nor any thing of the sort; and, on the 
 other hand, that we do not fail to perceive 
 the heavenly beauty which really did 
 beam through the stains and blemishes 
 
 * The apologetic writers themselves do not 
 deny, that there were many that passed under the 
 name of Christians, who yet belied the very na- 
 ture of Christianity by their lives, and gave, occa- 
 sion to the heathen to calumniate Christianity ; but 
 then they declare, that these men were never re- 
 cognised as Christians by the Christian Churches; 
 and they require the heathen to judge all according 
 to their lives, and whatever they found worthy of 
 punishment, to punish it, wherever it might be. 
 80 Justin Martyr, and so Tertullian, (ad Nation, 
 lib. i. c. .5.) The latter says, " When you say 
 that the Christians arc the basest of men in regard 
 to covetousness, luxury, and dishonesty, we are not 
 about to deny that there are some of that kind ; 
 even in the cleanest body a mole will sometimes 
 make ita appearance," 
 
156 
 
 VISIBLE CHURCH NOT SPOTLESS — BROTHERLY LOVE. 
 
 of the early Church. If a man look only 
 on one side or on the other exclusively, 
 he figures to himself either some form of 
 ideal perfection or some disfigured carica- 
 ture; but an unprejudiced representation, 
 after unprejudiced observation, will avoid 
 both these errors. | 
 
 That which our Saviour himself, in his | 
 last conversation with his disciples, pro- I 
 claimed as the mark by which his disci- j 
 pies might be known, the mark of their ' 
 fellowship with him and their heavenly | 
 Father, and tlie mark of his glory dwelling j 
 among them — namely, that they should 
 love one another, — this was assuredly the i 
 prominent feature of the early Christian j 
 Churches; a feature which did not fail to j 
 strike even the heathen themselves. The j 
 names " brother" and " sister," which the 
 Christians interchanged, were not empty | 
 names ; the kiss of brotherhood, which I 
 was bestowed on every person at his ad- 
 mission into the Christian. Church, after 
 baptism, by those Christians into whose i 
 immediate society he was ^bout to enter; i 
 this kiss, which the members of a Church ' 
 bestowed on one another, before the cele- | 
 bration of the communion, and with which j 
 every Christian saluted another even when ] 
 he saw him for the first time, was no mere { 
 formality,* but all this was originally an j 
 expression of Christian feeling, and a I 
 token of the relations in which Christians ' 
 . . I 
 
 * Every one who knows human nature, will \ 
 easily see that this cannot be affirmed of any thing, ! 
 and of any period, entirely without limitation. | 
 What was originally only a pure expression of 
 heartfelt sensations, and remains so among a great ' 
 many, may yet become, among others, only a ; 
 counterfeited gesture, and in their self-delusion ' 
 they may, perhaps, think that they thereby make i 
 amends for the spirit, in which they are wanting, i 
 and which cannot be counterfeited. Clement of 
 Alexandria accordingly complains, that there were 
 many in his time who made a matter of ostenta- 
 tion of the brotherly kiss, and gave great offence 
 to the heathen unnecessarily, by that means, and | 
 who placed the essential of brotherly love in the j 
 brotherly kiss. He says, on this subject, (Pa;dagog. 
 lib. iii. p. 256, 257,) " Love must be estimated by I 
 benevolence, not by the brotherly kiss. But there ; 
 are many, who only disturb the Church with the 
 brotherly kiss, without having the spirit of love in 
 their hearts (oj Si ouift vK\^ « <f;A«/ua,T« xarrt^c^oua-/ i 
 tdu; 'iicKKntrfJK, to <piKouv ivJov ouk J;^cvtsc ctiiTc.) This 
 has also spread about an evil jealousy and accusa- I 
 lions, because men give publicly the brotherly kiss, ^ 
 which ought to be done privately. The salutations 1 
 also of those who are dear to us, in the streets, so | 
 as to be seen of the heathen, are not of the smallest I 
 value. For if it be right to pray to (iod in our ! 
 chamber in secret, it follows from this, that wo 
 ought to show our love to our neighbour also in 
 secret in our inward heart, arid yield to the times, 
 because we are the salt of the earth." 
 
 considered one another. This was the 
 thing, as we have before had occasion to 
 remark, which, in an age of cold selfish- 
 ness, most struck the heathen — that men, 
 from so many diflferent countries, of such 
 different circumstances and relations one 
 with the other, and of such different de- 
 grees of education, should appear in such 
 inward harmony and union with each 
 other; as, for instance, that a stranger 
 coming into a town, and having made 
 himself known to the Christians, through 
 an " epistola formata," as a real brother 
 Christian, immediately received, even 
 from those to whom he was personally 
 unknown, all the attentions and the sup- 
 port befitting a brother. 
 
 The care of providing for the support 
 and maintenance of the stranger, the poor, 
 and the sick, of the old men, widows, and 
 orphans, and of those who were impri- 
 soned for the faith's sake, devolved on the 
 whole community. This was one of the 
 chief purposes for which voluntary con- 
 tributions at the times of assembling for 
 divine service were established, and the 
 charity of individuals outstripped even 
 this. How peculiarly this was considered 
 as the business of a Christian mistress of 
 a family, we may judge from Tertullian, 
 where, in painting the disadvantages of a 
 marriage between a heathen and a Chris- 
 tian woman, he peculiarly dwells on this, 
 that the Christian would be obstructed in 
 that which was usually reckoned as in 
 the circle of a Christian woman's domestic 
 duties. " What heathen," says he, " will 
 suffer his wife, in visiting the brethren, to 
 go from street to street, into strangers', 
 and even into the most miserable cot- 
 tages ? Who will suffer them to steal 
 into prisons, to kiss the chains of mar- 
 tyrs .'' If a stranger-brother comes, what 
 reception will he find in a sl.ranger''s 
 house?* If she has to bestow alms on 
 any one, the safe and the cellar are closed 
 to her."t On the other hand,' he lays it 
 down as one of the joys attendant on a 
 marriage between Christians, that the wife 
 may visit the sick and support the needy, 
 and need not be under anxiety about her 
 alms-giving. J 
 
 The active brotherly love of each 
 
 * Tertullian apparently lays a particular stress 
 on the word " stranger," " in aliena domo," the 
 house which is a strange one to the Christian ; as 
 the house of a Christian woman ought not to be 
 a strange one to him. 
 
 -j" Ad Uxorcm, ii. 4. 
 
 i lioc. cit. c. 8. " Libero seger visitatur, indi- 
 gens sustentatur, eleemosynse sine tormento." 
 
ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIAN LOVE. 
 
 157 
 
 Church was not, however, limited to its 
 own narrow circle, but extended to the 
 wants of Churches in distant places. 
 Under any pressing necessity of this na- 
 ture the bishops appointed special col- 
 lections to be made, «nd also appointed 
 fastdays, in order that what was spared 
 from the daily expenses even of the poorer 
 members of the community might be 
 contributed to the general need.* If the 
 Churches of the provincial towns were 
 too poor to meet any pressing distress, 
 they applied to the richer one in the me- 
 tropolis. A case, for example, had occur- 
 red, in which Christian men and women 
 from Numidia had fallen into captivity 
 among the neighbouring barbarians, and 
 the Numidian Churciies were unable to 
 raise the sum requisite for their ransom ; 
 they applied to the richer Church of the 
 great North African metropolis. Cyprian, 
 the bishop of Carthage, soon raised a sum 
 of more than four thousand dollars,^ and 
 sent it with a letter which breathed the 
 true spirit of Christian sympathy and bro- 
 therly love.J " In cases like these," he 
 writes to them, " who would not feel sor- 
 row, and who would not look upon his 
 brother's suffering as his own! as the 
 apostle Paul says: 'When one member 
 suffers, all the members suffer with it,' 
 and in another place, 'Who is weak, and 
 I become not weak?' Therefore must 
 we consider the captivity of our brethren 
 as our own captivity, and the sorrow of 
 those in danger as our own affliction, in- 
 asmuch as we are bound together into 
 one body; and not only love, but religion 
 ought to incite and cheer us on in re- 
 deeming the lives of the brethren who 
 are our members. For the apostle Paul 
 again, in another place, says, *• Know ye 
 not that ye are the temple of God, and 
 the Spirit of God dwells in you.' (1 Cor. 
 iii. 16,) and so even if love will not move 
 us to give assistance to our brethren, we 
 ought to remember here, that it is tlie 
 temple of God which is in captivity, and 
 we ought not, by long delays and bj' a 
 neglect of these calamities, to suffer that 
 the temple of God should remain long in 
 captivity. . . . For since the apostle Paul 
 says, 'As many of you as are baptized, 
 have put on Christ,' so must we see Christ 
 
 • Tertullian, de Jejuniis, c 13. "Episcopi uni- 
 verse plebi mandare jejunia assolent — industria 
 stipium conferendarum." 
 
 ■j- Sestertiarentum millia nummorum. [About 
 £800.— H. J. R.] 
 
 i Ep. Ix. [Ep. IxiL cd. Ox.] 
 
 in our captive brethren, and we must re- 
 deem Ilim from captivity, who redeemed 
 us from death, so that He who lias saved 
 us from the jaws of Satan, and who now 
 dwells and remains in us, may himself be 
 freed from the hands of barbarians, and 
 that he may be redeemed by a sum of 
 money, who redeemed us by his cross 
 and blood; and He hath allowed this in 
 the mean time to take place, in order that 
 our faith may be tried, whether every one 
 will do that for others, which he w^ould 
 wish to be done for himself, were he in 
 captivity among barbarians. For who that 
 is alive to the feelings of humanity and 
 mutual love, would not, if he is a father, 
 look upon it as if it regarded his own 
 sons, or if he be a husband, would not 
 feel that, as it were, his own wife is taken 
 captive, to the shame and the sorrow of 
 the conjugal yoke .' . . . And we wish 
 also, that for the future nothing of this 
 sort may happen, and that our brethren, by 
 the might of the Lord, may be preserved 
 from similar calamities. But if any thing 
 like this should again occur, to prove the 
 love and the faith of our hearts, delay ye 
 not to give us tiding of it by your let- 
 ters, being persuaded that all our brethren 
 here pray that these things may not occur 
 again, but that they will again readily and 
 plentifully give assistance if they do." 
 
 That which stamped a Christian cha- 
 racter on these acts of benevolence, could 
 only be the lively feelings which here 
 declared themselves, if these works pro- 
 ceeded only out of a childlike love and 
 thankfulness towards the Redeemer, and 
 out of brotherly love towards their com- 
 panions in redemption, and if they joy- 
 fully proceeded out of the inward im- 
 pulses of love. If, on the contrary, men 
 thought to deserve something by works 
 like these, if they bowed themselves un- 
 willingly as it were under the yoke of a 
 compulsory law, then the Christian cha- 
 racter was lost, and good works, which 
 ought to be the spontaneous fruits of faith 
 working through love, were only forcibly 
 wrung from a selfish spirit, not subdued 
 through the spirit of love to the Re- 
 deemer, by a law which commanded, 
 which threatened, and which promised. — 
 nay, they might be the very fruits of a 
 refined selfishness, and afford food to the 
 sinful parts of human nature. The old 
 man has constantly been inclined to seek 
 such support, and to betake himself to 
 outward observances instead of inward 
 holiness, and as soon as men relinquished 
 the notion of setting the whole Christian 
 
 
168 
 
 HEATHEN SELFISHNESS AND CHRISTIAN LOVE. 
 
 life on the single ground of faith and 
 confidence, they forgot that the whole 
 life of a Christian can be nothing but the 
 constant and increasing appropriation and 
 application of the merits of Christ to the 
 weakness of humanity, an increasing re- 
 velation of fellowship with Him, which 
 constantly more and more penetrates the 
 whole nature and ennobles it; and thus 
 this error obtained a deep foundation. In 
 the third century we see that just evan- 
 gelical conception of benevolence, and 
 this unevangelical one at limes side by 
 side, as in tlie writing which Cyprian 
 composed in order to encourage the 
 Christians, among many of whom bro- 
 therly love had waxed cold during a long 
 season of earthly repose, to the exercise 
 of this virtue. (De Opere et Eleemosy- 
 nis.) Cyprian beautifully addresses a 
 father of a family, who excused himself 
 from the duty of benevolence, under the 
 plea of a numerous family, in the follow- 
 ing language :* " Think not him a father 
 t(.> your children, who is a feeble and mor- 
 tal man, but seek another father for them, 
 even the eternal and Almighty Father of 
 all spiritual children. Let Him be the 
 guardian and provider for your children ; 
 and the protector of them by his Divine 
 majesty against all the evils of the world. 
 When you bestow more care on earthly 
 than on heavenly possessions, you are 
 seeking to commend your children to Sa- 
 tan rather than to Christ ; you commit a 
 double sin, for you neglect to obtain for 
 your children the protection of God, and 
 you teach them to love possessions rather 
 than Christ." 
 
 In any times of public calamity in the 
 larger cities, the contrast was very striking 
 between the cowardice and selfishness of 
 the heathen, and the brotherly love and 
 willingness of the Christians to sacrifice 
 their own interests. We shall take a re- 
 presentation of this contrast from Diony- 
 sius, bishop of Alexandria, who had an 
 opportunity of observing it in the different 
 conduct of the heathens and the Chris- 
 tians during a terrible pestilence in that 
 city, in the reign of the emperor Gal- 
 lienus. " That pestilence appeared to the 
 heathen as the most dreadful of all things, 
 as that which left them no hope ; not so, 
 however, did it .seem to us, but only a 
 pccidiar and practical trial. The greater 
 part of our people, in the abundance of 
 their brotherly love, did not spare them- 
 selves, and mutually attending to each 
 
 other, they would visit the sick without 
 fear, and ministering to them for the sake 
 of Christ, they would cheerfully give up 
 their life with them. Many died, after 
 their care had restored others from the 
 disease to health. The best among our 
 brethren, some priests and deacons, and 
 some who were celebrated among the 
 laity, died in this manner; and such a 
 death, the fruit of great piety and strong 
 faith, is hardly inferior to martyrdoiu. 
 Many who took the bodies of their Chris- 
 tian ijrethren into their hands and bosoms, 
 closed their mouth and eyes, and buried 
 them with every attention, soon followed 
 them in death. But with the heathen 
 matters stood quite difTerently ; at the first 
 symptom of sickness they drove a man 
 from their society, they tore themselves 
 away from their dearest connections; they 
 threw the half-dead into the streets, and 
 left the dead unburied ; endeavouring by 
 all the means in their power to escape con- 
 tagion, which, notwithstanding all their 
 contrivances, it was very difficult for them 
 to accomplish."* 
 
 In the same manner the Christians of 
 Carthage let the light of their love and 
 Christian conduct shine before the hea- 
 then in a pestilence which visited North 
 Africa, a little before, in the reign of 
 Gallus. The heathens, out of cowardice, 
 left the sick and the dying, the streets 
 were full of corpses, which no man dared 
 to bury, and avarice was the only passion 
 which mastered the fear of death, for 
 wicked men endeavoured to make a gain 
 out of the misfortunes of their neigh- 
 bours ; and the heathens accused the 
 Christians of being the cause of this ca- 
 lamity as the enemies of the gods, instead 
 j of being brought by it to the consciousness 
 of tlieir own guilt and corruption.! But 
 Cyprian required of his Church, that they 
 should behold in this desolating pesti- 
 lence a trial of their dispositions. " How 
 j necessary is it, my dearest brethren," he 
 i says to them, '^ that this pestilence, which 
 1 appears to bring horror and destruction, 
 should prove the consciences of men ! 
 It will determine whether the healthy 
 will take care of tJie sick, whether rela- 
 tions bear tender love one to another, and 
 whether masters care for their sick ser- 
 vants."! T^^^^t the Christians should 
 show a spirit of mutual love among 
 
 [Page 205, ed. Ox— H. J. R.] 
 
 * Eiiscb. vii. 22. [This account is consider- 
 ably abridged from tlie original. — 11. J. R.] 
 I f Cyprian, ad Detnetrian. 
 I I Lib. de Mortalitate. 
 
COXSCIEXTIOUS CONDUCT OF THE CHRISTIANS. 
 
 159 
 
 themselves, was not sufficient to satisfy a 
 bishop who formed his notions at\cr the 
 model of the great Shepherd. He, there- 
 fore, called his sheep together, and ad- 
 dressed them thus : "^ If we do good only 
 to our own people, we do no more than 
 publicans and heathens. But if we are 
 the children of God, who makes his sun 
 to shine, and his rain to descend upon 
 the just and upon the unjust, who sheds 
 abroad his blessings, not on his own 
 alone, but even upon those whose 
 thoughts are far from Him, we must 
 show this by our actions, endeavouring 
 to become perfect even as our Father in 
 heaven is perfect, and blessing those who 
 curse us, and doing good to those w-ho 
 persecute us." Encouraged by his pa- 
 ternal admonition,* the members of the 
 Church addressed themselves to the 
 work, — the rich contributing money, and 
 the poor their labour, so that in a short 
 lime, the streets were cleared of the 
 
 him for God, — these were the feelings 
 which caused them to bear this yoke 
 with joy ; and the consciousness of free- 
 dom in the inward man, because he be- 
 longed to heaven, taught them to see in 
 this yoke no yoke at all ; and while the 
 fear of man can only bring eyeservice, 
 with them the looking towards Him, for 
 whose sake they did every thing, in- 
 1 stilled into their hearts a spirit of con- 
 sckntious obedience^ even where no human 
 eye could see them. But then the same 
 spirit of Christianity which taught them 
 to obey man for the sake of God, taught 
 them also to obey God rather than man, 
 to sacrifice every consideration whatever, 
 and to despise their property and their 
 life, where human power required from 
 them any compliance which would break 
 the laws of God ; and here it was that the 
 Christians showed the true spirit of free- 
 dom, against which no despotism was 
 ever able to* prevail. The first section 
 
 corpses which filled them, and the city j of this history has already given us an 
 saved from the dangers of an universal opportunity of observing the effects of 
 
 pestilence. 
 
 The peculiar spirit of Christianity was 
 constantly shown in this, that in the new 
 duties it commanded, it always preserved 
 exacllv the proper medium between the 
 opposite dispositions, by which the na- 
 tmal man, according as his inclinations 
 induce him to prefer an easy state of en- 
 joyment, or a wild and ardent activity, is 
 commonly led into error. It is thus no 
 uncommon thing in human life to observe 
 the development of two such opposite 
 feelings, the one a cowardice which ho- 
 nours man more than God, and would 
 sacrifice all divine truth, and all the dig- 
 nity of human nature to the commands 
 of earthly power, and the other a wild 
 defiance of all existing human institutions. 
 Christianity gave its sanction to all exist- 
 ing human institutions, as far as there was 
 nothing in them which contravened the 
 laws of God : it left its genuine profes- 
 sors to walk in the laws and institutions 
 which they found existing, even where 
 thev were oppressive to them, with re- 
 signation and self-denial. The spirit of 
 love to God, from whom as its original 
 source all earthly power and order is de- 
 rived, and for whose glory they felt them- 
 selves bound to submit to all the ordi- 
 nances of man which are not at variance 
 with his laws — the spirit of love to their 
 neighbour, which endeavoured through 
 the means of such compliance to win 
 
 • [See Pont. Vit. Cyprian, p. 5.— H. J. R.] 
 
 j the spirit of Christianity in both these re- 
 spects. With these feelings, Justin Martyr 
 says, (Apol. ii.,)* " Taxes and customs we 
 pay the most scrupulously of all men, to 
 those who are appointed by you, as we 
 were taught by him. (Matth. xxii. 21.) 
 Hence we worship only God alone, while 
 at the same time we serve you willingly 
 in all other respects, because we recog- 
 nise you as our human sovereign." Ter- 
 tullian was able to appeal to this very cir- 
 cumstance, and declare, that what the 
 state lost in the revenues of the temples 
 by the extension of Christianity was 
 more than counterbalanced by that which 
 it gained in taxes and customs, if they 
 would only compare the readiness and 
 fairness of the Cliristians with the false 
 statements, &c., which were usual in the 
 payment of these duties.f The Chris- 
 tians were accustomed to keep the above 
 cited saying of our Lord, (Matth. xxii. 
 21,) constantly in their mouth and heart, 
 as the rule of their daily conduct, and he 
 gives in opposition to those who used it, 
 according to his opinion, in too wide and 
 indefinite a sense, the following interpre- 
 tation of it : "The image of Caesar, which 
 is on the coins, is to be given to Ca;sar, 
 and the image of God which is in man, 
 is to be given to God ; therefore, thou 
 
 * [Apol. Prim. p. 26. (ed. Thirlb. 1722.)— H. 
 J. R.] 
 
 •j- Apologet. c. 42," Si ineatur (ratio) quantum 
 vectigalibus pereat fraude et nicndacio vostraruni 
 profe 
 
160 
 
 CLVIL AND RELIGIOUS DUTIES. 
 
 must give the money, indeed, to Caesar, 
 but thyself to God; for what will remain 
 to God, if all belongs to Ca;sar ?"* 
 
 The principles, according to which 
 man must act in these respects, were 
 easily laid down in theory, and easily to 
 be deduced from Scripture, and from the 
 nature of Christianity, and hence, as far 
 as theory was concerned, all Christians 
 Avere agreed ; but the application of these 
 principles to individual cases was a mat- 
 ter of great difficulty, because this in- 
 volves drawing the limits generally be- 
 tween that which is Caesar's and that 
 which is God's, and deciding what things 
 are indifferent in a religious point of view, 
 and what are not. The heathen religion 
 was so closely interwoven with the whole 
 civil and social life, that it was not always 
 easy to separate mere civil and social 
 things from religious affairs. Much which 
 had originally proceeded from religious 
 sources, had long ago lost all connection 
 Avitli religious concerns with the multi- 
 tude, and, becoming clear only to the 
 learned antiquary, had lost all its reli- 
 gious character in the sight of the people. 
 The question, therefore, arose, whether 
 persons were justified in considering such 
 things as indifferent in a religions point 
 of view, and ought in them to follow the 
 customs of the age, as merely civil and 
 social matters, or whether they vvere not 
 bound, in consequence of the connection 
 these customs had with heathenism, to 
 set all other considerations aside.| 
 
 And still further, the nature of Christi- 
 anity was such, that it was certain to pass 
 a sentence of condemnation on every thing 
 ungodly, while at the same time, appro- 
 priating to its own purposes all that was 
 pure in human relations and tendencies, 
 instead of destroying them, it would sanc- 
 tify and ennoble them. But then, again, 
 the inquiry would arise, what is pure in 
 human things, and therefore, capable of 
 being received in connection with Christi- 
 anity, and what, on the contrary, originally 
 proceeding from the corruption of our 
 nature, bears on its very nature the stamp 
 of ungodliness, and therefore, must be 
 utterly rejected from Christianity .? Now, 
 inasmuch as Christianity appeared as a 
 
 • TertuUian, de Iilololatria, c xv. 
 
 \ We may, for instance, compare what Tertul- 
 liaii ami Clcnit'iit of Alexandria, out of the trea- 
 sures of their learnint?, following in the footsteps of 
 heathen writers, have said of the religious meaning 
 and reference of the ceremonies of crowning — 
 things which certainly in common life no one 
 would have thought of. 
 
 new leaven in an old world, and as it was 
 destined to produce a new creation in an 
 old one, of a totally different character and 
 spirit, the inquiry would, therefore, arise 
 the sooner, what of all that now exists in 
 the world requires only to be reformed 
 and ennobled, and what must be utterly 
 destroyed. There might be a great deal 
 really existing at that time, which, under 
 1 the direction of the corrupt Avorld, might 
 appear utterly at variance with the essen- 
 tials of Christianity, but which, however, 
 by means of a different direction and 
 another sort of use, might be brought 
 into perfect harmony with Christian prin- 
 ciples. The consequence of this would, 
 of course be, that some men would con- 
 demn the good use of which things were 
 capable, because of the misuse of them, 
 while others would advocate the existing 
 misuse itself, in virtue of the possible good 
 use of them. 
 
 Many institutions also might exist, 
 which would never have been formed in a 
 state of society under the influence of 
 Christianity, and which were certainly 
 foreign to pure Christianity, but which, 
 nevertheless, under the guidance of a 
 Christian spirit, might be so modified and 
 applied, that they no longer contained any 
 thing at variance with its principles. As 
 Christianity was not in the habit of pro- 
 ducing any violent and convulsive changes 
 in external things, but reformed and 
 amended these by beginning from within, 
 in the case of such institutions, for the 
 avoidance of a greater evil, and in order 
 not to step out of its own peculiar sphere 
 of spiritual efficacy, it might very well 
 allow them to exist, at least for a time, in 
 such a way that a new spirit might be 
 imparted to the old form, which did not 
 suit the spirit of Christianity ; and, at last, 
 when men were prepared for the change, 
 by the influence of Christianity, the form 
 itself might drop, and all become new. 
 
 Under these circumstances, therefore, 
 the application of principles, on which all 
 were agreed, might yet cause difierences 
 among the Christians, as a difference of 
 habits of thought and dispositions was 
 likely to give a different colour to the re- 
 lations which things around bore to them ; 
 a sort of difference, which in aftertimes 
 often occurred again in the case of missions 
 among strange people, in the organization 
 of new Churches, and in the decisions 
 which at various times were made about 
 matters of indifTerence {a.St»(po^ot.) An 
 error might here be committed on one side 
 or the otlier, either by too lax accommo- 
 
THE STRICT AND THE LAX — FORBIDDEN PASSIONS. 
 
 (lation or by too abrupt rejection. With 
 the exception of those few, who having 
 already made a further progress in genuine 
 evangelical freedom, had united enlight- 
 ened considerateness with the depth of 
 Christian zeal, the latter error was more 
 prevalent than the former among real 
 Christians ; they were more inclined to 
 cast away much of tliat which, in the days 
 of heathenism, they had used to the ser- 
 vice of sin or of falsehood, but which was 
 still capable of a very different use, than 
 to retain any thing which had the slightest 
 savour of heathen corruption ; they were 
 eager to cast away every thing which 
 came before them in contact with sin or 
 heathenism ; they were inclined to do too 
 much, far rather than to nullify even the 
 smallest portion of Christianity, that jewel, 
 that pearl, for which they were ready to sell 
 every thing ; and this was natural enough, 
 for in the first warmth of genuine conver- 
 sion, in the first fire of real love, man is more 
 inclined to reject with abruptness all that 
 belongs to the Morld, than to err by re- 
 taining it in a lax spirit of accommodation. 
 One of these two parties appealed to the 
 saying of our Saviour, that we must render 
 unto Ciesar the things which are Ceesar's, 
 to show, that in all which relates to civil 
 order, men must obey the existing laws, 
 and give no useless offence to the heathen, 
 and besides, must not give them occasion 
 to speak injuriously of God, and in short, 
 that they must " become all things to all 
 men," in order to win them all to the 
 Gospel. The other party could not deny 
 that these principles were deduced from 
 Scripture ; but then, said they, while we 
 consider all external and earthly things as 
 belonging to Caesar, our whole heart and 
 life still must belong to God*: that which 
 is Caesar's must not come into competition 
 with that which is God's. If it be uncon- 
 ditionally true that we must give the 
 heathen no opportunity whatever of calum- 
 niating the name of Christian, we must 
 give up all Christianity. Let them calum- 
 niate us forever, provided we give them 
 no opportunity of doing so by unchristian 
 conduct; let them continue to calumniate 
 us, if they only abuse what is truly Chris- 
 tian in us. In the proper sense, we are 
 willing " to become all things to all men," 
 but not if we are expected to become 
 worldly to the worldly ; for we have it 
 written, " if I please men, I am not the ser- 
 vant of Christ."* It is easy to see that both 
 these parties were right in the principles 
 
 * Tertullian, de Idololatria. 
 21 
 
 161 
 
 which they laid down, but the only question 
 was, how to apply these principles justly. 
 
 Those who exercised trades contrary to 
 the general and recognised principles of 
 Christianity, Avere not admitted to baptism, 
 before they had pledged themselves to 
 relinquish them.* They were obliged to 
 begin a new trade, in order to obtain a 
 livelihood, or in case they were unable to 
 do so, they were received into the number 
 of the poor of the Church. Among these 
 trades were reckoned all which had the 
 smallest connection of any kind whatever 
 with idolatry, and might contribute to its 
 furtherance, as those of artists and work- 
 men, who employed themselves in making 
 or adorning images of the gods. Many 
 who wished to continue these trades, as a 
 means of subsistence, excused themselves 
 under the plea, that they were no wor- 
 shippers of idols, and that they considered 
 these images not as objects of religion, but 
 as mere objects of art; but in those days 
 it must have argued great lukewarmness 
 in religious feeling, to separate religion and 
 art so sophistically. Tertullian, on the 
 contrary, declares with pious warmth, 
 " And yet most assuredly, to obtain honour 
 for idols, is to honour them yourself; you 
 bring no offering, indeed, of any thing else 
 to them, but you offer up your own spirit 
 to them — your sweat is their drink-offer- 
 ing, and you light the torch of your cun- 
 ning in honour of them."t Among these 
 unlawful callings were also reckoned all 
 kinds of astrology and magical arts, then 
 such prevailing and profitable sources of 
 delusion and deceit. 
 
 The cruel pleasure which the Roman 
 people received from the sanguinary 
 shows of gladiators, gives a remarkable 
 proof how completely the moral and hu- 
 mane feelings of our nature may be re- 
 pressed by education and habit, and how 
 a narrow-hearted political sentiment may 
 destroy the common sentiments of hu- 
 manity. This was a pleasure which those 
 who aspired to the character of civiliza- 
 tion scrupled not to partake in, which 
 law-givers and statesmen, and even those 
 who claimed the name of philosophers, 
 were not ashamed to approve of, and pro- 
 mote. The feelings, however, of univer- 
 sal love and charity, first called into life 
 
 * Apostol. Constitut. lib. viii. c. 31. The 
 council of Elvira also, can. 62., "Si auriga ct pan- 
 tomimus credere voluerint, placuit, ut prius actibus 
 suis renuntient et tunc demum suscipiantur, ita ut 
 ulterius ad ea non rcvertantur. Qui si faccre contra 
 interdictum tuntaverint, projiciantur ab ecclesia." 
 
 t Tertull. de Idololat. c. \i. 
 
 o2 
 
162 
 
 SHOWS OF GLADIATORS FORBIDDEN. 
 
 and action by Christianity, must, from its 
 earliest rise, have struggled against this 
 species of cruelty, wiiich the laws and 
 the prevailing sentiments of the Romans 
 allowed and approved. Those who at- 
 tended the combats of gladiators and of 
 wild beasts, according to the principle 
 which the Church established, were ex- 
 connnunicated. Irenscus, with horror, 
 calls it the extremes! denial of the 
 Christian character, when some among 
 the vvUd, fanatical, and antinomian sect 
 of the Gnostics would not even refrain 
 from participating in those bloody shows, 
 the objects of hatred at once to God and 
 man.* While Cyprian is proclaiming the 
 joy of a Christian, in feeling that he has 
 departed Irom the corruptions of the hea- 
 then world, and while he is looking on 
 these from a Christian's point of view, 
 he says,| " If you cast your eyes upon 
 the towns, you meet widi an assembly 
 which is more frightful than solitude. A 
 combat of gladiators is in preparation, in 
 order to gratify the thirst of cruel eyes 
 with blood. A man is put to death for 
 the pleasure of men, murder becomes a 
 profession, and crime not only practised, 
 but even taught." TertuUian says to the 
 heathen,! who defended the shows of gla- 
 diators, and in their defence alleged, that 
 those who were capitally guilty Avere often 
 made use of in these combats, " who but 
 a criminal can deny that it is well crimi- 
 nals should be punished } and yet the in- 
 nocent can never rejoice in the punish- 
 ment of his neighbour; nay, it rather 
 becomes the innocent to lament, when a 
 man, his fellow-creature, is so guilty, that 
 he requires so cruel a mode of execution. 
 But who will give me any security that 
 only the guilty are ever thrown to wild 
 beasts, or condemned to any other capital 
 punishment, and that innocence never 
 suffers this mode of death, from the love 
 of vengeance in a judge, from tlie weak- 
 ness of its advocate, or from the power 
 of torture .^ . . . . But at any rate the 
 gladiators come lo the combat uncharged 
 •with any guilt, but solely to become the 
 victims of a public passion. And as to 
 those who are sentenced to these com- 
 bats, is it proper that the punishment, 
 ■which ought to serve as a means of 
 amendment to men guilty of a venial 
 
 transgression, should expressly lead them 
 to become murderers r" 
 
 But it was not the participation in these 
 cruel amusements alone, which appeared 
 to the Christians incompatible with the 
 nature of their calling, but this condemna- 
 tion extended also to every kind of spec- 
 tacle exhibited in those days, to the panto- 
 mimic shows, the tragedies, and comedies, 
 the chariot and foot races, in short to all 
 the amusements of the theatre and the 
 circus. As the Romans of those days 
 were passionately addicted to theatrical 
 entertainments, it was no uncommon mark 
 by which a man's conversion to Chris- 
 tianity was ascertained, that he wholly 
 withdrew from the theatre.* Theatrical 
 exhibitions were supposed part and parcel 
 of idolatry, inasmuch as they derived 
 their origin from the heathen worship, 
 and were still connected with many of 
 the heathen festivals. These exhibitions 
 were especially included in the pomps of 
 idolatry and Satan, (the vo/ji.Trv ^ia|3o^ot;,) 
 which Christians were bound at their 
 baptism to renounce, by the pledge which 
 they took upon themselves at their en- 
 trance into the rank of soldiers of the 
 kingdom of God — (the sacramentum mi- 
 litise Christi.) In many of them much 
 took place which violated the moral feel- 
 ings and decencies of Christians, and even 
 where this was not the case, yet even then 
 the hour-long pursuit of idle and vain 
 objects — the unholy spirit which reigned 
 in these assemblies — the wild uproar of 
 tlie collected multitude, seemed hardly to 
 suit the holy seriousness of the Chris- 
 tian's priestly character. The Christians 
 considered themselves as priests, conse- 
 crated to God for their whole life, as tem- 
 ples of the -Holy Ghost ; all, therefore, 
 which was foreign to that Spirit, whose 
 dwelling-place in their hearts they were 
 bound to keep ready for him, was to be 
 kept far away from them. " God hath 
 commanded," says TertuUian, de Specta- 
 cidis, c. xv.,! " that the Holy Spirit, a 
 Spirit essentially tender and kind, should 
 be received with tranquillity and gentle- 
 ness, with peace and stillness, and not be 
 disquieted by passion, rage, anger, and the 
 violence of irritated feelings. How can 
 such a Spirit put up with the exhibitions 
 of the playhouse } For no play goes 
 
 • Irenacus, lib. i. ch. vi., 'Qc /u-Ji th; jra^a Qfo, 
 
 ] Ep. ad Donat. 
 
 j De ypectaculis, c. xix. 
 
 * Tertullian de Spectaculis, c. xxiv. "Hinc 
 vel maxiine ethnici intelligunt factum Chris- 
 tianum de repudio spectaculorum." 
 
 j [Part" of this passage is in c. xvii. and part in 
 c.xxv.— H. J. R.I 
 
THEATRICAL AMUSEMENTS OPPOSED TO SERIOUSNESS. 
 
 163 
 
 off without violent commotion of the 
 minds of the spectators. . . . No one, in 
 the theatre, thinks of any thing else than 
 to see and to be seen. Amidst the cla- 
 mour of the players can any man think, 
 upon the promise of a prophet, or medi- 
 tate upon a Psalm during the melodious 
 strains of an eunuch } . . . . Now, since 
 with us all immodesty is an object of 
 horror, how can we dare there to listen 
 to things which we dare not speak, while 
 we know that all useless and trifling 
 discourse is condemned bv the Lord .'" 
 Malt. xii. 36. Ephes. iv. 29 ; v. 4. So 
 constantly had the Christians in their 
 judgment on all their relations in life, 
 the pattern of the Divine word and the 
 nature of their Christian calling before 
 their eyes ! 
 
 To Tertullian, who was, no doubt, in- 
 clined to behold in every kind of art a lie 
 which counterfeited the original nature 
 created by God, the whole system of plays 
 appeared an art of mere representation 
 and lies : " The Creater of truth" — says 
 he, 1. c. ch. xxiii — " loves nothing false, 
 with him all fiction is falsehood ; he who 
 condemns all hypocrisy, will never ap- 
 prove of any man, who counterfeits voice, 
 sex, age, love, hatred, sighs, and tears. 
 
 When persons of weak minds, who 
 thought really that it was unchristian to 
 frequent the theatres, yet suffered them- 
 selves to be carried away by the prevail- 
 ing manners, and frequent them ; things 
 would sometimes occur to them there, I 
 which inflicted a deep wound on their 
 Christian feelings, produced remorse of 
 conscience in them, and destroyed their 
 peace of uiind, in a manner which long 
 continued to be prejudicial to them.* 
 Others, after they had once or twice, 
 against the voice of their Christian con- 
 science, suflered the love of pleasure to 
 bring them to the theatre, again took a 
 liking for these things,| and by their pas- 
 
 * Tertullian gives us some examples, 1. c. ch. 
 xxvi. A woman, who went to the theatre, return- 
 ed home from it in the miserable coiiclition of a 
 person possessed by an evil spirit ; and when it 
 was attempted to exorcise the spirit, and he was 
 asked how he dared to take possession of the soul 
 of a believer, he said, or the sick person, who ima- 
 gined that he was speaking in the name of the 
 evil spirit, said, " I was quite justified in what I 
 did, I seized upon her while she was in a place 
 where my dominion lies." Another, after visiting 
 the theatre, saw a fearful vision in the night, and 
 it was, perhaps, in consequence of the alarm into 
 which she was thrown by it, that she died five 
 days afterwards. 
 
 ■\ Tertullian, de Spectaculis, ch. XX vi. "Quot 
 
 j sion for theatrical amusements, they were 
 again by degrees drawn back into the 
 vortex of heathenism. 
 I The heathens and Christians of a light 
 land trivial disposition were in the habit 
 j of urging on the more serious the follow- 
 ing arguments : Why should they with- 
 [ draw from these public pleasures .' Such 
 outward pleasures of the eye and ear need 
 j not banish religion from the heart. God 
 j would not be injured by the pleasures of 
 men, and to enjoy these, in their proper 
 ' place and season, without any violation 
 I of the fear or the reverence due to God, 
 [ could be no crime.* So Celsus, when he 
 j challenges the Christians to partake in the 
 public festivals, says to them, " God is 
 j the common God of all, he is good and 
 I without wants, and free from jealousy. 
 j What then should prevent those who are 
 [ so especially consecrated to him from par- 
 taking in the public festivals.| This is 
 i quite in accordance with the usual wavs 
 ! of levity, and a cold-hearted love of the 
 world, which, in opposing itself to moral 
 ! seriousness of a high order, generally puts 
 I on a most imposing air of philosophy. 
 I Tertullian gives the following answer : 
 '' But it is then our business to show, 
 how these pleasures cannot possibly con- 
 sist with true religion and true obedience 
 towards the true God." 
 
 Another argument, by which some who 
 were devoted to amusements endeavoured 
 to silence their Christian conscience, was 
 the following : that in these exhibitions 
 only such things were made use of as be- 
 longed to the gif^s of God, which he had 
 bestowed on man in order that man might 
 enjoy them. No place either of Holy 
 Writ could be alleged, in which plays 
 were expressly forbidden. In regard to 
 chariot races, the riding in chariots could 
 have nothing sinful in it, for Elijah was 
 taken to heaven in a chariot. Music and 
 dancing in the theatre could not be for- 
 bidden, for we read in Scripture of choirs, 
 of stringed instruments, of cymbals, horns, 
 and trumpets; we read of king David's 
 dancing and playing before the ark of the 
 covenant, (1 Chron. xvi. 29,) and we find 
 the apostle Paul borrowing for the ex- 
 hortation of Christians, similes from the 
 
 documenta de his, qui cum diabolo apud specta- 
 cula communicando a Domino exciderunt !" 
 
 * Tertull. 1. c. ch. i. 
 
 I Origcn, c. Cels. Lib. viii. c. 21. 'o )«,«»» 
 
 T/ t,'ji tut>VH n^vq y.-JLKi'nx)i,x'i»7utifA9ii>\ii; adrrif x.'Xi Tctii 
 
164 
 
 CHRISTIAN PLEASURES. 
 
 gymnastic ^ames and the circus.* Ephes. 
 vi. 13. 2 Tim. iv. 7, 8. Philipp. iii. 14. 
 TertuUian, in reply to this sophistry, says, 
 " Oh ! how acute in argument does hu- 
 man ignorance fancy itself, especially 
 when it is afraid of losing some of the 
 pleasures and enjoyments of the world." 
 Against the first argument he says, " As- 
 suredly all things are the gift of God; but 
 then the question is, to what purpose 
 were they given ? and how may they be 
 used in subservience to their original 
 destination.? what is the original creation 
 of them, and what their sinful abuse ? for 
 there is a wide difference between the 
 original purity of nature and its corrup- 
 tion, between the creator and perverter 
 of it." Against the second he says, " Al- 
 though no express, verbal prohibition of 
 games and shows is found in Scripture, 
 yet it contains general principles, from 
 which this prohibition follows as a matter 
 of course. All which is said in general 
 terms against the lust of the flesh and of 
 the eyes, must be applicable also to this 
 particular kind of lust. If we can con- 
 clude tliat rage, and cruelty, and wrath 
 are permitted to us in Scripture, we are 
 certainly at liberty to visit the amphi- 
 theatre. Are we such as we call our- 
 selves, and shall we delight ourselves in 
 witnessing the shedding of human blood .?" 
 Against those who perverted Scripture in 
 the manner above mentioned, the author 
 of the treatise "De Spectaculis," in Cypri- 
 an's writings uses the following language : 
 " I may safely affirm that it were better for 
 such men never to know the Scriptures, 
 than so to read them, for the words and 
 examples, placed there to exhort to tlie 
 virtues of the Gospel, they pervert to the 
 defence of vices; for this was written to 
 awaken our zeal in things of real im- 
 portance by the consideration, that the 
 heathen show such great zeal and eager- 
 ness in trivial things. . . . Reason of itself 
 may deduce from the propositions laid 
 down in Scripture those consequences, 
 which are not themselves expressly un- 
 folded.}* Let every man take counsel of 
 his own heart, and commune with the 
 person he professes to be as a Christian, 
 and lie will never do any thing unbecoming 
 to him, for the conscience, which binds 
 itself to none but itself, will always have 
 the most weight."| 
 
 TertuUian calls upon the Christians to 
 compare the real spiritual pleasures, which 
 their faith gave them to enjoy, with those 
 false pleasures of the heathen world, (Ch. 
 xxix.) "Tell me then, what else is our 
 desire, than that which was also the wish 
 of the apostle, to depart out of the world 
 and to be with the Lord. There is thy 
 pleasure, whither thy wishes ascend. . . . 
 Canst thou be so unthankful, that thou 
 art not satisfied with the many and great 
 pleasures which the Lord hath already 
 bestowed upon thee, and acknowledgest 
 them not .' For what is a subject of higher 
 rejoicing than reconciliation with God, 
 thy Father and Lord, than the revelation 
 of truth, the knowledge of error, and the 
 remission of so many sins already com- 
 mitted .'' What can be a greater pleasure 
 than the contempt of such pleasures, and 
 the contempt of the whole world ; or than 
 true freedom, a pure conscience, and a 
 guiltless life.? what pleasure greater than 
 not to fear death, and to feel that thou 
 mayest trample the idols of the heathen 
 to the dust, mayest cast out evil spirits, 
 heal sicknesses, and pray for revelations .-* 
 These are the pleasures, these the games 
 of the Christian, holy and eternal, and 
 such as no man can buy with money. . . . 
 And what, too, are those of which it is said, 
 that no eye hath seen them, no ear heard 
 them, nor hath it entered into the heart of 
 man to conceive them .?" The author also 
 of the work we have cited as found in 
 the writings of Cyprian, says — " He can 
 never look with wonder on the works of 
 man, who hath reckoned himself a child 
 of God. He falls down from his high 
 and noble pre-eminence, who looks with 
 wonder at any thing but the Lord. Let 
 the believing Christian give all his dili- 
 gence to the holy Scriptures, and there he 
 will find the shows of faith, shows worthy 
 to be looked upon, and shows such as he 
 who has lost his eyesight may delight in." 
 
 When Christians renounced even being 
 present at the representation of these 
 games and plays, the trade of an actor 
 must of course, a fortiori.^ have been for- 
 
 * The treatise " de Spectaculis" in Cyprian's 
 ■works. 
 
 ■j- Ratio docet, qune Scriptura conticuit. 
 
 i Unusquisque cum persona profcssionis suas 
 lOquatur et nihil unquam indecorum geret. Plus 
 
 enim ponderis habebit conscientia, quae nulli se 
 alteri debebit, nisi sibi. 
 
 * In this enumeration, which in its higli tone 
 of conscience and feeling, speaks the Christian 
 sentiments of these early ages of Christianity, we 
 may, besides the general Christian spirit which 
 pervades it, remark the characteristic spirit of Ter- 
 tuUian — a spirit which was constantly inclined to 
 I)lace too great stress on individual and striking 
 gifts of grace, and too little to regard what is said 
 in St. Luke x. 20, and 1 Cor. xiii. 1. 
 
SLAVERY AMONG THE ANCIENTS. 
 
 16;' 
 
 bidden to them. In the time of Cyprian 
 the case had occurred in the North Afri- 
 can Church, that a player, although a 
 Christian, wished to procure his living by 
 instructing boys in the art which he him- 
 self had formerly practised. The bishop 
 Cyprian was asked in consequence whe- 
 
 the brightest feelings of man's nobler 
 nature are tarnished and stained by this 
 defect, (selfishness,) so we find its traces 
 even in the political spirit of freedom 
 among the ancients, although, perhaps, the 
 marks of the original worth of man's 
 nature might shine through this spirit. It 
 
 iher such a person could be suflered to does, however, itself bear the stamp of that 
 belong to the community, and he ex- j selfishness, by which every thing, which 
 pressed himself most strongly against it: [ does not spring out of man's regenerate 
 " Since it is forbidden, iu Deut. xxii. 5, j nature, is debased. The zealous friends 
 to a man to dress himself in woman's ; of freedom robbed a large portion of their 
 clothes, and a curse is declared against I fellow-men of that which they thought the 
 any one who does this,* how far more I greatest of blessings, they deprived them 
 wicked must it seem to make a man act i of all enjoyment of those rights, for the 
 the part of a woman thus immodestly, to possession of which, in regard to them- 
 put on indecent gestures, and to falsify i selves, they were so jealous and anxious; 
 God's creatures by the arts of the devil ?" I and the bitterest enemies of slavery were 
 " Suppose such an one," continues Cy- I perfectly contented to dwell surrounded 
 prian, "should bring forward the pretext I by thousands oflheir fellow-creatures, who 
 of poverty, his necessity may be relieved, served them as slaves. Their zeal for 
 among the rest whom the Church main- i freedom, which ought to be the common 
 tains, provided he will content himself 
 with a more moderate way of life, indeed, 
 but an innocent one. He must not, how- 
 
 ever, imagine that his ceasing to sin should 
 be bought of him at a price, because he 
 does this, not for our sake, but for his 
 
 ssion of all men created in God's 
 image, limited itself entirely within the 
 narrow confines of their native country ; 
 they knew of the rights of freedom only 
 as the rights of citizens, and not as the 
 universal rights of man ; and much as the 
 
 ow-n If the Church, where he live, ■ condition of slaves was often mitigated bv 
 
 is too poor to maintain him, let him come civilization and morals, yet they were 
 to Carthage; here he may receive what is always in many respects treated not as 
 needful for him for meat and raiment, in i men, but as things. In a judicial investi- 
 order that he may not teach others, who ; gation all the cruelties of torture might be 
 are without the pale of the Church, what I used upon an innocent slave ; and if a mas- 
 is criminal, but may himself learn in the , terhad been murdered by one of his slaves, 
 Church that which is salutary.'"'! j according to the Roman law, an hundred 
 
 Among the circumstances foreign to its of the slaves who were in his service, 
 nature, which Christianity found eslab- I although their innocence was as clear as 
 lished at its first propagation, was the ex- | day, were executed with the murderer, 
 istence of slavery. As the natural man, i Christianity first prepared an entire change 
 in whom selfishness is the leading princi- [ in these circumstances, because it taught 
 pie, impresses on every thing which is the the originally equal rights, and the origi- 
 ofFspring of man's natural condition, his | nally equal destinies of all men created in 
 own peculiar stamp and character, as even • the image of God, and because it repre- 
 sented God as the Father, and Christ as 
 
 * It was, however, it must be remarked, no 
 uncommon error in these days for men to cite iso- 
 lated passages of the Old Testament, a work in 
 which religious and political regulations are so 
 closely interwoven, and apply them immediately 
 and unconditionally to the Christian Church, with- 
 out inquiring whether they suited the peculiar tem- 
 per and nature of the economy of the New Testa- 
 ment, without inquiring', for instjmce, whether 
 they belonged to that eternal law, which was not 
 
 the Redeemer of all mankind, and every 
 individual as an immediate object of God's 
 providential care. Masters, as well as 
 slaves, were obliged to acknowledge them- 
 selves the slaves of sin, and all alike to 
 receive their deliverance from the slavery 
 of sin, the true, the highest free do?}i, as the 
 gift of God's free grace. Servants and mas- 
 to be destroyed but fulfilled by the Gospel. Al- j ters, by becoming believers, were mutually 
 though, however, the particular law here mention- bound together in the same bond of an 
 ed no longer existed as a positive ordinance in | heavenly union, destined for immortality, 
 the economy of the New Testament, yet it is easy I They became brethren in Christ— with 
 to perceive that the moral ground of the prohibi- ; ^^,^^,j^ ^^^^^^ -^ ^^^-^^^^^ bondsman nor free- 
 tion still contmued, and therefore, the law might ; ,11 . r 1 1 
 
 still be appealed to and put in force anew. man— they became members of one body, 
 
 t Ep. vi. ad Eucrat. [Ep. bci. Ed. Pam. ii. made to drink of one Spirit, and heirs of 
 ed. Ox.] the same heavenly possessions. Servants 
 
166 
 
 CHANGE PRODUCED FROM WITHIN. 
 
 often became the instructors of their mas- 
 ters in the Gospel, after they had caused 
 the light of their faith to shine before them 
 in their narrow earthly sphere ;* and mas- 
 ters saw in their servants no longer their 
 servants, but their beloved brethren ; they 
 prayed and sang together, and would sit 
 down together at the feasts of brotherly 
 love, and together receive the body of the 
 Lord. And besides, by the very spirit and 
 practice of Christianity, such ideas and 
 feelings were naturally engendered, as were 
 utterly inconsistent with this institution 
 of slavery, however well it might corres- 
 pond to the then established notions. 
 Christianity would necessarily introduce 
 a wish that all men should be placed in 
 those circumstances, in which theyvv^ould 
 be the least hindered in the free and inde- 
 pendent use of their spiritual and moral 
 powers according to the will of God : and 
 thus St. Paul says to tlie servant, (Cor. 
 vii. 21,) " [f thou mayest be made free, 
 use it rather." Nevertheless, Christianity 
 never began by external changes and alter- 
 ations : for these, wherever they did not 
 begin from the inward man, and there fix 
 their first and firm foundation, would 
 always have failed in their salutary de- 
 signs. The new creation, which it pro- 
 duced, was in all respects an inward one, 
 from which all outward effects, in their 
 whole compass and extent, were to flow, 
 at first by degrees, and therefore, with 
 more certainty and greater benefit. It left 
 external relations to exist for a time as 
 they were, but by infusing into them a new 
 spirit, it prepared their complete reforma- 
 tion, by its internal eflijcts on men's minds. 
 It first gave to the slave that true and in- 
 ward freedom, witliout which all earthly 
 and bodily freedom is but a name, and 
 which, wherever it exists, no earthly bond, 
 no earthly yoke, can overwhelm and sub- 
 due. St. Paul .says, " He that is called in 
 the Lord, while he is a servant, is the 
 Lord's freeman." Tertullian, in showing 
 how far exalted this heavenly freedom is 
 above the earthly, says,t " In the world, 
 those who have received their freedom, 
 are crowned. But thy freedom has already 
 
 * The example of Onesimus was often repeated. 
 Tertullian appeals to cases where a master, who 
 havin? patiently put up with the former crimes of 
 a servant, when he found him quite reformed, but 
 at the same time heard that this reformation was 
 owing to Christianity, sent him to the house of 
 correction, out of i)ure hatred to Christianity. 
 Apologet. c- iii., "Servum jam fideleni dominus 
 dim initis ab oculis relegavit." 
 
 f De Corona Militis, c. xiii. 
 
 been bought by Christ, and bought, too, 
 very dear. How can the world give free- 
 dom to him, who is already the servant of 
 another .' All in the world is appearance 
 only, and nothing reality. For then thou 
 wast free in regard to men, as one bought 
 by Christ ; and now thou art a servant of 
 Christ, although set free by a man. If 
 thou dost esteem the freedom which the 
 world can give thee a real freedom, thou 
 art again become by this a slave to men, 
 and hast lost the freedom bestowed on 
 thee by Christ, because thou esteemest it 
 a slavery." One of the imperial slaves, 
 named Euelpistus, being conducted before 
 the tribunal with Justin Martyr and other 
 Christians, spoke thus : " I also am a 
 Christian, and I have received freedom 
 through Christ, and through his grace I 
 partake in the same hope."* The servant 
 v/as to turn his state of service into free- 
 dom by serving his master for the sake 
 of God, with a free heart and spirit — by 
 recognising in his spirit God alone as his 
 master, who placed him in this state, and 
 by keeping Him before his eyes — by seek- 
 ing, with a faithful heart, the advantage 
 of his earthly master, rendering him due 
 service and obedience, without the fear of 
 man, in all things which did not contra- 
 vene the laws of God, and ceasing to obey 
 him, where the commands of men were 
 against the laws of God. If an earthly 
 condition, which suited his destination as 
 a man, and his calling as a Christian, bet- 
 ter were offered to a Christian, he was to 
 accept it Avith joy. St. Paul says, " Art 
 thou called, being a servant .? care not for 
 it, but if thou mayest he made free, use it 
 rather?'' But if this choice were not 
 given to him, the Christian was not to 
 boast of his rights, or lift himself up, as a 
 Christian, above his heathen master, but 
 in the spirit of self-sacrificing love, of hu- 
 mility, and self-denial, which animated 
 him, he was to let the light of his Chris- 
 tianity sliine before his earthly master, 
 that he might win him for the common 
 Lord and Master of all in heaven. Irenajus, 
 bishop of Antioch, writes thus to Polycarp, 
 bishop of Smyrna, (ch. iv.,) '■'• Be not proud 
 towards servants and maidens, but at the 
 same time they must not exalt themselves, 
 but serve with more zeal to the honour of 
 God, that they may receive that higher 
 freedom at the hands of God. They must 
 not expect their freedom to be bought by 
 the Church, lest they should be found the 
 servants of their own lusts." 
 
 * Acta Mart. Justini. 
 
IMITATION OF CHRIST. 
 
 16- 
 
 Another question, on which men's 
 opinions were divided, was this : Whether 
 a Christian could conscientiously accept 
 a magisterial or a military office, and es- 
 pecially with regard to the latter. As the 
 heathen state religion was so closely in- 
 terwoven with all the relations of political 
 and social life, all such olficos would be 
 likely to produce cases, in which a man 
 could not avoid partaking in the ceremo- 
 nies of the heathen religion. All Chris- 
 tians, on this view of the question, pro- 
 claimed with one voice, that no necessity 
 could ever excuse this, hi this respect, 
 what Teitullian says is certainly spoken 
 from the hearts of all Christians : "Christ 
 never changes. There is one Gospel and 
 one Jesus, who will deny all who deny 
 Him, and confess all who confess God ; 
 with Him the believing citizen (paganus) 
 is a soldier of the Lord, and the soldier 
 has the same duties to perform as the 
 citizen."* 
 
 But the question, whether a Christian, 
 supposing his faith not compromised, was 
 at liberty to accept such an office, was 
 quite a distinct one, and was answered in 
 the affirmative by one party, and in the 
 negative by another. The question must 
 he carefully considered, with a due regard 
 to the circumstances in which the Church 
 was then placed. The prevailing idea of 
 the Christian life was this : to follow a 
 Redeemer, who had entered the world in 
 poverty and low estate, and had hidden 
 his glory under the form of a servant — to 
 follow Him in humility, in self-denial, and 
 in renunciation of every thing earthly. 
 The Christian's glory was in heaven with 
 his Saviour; in his earthly appearance, 
 that which was utterly devoid of authority 
 and splendour, and most like the appear- 
 ance of his Saviour, was most befitting. 
 He depised the power and the glory of 
 this world, while he felt himself exalted 
 by the consciousness of partaking in the 
 power and glory of a far dilferent one. 
 But, then, this renunciation of earthly 
 things consisted in the state of the mind, 
 and the affections of this might remain the 
 
 * De Corona Militis, c. xi. " A pud hunc tarn 
 miles est, paganus fiJelis, quam paganus, miles in- 
 fKleiis." I have here translated as if the reading 
 were " fidelis," for which emendation, what Ter- 
 tullian had before said of " fides pagana," gives 
 some authority. The common reading may, how- 
 ever, may be taken in the following sense : " The 
 faithless soldier, he who violates the duties of Chris- 
 tian fidelity, is to him as a ' paganus' in regard to 
 his militia ; he is one excluded from the order of 
 the ' milites Christi,' the duties of which he has 
 violated." 
 
 same under outward circumstances of very 
 different complexions ; and the outioard 
 possession of earthly property, and of 
 earthly splendour, when a man's condition 
 and circumstances required it, and the use 
 of earthly power and might in an earthly 
 calling, M'as not necessarily prohibited ; 
 all this might and ought to be sanctified 
 by means of Christianity. But it was 
 natural that the Christians, in the first 
 warmth of their conversion, should not 
 make these distinctions between outward 
 and imoard, and that they should be in- 
 clined to conceive in an outward manner 
 the necessity of imitating a Lord, who 
 had appeared in the form of a servant ; it 
 was natural, that in their first ardour they 
 should willingly cast away from them all 
 those earthly things, which they saw 
 serving the purposes of heathen corrup- 
 tion, and reject earthly might and glory, 
 which they saw so often opposed to the 
 will of God.* Under this point of view 
 TertuUian says, (de Idololatria, c. xviii.:) 
 " Thou, as a Christian, must follow the 
 model of thy Lord ; he, the Lord, came 
 in humility and low estate ; he was with- 
 out any fixed habitation ; 'for the Son of 
 man,' says he, ' hath not where to lay his 
 head :' he came clad in the garb of po- 
 verty, for otherwise he would not have 
 said, *• Behold, they that wear soft clothing 
 are in king's houses,' and he came with- 
 out beauty or comeliness of appearance, 
 as Isaiah foretold, (ch. iii.) If he would 
 not even once exercise the rights of do- 
 minion over his own, for whom he per- 
 formed the most menial service, if he, 
 fully conscious as he was of his regal 
 power, yet shrunk from being made a 
 king, he gave a perfect example to all his 
 disciples, to avoid all which is high and 
 glorious in earthly rank and power. For 
 who had a better title to make use of these 
 things than the Son of God .' What fasces, 
 and how many of them, would lie iiave 
 made to precede hini ! what purple would 
 have flowed from his shoulders! what 
 gold would have gleamed from his head ! 
 had he not declared that the glory of the 
 world benefited neither him nor his. He 
 condemned also that which he rejected."!" 
 Many Christians also imagined, with a 
 
 * Hence, the heathen in Minucius Felix, c. viii., 
 describes the Christians as men who, while they 
 were themselves half naked, despised honours and 
 purple robes. " Honores et purpuras despiciunt 
 ipsi seminudi." 
 
 f (Gloriam soculi) <quam damnavit in pompa 
 diaholi deputavit." These are the words of 'J'er- 
 tullian, one of the most violent advocates of these 
 
168 
 
 THE STATE AND CHRISTIANITY OPPOSED. 
 
 conscientiousness which, abstractedly con- 
 sidered, always deserves our admiration, 
 that passages like Matt. v. 39, were to be 
 interpreted literally. This arose from not 
 CQusidering that the passages in question 
 chiefly related to the disposition of the 
 lieart, and that their object was to banish 
 all thirst for revenge from- the hearts of 
 men, so that love alone might reign there, 
 although even love itself is often obliged 
 to inflict pain, for a season, on the very 
 objects whose real advantage it is seeking. 
 Their Christian feelings would not allow 
 them to suffer themselves to become the 
 instrument of another's pain, and to assist 
 in the execution oi the laic, where a spirit 
 of severe justice, to the exclusion of the 
 spirit of mercy and love, was the leading 
 and the animating principle.* 
 
 Christians, under the then existing cir- 
 cumstances, were generally accustomed 
 to consider the state as a power hostile to 
 the Church, and it was far from their 
 imagination to conceive it possible that 
 Christianity should appropriate to itself 
 also the relations and offices of the state.j 
 The Christians stood aloof and distinct 
 from the state, as a priestly and spiritual 
 race, and Christianity seemed able to in- 
 fluence civil life only in that manner 
 which, it must be confessed, is the purest, 
 by practically endeavouring to instil more 
 and more of holy feeling into the citizens 
 of the state. When Celsus required that 
 the Christians should take up arms for the 
 protection of the rights of the emperor, 
 and fight in his armies, Origen answered, 
 " We do, in fact render the emperor Divine 
 assistance, by putting on the Divine ar- 
 mour, in which we follow the command 
 of the apostle, 1 Tim. ii. 1. And the 
 more pious any man is, the more able is 
 
 opinions, it must be confessed, and a writer with 
 whom they appear carried to the very extreme, as 
 well as every thing else, which seized upon his 
 mind and animated him. 
 
 * 'I'ertullian, in treating on this subject, first 
 separates those cases in which a Christian cannot, 
 under any circumstances, administer a magisterial 
 ofllcc. " Jam vero quas sunt potestatis, neque ju- 
 dicet de capitc alicujus vcl pudorc, feras enim de 
 pecunia, neminem vinciat, ncminem recludat aut 
 torqueat, si hccc credibile est fieri posse." The 
 Council of Elvira, canon 56, ordained, that no 
 magistrate should be allowed to visit the Cliurch 
 during any year in which he had to preside as 
 Decemvir over cases of life and death. 
 
 •j- How little Tertullian imagined that the em- 
 pf^rors themselves would ever be Christians, m.iy 
 iifc judged of from the following expressions, Apo- 
 loget. c. xxi., " iScd et Ca;sares credidisbcnt super 
 Christo, si aut Ciesares rion essent steculo neces- 
 earii out ei et Christian! potuissent esse Csesares." 
 
 he to render the emperor a more eflectual 
 assistance than the ordinary soldiers. We 
 may also use the following argument with 
 tlie heathen : ' Your priests keep their 
 hands pure, that they may be able to offer 
 the accustomed sacrifices to the gods, 
 with hands unstained with blood, and you 
 do not compel your priests, even in times 
 of war and difficulty to take the field. 
 Their duty is, as priests of God, to com- ' 
 bat by prayer for those who are waging a 
 just war, and for the lawful emperor, in 
 order that all which opposes those that 
 have right on their side may be annihila- 
 ted. Tlie Christians render greater service 
 to their country than other men, inasmuch 
 as they instruct the citizens, and teach 
 them to become pious towards God, on 
 whom the welfare of cities depends, and 
 who receives those whose conduct in a 
 poor and miserable city has been good, 
 into a divine and heavenly city."* When 
 Celsus argued that the Christians ought 
 to undertake the duties of the magistracy 
 in their native country, Origen replied, 
 " But we know that in every city we have 
 another country, whose foundations are 
 in the word of God, and we require it 
 from those who are competent by their 
 talent and pious lives, to take upon them- 
 selves the offices requisite for the mainte- 
 nance of order in the Churches." 
 
 Those, on the contrary, who deter- 
 mined that it was allowable for a Chris- 
 tian to accept civil and military offices, 
 
 * A few critical remarks are necessary to esta- 
 blish the propriety of the translation here given of 
 this passage, which is taken from the eighth Book 
 of Origen, against Celsus. In the words of Origen 
 the reading ii; tov T6X<s5t flssv appears to be the gen- 
 uine, and lU rov Tcev o^aiv Smv a false reading. It is 
 easy to understand how the predicate contained m 
 the former reading, which is very unusual in a 
 Christian's mouth, should be changed into the lat- 
 ter, which is common enough ; but a change " vice 
 versa" is difficult to be accounted for. There is, 
 however, nothing to startle us in Origen, even from 
 a Christian point of view, calling God mxiaj;. as a 
 comparison with Z«uc ttoxisj; was before his eyes. 
 The word ttcmcj so often repeated in this passage, 
 speaks for this play on words. If we take this 
 reading, the play on words further makes it pro- 
 bable that we ought to read dvxKct/A^dinvTa instead 
 of uv«xa^(S:<V'JVTK. 
 
 [This passage is considerably abridged from the 
 original ; it appears to me that this abridgment 
 has slightly altered the turn of the passage in one 
 sentence, although the general sense is adhered to. 
 I mean the passage beginning, " Their duty," 
 which I have translated from the German and not 
 from the Greek. In the original this sentence ap- 
 pears to me to apply to the Christians, not to the 
 heathen priests. The passage is taken from B. viii. 
 ch. 73, 74. ed. De la Kue.— H. J. R.] 
 
CHRISTIANITY OPPOSED TO EXTREMES. 
 
 169 
 
 supported their opinion by examples out 
 of the Old Testament. A just and ob- 
 vious answer in this case was, that we 
 are not at liberty to conclude that every 
 thing, which was consonant to the nature 
 of the dispensation of the Old Testament, 
 would also suit the nature of tliat of the 
 New.* Even when it was advanced, that 
 John the Baptist had not commanded the 
 soldiers, who came to him, to give up 
 their profession, but had prescribed rules 
 for tliem to practice it in a manner agree- 
 able to God, it might be alleged in reply, 
 that John had stood only on the limit be- 
 tween the old and the new dispensation. 
 But when they appealed to the case of 
 the centurion, whose faith Christ himself 
 had praised, (Luke vii.,) and of the believ- 
 ing Cornelius, their adversaries had more 
 reason to acknowledge the weight of their 
 appeal, and even TertuUian himself, the 
 warm opponent of tlie profession of arms 
 among Christians, did not feel himself 
 authorised altogether to condemn those 
 who, having become Christians while 
 they wece soldiers, continued in their old 
 profession, provided it was unattended 
 with any thing which caused them to 
 violate their fidelity as Christians.! Many 
 also argued against the propriety of Chris- 
 tians becoming soldiers, from Matt. xxvi. 
 52, considering that Avhen our Saviour 
 commanded Peter to put the sword into 
 the sheath, He had given the same com- 
 mand to all Christians,! although this 
 passage, when taken with the context, 
 can be considered as opposed only to an 
 unauthorised taking up of arms, and as 
 meant to reprove the self-willed spirit of 
 man, which is desirous of furthering by 
 means of outward might the cause of 
 God, which God alone is capable of con- 
 ducting by his word and Spirit. 
 
 Christianity was destined by its peculiar 
 nature to conduct human life between two 
 extremes, a vain devotion to the world, and 
 a gloomy and proud contempt of it. The 
 centre and the fundamental doctrine of 
 Christianity, the doctrine of redemption, 
 here also stamped its peculiar spirit and 
 character upon the Christian life. The re- 
 deemed no longer belonged to himself, but 
 to his Redeemer : in his inward life he had 
 departed out of the world, as far as the 
 
 * TertuUian, <lc Iilololatria, c. xviii. " Scito 
 non semper comparanda esse vctera et nova, riulia 
 et polita, cnnpta et applicita, servilia et liberalia." 
 
 t Tertull. do ('orona Militis, c. xi. 
 
 t TertuUian, de Idololatria, c. xix. "Omnem 
 postca militem Dominus in Petro exarmando dis- 
 cinxit." 
 
 22 
 
 world is opposed to the kingdom of God, 
 and his conversation was to be in heaven, 
 riis whole life must, therefore, receive a 
 new complexion \ it was to be a sacrifice of 
 thaidisgiving for the grace of redemption, 
 and consecrated to God under the influence 
 of the Redeemer's Spirit. With tliese feel- 
 ings was the Christian bound to use and to 
 enjoy every thing he did enjoy, and these 
 feelings were to sanctify all the ways and 
 all the pleasures of the citizen of heaven, 
 while his fleshly abode was still in the 
 world. Among the heathen, the feeling 
 which stood contrasted with a reckless 
 enjoyment of all that youth and fresh- 
 ness can find to gratify their desires, was 
 a mournful acknowledgement of the fleet- 
 ing nature of the world, — that melancholy, 
 which having found the nothingness of 
 all on earth, abandons itself to despair, 
 or sinks into cold resignation, and flies 
 enjoyments so deceitful, and a world, 
 whose false pleasures are so seducing 
 and delusive, with lofty contempt ; or 
 with the despair of one who, having 
 found that all below is fleeting and false, 
 has nothing real and abiding, wherewith 
 to replace it. On the one hand, a lawless 
 life of wild and reckless enjoyment; — on 
 the other, a life under the burden of the 
 law, where the law has evoked the con- 
 sciousness of guilt, and man, pursued by 
 the feeling of impurity and guilt, carries 
 this feeling into every thing around him, 
 a life where to the impure all things are 
 impure ! To one in this state, all nature 
 j appeared unclean, all its enjoyments de- 
 ' filing, and sense and matter the seat of 
 evil. On the one hand, stood the spirit 
 j of polytheism, deifying all the powers of 
 I nature, and, under their influence, with 
 \ fresh and vigorous feelings abandoning 
 I itself to all the pleasures which the na- 
 I tural life is capable of deriving from indi- 
 { vidual objects, — on the other, the dark, 
 , proud spirit of pantheism, despising all 
 that is individual, together with all the 
 energies and pleasures which are derived 
 ' from it, as mere false appearances, as a 
 \ delusion which carries man away captive, 
 and as a narrow limit which cramps his 
 : views, — a spirit which only sought by 
 serious abstract contemplation to unite 
 itself with that one substantive Being, 
 which hides itself under the deceitful 
 guise of these individualities. The first 
 was certainly the prevailing spirit in the 
 Roman and Grecian heathenism; but, 
 nevertheless, as tlie youthful life of the 
 old world was daily waning away, as 
 every thing grew old and died, the latter 
 
170 
 
 CHRISTIANITY OPPOSED TO EXTREMES. 
 
 spirit constantly gained ground ; and be- 
 sides this, during these times of power- 
 ful spiritual excitement, and lively inter- 
 course between the Western World and 
 the distant East, the theosophic and as- 
 cetic spirit of the latter had extended 
 itself also widely over the West. Chris- 
 tianity, on the contrary, universally raised 
 up a new life out of death, and only 
 killed, in order that a nobler life might 
 have power to rise up. As soon as it 
 had brought man to the consciousness, 
 that the source of evil and impurity was 
 not without, that it was not to be sought 
 in nature, or in sense and matter, but 
 in his own inward heart, in sin ; that 
 to the impure all things are impure, and 
 to the pure all things are pure ; and as 
 soon as it had freed him from this op- 
 pressive consciousness of guilt and un- 
 cleanness, bv faith in the Redeemer, it 
 restored to him the universal range of 
 nature, as a purified and ennobled temple 
 of God, where the redeemed must glorify 
 his God The fruits of the Spirit, of 
 which St, Paul speaks, are not a dark 
 and haughty moodiness, but love, joy, 
 and friendship. It is joy in the Holy 
 Spirit to which he appeals so often, as 
 the characteristic of the Christian life. 
 
 As Christianity opposed a thoughtless 
 thirst for pleasure with a holy serious- 
 ness, so also it opposed to that ascetic 
 self-righteousness, that dark and proud 
 contempt of the world, the spirit of hu- 
 mility and the childlike feeling of delight 
 in the grace of our heavenly Father, 
 which receives with thankfulness all his 
 gifts, even those of an eartlily nature, as 
 tokens of eternal love. The Christian 
 was not to escape out of this corrupted 
 world, but he received a call, by means 
 of the spirit which animated him, as a 
 light, as salt, and as leaven, to contribute 
 his share towards the general renovation 
 of human nature, and of the human race. 
 
 It was, we must avow, natural enough, 
 that to the heathen, who delighted in 
 the pleasures of the world, Christianity 
 should seem a gloomy and dark religion, 
 and Christians appear as a race of men 
 who abhorred the light, and, having ut- 
 terly died to the world, were no longer 
 useful in it.* (See above, p. 86.) But 
 
 * In Minucius Felix, c. 8, the heathen calls the 
 Christians "lalc^brosa et hicifutja natio;" and cer- 
 tainly amon^ the heathen, the frivolous man of 
 pleasure, or the man of the worM, who was ac- 
 customed to comply on the easiest terms with the 
 demands of reliction, and thought a few outward 
 ceremonies and a few good works were amply suf- 
 
 TertuUian thus answers these accusa- 
 tions against the Christians, Apologet. c. 
 xliii., " How can such an accusation lie 
 against those who live among you, who 
 share the same fare with you, and the 
 same clothing, and have the same com- 
 mon wants of life ? For we are no 
 Brahmins, nor hidian Gymnosophists ; 
 we are no dwellers in the woods, no men 
 who have left the common haunts of life ; 
 we feel deeply the gratitude we owe to 
 God, our Lord and Creator; we despise 
 not the enjoyment of any of his works ; 
 we only desire to moderate this enjoy- 
 ment in such a manner, that we may 
 avoid excess and misuse. We, therefore, 
 inhabit this world in common with you, 
 and we make use of baths, of shops, 
 workshops, and fairs, and all that is used 
 in the intercourse of life. We also carry 
 on, in common with you, navigation, wary 
 agriculture, and trade ; we take part in 
 your occupations, and our labour, when 
 needful, we give to the public service."* 
 Still, although Christians did not by any 
 means retire from the business of life, yet 
 they were accustomed to devote many 
 separate days peculiarly to examining their 
 own hearts, and pouring them out before 
 God, while they dedicated their life anew 
 to Him with uninterrupted prayers, in 
 order that they might again return to their 
 ordinary occupations, with a renovated 
 spirit of zeal and seriousness, and with 
 renewed powers of sanctification. These 
 days of holy devotion, days of prayer 
 and penitence, which individual Christians 
 appointed for themselves according to 
 tlieir individual necessities, were often a 
 kind of fastdays. In order that their sen- 
 sual feelings might less distract and im- 
 pede the occupation of their heart with its 
 holy contemplations, they were accus- 
 
 ficient, must have thought Christianity a kind of 
 pietism, a religion carried to excess, " immodica 
 siiperstitio, nimium pietatis." In a monumental 
 inscription at Lyons, quoted by Gilbert Burnet, in 
 the first of his letters, a lieathen husband says of 
 his Christian wife, that she had become impious 
 by becoming too pious, 'quajdum nimia pia fuit, 
 facta est impia.' 
 
 * A passage of Irenjeus, where he speaks of 
 their dependence on the heathen, under whom 
 they lived, in respect of maintenance, will show 
 how foreign to the notions of Christians in general 
 was that monkery, which grew up in later days. 
 It occurs, lib. iv. c. .30. " Etcnim, si is, qui tibi hrcc 
 imputabat, scparatuscst a gentilium coetu, et nihil 
 est alicnorum apud cum.sed est simpliciter nudus, 
 et nudis pedibus et sine domo in montibus convcr- 
 satur, quemadmodum aliquot ex his animalibus, 
 quae herbiS vescuntur: veniam merebitur, ideo 
 
ORIGIN AND EFFECTS OF ASCETICISM. 
 
 171 
 
 tomed Q^n these days to limit their corpo- 
 real wants more than usual, or to fast en- 
 tirely. In the consideration of this, we 
 must not overlook the peculiar nature of 
 that hot climate in which Christianity 
 was first promulgated. That which was 
 spared by their abstinence on these days, 
 was applied to the support of the poorer 
 brethren. There were also many who, in 
 the first warmth of zeal, at their baptism, 
 made over to the Church chest, or to the 
 poor, a large portion of their earthly pro- 
 perty, or sometimes all that they had, be- 
 cause they felt themselves bound to de- 
 clare, with all their power, their contempt 
 of earthly things, by which their hearts 
 had till now been enslaved, and to declare 
 again with all their power what their heart 
 was now full of, their cheerful readiness 
 to ofi'er and to sacrifice all they possessed 
 to their Saviour, that they might win his 
 heavenly crown. They felt as if the 
 Lord hud said to each of them, " If thou 
 wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, 
 and give to tlie poor, and thou shalt have 
 treasure in heaven, and come and follow 
 me.'" They led, in the midst of the com- 
 munity, a quiet retired life, maintained 
 themselves by the labour of their hands, 
 and remained unmarried, that undistracted 
 by worldly cares, they might devote 
 themselves to prayer and to the study of 
 Scripture, to holy contemplations, and to 
 endeavours after the kingdom of heaven. 
 And what they could spare from the pro- 
 duce of their labour, living on the lowest 
 possible allowance of the poorest food, 
 they applied again to the purposes of 
 Christian charity. Such persons were 
 called the ahstincnt^ the zealous aspirants 
 after Christian perfection^ " continentes," 
 a.ay.ma.1,.* There were besides many who 
 from childhood, by means of a pious 
 Christian education, were filled with so 
 deep a love of the Divine nature, that they 
 desired as far as possible to loosen all 
 their earthly ties. People of this descrip- 
 tion were found in both sexes, and the 
 females were especially called wa^Ge^o*, 
 " virgines."t Among the heathen them- 
 
 * Aj-ks/v, ua-Kurn;. These were common words 
 at that time among heathens and Christians alike, 
 to denote particular exercises and practices of a 
 moral tendency. 
 
 ■\ Tertulliaii speaks of these, de Cullu Foemin. 
 lib, ii. c. 9. "Aliqui abstinentes vino et animali- 
 bus esculentis, multi se spadonatui obsignant 
 propter rognum Dei." And Justin Martyr also, 
 
 Apol. ii., TTO.KOt TlfK K-U 7nK>M 6^))JtiVTCUTC< H'U ifiSo- 
 
 u<pi:^oi Jiu/jti/ou3-i. This passage, however, will by 
 no moans bear us out in saying that all of these 
 
 selves, " philosopher and ascetic" were 
 kindred* ideas, and from them this same 
 connection of ideas, and this same sort of 
 expression, passed over to the Christians, 
 whom it particularly suited to refer the 
 name of philosophy to a system of prac- 
 tice: and in later times, therefore, the 
 name of (piMa-o^m was given to monkery. 
 Jt was in part tiie case that some of these 
 heathen ascetics, being led to Christianity 
 by their serious endeavours after moral 
 perfection, continued their former habits 
 of life after their conversion, because they 
 contained nothing, which necessarily of 
 itself and by itself was repugnant to 
 Christianity, or, perhaps, that others, in 
 wliom Christianity had first produced a 
 seriousness of character, embraced these 
 habits of life, as a token of the change 
 which was wrought in them. Tlie at- 
 tention which they attracted by publicly 
 appearing in tlie philosopher's cloak,t the 
 garb of the philosophic ascetics, they 
 might make use of in order to enter upon 
 philosophical and religious conversations 
 with those whom curiosity or veneration 
 gathered around them in the public walks 
 and porticos, and to represent to them 
 Christianity as the new and heavenly 
 philosophy,^ which had come to them 
 irom the East. Justin Martyr is assuredly 
 painting from the life, when he relates§ 
 that when he appeared on a public walk 
 early in the morning, a multitude came 
 to him with the words, " Good morrow, 
 philosopher !"|| and one of them said 
 that he had learned from his master in 
 philosophy, that the cloak of the philo- 
 sopher was never to be slighted, but that 
 those who appeared in it were to be wel- 
 comed in a friendly manner, and their 
 conversation sought after-, which then 
 introduces a dialogue concerning the 
 marks of true religion and on Christianity. 
 '•'• Rejoice," says Tertullian to the philo- 
 sopher's mantle, '•' rejoice, for now a bet- 
 ter philosophy has deigned to enclose it- 
 self within thee, since thou hast begun to 
 be the garb of the Christian." 
 
 By what has been said, it will be judged 
 natural, that from the opposition to worldly 
 pleasures which Christianity called into 
 
 purposely from the beginning embraced this course 
 of life. 
 
 * See, for instance, Artemidor. Oneirocrit. iv., 
 where he speaks of an "Axs^ivefgif i c>/xs!rc<?cf,5/t.eA« 
 Ji cUjtu) ovrt aviet itTKHTM oi/Ti yi.fjt.'.u dim KCtta'H'M 
 
 (ilTi TTKOVTOU and V. 1 8., {<fl/A:{7;9»7tV EliTCVd'C Jtati TOU 
 
 Kcyot; nxt rn d(rx.>iTU ^^uTi/uivot dx.oKcuSv(, 
 f Tg//2»v, T^ijiiivi'.v — pallium. 
 i Dial, cum Tryph. Jud. 
 
CLEMENT AGAINST LEVITY. 
 
 172 
 
 action, this tendency to an ascetic life 
 should have sprung up. We cannot 
 look upon asceticism, abstractedly con- 
 sidered, as any thing unchristian, and 
 condemn it, as long as those who prac- 
 tised it considered it only as a means 
 towards the furtherance of holiness, par- 
 ticularly adapted to their own individual 
 character, or as a means, under certain 
 circumstances, particularly adapted to the 
 furtherance and progress of the kingdom 
 of God; as long as they did not make 
 the means the end, nor forget the end in 
 the means ; as long as in the " opus op- 
 eratum" of asceticism no merit was 
 claimed, nor the outward appearance of 
 holiness deemed sufficient, while the real, 
 essential, and inward purification of the 
 heart, which is founded on love and on 
 humility, was neglected or forgotten ; in 
 a word, as long as men attended to the im- 
 portant words of the apostle, who utters 
 the following warning : " And though I 
 bestow all my goods to feed the poor, 
 and though 1 give my body to be burned, 
 and have not charity, it profiteth me no- 
 thing." But as soon as this was forgot- 
 ten, the transition would be rapid to a 
 state, where the inward charnel-house of 
 corruption would be whited over with 
 the outward appearance of holiness ; and 
 under a Christian semblance, such an as- 
 ceticism would be most inimical to the 
 real interests of vital Christianity. Oh ! 
 that all ascetics had been animated 
 the spirit of humility and 
 which the young Alcibiades showed 
 among the confessors imprisoned at 
 Lyons.* He had been accustomed, as 
 an ascetic, to live only on bread and 
 water, and he continued this habit also in 
 prison, when it was revealed to Attains, 
 another of the confessors, by the voice of 
 the Spirit in his inward heart, that Alci- 
 biades was doing wrong, not to enjoy 
 what God bestows, and to create by that 
 means a jealousy among the otiier Chris- 
 tians. So Alcibiades immediately obeyed 
 tills exhortation, and without raising any 
 scruples, enjoyed every thing, without 
 distinction, in a spirit of thankfulness 
 towards God."!" 
 
 As Christianity did not produce any 
 momentary or magical change on human 
 nature, but imparted to it a Divine prin- 
 cijilc of life, which, with man's co-opera- 
 tion, was by degrees to penetrate and 
 cnoble his wiiole nature, as the old man 
 constantly dragged himself along by the 
 
 by 
 
 side of the new, it was to be expected, 
 that the different dispositions of the old 
 man, which at first opposed themselves in 
 open array against the introduction of 
 Christianity, again, in a later age, having 
 stolen unperceived into the Christian life, 
 should, under a Christian form, oppose 
 genuine Christianity, and under this insi- 
 dious form they would, of course, be far 
 more dangerous. 
 
 This was also the case in regard to the 
 particular circumstance of which we have 
 been speaking. The two opposite and 
 false tendencies, the one to a giddy enjoy- 
 ment of worldly things, and the other to 
 a proud contempt for the w^orld, which 
 Christianity on its first appearance had to 
 combat, introduced themselves into Chris- 
 tian life, under a Christian form, not only 
 in the sects which opposed the universal 
 Church, (where we afterwards find them 
 again,) but also in the midst of the 
 Church herself. 
 
 On the one hand, as early as the time 
 of Clement of Alexandria, there were 
 those among the Christians, who rejected 
 the exhortation " not to go, like the hea- 
 then, to the amusements of the tlieatre, 
 and to consider deeply what is becoming 
 to the seriousness of the Christian cha- 
 racter," with the following excuse : '•'• We 
 cannot be all philosophers and ascetics, 
 we are imlearned people, we cannot read, 
 we understand nothing of the Holy Scrip- 
 ture ; how can people lay us under such 
 
 self-<lenial ' strict and rigorous rules .'" Clement an- 
 swers these lightminded excuses in a 
 truly evangelical spirit ; such a distinction 
 between worldly and spiritual persons 
 could not be allowed among Christians, 
 who were all bound, as such, to live in 
 the same self-denial, all alike bound to 
 be a spiritual people. " Are we not all 
 striving after eternal life ? What sayest 
 thou ? What signifies then thy belief? 
 How canst thou love God and thy neigh- 
 bour, without being a philosopher ? (in 
 that practical sense in which ascetics are 
 called philosophers.) Although thou hast 
 not learned to read, this forms no excuse 
 to thee, for thou canst hear tlie word of 
 God. Faith is the possession, not of those 
 who are wise according to this world, but 
 of those who are wise in God ; faith is 
 learnt without letters; the writing by 
 which it is engraven on the heart, is a 
 writing for the unlearned also, and it is 
 nevertheless a Divine writing,and is called 
 luvc "* And where he intimates how 
 
 See Page 66- 
 
 f Euseb. V. 3. 
 
 • TlirTK it oil a-c^aiv rccv Jt-iT* K'.tr/ucv, uAA* raiY 
 
CONTRAST — EXTREME ASCETICISM. 
 
 '4'5 
 
 Christianity ought to leaven all the inter- 
 course of life, he says : " Also the affairs 
 of the world may be administered by a 
 Christian, with God's will, after an un- 
 worldly manner, and thus those who are 
 ia trade, publicans and the like, may show 
 a spirit of philosophy."* 
 
 On the other hand, a moral spirit was 
 also formed on partial views, with an as- 
 cetic tendency, which under a false point 
 of view, set the human in opposition to 
 the Divine, — which overlooked and mis- 
 took the character of Christianity by 
 which it is destined to penetrate and en- 
 noble ail human relations — which sought 
 a merit before God and man in fasts and 
 abstinences — and which, ascribing a pe- 
 culiar sanctity to the ascetic life and a state 
 of celibacy, promised them a higher de- 
 gree of future happiness.^ From this 
 fancy, joined with the false representa- 
 tion of a peculiar priesthood, and a pe- 
 culiar class of priests in the Christian 
 Church, there arose by degrees, in the 
 course of llie third century, the error that 
 the single life belongs to the sanctity of 
 the spiritual condition.^ The notion of 
 the meritorious efficacy of such a life, the 
 reverence which men obtained by it, and 
 perhaps, also here and there the hope of 
 obtaining a comfortable maintenance from 
 the reverence of the community without 
 personal labour,§ now moved many to 
 enter into the order of women devoted 
 only to the Lord. Thence, therefore, 
 among these every kind of female vanity 
 arose under the outward appearance of 
 holiness, and was fostered by general de- 
 ference and honour, which is of all things 
 one of the most dangerous to mankind. 
 
 Kxra. Qi'.v itrri to xtx^m." jS Si k-ju ovoj •ygcLfxutruiv 
 'utTrauSiviTiJ- Jtai ts (Tiiyyert./j.y.a. a.-jrui, to liueriK'A' 
 afx-x x^i TO Bucv &.yct7rn nixyjitau. Psedagog. lib. iii. 
 25.5. 
 
 * 'AAXa KM TA iv KOTjuo) Kcvfjuom; Kara, 0kv StTr-xyuv 
 ob KtnaKurai. (there is here a play on the double 
 meaning of the word KOT/uci, in Greek, which can 
 neither be translated into German nor English) 
 
 KOJ Ttfl/Tlt (}>IX:.<7'C<pi'J]/'Ta!V Ot a} C^U.l'.t Kid ol KavirXot. 
 
 f Expressly in Origen, Homil. 19 in Jerem. § 4, 
 Comp. Cyprian, de Habitu Virginum. 
 
 \ The council of Elvira (from which, however, 
 we cannot argue to the g(*neral use of the Church,) 
 in which the ascetic spirit prevailed strongly, or- 
 dered, canon 33, that those bishops, priests, and 
 deacons, who were living in the marriage state, 
 should be deprived of their places. 
 
 § ^mulatio illas, non religio producit, ali- 
 quando et ipse venter Deus eorum, quia facile vir- 
 gines fratcrnitas suscipit. TertuUian, de Virgg. 
 Veland. c. xiv. It must be confessed that Tertul- 
 lian is here .speaking as a violent and exaggerated 
 accuser of the Catholic Church. 
 
 Cyprian was, therefore, obligi ^ 
 
 a letter of exhortation and 
 the subject of the variety of 
 the love of pomp, which hi 
 among the rich damsels of Cai 
 were dedicated to God.* It L-,...cumes 
 happened that these people, while they 
 despised the pure institution for human 
 nature, to which God leads man by the 
 voice of nature, and- which Christianity 
 lias .sanctified, created for themselves arti- 
 ficial relations, which opposed nature, and 
 therefore, opposed Christianity also ; re- 
 lations in which, while men forgot the 
 weakness of the flesh and trusted too 
 much to themselves, the corruptions of 
 sense were likely to appear among spi- 
 ritual things and pervert them ; I allude to 
 these young women, dwelling and living 
 in common with unmarried spiritual per- 
 sons, under the pretence of a connection 
 of a purely spiritual nature.t 
 
 When once Christian perfection was 
 made to consist in such a withdrawal 
 from the usual habits of life, this incon- 
 venience was sure to follow, that the re- 
 quisites of Christian perfection would be 
 lowered, and that the multitude would be 
 at liberty to avail themselves of this, as 
 an excuse for the non-performance of 
 those things even, which Christianity re- 
 quires from every man under all circum- 
 stances, — an excuse which, as we have 
 observed above, Clement of Alexandria 
 had to combat. 
 
 From the very first, however, voices of 
 no mean account were raised against this 
 false ascetic inclination, and called atten- 
 tion to the essentials of Christian feeling, 
 by which alone all external things can ac- 
 quire their true character. In the "Shep- 
 herd of Hennas," a writing much esteem- 
 ed in the first centuries of Christianity, 
 which represents the practical Christian 
 life under an allegorical form, it is said,J 
 " Above all things exercise your absti- 
 
 * See the treatise de Habitu Virginum. 
 
 f Those who were afterwards called o-vvturaKTU, 
 " subintroductjE." On the other side, see Cy- 
 prian, Ep. Ixii. ad Pompon. Although, perhaps, 
 Cyprian elsewhere speaks in too exaggerated lan- 
 guage of the engagement, connected with the en- 
 trance into such a kind of life, as a " connubium 
 spiritale cum Domino," he explains himself here 
 with very proper moderation, "Si autem perseve- 
 rare nolunt vel non possunt, melius est, ut nubant, 
 quam in igncm dclictis suis cadant." But the 
 council of Elvira decreed, canon 13, that virgins, 
 who had thus left their order, and would not re- 
 turn to it, should not be allowed to receive the 
 communion, even in the hour of death. 
 1 ^ Lib. iii. Similitud. v. 
 p2 
 
CLEMENT ON ASCETICISM. 
 
 17a 
 
 gience in this, in abstaining from saying or 
 listening to evil things, and purify your 
 heart from all polhition, from all revenge- 
 ful feelings and covetousness, and on the 
 day in which you fast, content yourself 
 witli bread, vegetables, and water, and 
 thank God for these. Reckon, however, 
 how much your meal would have cost on 
 this day, and give the price to which this 
 comes to the widow, the orphan, or the 
 poor. Happy is it for you, if you, with 
 all yoiT children, and with your whole 
 household, observe these things." Cle- 
 ment of Alexandria appeals to the fact, 
 that many forms of heathen worship re- 
 quired celibacy and abstinence from meal 
 and wine in their priests, and that among 
 the Indians there were strict ascetics, the 
 Samaneans,* and therefore, he concludes, 
 that what is found also in other religions, 
 and also connected with superstition, can- 
 not be in itself and of itself peculiarly 
 Christian-, and he adds, "Paul declares 
 that the kingdom of God consists not in 
 meals and drink, nor in abstaining from 
 wine and meat, but in righteousness, 
 peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit As 
 humility is shown, not by the chastise- 
 ment of the body, but by gentleness, so 
 also is temperance a virtue of the soul, 
 and consists not in external but in inter- 
 nal abstinence. Temperance does not 
 relate merely to any one individual thing, 
 not merely to pleasure : but it is also tem- 
 perance to despise money, to tame the 
 tongue, and to obtain the mastery over 
 evil by reason-t 
 
 A method of interpretation of Scripture 
 which does not penetrate into its spirit, 
 but relies on passages isolated from their 
 context, which it, therefore, must misun- 
 derstand, would necessarily often serve 
 as the support of theoretical and practical 
 errors in Christianity, and that was the 
 case here also. Passages, where Christ 
 says that the rich enter with difliculty into 
 the kingdom of heaven, where he requires 
 of the rich young man, in order to attain 
 perfection, that he should sell all his 
 goods, distribute to the poor, and follow 
 him — these passages were so misunder- 
 stood, that people concluded from them 
 that the bare possession of earthly wealth 
 was a thing incompatible with real Chris- 
 tianity, and that the renunciation of the 
 world consisted in the renunciation of 
 
 • [These are probably more familiar to the 
 English reader under the name of Buddhists. See 
 Encycl. Britarin. in voc. — H. J. U.] 
 
 ■j- Clemens, Strom, lib. iii. p. 446, «Scc. 
 
 external things. They did not observe 
 that the Redeemer, who saw even the 
 hearts of men, laid this trial of self-denial 
 on the young man just exactly for this 
 very reason, that he was most enslaved 
 in this one point, and because he might 
 best be taught by demanding this proof, 
 how far short he still was from the moral 
 perfection and fulfilment of the law, which 
 he had flattered himself belonged to him. 
 Clement of Alexandria, in his beautiful 
 essay, entitled, " How shall the rich man 
 act, in order to be saved ?"* endeavoured 
 to oppose this error, and the notions 
 founded upon it, by showing that with 
 our Saviour all depends upon the affec- 
 tions. " Our Saviour," says Clement, 
 " does not command us, as many super- 
 ficially suppose, to cast away our earthly 
 property, but to banish from our souls 
 the thoughts of money, and desires after 
 it — that sickness of the soul, the cares, 
 the thorns of this earthly life, which 
 
 choke the seed of heavenly life 
 
 What is that which our Lord announces 
 as something new, as the only source of 
 life of which those of old knew nothing? 
 What is this which is peculiar to him? 
 What the new creation? He desires not 
 that which is outward, which others have 
 also done, but something higher, more 
 divine, and more perfect, which is signi- 
 fied by this outward conduct; namely, 
 that all whlck is foreign to the soul, 
 must he torn out by the roots, and banished 
 
 from the soul For they who of 
 
 old despised outward things, gave away, 
 indeed, their earthly goods, but they che- 
 rished within them far stronger desires; 
 for they were filled with vanity, pride, and 
 contempt of other men, as if they had 
 done something above the reach of simple 
 
 humanity A man may have thrown 
 
 away his earthly goods, and yet his desire 
 for them being undiminished, he will be 
 doubly disquieted by regret for his pro- 
 fusion, and by his deprivation of the ne- 
 cessaries of life How could one 
 
 man impart of his goods to another when 
 all had nothing? and how could this doc- 
 trine of our Lord escape being in contra- 
 diction with many other of his glorious 
 
 doctrines? Worldly goods are only 
 
 to be considered as so much materials and 
 instruments, to be turned to good pur- 
 poses, by those who know how to put 
 them to their proper use." 
 When the Montanists (see below) wished 
 
 • T« a-oc^ofjiivi! jrhQva-tn; 
 
DOMESTIC LIFE ENNOBLED. 
 
 175 
 
 to impose upon the Church new fasts and 
 laws of abstinence, the spirit of evangelical 
 freedom among the Christians spoke out 
 fully and powerfully against them. They 
 were accused of not duly distinguisljing 
 between the economy of the Old and of 
 the New Testament, of making laws in 
 matters where all is free according to the 
 spirit of the Gospel, where every one 
 must act freely, according to his own 
 particular feelings and necessities; as the 
 only abstinence which is commanded of 
 God, is abstinence from evil in the heart.* 
 If by a misconception of the opposition 
 to the world which Christianity intro- 
 duced, the moral life received an ascetic 
 direction, this was again counterbalanced 
 by the essential tendency of Christianity 
 to display its chief glory in the unpre- 
 tending stillness of domestic life, to enno- 
 ble domestic intercourse by a Divine life, 
 and to form the family into a temple of 
 God. It was Christianity which first pre- 
 sented marriage to the world in the light 
 of an union of deep religious and spiritual 
 import, the communion which belongs to 
 a higher state of life, an union which 
 reaches beyond this transitory world, and 
 unites in one common life the mutual 
 and consecrated powers of two beings to 
 the glory of God. The marriage state 
 was, therefore, ennobled, as giving scope 
 to so many peculiar and Christian virtues, 
 which, under other circumstances, could 
 never be so far developed. Clement of 
 Alexandria says against those who prized 
 celibacy too highly, and despised mar- 
 riage, " The genuine Christian has the 
 apostles for patterns, and, in fact, a man 
 does not distinguish himself by choosing 
 a solitary life, but he obtains a victory 
 over other men, who stands fast as a hus- 
 band and father, amidst all the trials which 
 befall him by anxiety for wife and children, 
 servants and fortune, without allowing 
 himself to be withdrawn from his love to 
 God. But he who has no household es- 
 capes many trials; as he has only himself 
 to take care of, he is below that man who, 
 more disturbed in the care of his own in- 
 dividual salvation, still enters more into 
 the intercourse of life, and really exhibits 
 in miniature a likeness of Providence 
 itself."! In painting the Christian mis- 
 tress of a family,j he says, " The mother 
 is the theme of tlie children's praise, the 
 wife is the theme of her husband's praise ; 
 
 and both of these are the theme of the 
 woman's praise, while God is the theme 
 of the united praise of all." And Terlul- 
 lian also:* " What an union for two be- 
 lievers, to have one hope, one desire, one 
 course of life, one service of God, in com- 
 mon the one wiih the other ! Both, like 
 brother and sister, undivided in heart and 
 flesh, or rather really two in one flesh, 
 fall down together on their knees, they 
 pray and fast together, they teach, they 
 exhort, they bear one another mutually, 
 they are together in the church of God, 
 and in the supper of the Lord; they share 
 with one anotiier their grievances, their 
 persecutions, and their joys; neither hides 
 any thing from the other, neither avoids 
 the other; the sick are visited by them 
 with pleasure, and die needy supported ; 
 psalms and hymns resound between them, 
 and they mutually strive who shall best 
 praise their God. Christ is delighted to 
 see and hear things like these ; He sends 
 his peace on such as these; where two 
 are, there is He ; and where He is, evil 
 comes not." 
 
 It was anxiously desired that the Chris- 
 tian mistresses of families, by the serious- 
 ness of their whole demeanour, by their 
 modest, simple clothing, should give a 
 token of their inmost sentiments, and that 
 these sentiments should shine forth in 
 such a manner more eminently, from their 
 appearance in an age when extravagant 
 pomp and luxury, and a general corrup- 
 tion of morals, prevailed. Here, however, 
 two parties stood opposed to each other ; 
 the one making humility consist in poverty 
 of clothing, worn to be displayed, and car- 
 rying the notion of the form of a servant 
 as necessary to the Christian life to the 
 utmost extreme, while the other said, " It 
 is enough, if our hearts are such as those 
 of Christian women ought to be; God 
 looks to the sentiments, and regards not 
 the outside. Wherefore should we out- 
 wardly display the change that has been 
 inwardly wrought in us.^ We ought far 
 rather to give the heathen no occasion to 
 accuse Christianity, as incompatible with 
 the customs of the world-t We possess 
 these worldly goods ; wherefore should 
 we not make use of them ? Why should 
 we not enjoy what we have.' For whom 
 then are these excellent things created, if 
 not for us.' For whom are costhj things 
 to be, if all prefer that which is not 
 
 * Tertullian, de Jrjuniis. 
 ■j- Strom, lib. vii. p. 741. 
 % Psedagog. lib. iii. p. 250. 
 
 * Ad Uxorem. lib. ii. c. 8. 
 \ Tertullian, de Cultu FcEminarum, especially- 
 lib, ii. c. xi. 
 
176 
 
 CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE. 
 
 costly V'' ♦Clement of Alexandria answer- 
 ed thus to the latter argument: " Even if 
 all be given us, if all be allowed us, if all 
 be permitted to us, yet all may not be be- 
 coming, as the apostle says; God has 
 created our sex for bestowing and impart- 
 ing, lie has created every thing for all, 
 and all is a general term, and the richer 
 must make no exclusive use of his gifts. 
 Those words are also neither humane, 
 nor in correspondence with our social 
 affections. Love would rather argue thus : 
 ' J have these things, why should I not 
 bestow them on the needy V "f Tertul- 
 lian says, "• What cause can you have to 
 go out gaily dressed, for you are far from 
 all wliere this can be required ? For you 
 go not about to the temples, you require 
 no plays, and know nothing of the festi- 
 vals of the heathen! You have no other 
 than serious matters which require you 
 to appear abroad. A sick brother is to be 
 visited, the communion celebrated, or a 
 discourse delivered; and if the calls of 
 friendship require your attendance on the 
 heathen, why should you not appear in 
 your own peculiar armour, and the rather 
 that, going to unbelievers, you may show 
 them the difference between the servants 
 of God and those of Satan, that you may 
 serve for an example to them, and they 
 may be instructed by you ?" 
 
 As long as the religious and moral 
 point of view in which Christianity first 
 presented marriage was strictly adhered 
 to, it was felt, that where the bond of re- 
 ligion did not unite the consciences, 
 ■where, on the contrary, there was a de- 
 cided disunion in the highest circum- 
 stance of the inward life, the true import 
 of marriage could never receive its fulfil- 
 ment. It was, therefore, wished that no 
 marriages should ever take place between 
 Christians and heathens. Tertullian en- 
 deavours to show how a Christian woman 
 of piety, one to whom Christianity was 
 the soul of her life, Avho belonged to the 
 Church as a living member of it, and who 
 felt herself happy in communion with it, 
 must be distracted and limited a thou- 
 sand fold in the practice of her religion 
 by living with a heathen, and must also 
 be injured in her disposition. He says, 
 " When an assembly for prayer is to be 
 
 • Clemens, Pacdagog. Jib. ii. c. xi. 
 
 ■j- Tertullian, in the writing we have quoted, 
 and Cyprian (de Hahitu Virginum) expresses 
 similar sentiments. Tertullian had apparently 
 seen this work of Clement, and Cyprian probably 
 read both. 
 
 held, the husband will destine the day to 
 the use of the bath ; when a fast is to be 
 observed, he will iuA^ite company to a 
 feast There will never be more impedi- 
 ments from household business, than just 
 exactly when the duties of Christian 
 charity requires the wife to go abroad. 
 [The passage then follows, which we 
 quoted, page 156, expressing the duties 
 of a Christian wife, in which she would 
 find impediments from her husband.] 
 What mutual songs coidd one lead the 
 other to sing } She will hear something 
 of the theatre, or from the public house; 
 where is the mention of God's name .'' 
 where is Christ called upon .' where will 
 be the strengthening of faith by the quota- 
 tion of Scripture in conversation ?* where 
 the quickening of the Spirit ? where the 
 Divine blessing ? 
 
 The case was different where Chris- 
 tianity found a union already existing, 
 which it could only sanctify, and not dis- 
 solve, from that where a Christian, of 
 either sex, voluntarily engaged in a con- 
 nection, which was sure lo bring with it 
 many distractions and heartburnings in 
 the inward life, and many trials ; it was 
 one thing where a man found himself in a 
 condition full of trial by a train of cir- 
 cumstances coming immediately from 
 God, and therefore, walking quietly in the 
 path prescribed to him by God, might ex- 
 pect his protection in these trials, and his 
 deliverance from them, and quite another, 
 when a man, of his own accord, threw 
 himself into temptations. For the first, 
 there was the express command of the 
 Lord, who permitted divorce only in one 
 case, and the consideration of this very 
 matter by St. Paul. Tertullian says, 
 therefore, "The case is different with 
 those who, when they were brought to 
 believe, were already married to heathens : 
 since such a marriage is valid in the eyes 
 of God, why should it not also continue 
 full of blessings, so that it should continue 
 to be spared many afflictions, distractions, 
 and stains, forasmuch as it has on one 
 side the protection of God's grace ? It is 
 quite a different thing to enter into for- 
 
 * " Ubi fomenta fidei dc Scripturarum interfec- 
 iione ?" according to the reading of Rigaltius ; ac 
 cording to that of Pamclius, it is " interkctione'* 
 " the mutual reading" of the Holy Scriptures. It 
 is difficult to decide which is the genuine reading. 
 As in the whole passage he is speaking of quota- 
 tion during conversation, the first reading is very 
 appropriate. And if this reading be genuine, it 
 follows that both man and wife ought to 
 familiar acquaintance with the Bible. 
 
CHRISTIAN PRAYER. 
 
 177 
 
 bidden connections, voluntarily and un- 
 called." "• The manner in which his wife 
 was converted to Christianity," says Ter- 
 tullian, " may make a strong impression 
 on the heathen husband himself, so that 
 he would refuse to disturb her, or to 
 watch her too much. He has perceived a 
 thing of much importance ; he has seen 
 proofs of that which God effects ; he 
 knows that she is become better. And 
 thus, those will be more easily won, to 
 whom the grace of God is brought home."* 
 Jt must be avowed, that the observation 
 of this change did not always make so 
 favourable an impression. Many a hus- 
 band, blindly devoted to heathenism, 
 when he observed that his wife, whose 
 conduct he had t'ormerly been obliged to 
 watch most jealously, all at once became 
 so fond of home and so modest, but at 
 the same, lime found that this change was 
 owing to Christianity, he divorced her. 
 whose vices he had before endured. It 
 also happened frequently, that a Christian 
 woman, who, having married a vicious 
 husband, had formerly, while she was a 
 heathen, herself ministered to his vices, 
 found herself, as a Christian, bound in 
 conscience to discontinue this conduct. 
 She would endeavour at first to lead him 
 to a better way, by exhortation and per- 
 suasion. But when he rejected this with 
 indignation, she would feel herself obliged 
 to withdraw from participating in his sin- 
 ful habits of life, and to divorce herself 
 from him ; and this became the source of 
 many persecutions raised by embittered 
 Imsbands.j 
 
 As the religious view of marriage so 
 predominated, it was, therefore, ordained, 
 in early times, that the sanction of the 
 Church should be added to the civil cere- 
 mony. The pastor of the Church and 
 the deaconesses were called together, and 
 it was declared that this marriage was one 
 contracted after God's will, and not from 
 human passions, and that all was done to 
 the honour of GodJ. Bride and bride- 
 groom received the communion together ; 
 they offered there a common gift to the 
 Church ; and hence, again in the prayer 
 of the Church connected with the com- 
 munion, a blessing was particularly asked 
 for the newly concluded marriage. How 
 highly this consecration, on the part of 
 the Church, was esteemed by Chris- 
 
 * [This extract is from Tertull. ad Uxor. ii. 8. 
 — H. J. R.J 
 
 j- V. Justin M. Apolog ii. 
 
 i Ignatii Ep. ii. ad Poly carp. § 5. 
 
 23 
 
 tians, we may judge from the following 
 passage of Tertnllian : " IJow shall we be 
 able to declare the happiness of that mar- 
 riage, which is concluded by the Church, 
 sealed by the communion, and consecrated 
 by the blessings of the Church, which 
 angels announce, and which our heavenly 
 Father recognises as valid."* 
 
 Prayer was considered the soul of the 
 whole Christian life. Men united in the ac- 
 knowledgment of this, who, from the differ- 
 ence in their dispositions and their habits 
 of thought, were widely at variance on 
 many important matters. Where the spirit 
 of Christianity brings together two oppo- 
 site natures, even the strongest differences 
 hardly make their appearance ; as, for in- 
 stance, in the contrast between the prac- 
 tical realism of Tertullian, whose habits 
 of thought led him to corporealise every 
 thing, and the speculative turn of Origen, 
 v/ho was inclined to run into the oppo- 
 site extreme, and spiritualise every thing. 
 Both of these show themselves alike 
 penetrated with vjtal Christianity, when 
 they speak of prayer ; both speak from 
 their own internal experience and in both 
 the true spirit of vital Christianity here 
 breaks forth. In accordance with the 
 usual mode of conception in the earlier 
 days of Christianity, Tertullian considers 
 prayer as the exercise of the Christian 
 priesthood. " This is the spiritual sacri- 
 fice," he says,t ''•which has superseded 
 the sacrifice of the old covenant." (Isa. i. 
 11.) "This passage shows us what God 
 does not require ; what He does require, 
 the Gospel teaches us. ' The time cometh 
 when the true worshippers shall worship 
 God in Spirit and in truth ; for God is a 
 Spirit.' We are the true worshippers 
 and the true priests, we who pray to Him 
 in spirit, and offer up to Him the sacrifices 
 suited to his Divine Being, and well 
 pleasing to Him — that which He requires. 
 What can the God, who desires this 
 prayer, have refused to the prayer that 
 comes from the Spirit and from tlie 
 Truth ? How much do we read, hear, 
 and believe, of the proofs of its effi- 
 cacy !" He pictures then the peculiar ef- 
 ficacy of Christian prayer — how it ought 
 to correspond to tlie form of religion de- 
 livered in the New Testament, and how 
 
 * Ad Uxor. ii. 8. 
 
 •j- C. xxviii. de Orat. in the pieces first pub- 
 lished by Muratori, vol. iii. Anecdotorum Bibl. 
 Ambros. 
 
 [Bishop Kaye (Tertullian, p. 406,) states it as 
 his opinion that these additional chapters to the 
 treatise de Oratione are not genuine. — H. J. R.] 
 
178 EFFICACY OF A LIFE OF PRAYER. 
 
 Christian prayer displays its real power, [ something which has a foundation in the 
 not in savirif' men by miracles in the sea- internal life, considered as a whole pro- 
 son of death and sufferings, but in making I ceeding from one centre. The spirit of 
 them capable of bearing death and suf- \ tliankfulness to a heavenly, redeeming 
 ■"■ ' ' '' 'Father — tlie spirit of childlike devotion 
 
 to him — the feeling in regard to Him, of 
 
 ferings with tranquillity and cheerful 
 resignation. " By the power of the grace 
 imparted, it abates not the pain of the 
 sulfering but it arms the suflerer, and him 
 that feefs the pain, with power to bear it. 
 The prayer of the Christian brings not 
 down retaliation from heaven, but it 
 averts the anger of God; it watches for 
 its enemies, it prays for its persecutors, 
 it obtains forgiveness of sins, it frightens 
 away temptations, it comforts the faint- 
 hearted, it quickens tlie courageous : 
 prayer is the wall of faithy Origen 
 says,* " How much has each one of us 
 to relate of the efficacy of prayer, if he is 
 inclined to remember with thankfulness 
 the benefits of God. Souls, which had 
 long been unfruitful, and who were well 
 aware how dry they were, when fructified 
 by the Holy Spirit from the force of con- 
 
 the needfulness of his assistance, and the 
 consciousness of being nothing, and of 
 being able to do nothing without him — 
 was to animate the whole Christian life. 
 This life was, therefore, to be a continued 
 thanksgiving for the grace of redemption, 
 a prayer of constant longing after an in- 
 crease of holiness by communion with the 
 Redeemer. This was t/ie view of prayer 
 which the New Testament was destined 
 to substitute in the place of that which 
 had previously prevailed ; a view, which 
 looked on prayer as an individual act, 
 dependent on certain times and hours, 
 and consisting in individual effusions or 
 particular forms. And thus the fathers of 
 this age expressed themselves. Origen 
 ys,* '^ He prays without ceasing, who 
 
 stant prayer, produceii words of salva- unites prayer and action together prO' 
 
 tion, full of the conceptions of truth. 
 What hostile powers that threatened to 
 annihilate our holy faith, have been often 
 brought to shame! We trust to that 
 •whicli says, ' Some put their trust in 
 chariots and horses, but we will think 
 on the name of the Lord our God,' 
 (Psalm XX. 8,) and we found that ' a 
 horse is but a vain thing to save a man.' 
 He that confides in prayer has often van- 
 quished even tlie power of plausible rea- 
 sons, which were sufficient to terrify those 
 ■who were accounted believers. How often 
 do those, who have fallen into tempta- 
 tions, hard to be overcome, suffer no 
 shame from tliein, and come forth from 
 them unhurt, without even being touched 
 by the smell of the fire that was kindled 
 against them ! And what further shall I 
 add .'' How often has it happened tliat 
 those who have been delivered up to wild 
 beasts enraged against us, to evil spirits 
 and cruel men, have brought these beings 
 to silence, so that their teeth could not 
 touch us, who are the members of Christ I 
 We know that many who had fallen from 
 the commands of God, and lay already in 
 the pit of death, have been saved by the 
 prayer of repentance." But the very na- 
 ture of the Christian life supposes, that 
 nothing in it can exist insulated from the 
 other parts of it; all that comes particu- 
 larly forward at any one moment, is yet 
 
 perly, since works also are a part of 
 prayer; for the apostle's words, 'Pray 
 without ceasing,' are to be considered as 
 something which may be achieved, if we 
 consider the whole life of the believer as 
 one continued prayer ■,'\ of which prayer, 
 usually so called forms only a part. And 
 the same Origen says, in regard to the 
 Lord's Prayer,;{; '' We cannot believe that 
 words have been taught us, only to be 
 recited at a certain hour of prayer. 11 
 we understand properly that which is said 
 in regard to ' praying without ceasing,' 
 our whole life — if we are inclined thus 
 to pray without ceasing — must say, 'Our 
 Father, which art in heaven,' since such a 
 life has its conversation, not on earth, but 
 by all means in heaven, since we§ are the 
 throne of God, because the kingdom of 
 heaven has its habitation in all tiiose 
 who bear the form of the heavenly man, 
 and by that means become heavenly." 
 Clement of Alexandria says,l| "Prayer, 
 if I may speak so boldly, is intercourse 
 with God. If we only lisp, if we even 
 silently speak to God, the lips not mov- 
 
 • De Orat. 
 
 1728.] 
 
 13. [§ 35 ed. Reading. Lond. 
 
 * De Orat. § 12 [§ 31. ed. Reading.] 
 
 "j" £i TTxvrx Tcv yStiV Tcv ayuv (jliai a-jvaTrro/AWiiv 
 
 i Be Orat. c. xxii. [§ .57. ed. Reading.] 
 § In Reading's edition the passage runs thus : 
 'Ry cuDuvQK, Sgovcic rvy^nfova-i t'm &(:u, "in heaven 
 which in- the throne of God." I have translated, 
 from ihe German. — H. J. R.] 
 II Stromat. Lib. vii. p. 722. 
 
SEASONS OF PRAYER. 
 
 179 
 
 ing ; yet we cry to Him in our hearts, for 
 God listens always to the inward direc- 
 tion of the heart to him."* The same 
 person, when he wishes to represent an 
 ideal picture of a Christian in heart, 
 ripened in faith and profession, says of 
 him,t "■ In every place will he pray, 
 though not openly, to be seen of men. 
 Even when lie is walking for pleasure, 
 even when he is in converse with other 
 men, in stillness, in reading, and when he 
 is engaged in reasonable business, he 
 prays by all means. And even also if he 
 only think on God in the chamber of the 
 souU and with silent sighings calls upon 
 his Father; He jcill be near him and with 
 him, for he is still speaking to hini."J 
 
 But althougli prayer be a direction of 
 the heart whicli goes through the whole 
 9f the Christian life, yet it must, neverthe- 
 less, become more prominent in special 
 effusions of the hearty and in compliance 
 with the wants of man, as a creature of 
 sense, it must make itself heard also in 
 words ; and these particular seasons must 
 form a kind of consecration for all the 
 rest of the life. The Christians were ac- 
 customed to select those hours for prayer, 
 which had been usually so employed by 
 the Jews — the third, the sixth, and the 
 ninth, according to the then division of 
 the day — that is, nine in the morning, 
 twelve, and three in the afternoon — not 
 as if prayer were dependent on any cer- 
 tain times ; but as Tertullian§ declared, 
 " in order that those who were likely to 
 be withdrawn from the duty of prayer by 
 earthly business, might be reminded of 
 it." The Christians were, besides, accus- 
 tomed to sanctify by prayer all the more 
 important seasons of the day, and all 
 transactions of any importance, in regard 
 either to spiritual or temporal life ; for 
 even all that is earthly was to be rendered 
 holy by being referred to that which is 
 heavenly. " It becomes the believer," 
 says TertuUian, *•' to take no food, to 
 enter no bath, without the intervention of 
 prayer ; for the strengthening and refresh- 
 ing of the soul ought to precede the 
 strengthening and refreshing of the body ; 
 the heavenly ought to precede the earth- 
 ly." Thus also the Christian, who had 
 received into his house a brother from a 
 distant land, and refreshed him wit!) all 
 that lay in his power, was bound not to 
 
 dismiss him without prayer ; he was to 
 feel as if he had, in this stranger-brother, 
 seen the Lord himself in his house ; and 
 by the guest, the earthly refreshment 
 which he had received, was not to be 
 thought of more value than the heavenlv. 
 which was offered to him at his depar- 
 "^ ' r any pressing emergencies. 
 
 Undei 
 
 which affected the community in general, 
 or those in whom they took particular 
 interest, they all assembled for tlie pur- 
 pose of prayer, and all general delibera- 
 tions were opened with prayer. It was 
 in prayer that the brotherly communion 
 and the mutual sympathy of the members 
 of the one body were to be shown ; everv 
 one was to pray in the spirit of all, and 
 commend the circumstances of all the 
 I brethren, which he looked upon as his 
 I own, to the Head of the Church, and 
 through Him to eternal love. Thus Cy- 
 prian says in the explanation of the Lord's 
 Prayer : '"The teacher of peace and com- 
 munion did not wish that each individual 
 should pray for himself, but that every 
 one should pray for all. We do not sav 
 ' my Father,' but ' our Father,' and every 
 one prays not for the forgiveness of his 
 oicn si7is alone, nor for himself alone, 
 ' that he may not be led into temptation, 
 and may be delivered from evil.' Ours 
 is a common prayer, and when we prav, 
 we pray not only for individuals, but for 
 the whole Church ; because we, as mem- 
 bers of the Church, are all one. God, 
 the author of peace and concord, wished 
 that thus every one should pray for all, as 
 He has included all in one." And when 
 bishop Cyprian, under the pressure of 
 persecution, was encouraging his Church 
 to prayer, he wrote thus :J " Let every 
 one pray to God, not for himself alone, 
 but for all hrethren, as the Lord has 
 taught us to pray." 
 
 Kwrran iTruta. 
 
 t fctromat. lib. vii. p. 728. 
 
 i 'O Ji iyyj; x.*t'tTi \!O,cuv^0f Trx^ffty. 
 
 § Lib. cit. c. XXV. 
 
 * I shall here subjoin a translation of the whole 
 passage, (TertuUian, de Orat. c. xxvi.,) which is 
 not wholly without its difficulties. "But ho him- 
 self (the brother who is come from foreign lands,) 
 after he has been received* by the brethren, must 
 not prize the earthly refreshment he has received 
 higher than the heavenly ; for immediately his 
 faith will be condemned," (that is, he will prove 
 his unbelief, if he esteems the parting prayer, the 
 blessing of his Christian brother, his host, as 
 nothing, compared with the bodily refreshment af- 
 forded to him.) " or, how canst thou, after the 
 command of the Lord, say, ' Peace be to this 
 house,' unless thou returncst, to those who dwell 
 in the house, the wish of blessing, which they 
 have first bestowed on thee V 
 
 f Ep. vii. 
 
 * I think, in this passage, we must read "ex- 
 ceptus" insteadof " exemplis." 
 
180 
 
 SPIRITUAL WORSHIP. 
 
 As it was acknowledged and believed 
 that Divine things could only be under- 
 stood under the light of the Divine Spirit, 
 and that by prayer the heavenly fountain 
 was opened to man, prayer Avas consid- 
 ered as the necessary means to a knowl- 
 edge of Divine things, and a right under- 
 standing of Scripture. When Origen, that 
 great father of the Church, who had 
 called together all those human means 
 for the understanding of Scripture, and the 
 development of its doctrines, which could 
 only be had in his time, as well as di- 
 rected all his learned and speculative 
 study to the same purpose, was exhort- 
 ing his disciple, the young Gregory (after- 
 wards called Thaumaturgus,) to diligent 
 '' knocking and seeking" in the study of 
 Scripture, he added, " but let it not be 
 enough for you to knock and to seek ; — 
 to a knowledge of Divine things, the 
 most necessary means is prayer.* To 
 incite us to this, our Saviour did not say 
 merely, ' knock and it shall be opened to 
 you, seek and ye shall find,' but also, 
 ' pray and it shall be given to you.' " 
 
 It was usual on those days which were 
 especially dedicated to the memory of the 
 resurrection of Christ, to pray standing 
 upright, in remembrance that Christ had 
 raised up to heaven man who was fallen 
 and sunk in worldly defilements ; but on 
 other days they prayed kneeling. But 
 Origen, nevertlieless, cautions men against 
 the notions which made them forget in- 
 ward things in outward forms ; he turned 
 them from the latter to the former, and 
 endeavoured to show, that outward things 
 have no importance except in reference to 
 inward, and of themselves and in them- 
 selves are matters of indifference. " Be- 
 fore a man," he says,| '•'• stretches out his 
 hands to heaven, he must raise his soul 
 thither ; before a man raises up his eyes, 
 he must raise his spirit up to God; for 
 we cannot doubt, that out of a thousand 
 possible attitudes of the body, those with 
 outspreading of the hands and uplifting 
 of the eyes must be preferred to all others, 
 as giving some representation of the dis- 
 positions proper to prayer. We think 
 that this must be preferred, where no pe- 
 culiar circumstances exist •, for under cer- 
 tain circumstances, in cases of illness, 
 people may pray sitting or lying. And 
 under certain circumstances, as for in- 
 stance, when men are on shipboard, or 
 where the present state of the case will 
 
 • Liayn^r^Tit/Tyi ya^ km i Tn^t rou nuv tx 6«« tix" 
 f Chap. xxxi. 
 
 not admit of their offering up the prope. 
 prayers, they may then pray, without ap- 
 pearing to do so. And because kneeling 
 is required when a man confesses his 
 own sins to God, and prays for forgive- 
 ness of them, every one must perceive 
 that this position is a token of a bowed 
 down and humble spirit." Origen, Ter- 
 tullian, and Cyprian, accordingly explain, 
 Philipp. ii. 10, of such a spiritual bowing 
 of the knee and self-humiliation, in the 
 name of Christ, saying that it does not 
 relate to the vain show of outward ges- 
 tures, but to the disposition of the heart 
 towards God. " God hears not the voice, 
 but the heart," says Cyprian ; " lie sees 
 the thoughts of men, and requires not to 
 be reminded by their cry; as Hannah, in the 
 Book of Kings, represents to us the form 
 of the Church, which prays to God, not 
 with the outcry of prayer, but in the still 
 depths of the heart. She spoke in silent 
 prayer, but her faith was known to God." 
 
 That which we have above extracted 
 from TertuUian's picture of the blessed- 
 ness of a Christian marriage, shows that 
 spiritual songs in common, and a common 
 reading of the Scriptures, formed part of 
 the daily edification of a Christian family. 
 Thus Clement of Alexandria also recom- 
 mends united prayers and reading of the 
 Bible together,* as proper morning occu- 
 pations for a Christian couple. The con- 
 troversial writings of TertuUian on matters 
 of ecclesiastical life and of morality, 
 where he considers himself as opposing 
 laymen, show that these latter were also 
 well acquainted with the Scriptures, and 
 were accustomed to judge things that re- 
 lated to life out of them. 
 
 From the general consideration of the 
 Christian life, and of family devotion, we 
 now pass to that of the public worship of 
 the early Christians. 
 
 (2.) On the Fuhlic Worship of God. 
 
 (a.) JVatiire of Christian loorship in general. 
 
 Since the religion of the New Testa- 
 ment did not admit of any peculiar, out- 
 ward priesthood, similar to that of the 
 Old, the same outward kind of worship, 
 dependent on certain places, times, and 
 outward actions and demeanours, would 
 also have no place in its composition. 
 The kingdom of God, the temple of the 
 Lord, were to be present, not in this 
 or that place, but in every place, where 
 Christ himself is active in the Spirit, and 
 where through Him the worship of 
 
 Eu;in Kxi iyxyvotTK, Ptedag. lib. ii. p. 194, D. 
 
VALUE OP CHRISTIAN COMMUNION'. 
 
 181 
 
 God in spirit and in truth is established. 
 Every Christian in particular, and every 
 Church in general, was to represent a 
 spiritual temple of the Lord ; the true wor- 
 ship of God was to be only in the inward 
 heart ; and the whole life, proceeding from 
 such inward dispositions, sanctified by 
 faith, was to be a continued spiritual ser- 
 vice : this is the great fundamental idea of 
 the Gospel, which prevails throughout the 
 New Testament, by which the whole out- 
 ward appearance of religion was to assume 
 a different form, and all that once was car- 
 nal, was to be converted into spiritual, and 
 ennobled. This notion came forward 
 most strongly in the original inward life 
 of the first Christians, particularly when 
 contrasted with Judaism, and still more 
 so when contrasted with heathenism; — 
 a contrast, which taught the Christians to 
 avoid all pomp that caught the eye, and all 
 multiplication of means of devotion, ad- 
 dressed to the senses, while it made them 
 hold fast the simple, spiritual character of 
 the Christian worship of God. It was this 
 which always struck the heathen so much 
 in the Christian worship ; namely, that 
 nothing was found among them of the 
 outward pomp of all other religions : " no 
 temples, no altars, no images." This re- 
 proach was made to the Christians by 
 Celsus, and answered thus by Origen : 
 ** In the highest sense the temple and the 
 image of God are in the human nature of 
 Christ •, and hence, also, in all the faithful, 
 Avho are animated by the Spirit of Christ — 
 living images! with which no statue of 
 Jove by Phidias is fit to be compared."* 
 Christianity impelled men frequently to 
 seek for the stillness of the inward sanc- 
 tuary, and here to pour forth their heaft 
 to God, who dwells in such temples ; but 
 then the flames of love were also lighted 
 in their hearts, which sought communion, 
 in order to strengthen each other mutually, 
 and to unite themselves into one holy 
 flame, which pointed towards heaven. 
 The communion of prayer and devotion 
 was thought a source of sanctification, in- 
 asmuch as men knew that the Lord was 
 present by his Spirit among those who 
 were gathered together in his name ; but 
 then they were far from ascribing any 
 peculiar sacredness and sanctity to the 
 place of assembly. Such an idea would 
 appear to partake of heathenism ; and men 
 Avere at first in less danger of being seduced 
 into such an idea, because the first general 
 
 places of assembly of the Christians were 
 only common rooms in private houses, 
 just according as it happened that any 
 member of the Church had sufficient ac- 
 commodation for the purpose. Thus Gains 
 of Corinth, (Rom. xvi.,) is called the host 
 of the Church, because the Church was in 
 the habit of assembling in a room of his 
 house. Origen says :* " The place, where 
 believers come together to pray, has some- 
 thing agreeable and useful about it ;" but 
 then he only says this in respect to that 
 spiritual communion. " Christ," he thinks, 
 " with the host of angels, dwells in the 
 assembly of the saints ; therefore, we may 
 not despise prayer in such assemblies, for 
 they have a peculiar power for those who 
 take part in them with an upright heart." 
 " Not the place, but the congregation of 
 the elect, I call the Church," says Clement 
 of Alexandria-! TertuUian says.J "We 
 may pray in every place to which accident 
 or necessity brings us •, for the apostles, 
 who prayed to God and sang to his praise 
 in prison before thi ears of the jailor, no 
 more contravened the commands of the 
 Lord than Paul, who celebrated the Lord's 
 Supper in the ship before the eyes of all :" 
 (Acts xxvii.) This was a remarkable 
 proof of a free and evangelical spirit, 
 although the application of the latter pas- 
 sage is erroneous. 
 
 Man, we must avow, is very easily led 
 to fall away from the worship of God in 
 spirit and in truth, and to connect the re- 
 ligion of the Spirit with outward and 
 earthly things ; as the apostle says, " hav- 
 ing begun in the spirit, to wish to end in 
 the flesh." Watchfulness on this point 
 was constantly needed, lest the Jewish or 
 the heathen notions should here intrude 
 themselves on those of the Gospel, which 
 was likely enough to happen as soon as 
 the Old Testament and the New Testa- 
 ment notions of the priesthood had been 
 confused. Even in the time of Clement of 
 Alexandria he found himself obliged to 
 combat the notion, which allowed the es- 
 sentials of the Christian life to be of one 
 kind in, and of another out of, the Church. 
 "The disciples of Christ," he says, § 
 " ought to form the whole course of their 
 
 * C. Celsum, viii. p. 400. [The passage, from 
 which I suppose this is taken, though not literally 
 'translated, is p. 389, ed. Spencer.— H. J. R.] 
 
 * De Orat c. xxxi. [C. Ixvi. ed. Reading. 
 This extract is selected from different parts of the 
 chapter. Origen supposes the disembodied spirits 
 of the saints, &c., to be present in these assemblies. 
 H. J.R.] 
 
 f O'j yxp TO rovov, oXA* to oSm/^^* Toir iKKuntev 
 iKKKna-tctv x-tAa. Stromat. vii. 715, B. 
 
 if De Orat. c. xxiv. 
 
 i Paedagog. Ui. p. 256. 
 
 Q 
 
182 
 
 PLACES OF ASSEMBLY. 
 
 life and conduct on the model which they 
 assume in the churches, for the sake of 
 propriety; they ought to be such, and not 
 merely to seem so, as mild, as pious, and as 
 charitable : but now, I know not how it is, 
 thev change their habits and their manners 
 with the change of place, as the polypus, 
 they say, changes its colour, and becomes 
 like the rock on which it hangs. They lay 
 aside the spiritual habit which they had 
 assumed in the Church, as soon as they 
 have left the Church, and assimilate them- 
 selves to the multitude, among whom they 
 live. I should rather say, that they con- 
 vict themselves of hypocrisy, and show 
 what they really are in their inward na- 
 ture, by laying aside the mask of piety 
 which they had assumed ; and while they 
 honour the word of God, they leave it 
 behind them in the place where they 
 heard it." 
 
 (b.) The Christian Places of Assembly. 
 
 We observed abov^, that the Christian 
 places of Assembly were, at first, in the 
 rooms of private houses ; it may, perhaps, 
 be the case, that in large towns, where 
 the number of Christians was soon con- 
 siderable, and no member of the Church 
 had any room in his house sufficient to 
 contain all his brethren, or in places 
 where men did not fear any prejudicial 
 consequences from large assemblies, the 
 Church divided itself into different sec- 
 tions, according to the habitations of its 
 members, of which each section held its 
 assemblies in one particular chamber of 
 the house of some wealthy member of 
 the Church ; or, perhaps, while it was 
 usual to unite on Sundays in one general 
 assembly, yet each individual part of the 
 Church met together daily in the rooms 
 which lay the most convenient to it. Per- 
 haps the passages in St. Paul's Epistles, 
 which speak of Churches in the houses of 
 jxirlicuJar persons., are thus to be under- 
 stood.* The answer of Justin Martyr, to 
 
 * " The Church in his house," «' kut' oIk'.v uinu 
 iKKKna-m. These passages certainly cannot allude 
 to the places of as.sembly of whole Churches, for 
 in many of them, the » x«t' oIk'^v tivc^ 'mx-Xna-ix is 
 expressly distinguished from the whole of the 
 Church, (1 Cor. xvi. 19, 20.) Herv^ we first have 
 the Church, " that is in the house" of Aquilas and 
 Priscllla, and then " all the brethren," which would 
 be a piece of tautolop;y on that supposition. Comp. 
 Coloss. iv. 15. And besides, there is another ob- 
 jection to such an interpretation, which is this, that 
 then we must suppose Aquilas to have held the 
 assemblies of the Church in his own house, both 
 when at Rome, his usual abode, and when at 
 Ephesus, (comp. Kom. xvi. 5, and 1 Cor. xvi. 19.) 
 
 the question of the preefect, "Where do 
 you assemble ?" exactly corresponds to 
 the genuine Christian spirit on this point. 
 This answer was : " Where each can and 
 will. You believe, no doubt, that we all 
 meet together in one place ; but it is not 
 so, the God of the Christians is not shut 
 up in a room, but being invisible, he fills 
 both heaven and earth, and is honoured 
 every where by the faithful." Justin 
 adds, that when he came to Ptome, he 
 was accustomed to dwell in one particular 
 spot, and that those Christians, who were 
 instructed by him,* and wished to hear 
 his discourses, assembled at his house. 
 He had not visited any other congrega- 
 tions of the Church.f 
 
 The arrangements which the peculiari- 
 ties of the Christian worship required, 
 were gradually made in these places of 
 assembly, such as an elevated seat J for 
 the purpose of reading the Scriptures and 
 preaching, a table for the distribution of 
 the sacrament, to which as early as the 
 time of Tertullian the name of altar, ara 
 or altare, was given, and perhaps, not 
 without some mixture of the unevangelic 
 Old Testament notion of a sacrifice — or, 
 j at least, this idea might easily attach itself 
 to this name. When the Churches in- 
 creased, and their circumstances improv- 
 ed, there were, during the course of the 
 third century, already separate Church 
 buildings for the Christians, as the name 
 6§»jo-jt£wo-»|U.(/t TOTToi of the Christians occurs 
 in the edict of Gallienus.§ In the time 
 
 Now it is very unlikely, that the whole Church 
 should have changed its place of assembly every 
 time that Aquilas arrived at either place. It is for 
 more easy to conceive that men, whose trade re- 
 quired a roomy habitation, wherever that might be, 
 — such as that of Aquilas, the tent maker, — gene- 
 
 I rally gave up a room in their house for a part of 
 the Church to assemble in ; and more especially 
 when they were quahfied, as probably Aquilas was, 
 
 1 by their gift and capacity of instructing, to serve 
 
 [ for the edification of small congregations. 
 
 I * This would accordingly be, « k^t cliuv rcu 
 
 I I [This dialogue is found in the Act. Mart. 
 
 I Sanct. S. Justin, in Ruinarl, who professes to edit 
 it after Surius and others. Papebroch (Act. Sanct. 
 Aprilis, vol. ii. p. 104.) contends, that this act of 
 martyrdom belongs to a dillerent Justin, and is 
 answered by Ruinart, p. .54-.'i8. — H. J. R.] 
 
 \ Suggestus, pulpitum. [Thus Constit. Apost. 
 ii. 57, MST-ic if' uvajvauTT*!; e^' t^»Mw Ttvz^ i^tuK' 
 — H J. R.] 
 
 § See page 82. If the account of the Chro- 
 nicle of Edessa (in Asseman, Biblioth. Orien- 
 tal, t. i. 391,) is to be depended on, a Christian 
 church must have been built as early as A. 1). 202, 
 at Edessa. The Chronicle was first published in 
 the sixth century, but the author made use of 
 
NO IMAGES OF CHRIST. 
 
 183 
 
 of tlie external prosperity of the Church, 
 duriiifT the reign of Diocletian, many 
 handsome churches arose in the great 
 towns. 
 
 The use of images was originally quite 
 foreign to the Christian worship and 
 Churches, and it remained so during this 
 whole period. The intermixture of art 
 and religion, and the use of images for 
 the latter, appeared to the first Christians 
 a heatlienish practice. As in heathenism 
 the Divine becomes desecrated and tar- 
 nished by intermixture with the Natural, 
 and as men have often paid homage to 
 the beauties of nature with injury to the 
 cause of ^loliness, the first warmth of 
 Christian zeal, which opposed the idolatry 
 of nature, so common to heatlienism, and 
 sought to maintain the Divine in all its 
 purity and elevation, was inclined rather 
 to set holiness in the strongest contrast 
 with what is beautiful by nature, than to 
 endeavour to grace it by lending it a beau- 
 tiful form. Men were more inclined in 
 general to carry into extremes the idea of 
 the appearance of the Divinity in the form 
 of a servant, which suited the oppressed 
 condition of the Church in these centu- 
 ries, than to throw it into the back ground, 
 and overwhelm it under the predominance 
 of their aesthetic dispositions, and their 
 love of art. This is peculiarly shown by 
 the general belief of the early Church, 
 that Christ had clothed his inward Divine 
 glory in a mean outward form, which was 
 in direct contradiction to it; a conclusion 
 which was drawn from interpreting the 
 prophecy of the Messiah, in Isaiah liii. 2, 
 too literally. Thus Clement of Alexan- 
 dria warns the Christians, from the exam- 
 ple of Christ, not to attribute too much 
 value to outward beauty. "The Lord 
 himself was mean in outward form ; 
 
 and who is better than the Lord ? 
 
 But He revealed himself, not in the beauty 
 of the body, perceptible to our senses, 
 but in the true beauty of the soul as well 
 as of the body ; the beauty of the soul 
 consisting in benevolence, and that of the 
 body in immortality!"* 
 
 Church-teachers of entirely opposite 
 habits of mind, the adherents of two 
 
 older documents, which, however, if we may judge 
 from the document about the letters that passed 
 between Christ and Abgarus, cannot have been 
 quite authentic. If also the explanation of the 
 passage in that Chronicle, given by Michaelis 
 (Orientalische und exegetische Bibliothek, pt. x. 
 p. 61.) be just, this church must have been built 
 according to the model of the Jewish temple, and 
 divided into three parts. 
 * Psedagog. iii. 1. 
 
 different systems of conceiving Divine 
 things, the one after a sensuous manner, 
 the other after a spiritualising mode, — 
 realists and idealists, who, from these op- 
 posite habits of mind, might have very 
 different views on this point, just as in 
 later times, different views of this matter 
 proceeded from such a fundamental differ- 
 ence in habits of thought; — these Church- 
 teachers were, nevertheless, united on 
 this point by their common opposition 
 to the mixture of the natural and the Di- 
 vine in heathenism, and by the endeavour 
 to maintain the devotion to God in spirit 
 and in truth, pure and undefiled. Cle- 
 mens of Alexandria is as little favour- 
 able as TertuUian to the use of images. 
 He says, against the use of images by 
 the heathen, " We must not cling to 
 that which is sensuous, but elevate our- 
 selves to that which is spiritual ; the 
 habit of daily looking upon the repre- 
 sentation of the Divine nature dese- 
 crates its dignity; and to wish to honour 
 a spiritual being by earthly matter, is 
 nothing but to dishonour it by sensuous- 
 ness." It is evident, from what we have 
 said, how foreign to the notions of the 
 Christians of this period, images of Christ 
 must in general have been. Heathens, 
 who, like Alexander Severus,* saw some- 
 thing Divine in Christ, and sects, which 
 mixed heathenism and Christianity to- 
 gether, were the first who made use of 
 images of Christ; as, for instance, the 
 Gnostic sect of the followers of Carpo- 
 cratian, wiio put his image beside those 
 of Plato and Aristotle. 
 
 The use of religious images among the 
 Christians, did not proceed from their 
 ecclesiastical, but from their domestic life. 
 In the intercourse of daily life, the Chris- 
 tians saw themselves every where sur- 
 rounded by objects of heathen mythology, 
 or by such as shocked their moral aiid 
 Christian feelings. Similar objects adorned 
 the walls of chambers, the drinking vessels, 
 and the signet rings (on which the hea- 
 then had constantly idolatrous images,) 
 to which, whenever they pleased, they 
 could address their devotions ; and the 
 Christians naturally felt themselves obliged 
 to replace these objects, which wounded 
 their moral and religious feelings, with 
 others more suited to those feelings. 
 
 * Thus Eusebius says, (H. E. vii. 18,) that 
 heathens were the first who made pictures of 
 Christ, St. Peter, and St. Paul, whom they looked 
 upon, after their heathen notions, as benefactors of 
 mankind. This may easily be explained from the 
 spirit of religious eclecticism, which then existed. 
 
184 
 
 THE CUSTOM OF CROSSING. — SACRED SEASONS. 
 
 Therefore, they gladly put the likeness 
 of a shepherd, carrying a lamb upon his 
 shoulders, on their cups, as a symbol of 
 the Redeemer, who saves the sinners that 
 return to Him, according to the parable 
 in tlie Gospel.* And Clement of Alex- 
 andria says, in reference to the signet 
 rings of the Christians,! " Let our signet 
 rin"-s consist of a dove (the emblem of 
 the" Holy Ghost,) or a fish,J or a ship 
 sailing towards heaven (the emblem of 
 the Christian Church, or of individual 
 Christian souls;) or a lyre (the emblem 
 of Christian joy;) or an anchor (the em- 
 blem of Christian hope;) and he who is 
 a fisherman, let him remember the apostle, 
 and the children who are dragged out 
 from the water ;§ for those men ought 
 not to engrave idolatrous forms, to whom 
 the use of them is forbidden ; those can 
 engrave no sword and no bow, who seek 
 for peace; the friends of temperance can- 
 not engrave drinking-cups." And yet, 
 jierhaps, religious images made their M^ay 
 from domestic life into the churches, as 
 early as the end of the third century, and 
 the walls of the churches were painted in 
 the same way. The council of Elvira set 
 itself against this innovation, as an abuse, 
 for it made the following order: " Objects 
 of reverence and worship shall not be 
 painted on the walls."|| It is probable 
 
 • Tertullian, de Pudicitia, c. vii. " Procedant 
 ipgse pictursE calicum vestrorum." C. x. " Pastor, 
 quetn in calice depingis." The likeness of Christ 
 upon a cup does not appear to have suited the 
 Montanistic asceticism. 
 
 f Paidog. iii. 246, 247. 
 
 i This refers to the same idea as that of the 
 fisherman, with a play on the anagram of the 
 name of Christ, 'ixer2 — 'lno-cv; Xpufc; Qku Tioc 
 
 2«l)T)Ig. 
 
 § This was an allusion to the Christians, whom 
 Christ, the Divine teacher — the Quof TrcaSctyayoc 
 — leads to regeneration by means of baptism. 
 
 II " Ne, quod colitur et adoratur, in parietibus 
 depingatur." Concil. Illiberit. c. xxxiii.* The 
 explanation of this canon, we confess, cannot alto- 
 gether be determined with certainty. There is, in 
 fact, a double uncertainty in it : We may under- 
 .stand the words, ' quod colitur et adoratur,' of reli- 
 gious objects generally, or in a more restricted sense, 
 of objects of peculiar reverence, such as portraits of 
 Christ, or symbolical representations of God and 
 the Trinity ; and we may also understand ' the 
 walls' in two dilfcrent ways — the walls of churches 
 or those of houses. 
 
 [* I find this to be Can. xxxvi. Those who 
 are curious in these matters, will be somewhat 
 eniertained by the learned note of Mendoza on 
 his canon, to prove that it refers only to pictures 
 of (jod. He labours hard through nine folio pages 
 of double columns, to prove this point, and to de- 
 fend the use of images. Concilia a Labbe et 
 Cossart. Paris, 1C71, vol. i. p. 1227.— H. J. R.] 
 
 that the visible representation of the cross 
 found its way very early into domestic 
 and ecclesiastical life. This token was 
 remarkably common among them; it was 
 used to consecrate their rising and their 
 going to bed, their going out and their 
 coming in, and all tlie actions of daily 
 life ; it was the sign which Christians 
 made involuntarily, whenever any thing 
 of a fearful nature surprised them.* This 
 was a mode of expressing, by means per- 
 ceptible to the senses, the purely Chris- 
 tian idea, that all the actions of Christians, 
 as well as the whole course of their life, 
 must be sanctified by faith in the crucified 
 Jesus, and by dependence upoj^Him, and 
 that this faith is the most powerful means 
 of conquering all evil, and preserving one- 
 self against it. But here also again, men 
 were too apt to confuse the idea and the 
 token which represented it, and they at- 
 tributed the effects of faith in the crucified 
 Redeemer to the outward sign, to Avhich 
 they ascribed a supernatural, sanctifying, 
 and preservative power ; an error of which 
 we find traces as early as the third century. 
 We now pass from the consideration 
 of the places of public worship, to that of 
 the seasons of worship, and the festivals 
 of the early Christians. 
 
 (c.) Seasons of Public Worship and Festivals, 
 It is here shown again that the Gospel, 
 as it remodelled the former conceptions 
 of the priesthood, of worship in general, 
 and of holy places, also entirely changed 
 the then views of sacred seasons. And, 
 here again, also, the character of the 
 theocracy of the New Testament revealed 
 itself, a theocracy spiritualized, ennobled, 
 and freed from its outward garb of sense, 
 and from the limits which bounded its 
 generalization.! The Jewish laws re- 
 lating to their festivals, were not merely 
 abrogated by the Gospel in such a man- 
 ner as to transfer these festivals to different 
 seasons,, but they w^ere entirely abolished, 
 as far as fixing religious worship to par- 
 ticular times is concerned. The laws of 
 tlie Sabbath, like all -the rest of the cere- 
 monial laws of the Jews, could only arise 
 
 ' Cf. Tertullian, de Corona Milit. c. iii. [From 
 the last words of this chapter of Tertullian it would 
 seem, that they made the sign of the cross on the 
 forehead: "Fr(>ntem crucis signaculo terimus.' 
 See also ad Uxor. ii. 5. — H. J. R.j 
 
 f [Von den Schranken des Particularismus 
 und von der fleischlichcn Hiille frci gemachten 
 neutestamentlichen Thcokratie. — Germ. Literally, 
 " freed from' the limits of particularism, and from 
 its fleshly covering." — H. J. R.] 
 
ORIGIN OF FESTIVALS. 
 
 again in Christianity, by being spirit- 
 ualized and ennobled, inasmuch as ci'cry 
 day was now to be sanctified by the depen- 
 dence of the whole life on God through 
 Christ, on every day, and by the sanctifi- 
 cation which the prayers of the heart 
 shed over the whole of a Christian day. 
 Inasmuch as the Cliristian every day pur- 
 sued the calling entrusted to him by God, 
 with godly feelings, preserving his heart 
 in purity from all inward contact with 
 
 185 
 
 natures in himself, cannot always maintain 
 himself to the carnal ; a dropping down, 
 which became constantly more necessary, 
 tiie more the fire of \hc first animation, 
 and the warmth of the first love of the 
 Christians, died away. It was no more 
 unevangelic than the gradual limitation of 
 the exercise of many rights, belonging to 
 the common priesthood of all Christians, 
 to a certain class in the Church, which 
 circumstances rendered necessary.* But 
 what is ungodly, and seeking constantly j just as the unevangelic made its appear- 
 to keep holy the name of his Lord in j ance, when men supposed the existence 
 thought, Avord, and deed — every day was ' of a separate caste of priests in the Church, 
 to be a true Sabbatli to him. St. Paul [ which stood upon Divine right, when they 
 expressly declares all sanctifying of cer- ' forgot the common Christian priesthood 
 tain seasons, as far as men deduced this j in the consideration of this peculiar caste 
 from the Divine command, to be JeAvish I of priests, when they introduced a con- 
 and unevangelical, and to be like return- ] trast between secular and spititual per- 
 ing to the slavery of the law, and to cap- sons among Christians, so also, in this 
 tivity to outicard precepts. Such was the \ matter, the unevangelic appeared, when 
 opinion of the early Church. At first the men supposed certain days distinguished 
 Churches assembled every day; as, for from others and hallowed by Divine right, 
 instance, the first Church of Jerusalem, j when they introduced a distinction be- 
 which assembled daily for prayer in com- tween holy and common days into the 
 mon, and for the public consideration of life of the Christian, and in this distinc- 
 the Divine word, for the common cele- j tion forgot his calling to sanctify all days 
 bration of the Lord's Supper and the j alike. The confusion between the Old 
 agapae, as well as to maintain the connec- ' and the New Testament notions mani- 
 tion between the common head of the ; fested itself here in the same manner and 
 spiritual body of the Church and them- ! at the same time, as that which relates to 
 selves, and between one another as mem- | the priesthood. 
 
 hers of this body. Traces of this are ! When the Montanists (see below) 
 also found in later times, in the daily j wished to introduce and make imperative 
 assembling of tlie Churches for the pur- new fasts, which were fixed to certain 
 pose of hearing the Scriptures read, and | days., the Epistle to the Galatians was very 
 of celebrating the communion. Altliough, properly brought to oppose them; but 
 in order to meet the wants of human na- Tertullian, who stood on tlie boundary 
 ture generally, consisting as it does of between the original pure evangelic times 
 sense as well as soul, and those of a large and those when the intermixture of Jew- 
 body of Christians in particular, who ish and Christian notions first took place, 
 were only in a stale of education, and | confuses here the views of the two reli- 
 were to be brought up to the ripeness of I gions, because he makes the evangelical 
 Christian manhood, men soon selected | to consist, not in a ?c/to//(/ fZ/yTfrcn/ ??ic/AofZ 
 definite times for religious admonitions, ! of considering festivals altogether, but in 
 and to consecrate them to a fuller occu- 1 the celebration of difi'crcnt particular fes- 
 pation with religious things, as well as to ! tivals ; and he makes the Judaizing, 
 public devotion, with the intention, that j which the apostle condemns, to consist 
 the influence of these definite times should i only in the observation of the Jeivish, in- 
 animate and sanctify the rest of their lives, stead of the peculiarly Christian festivals.! 
 and that Christians who withdrew them- j The weekly and the yearly festivals 
 selves from the distractions of business i originally arose from the selfsame funda- 
 on these days, and collected their hearts ' mental idea, which was the centre point 
 before God in the stillness of solitude, as of the whole Christian life ; the idea of 
 
 well as in public devotion, might make 
 these seasons of service to the oiher parts 
 of their life; — yet this was in itself., and 
 of itself nothing unevangelic. It was 
 only a dropping down from the purely 
 spiritual point of view, on which even the 
 Christian, as he still carries about two 
 24 
 
 imitating Christ, the crucified and the 
 risen, — to follow Him in his death, by 
 appropriating to ourselves, in penitence 
 and faith, the effects of his death, by 
 
 * See page 110. 
 
 •j- Tertullian, Je Jejuniis, c. xiv. 
 
 q2 
 
186 SI 
 
 dying to ourselves and to the world — to 
 follow Him in his resurrection, by rising 
 again with Him by faith in Him, and by 
 his power, to a new and holy life, devot- 
 ed to God, which, beginning liere below 
 in the seed, is matured in heaven. Hence 
 the festival of joy was the festival of the 
 resurrection ; and the preparation for it, 
 the remembrance of the suflerings of 
 Christ, with mortification and crucifixion 
 of the flesh, was the day of fasting and 
 pcnilencc. Thus in the week the Sunday 
 was the joyful festival ; and the prepa- 
 ration for it was a day of penitence and 
 prayer, consecrated to remembrance of 
 the sufferings of Christ and the prepara- 
 tions for them, and this was celebrated on 
 the Friday ; and thus also tlie yearly fes- 
 tivals were to celebrate the resurrection 
 of Christ, and the operations of the Re- 
 deemer after He had risen again ; the pre- 
 paration for this day was in commemora- 
 tion of the sufferings and fastings of our 
 Saviour. From tliis general point of view 
 we shall now proceed to consider the 
 several weekly and yearly festivals in 
 particular. 
 
 Opposition to Judaism introduced the 
 particular festival of Sunday very early, 
 indeed, into the place of the Sabbath ; the 
 first trace of this custom is in the Acts 
 XX. 7, where we find the Church assem- 
 bled together on the first day in the 
 week,* and again somewhat lafer^ in Rev. 
 i. 10, where it is hardly possible to un- 
 derstand the day of judgment by the 
 words " the Lord's day." Allusion is 
 also made to the festival of Sunday, as a 
 symbol of new life, consecrated to the 
 Lord, in opposition to the old Sabbath, in 
 the episUe of Ignatius to the Magnesians.f 
 '* If they who were brouglit up under the 
 Old Testament have attained to a new 
 hope, and no longer keep Sabbaths holy, 
 but have consecrated their life to the day 
 of the Lord, on which also our life rose 
 up in Him, how shall we be able to live 
 without Him ?" Sunday was distingushed 
 
 as a day of joy by the circumstances, that 
 men did not fast upon it, and that they 
 prayed standing up, and not kneeling, as 
 Christ had raised up fallen man to heaven 
 again tlirough his resurrection. The fes- 
 tival of Sunday, like all other festivals, 
 was always only a human ordinance, and 
 it was far from the intentions of the apos- 
 des to establish a Divine command in 
 this respect, far from them, and from the 
 early apostolic Church, to transfer the 
 laws of the Sabbath to Sunday. Perhaps, 
 at tlie end of the second century a false 
 application of this kind had begun to take 
 place ; for men appear by that time to 
 have considered labouring on Sunday as 
 a sin.* 
 
 And further, two other days in the 
 week, Friday and Wednesday, particularly 
 the former, were consecrated to the 
 remembrance of the suflerings of Christ, 
 and of the circumstances preparatory to 
 them, congregations were held on them, 
 and a fast till three o'clock in the after- 
 noon, but nothing was positively appointed 
 concerning them ; in respect to joining 
 in these solemnities every one consulted 
 his own convenience or inclination. Such 
 fasts, joined with prayer, were considered 
 as the watches of the " milites Christi" 
 on their post by the Christians, (who 
 compared their calling to a warfare — the 
 ' militia Christi,) and they were " stationes" 
 — and the days, on which they took place, 
 were called " Dies Stationum."! 
 
 The Jewish Christian Churches, [i. e., 
 Churches consisting of Jewish converts,] 
 although they received the festival^ of 
 Sunday, retained also that of the Sabbath ; 
 and from them the custom spread abroad 
 in the Oriental Church, of distinguishing 
 this day, as well as the Sunday, by not 
 fasting and by praying in an erect posture ; 
 in tlie Western Churches, particularly the 
 Roman, where opposition to Judaism was 
 the prevailing tendency, this very opposi- 
 tion produced the custom of celebrating 
 the Saturday in particular as a fast day .J 
 
 • The passage is not entirely convincing, because 
 the impending departure of the apostle may liave 
 united the little Church in a brotherly parting 
 meal, on occasion of which the apostle delivered 
 his last address, although there was no particular 
 celebration of a Sunday in the case. The pas.sagc 
 from 1 Cor. xvi. 2, is still less convincing -, for all 
 may be quite competently explained, if we only 
 consider the passage as referring to the beginning 
 of the civil week. 
 
 •j- Sect. 9. [I am unable to find the exact ex- 
 pressions here given ; although something of the 
 kind is found in § 9.-11. J. R.] 
 
 * We may draw this conclusion from the words 
 of TertuUian, de Orat. § 23. •' Solo die dominico 
 resurrect ion is non ab isto tantum (from kneeling) 
 sed omni anxietatis habitu et officio cavere debe- 
 mus, differenies eiiam negotia, ne quern diubolo 
 locum dermis.'" 
 
 f The name " statio" occurs first in Hermas 
 Pastor, lib. iii. Similitud. v., and often in TertuUian. 
 " Statio" was the usual name for these half-fast- 
 days, in opposition to the proper " jejunia." Ter- 
 tullian de Jejuniis, c. xiv. 
 
 i TertuUian. de Jejun. c. xiv. " Quanquam 
 vos ctiam sabhatum si quando continuatis, nun- 
 quam nisi in Paschate jijunandum." TertuUian, 
 
SABBATH.— YEARLY FESTIVALS. 
 
 187 
 
 Tliis difTerence in customs would of | the unily of faitli and spirit, in the bond 
 course be striking, where members of the ' of love, but allowed all kinds of dilference 
 Oriental Cliurch spent their Sabbalhday ■ in external lhin<rs; and then they bejjan 
 in the Western Church. It was only too to require unilorniity even in these things, 
 soon that men lost sight of the principle i Tertidlian spoke; on this controversy with 
 of the apostolic Chuich, which retained Clirisiiaii moderation, before his conver- 
 j sion to Montanism. lie said of the few 
 
 .. . . ^ . . , . 1. » u- ' defenders of the Oriental custom, " The 
 
 as a Montanist, is here making a reproach to his i ^ i n l i ■ i 
 
 Romish adversaries, that they deprived the Sab- l^"''" ^^1^1 bestow his grace upon them, SO 
 bath of its becoming honour; and sometimes con- { ^'^'i^ they may either give in, or follow 
 tinued their fasts from Friday to the Saturday, ' their own opinion without bitterness 
 whereas they ought only to make one exception to towards others.* The learned Hippoly tus 
 its observance as a feast, that is, in the case of the ^^as induced, as early as the beginning of 
 Passover (i. e., in Easterweek.^ This same cus- : *i .i • i , . •. .i • 
 
 torn, namely, tkat of continuing the fast from Fri- ■ ^^^^ '^"'"^ f "^"^^^ ^"."'"^f "P«'l ^'''^ ^O"" 
 day on to Saturday, which Tertullian here argues ' troversy between tlie Oriental and the 
 against, as a Montanist, we fuid in Victorinus, i Occidental Church.| 
 
 bishop of Petabium, in Pannonia (Pettau, in The first yearly festivals of the Chris- 
 Stiria,) at the end of the third century. It is ' tians proceeded from similar vi(iws ; and 
 mentioned in his Fragments on the Creation, first i yet ^^ ^^st the contrast, which had in 
 published by Lave, Hist. Lit. He calls this con- i »• .i , r i • n 
 
 linuance " superpoktio jejunii." The fast on the i ^^'^J t"^^^, ^he most powerful induence 
 Sabbath appears here the preparation for the festi- ' ^ri the development as well of the churchly 
 valof the communion on the Sunday, in opposition hfe as of the doctrines of Christianity, is 
 to the Jewish festival on the Sabbath, which here peculiarly prominent — I mean the 
 Christianity had abolished. " Hoc die solemus ! contrast between the Jewish Churches 
 superponere; idcirco ut die dominico cum gratia- I a„d those of the Gentile converts. The 
 rum actione ad panem (the Lord s Supper) exea- ir .- ini t -iz-x-i 
 
 mus. Et parasceue superpositio fiat, ne quid cum | ^'''''}^' yef^n^ed all the Jewish festivals as 
 Juda-is Sabbatum observare videamur." Galland. i "^^'ell as the whole ceremonial law, although 
 Bibl. Patr. T. iv. ; and Routh, Reliquiae Sacrae, , hy degrees they introduced into them a 
 Oxon, 1815, vol. iii. p. 237. Christian meaning Avhich spontaneously 
 
 The council of Elvira opposes the error of cele- offered itself On the contrary, there was 
 bratmg the Sabbath as a festival, by prolonging the , probably no yearly festival at all, from the 
 fast of the Friday, and making a fastday of featur- ! • • ' -^ , , , ' 
 
 day also-c. xxvi. « Errorem placuit corrigi, ut I beginning, among the heathen converts, 
 orani sabbati die superpositiones celebremus."— *<^'' "o trace of any thing of the sort is 
 When in later days men had lost sight of the origi- t found in the whole of the New Testa- 
 iial notions of the first Christian ages, and were 1 ment.t 
 
 unable to find the reason for the custom of tasting; The Passover of the Old Testament 
 on the Sabbath (Saturday,) in the Romish Church, I, ^^g ^^^jly ennobled and converted to a 
 
 Passover which suited the New Testa- 
 ment, by merely substituting the idea of 
 deliverance from spiritual bondage, that 
 [* The reader win observe that Sabbath, in this lis from the slavery of sin, for that of 
 note, is used lor Saturday, as the .Jewish Sabbath. ' i ,• /- ii > i c rm 
 
 Dr. Neander appears to have deduced the proper \ delivereuce irom earthly bondage.^ Fhe 
 sense from the passage of Tertullian, which is not, I paschal lamb was a type oi" Christ, by 
 however, without its difficulties, especially in its I 
 immediate context. I beg to refer to the notes of "' 
 Valesiiis on Eusebius, v. 24, which will throw 
 some light on the subject, and also to Thorndike 
 on Reliijious Assemblies, p. 274. The following 
 aract Irom Bishop Kaye, on Tertullian, (p. 40'J, 
 
 they began to invent stories to explain it ; as, for 
 in.stance, that St. Peter had fasted on that day, as 
 a preparation for his dispute with Simon Magus.* 
 
 * C. xxiii. de Oratione. 
 
 f Cf. Hieronymi Ep. Ixxii. ad Vital. 
 
 + In 1 Cor. V. 7, there is no allusion at all to a 
 first edition,) will serve in part to confirm as well J peculiar Christian Passover of the Corinthian 
 as explain Dr. Neander's note : " Even the Mon- [ Church, but merely a contrast shown between a 
 taiiists. anxious as they were to introduce a more j purification of the heart, proceeding from faith, and 
 rigorous discipline in the observance of fasts ^yhcn \ the oufwurd Jewish festivals. iBut St. Paul in 
 they kept their two weeks ot Xeropliagia!, did not i if'„, ,.,.; a ...... « n ,» r .. -n . » tt^ /. 
 
 last on the Saturday and Sunday. The Saturday ' ..^'p , ' '"^r- " ^"'/•"'l" l^ri-.V «' ^?A.^'«5 
 before Easterday was, however, an exception; I ""V ■' f'!'f««'- Now this is worth observing : 
 that ims observed as a fast. The custom of ob- "'^ '** writing to a Church among the Heathen, and 
 serving every Saturday as a fast, which became | reckons by this feast. May we not suppose from 
 general throughout the Western Church, docs not \ this, that the Heathen converts made this season 
 appear to have existed in Tertullian's time. That a solemn time also, and reckoned their years in 
 
 men who, like our author, on all occasions con- ' some decree by it ' H J R 1 
 
 tended that the ritual and ceremonial law of Moses j ^ ^he Alexandrians", who' translated the word 
 had ceased, should observe the seventh day of the . . t. „ i i i ^ c i • .i 
 
 week as a festival, is perhaps to be ascribed to a ! ^^'^^^ ^'^ «§^« fif "J"?/^^. haJ already found in the 
 desire of conciliatinsi the Jewish converts." I Passover a .xymhol of the St^Rxcru .tto t'.u itiab^T-.u 
 
 Inanotconthispassage.BishopKaye remarks, I «'<^ '^'-' >"'"tov, a deliverance of the spirit from the 
 that the Gentiles fasted on a Saturday .—H. J. R.] I bondage of the senses. 
 
188 
 
 CHRISTIAN PASSOVER —ANICETUS AND POLYCARP. 
 
 whom tlat deliverance was wrought. 
 These representations went on the suppo- 
 sition tliat CInhit liad partaken his last 
 meal with his disciples, as a proper Pass- 
 over, at the very time that tlie Jews were 
 celebrating theirs. This Passover was, 
 therefore, always celebrated on the night 
 between the 14th and 15th of the Jewish 
 month Nisan, as a remembrance at the 
 same time of the last supper of Christ. 
 Tliis was tlie fundamental notion of 
 the whole Jewish-Christian Passover, on 
 which all the rest was built. The day 
 following this Passover was consecrated 
 to the remembrance of the sufierings of 
 Christ, and tlie third day from it to the 
 remembrance of his resurrection. On the 
 contrary, in the greater number of heathen 
 Churches, as soon as men began to cele- 
 brate yearly festivals (a time which can- 
 not be determined very precisely,) they 
 followed the method observed in tlie 
 weekly festivals. They appointed one 
 Sunday in the year for the festival of the 
 Resurrection, and one Friday as a day of 
 penitence and fasting preparatory to this 
 Sunday, in remembrance of the sufferings 
 of Christ; and they gradually lengthened 
 this time of penitence and fasting, as a 
 preparation for that high and joyful fes- 
 tival. \n these Churches they were more 
 inclined to take up a kind of antithetical 
 turn against tlie Jewish festivals, than to 
 graft Christian ones upon them. It was 
 far from their notions to think of observ- 
 ing a yearly Passover with the Jews. 
 The following was the view which they 
 took of the matter. Every typical feast 
 has lost its true meaning by the realiza- 
 tion of that which is typified ; in the 
 sacrifice of Christ, the Lord's Supper, as 
 the feast of the new covenant, has taken 
 the place of that of the old covenant. 
 Men seem here to liave been inclined, in 
 their opposition to Judaism, to come to 
 the following opinion, for which they 
 might bring at laist " prima facie" evi- 
 dence from the Gospel of St. John, 
 namely, that our Saviour did not celebrate 
 the last Supper at the same time with tlie 
 Jews, but one day earlier. 
 
 Tliis difference of outward customs, 
 between the Jewish-Christian Churches 
 and the Churches allied to them, on 
 the yne hand, and the Heathen-Christian 
 Churches foimdcd by St. Paul, on the 
 other, existed at first without its being 
 supposed that external things of this na- 
 ture were of importance enough to lead 
 to a controversy : they thought, that the 
 kingdom of God did not consist in eating 
 
 and drinking, or in any kind of external 
 things. 
 
 This difference, together with many 
 others, between the Churches of Asia 
 Minor and the Romish Church, was first 
 discussed on occasion of a visit paid by 
 Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna, to Ani- 
 cetus, the bishop of Rome.* Polycarp 
 appealed to having celebrated such a 
 Passover with St. John, whose disciple 
 he was ; Anicetas, on the other hand, ap- 
 pealed to the circumstance, tliat his pre- 
 decessors, (in a Chnrch consisting of 
 heathen converts, who followed St. Paul) 
 had established nothing of the sort.| But 
 as it was not supposed that the apostles 
 had entirely coincided in such external 
 things, or thought that uniformity in J^hese 
 things was necessary, it was thought that 
 differences in these respects might con- 
 tinue without prejudice to Christian com- 
 munion and unity. As a proof that the 
 bond of unity was not broken by this, 
 nor by other diflerences, it would seem, 
 of still greater importance, Anicetus al- 
 lowed Polycarp to celebrate the commu- 
 nion in his Church instead of himself. 
 
 In later years, about A. D. 171, this dif- 
 ference again became the subject of con- 
 troversy : Melito of Sardis, writing appa- 
 rently for the Jewish-Christian custom, 
 and Appollinaris of Hierapolis, against 
 
 * At all events we may concluile from the words 
 of Irenseus, recorded by Eusebius, that the deter- 
 mination of the controversy about Easter was not 
 the object of Polycarp's journey to Rome; no con- 
 troversies were as yet in existence on the subject, 
 and it was only incidentally, in touching on other 
 controversies, that this was also treated of. It is 
 not at all clear either, although it is possible, that 
 a deliberation on those other points of difference 
 was the object of this journey. More importance 
 has been attached at times to this journey, than is 
 warranted by history. 
 
 -j- It is a pity that Eusebius has not given us 
 the whole of the letter of Irenseus; all depends on 
 what we supply to the words Tn^ttv and ^;) th^siv; 
 something must be supplied, wliich formed the 
 whole subject of the controversy, and which makes 
 its appearance in the letter of Polycratns of 
 Ephesus, preserved by Eusebius,* namely, t»v 
 TSfl-(ra^!(7K«(/w*T)(v Tit/ TTxa-^ci; i. e., the celebration 
 of (he \Uh day of Nisan, as the day of the Pass- 
 over ; and it depended on the observance ot this 
 day, whether the Passover was kept or not. If a 
 man did not trouble himself about the Mth day 
 of Nisan, he considered the old feast of the Pass- 
 over utterly abolished, and deduced his Christian 
 paschal festival from a totally different view of the 
 case. 
 
 * [Euseb. V. 24. The notes of Valesius on this 
 letter are vefv valuable : I have already reicrred 
 ' to them on the subject of lasting on Saturday. 
 —II. J. R.] 
 
POINTS IN DISPUTE. 
 
 it.* But still there was no rupture of the 
 Churches on this account : individual 
 Christians out of Churches, where tlie 
 Passover was celebrated after the Jewish 
 notions, found a brotherly reception in 
 Rome, were allowed to celebrate the Pass- 
 over tliere according to their own opi- 
 nions, and were still admitted to the com- 
 munion. Things remained in this state 
 till the time of Victor, bishop of Rome.t 
 
 But under this bishop, about A. D. 190, 
 the controversy broke out afresh : on the 
 one side was ranged the Church of Rome, 
 in agreement with those of Cfcsarea in 
 Palestine, Jerusalem, Tyre, and Alexan- 
 dria 5 on the other were the Churches of ! 
 Asia Minor, at the head of which was j 
 Polycrates, the bishop of Ephesus.J j 
 
 The points which were controverted on | 
 this occasion, were the following : 
 
 (1.) Must the yearly Passover be re- [ 
 tained, and must we, therefore, follow the | 
 Jews in regard to the time of celebrating I 
 this festival } j 
 
 The opponents of this opinion — at least 
 Apollinaris, Clement of Alexandria, and 
 Hippolytus, according to the fragments 
 preserred in the Alexandrian Chronicle, 
 which we are not entitled to declare spu- 
 rious — maintained the following position : 
 That the last supper of Jesus was no 
 Passover ; for, according to the account 
 in the Gospel of St. John, Jesus kept it 
 on the ]3th Nisan, and on the following 
 day, which was appointed for the Jewish 
 Passover, He offered up that sacrifice for 
 mankind, which was typified by the Pass- 
 over, and thence there is the less reason to 
 suppose it possible that Christians should 
 celebrate any festival of the Passover. 
 
 (2.) When the Jewish-Christian party 
 appointed the day after the Passover for 
 
 189 
 
 the commemoration of the sufferings of 
 Christ, let it fall on what day of the week 
 it might; the other party answered, it must 
 always he on a Friday. 
 
 (3.) When the one party appointed the 
 third day after the Passover lor the com- 
 memoration of the resurrection, let it fall 
 on what day of the week it might; the 
 other party settled that this must take 
 place on a Sunday. 
 
 (4.) While the one party was keeping 
 its festival of the Passover, the other 
 party took an exactly opposite turn ; for 
 they were at this very time preparing 
 themselves for the celebration of the suf- 
 ferings of Christ, by means of a day of 
 penitence and fasting; and this time of 
 contrition only ended with their partaking 
 of the communion on the morning of the 
 feast of the resurrection.* 
 
 The Romish bishop, animated by the 
 hierarchical spirit which we have before 
 observed in the Romish Church, re- 
 nounced communion with the Churches 
 of Asia Minor, in consequence of this 
 insignificant difference ; but this unchris- 
 tian conduct must have experienced a 
 strong opposition from the unevangelical 
 spirit which then existed. Ireneeus wrote 
 him a letter in the name of the Churches 
 of Lyons and Vienne, in which he blamed 
 this conduct severely. He holds up the 
 example of his predecessor Anicetus to 
 shame Victor, and declares to hini, " We 
 live together in peace, without regarding 
 these differences ; and the difference in 
 our regulations about the fasts, makes 
 our agreement in faith shine forth more 
 clearly." In the same letter, or in an- 
 other work composed in consequence of 
 these controversies, he says, " The apos- 
 tles commanded us to judge no man in 
 
 * Euseb. iv. 26. 
 
 •j- From the circumstance that Irenaeus, in his 
 letter to Victor, represents only the Romish bishops 
 before Soter as models of toleration, I formerly con- 
 cluded, that under this latter (Soter) things had 
 immediately been changed; but if we observe that 
 in Irenajus the words 01 (tt^o) SaxTJigoc Trgtr/ivri^u 
 and 01 TT^o <rw TTgiT&uri^'jt correspond to each other, 
 we shall see clearly that no particular weight can 
 be attached to the first expression. Irenaeus only 
 means to say thus much: this difTcrence of opi- 
 nion, and therefore, this toleration, did not first 
 begin under the later bishops, but were in existence 
 before Soter. 
 
 t It might, perhaps, surprise us to find the 
 Churches of Palestine on this side, but we must 
 recollect that the Church of Cajsarea, from the 
 very beginning, had consisted chiefly of heathen 
 converts, and that the Church of .Jerusalem had 
 assumed more of the Heathen-Christian form 
 during the reign of Hadrian. 
 
 * The tf/«TstJa? urrccrroKUiu, quoted by Epipha- 
 nius, Hreres. Ixx. § 11, which appear to be very 
 different from those that remain to us, wished to 
 moderate this opposition, and to defend the fol- 
 lowers of the Jewish-Christian custom against the 
 reproach of Judaism ; and, therefore, they repre- 
 sented the case as if the Jewish Passover (comp. 
 Deut. xvi. 3,) were a meal of humiliation, and 
 the Christian a festival of joy ; as if the fast of 
 the Christians, on the following day, on which the 
 Jews had crucified the Redeemer, exactly corres- 
 ponded to the Jewish meal of joy. The apostles 
 say, " While the Jews are holding their feast, you 
 must fast and mourn on their account, because 
 they crucified Christ on the day of their fcjist; but 
 while they are fasting, eating their unleavened 
 bread with bitter herbs, you are to hold your fivut." 
 'OT:tv iKinoi t'ua^^mTiti, Cult; vnT'Tej-.vrK im^ 
 
 ■J.jT'jfl 
 TTXU- 
 
 TrlKPKTlY, 
 
 
CHRISTMAS-DAY AND THE EPIPHANY. 
 
 190 
 
 respect of meats or drink, or fasts, new 
 ixioons, or Sabbaths. Whence, then, come 
 controversies } whence divisions ? We 
 celebrate feasts, but in tlie leaven of wick- 
 edness and evil, because we divide the 
 Cliurch of»God, and observe outward 
 matters, while we leave the weightier 
 matters of love and faith untouched. We 
 have, nevertheless, learned from the pro- 
 phets, that such feasts and such fasts are 
 displeasing to the Lord." We observed 
 before, that a fast formed the introduction 
 to the Passover, and this was the only 
 fast formerly established by the Chuch. 
 The necessity of this fast was deduced 
 from Matt. ix. 15, but it was by a carnal 
 interpretation of the passage, and an ap- 
 plication of it quite contrary to its real 
 sense.* The duration of this fast, how- 
 ever, was not determined ; the imitation 
 of the temptation of our Lord for forty 
 days introduced the custom of fasting 
 forty hours in some places, which after- 
 wards was extended to forty days,| and 
 thus the fast of forty days, the quadra- 
 gesimal fast arose. 
 
 The festival of Pentecost {Whitsuntide) 
 ■was closely connected with that of the 
 resurrection, and this was dedicated to 
 commemorating the first visible effects of 
 the operations of the glorified Christ upon 
 human nature, now also ennobled by him, 
 the lively proofs of his resurrection and 
 reception into glory; and therefore, Origen 
 joins llie festivals of the resurrection and 
 of Pentecost together as one whole.]] 
 The means of transition from an Old 
 Testament festival to one befitting the 
 New Testament, were here near at hand. 
 The first-fruits of harvest in the kingdom 
 of nature — the first fruits of harvest in the 
 kingdom of grace — the law of the ktter 
 from Mount Sinai — the new law of the 
 
 • The passage does not relate to the time of 
 Christ's sufTering, but to the time when he should 
 be with his disciples no more. As long as they 
 enjoyed his society they were to give themselves 
 up to joy, and to be disturbed in it by no forced 
 asceticism. But a time of sorrow was to follow 
 this time of joy, although only for a season, after 
 which a time of higher and imperishable joy, in 
 invisible communion with Him, was to follow. 
 John xvi. 22. 
 
 •j- Irenaius ap. Eusel). v. 24. 
 
 i Origen, c. Ccls. viii. c. xxii., (p. 392, cd. 
 Spenc.) where he places the yearly festivals of the 
 frxa-^-x and the TriVTitx.'.Trn, with the weekly festi- 
 vals, the Tru^to-tauxi and the Ku^mnxt, and consider- 
 ing the festival of the resurrection as the beginning 
 of that of Whitsuntide, he says, "He who can 
 truly assert, ' God hath raised us again with him, 
 and pl.iccd us in the kingdom of heaven,' keeps 
 one continual Passover." 
 
 Spirit from the heavenly Jerusalem. This 
 festival originally embraced the whole 
 season of fifty days from Easter, and was 
 celebrated like a Sunday, that is to say, 
 no fasts were kept during the whole of it, 
 and men prayed standing, and not kneel- 
 ing, and perhaps, also in some places 
 assemblies of the Church were held, and 
 the communion was celebrated everyday.* 
 Afterwards two peculiar points of time, the 
 ascension of Christ and the effusion of the 
 Holy Spirit, were selected from this whole 
 interval. 
 
 These were the only festivals generally 
 celebrated at that time, as the passage cited 
 from Origen proves. The fundamental 
 notion of the whole Christian life, which 
 referred every thing to the suffering, the 
 resurrection, and the glorification of Christ, 
 as well as the adherence, or, on the other 
 hand, the opposition to the Jewish cele- 
 bration of festivals, were the cause, that 
 these were tlie only general festivals. The 
 notion of a birthday festival was far from 
 the ideas of the Christians of this period in 
 general ; they looked upon the second 
 birth as the true birth of men. The case 
 must have been somewhat diflerent with 
 the birtii of the Redeemer; human nature 
 was to be sanctified by him from its first 
 development; but then this last notion 
 could not at first come so prominently 
 forward among the early Christians, be- 
 cause so many of them were first converted 
 to Christianity when well advanced in 
 years, after some decisive excitement of 
 their life, but then it may have entered 
 generally into domestic life, though at first 
 gradually. Nevertheless, we find in this 
 period apparently one trace of Christmas 
 as a festival. Its history is intimately con- 
 nected with the history of a kindred festi- 
 val : the festival of tiie Manifestation of 
 Jesus in his character of Messiah, his con- 
 secration to the office of Messiah by the 
 baptism of John, and the beginning of his 
 public ministry, as the Messiah, which 
 afterwards called the eo^t» ruv 'nn<pa.vtiuv^ 
 or T»j; iTntpotvucti tov XpurTof. We find in 
 later times that these festivals extended 
 themselves in opposite directions, that of 
 Christmas spreading from the west to east, 
 
 * From Tertullian, de Oratione, c. xxiii., where 
 he had said that men abstain from worldly business 
 on Sunday, and where he afterwards attributes the 
 whole solemnities of Sunday to the Pentecost, wc 
 might be led to suppose that this abstinence from 
 worldly business lasted during the whole time of 
 Pentecost, which is hard to believe. In his treatise 
 dc Idololatria, c xiv., where he wishes to restrain 
 Christians from participating in heathen feasts, he 
 
CHRISTMAS-DAY AND THE EPIPHANY. 
 
 191 
 
 and the other from east to west.* Clement 
 of Alexandria merely relates, that the 
 Gnostic sect of the Basilidians celebrated 
 the festival of the Epiphany at Alexandria, 
 in his time. We can hardly snppose that 
 this sect invented the festival, although 
 they may have had some dogmatical rea- 
 sons for celebrating it, for it is highly im- 
 probable that the Catholic Church should 
 have afterwards received a festival from the 
 Gnostics; and these Gnostics most proba- 
 bly received it from the Jewish-Christian 
 Ciiurches in Palestine or Syria. It had ap- 
 parently a Jewish-Christian origin, for this 
 time of our Saviour's life would appear the 
 most important to the notions of the Jew- 
 ish-Christians ; and the Gnostics would 
 afterwards explain it accordinirto their own 
 ideas. Clement speaks at the same time 
 of those who attempted to fix not only the 
 year, but even the day of our Saviour's 
 birth ; but he appears to blame this pro- 
 ceeding, as an idle and unfruitful pursuit, 
 in which they could arrive at no certainty. 
 He does not. however, say, that they cele- 
 brated the day which they attempted to 
 fix as a festival; but it is still probable 
 that if they reckoned the day so accu- 
 
 says, " Excerpe singulas solemnitates nationum, 
 Pentecostum iraplere non poterunt." The first 
 trace of a limitation of the Pentecostal festival to 
 one day, is in the 43d Canon of the Council of 
 Elvira. This canon is, we confess, very obscure; 
 but the most natural interpretation of it is by sup- 
 posing that some persons had selected only the 
 festival of the ascension out of the whole Pentecost. 
 On the contrary, under the name of Pentecost, the 
 council only understood the festival of the Effusion 
 of the Holy Spirit, and ordered that the 50th day 
 after Easter should he kept holy, and accused the 
 first mentioned party, who had only made a false 
 application of the name Pentecost, of having de- 
 parted from the authority of Scripture, " L't cuncti 
 diem Pentccostes post Pascha celebremus, non 
 quadragesimam, nisi quinquagesimam." 
 
 * The feast of the Epiphany, as the festival of 
 the baptism of Christ, was held in great reverence 
 at the end of the fourth century at Anfioch, while 
 the introduction of the festival of Chritsmas, which 
 came from the west, found great opposition there. 
 In many of the eastern Churches, where Christ- 
 mas was first introduced at the end of the fourth 
 century, or even later, but where the festival of the 
 baptism of Christ had long been known, they 
 joined the two festivals together afterwards ; as in 
 the western Churches they gave a somewhat dif- 
 ferent turn to the new festival of llie Epiphany, 
 which came to them from the east. The Donatists 
 rejected the Epijjhany, as an innovation that came 
 from the eastern Churches: "Quia nee oriental! 
 ecclesiffi, ubi a[)(>aruit ilia stella, communicant,"' 
 Augustin. Sermo 202. § 2. I mention this now 
 rather prematurely, but merely in some degree as a 
 proof of the supposition I have thrown out, and I 
 shall have to enlarge on the matter in the succeed- 
 ing period. 
 
 j rately, they celebrated it as a festival, and 
 I the Gontext of the passage in which it is 
 mentioned seems to indicate that Clement 
 had some meaning of this sort.* But 
 then tliis could not have been done by 
 the Gnostics, of whom he speaks imme- 
 diately afterwards, for the celebration of 
 the birthday of our Saviour would have 
 been in flat contradiction to the rest of 
 their system. 
 
 We proceed now to consider the se- 
 veral parts of the Christian worship. 
 
 (d.) On the several parts of the Christian 
 Worship. 
 
 The character of a spiritual worship of 
 God distinguished the Christian worship 
 from that of other religions, which con- 
 sisted in symbolical pageantry and lifeless 
 ceremonies. As a general elevation of 
 the spirit and the heart to God, as well as 
 the enlightenment of the spirit and the 
 sanctification of tlie heart, were the ob- 
 ject of every thing in this religion, in- 
 struction and edification, through a com- 
 mon study of the Divine word, and 
 through prayer in common, were tlie lead- 
 ing features in the Christian worship. 
 And in this respect it might in its form 
 adhere to the arrangements made about 
 the congregations in the Jewish syna- 
 gogues, in which also the element of a 
 spiritual religious worship was the pre- 
 vailing ingredient. As the reading of por- 
 tions of the Old Testament had formed 
 the groundwork of religious instruction 
 in the Jewish synagogues, this custom 
 also passed into the Christan congrega- 
 tions. First the Old Testament, and es- 
 pecially tiie prophetic parts of it, were 
 read as things that pointed to the Messiah ; 
 then followed the Gospels, and after that 
 the Epistles of the apostles. 
 
 The reading of the Scriptures was of 
 
 * (Clemens, Stromat. i. p. 340 : iloi it o! Trepup- 
 ■yiTif-.v Til yivij-ii Tcy !ra>T>ipit iijuwv cu /u'^i/ov t» irc^, 
 u\?.a. KXt Tiiv >)fxif-j.v ^fi:aTi(ti\ne;, ci Si <'-7rc /ixa-ixcScu 
 
 Kit T'jV li-XTntTfA-JLTCi itilTiU TJIV HjUlflUV icpn^'-U^I. 
 
 I [The Christian f stivals, as compared with 
 those of the Jews and the heathen, are succinctly 
 considered in an essay by Dr. Ullman, appended 
 to Creuzer's SymboUk>. vol. iv. There are some 
 interesting remarks in this essay, but it does not 
 profess to treat the subject with chronological ac- 
 curacy. The work of Augusti is the grand store- 
 house of information on this point. Denkwiirdig- 
 keiten aus der Chiistlichen Archaologie. Leips. 8 
 vols. 1817 — 1826: For those who do not read 
 German, the work of Bingham gives the fullest 
 account of these matters. The little Ireitisc also 
 of Thorndike on the Service of God at Religious 
 Assemblies, is excellent, but it is, unfortunately, a 
 scarce book. — li. J. R.l 
 
SCRIPTURES READ — INTERPRETERS, 
 
 192 
 
 still greater consequence then, because it 
 was desirable that every Christian should 
 be acquainted with them, and yet, by rea- 
 son of tlie rarity and dearness of manu- 
 scripts, and tlie poverty of a great pro- 
 portion of tlie Christians — or, perhaps, 
 also, because all were not able to read — 
 the Bible itself could not be put into the 
 hands of all. Frequent hearing was, 
 therefore, with many to supply the place 
 of their own reading. The Scriptures 
 were, therefore, read in the language which 
 all could understand, and that was, in 
 most parts of the Roman empire, the 
 Greek or the Latin. In very early times 
 different translations of the Bible into 
 Latin were in existence ; as every one, 
 wlio knew a little of Greek, found it need- 
 ful to make the word of God his own in 
 the language to which he was accus- 
 tomed.* Where the Greek or the Latin 
 language was understood only by a part 
 of the Church, that is to say, by the edu- 
 cated classes, while the rest understood 
 only their native language, as was the 
 case in many Egyptian and Syrian towns. 
 Church interpreters! were appointed, as 
 in the Jewish synagogues, and they im- 
 mediately translated what had been read 
 into the language of the country, so that 
 it might be intelligible to all.J 
 
 After the reading of the Scripture there 
 followed, as there had previously in the 
 Jewish synagogues, short, and at first 
 very simple addresses in familiar lan- 
 guage, the momentary effusions of the 
 heart, which contained an explanation and 
 application of what had just been read. 
 Justin Martyr expresses himself thus on 
 the subject :§ " After the reading of the 
 Scriptures, the president (S ■b-^oso-tw;,) in- 
 structs the people in a discourse, and in- 
 cites them to the imitation of these good 
 examples." Among the Greeks, where 
 the taste was more rhetorical, the sermon 
 from the very earliest times was of a 
 mofe lengthened kind, and formed a very 
 important part of the service. || 
 
 * Aug\istin. de Doctrina Christiana, lib ii. c. 2. 
 t The D*^^J")1ri Dragomans, 
 
 t 'P.fi/umturcti yhaxrviti: tU yKonra-at, ti h txk <'i'*^- 
 m^rariv, » h tou{ Troctro/xiKtctii;. Epiphan. Expos. Fid. 
 Cathol. c, xxi. Procopius, who suirercd martyr- 
 dom under the persecution of Dioclesion, united 
 in his own person at Scythopolis in Palestine, the 
 ofiicea of a reader, an exorcist, and an interpreter 
 (out of the Greek into the Syriac) Sec his Acta 
 Martyr. 
 
 ^ Apol. ii. [Apol, 1. §77.] 
 
 II When Sozomen in the first half of the fifth 
 century says: (Hist. Eccl. vii, 19,) that in the 
 
 Singing also passed from the Jewish 
 service into that of the Christian Church, 
 St. Paul exhorts the early Churches to 
 sing spiritual songs. What was used for 
 this purpose were partly the Psalms of 
 the Old Testament, and partly songs coin- 
 posed ivith this very object, especially 
 songs of praise and thanks to God and 
 Christ; and these, we know, Pliny found 
 to be customary among the Christians. 
 In the controversies with the Unitarians, 
 about the end of the second century, and 
 the beginning of the third, the hymns, in 
 which from early times Christ had been 
 honoured as a God, were appealed to. 
 The power of Church singing over the 
 heart was soon recognised, and hence 
 those who wished to propagate any pecu- 
 liar opinions, like Bardesanes or Paul of 
 Samosata, endeavoured to spread them by 
 means of hymns. 
 
 In compliance with the infirmities of 
 human nature, composed as it is of sense 
 and spirit, the Divine Founder of the 
 Church, beside his word, ordained two 
 outward signs, as symbols of the invisi- 
 ble communion, which existed between 
 him, — the Head of the spiritual body, — 
 and the faithful, its members ; and also 
 of the connection of these memlers, as 
 with him, so also jvith one another. These 
 were visible means to represent the in- 
 visible, heavenly benefits to be bestowed 
 on the members of this body through 
 him, and while man received in faith the 
 sign presented to his senses, the enjoy- 
 ment of that heavenly communion and 
 those heavenly advantages was to gladden 
 his inward heart. As nothing in all Chris- 
 tianity and in the whole Christian life 
 stands isolated, but all forms one whole, 
 proceeding from one centre, therefore, also 
 that which this outward sign represented 
 must be something which should con- 
 tinue through the whole of the inward 
 Christian life, something which, spreading 
 itself forth from this one moment over 
 the whole Christian life, should be capa- 
 ble of being especially excited again and 
 promoted in return, by the influence of 
 
 Romish Church there was no preaching at all, 
 this must not be referred by any means to the 
 first times ; but, if the account be true, we must 
 gather from it, that the prevalence of sensuous 
 shows, and liturgical rights, had banished the ser- 
 mon, in later days. But an Oriental might 
 easily be mislead by false accounts from the West. 
 And the source of this error might perhaps be, 
 that the sermon did not occupy so prominent a 
 place in the service in the Romish Church, as in 
 the Greek. 
 
BAPTISM AND THE LORD'S SUPPER. 
 
 193 
 
 isolated moments. Thus, baptism was to 
 be the sign of a rirst entrance into com- 
 munion with the Redeemer, and with the 
 Church, the first appropriation of those 
 advantages, wliich Christ has bestowed 
 on man, namely, of the forgiveness of 
 sins and the inward union of life, which 
 proceeds from it, as well as of the partici- 
 pation in a sanctifying Divine Spirit of 
 life. And tlie Lord's Supper was to be 
 the sign of a constant continuance in this 
 communion, in the appropriation and en- i 
 jovment of these advantages ; and thus 
 were represented the essentials of the j 
 whole inward Christian lile, in its earliest , 
 rise and its continued progress. The 
 whole peculiar spirit of Christianity was 
 particularly stamped upon the mode in 
 which these external things were admin- 
 istered, and the mode of their administra- 
 tion in return exerted a powerful influ- 
 ence on the whole nature of the Chris- 
 tian worsiiip. The connection of the mo- 
 ments, represented by these signs, with 
 the whole Christian life, the connection 
 of inward and Divine things with the out- 
 ward act, was present to the lively Chris- 
 tian feelings of the first Christians ; but 
 it was here prejudicial in a practical point 
 of view, as we observed before in regard 
 to the doctrines about the Church, that 
 men neglected to separate properly, and 
 distinguish in their ideas, the things that 
 came to their feelings in close connection 
 with one another. 
 
 We shall speak first of baptism. 
 Originally, as it was of great conse- 
 quence that the Church should extend it- 
 self rapidly, those (among the Jews) who 
 acknowledged their belief in Jesus as the 
 Messiah, or (among the heathen) who ac- 
 knowledged their belief in the one God 
 and in Jesus the Messiah, were immedi- 
 ately baptized, as appears from the New 
 Testament. It gradually came to be 
 thought necessary to give those, who 
 wished to be received into the Christian 
 Church, a more careful instruction by 
 way of preparation, and to subject them 
 to a more severe trial. This whole class 
 of persons were called " auditores," xutd- 
 Yfiv^f.i^'n, and these names implied that 
 they were persons, who were receiving a 
 preparatory instruction in Christianity, 
 and who as yet were only in a state to 
 listen to the Holy Scriptures, when they 
 were read, and to the sermons. The time 
 of probation must have been different ac- 
 cording to the difi'erent condition of indi- 
 viduals ; but the council of Elvira deter- 
 mined generally that it should last two 
 25 
 
 years. In Origan we find two classes of 
 these catechumens distinctly separated 
 from each other. 
 
 1. Those who were for the first time 
 receiving private instruction. 
 
 2. Those who were admitted to the 
 congregations, and were under immediate 
 preparation for baptism.* 
 
 There was no distinct Church officer 
 for the private instruction of the catechu- 
 mens ; at Carthage it was customary to 
 devolve this duty, after a previous proba- 
 tion, on some person, who was distin- 
 guished among the Church readers ; at 
 Alexandria, where men of education, even 
 learned men, and persons accustomed to 
 philosophical thought, often presented 
 themselves for instruction in Christianity, 
 it was necessary that the catechisls them- 
 selves should be men of a learned educa- 
 tion, and such as might be in a condition 
 to remove the" objections and the doubts 
 of the heathen ; this office, therefore, was 
 there filled even by learned laymen, who 
 were capable of it, and these catechists 
 formed the foundation afterwards of an 
 important theological school ."j" 
 
 There is found in the New Testament;|; 
 itself some trace of a confession of faith, 
 which was made at baptism, and these 
 confessions were afterwards enlarged, so 
 as to oppose Jews, heathens and heretics. 
 
 * Origen (c. Cels. lib. iii. c. 54,) clearly dis- 
 tinguishes those wh» were at first instructed ntco' 
 ISixv, and those, who after a probation were first 
 admitted into the congregation, and had their pe- 
 culiar place assigned them, Tnyfxx tsjv ligr; tg^c^us- 
 vaiv x.« ii:!-'iY'fx%'iom K.-U ovisro) to a-u/j.^'.Kr,v tc-j o-yroKi- 
 x.iSxqBui avayjitpcrcev. One is led to inquire, whether 
 there was also a third class in the time of Origen, 
 which his obscure expressions render doubtful. I 
 formerly thought that this was the case ; but, on a 
 second investigation, I find my opinion to have been 
 unfounded. I thought that the ujua^TuvovTEc among 
 the baptized persons, might be there mentioned in 
 the character of Pcenitentes and distinguished from 
 those before brought forward. The words, ci-j. J' 
 
 f.a-riv axiTTUv a.yuryii, 
 
 /hich 
 
 jr a little after, appear 
 
 rather to refer to what goes before. The tc-ju indi- 
 cates no distinction, and is not to be translated: 
 " The conduct also which they pursue with regard 
 to the vicious members of the Church :" but it re- 
 fers to the following xw, and is to be translated 
 thus, "And the conduct which they pursue, as 
 well with regard to the vicious in general, as with 
 regard to the cxoxits-T^vovTE; in particular," &c. 
 
 -j- We shall have more to say on this subject, 
 when we treat of the school of Alexandria. 
 
 \ See 1 Pet. iii. 21. 1 Tim vi. 12. The latter 
 passage is not so decidedly applicable, because it 
 may relate to a confession made by Timothy from 
 the fulness of his heart on a particular occa-sion, 
 when he was chosen and consecrated as a mis- 
 sionary to the heathen. 
 
194 
 
 SYiMBOL OF FAITH, Yvi^^oXov 
 
 These confessions of faith were supposed 
 to include the essentials of Christianity, 
 in which all Churches agreed. Men 
 were persuaded, that the doctrine, ex- 
 pressed in these confessions of faith, de- 
 scended from the tradition of the apostles, 
 that it was the doctrine, which they had 
 preached both " viva voce," and by their 
 writings, but no one imagined, that the 
 apostles had composed any such confes- 
 sion in so many words. In this sense it 
 was called the xn^vyjxa i.iroa-rahty.ov., or the 
 
 wx^xSoaK; ^TToc-ToXmi) ; and the misunder- 
 standing of this name afterwards* pro- 
 duced the fiction, that the apostles them- 
 selves had literally composed such a con- 
 fession. This confession of faith was 
 then pre-eminently named symholum. The 
 inquiry suggests itself whether, when 
 men made use of the word " symbolum" 
 in this case, they originally intended to 
 use it in its general acceptation of " sign," 
 with the notion that the words of this 
 confession were the characteristic, repre- 
 sentative sign of the Christian faith, or 
 whether they alluded to its more restricted 
 sense, in reference to the a-vn^oXo* ar^x- 
 rnoTty.ov or " tessera mililaris," the watch- 
 word of the Christian soldier communi- 
 cated to each man at his first entrance 
 into the service of Christ (the militia 
 Christi.) The first is the most probable, 
 as far as we are able to trace the history 
 of the phrase, because,'.when it is first ap- 
 plied to baptism, it is applied in its gen- 
 eral sense.| 
 
 The word a-vfA^oMv, " symbolum," 
 which has so many meanings, might in- 
 troduce many different religious allusions ; 
 the predominant one soon became tliat, 
 which belonged to the favourite compari- 
 son of the first Christians between their 
 calling and a ' militia ;' in the Alexan- 
 drian Church, on the contrary, where 
 
 • Rufia. Exposit. Symbol. Apostol. 
 
 •j- Thus Tcrtullian, dc Pocnitciitia, c. vi., gays, 
 that baptism, which by its own nature should be a 
 "symbolum vitfc," became a "symbolum mortis" 
 to those who received it without the proper dispo- 
 sitions. Also "symbolum" is used by him (Con- 
 tra. Marcion. lib. v. c. 1,) for a si<4n or token gen- 
 erally. This is done also in the letter of Firmili- 
 anus of CfBsarea, where the "symbolum trinitatis" 
 is expressly distinguished from the confession of 
 faith used as denoting the distinguishing form of 
 baptism. (Baptismus) "cui nee symbolum trini- 1 
 tatis nee interrogatio Icgitima et ecclesiastica de- | 
 fuit." And besides, Cyprian, Ep. 7G, ad Magnum, j 
 says, " eoJem symlwlo baptizare," to baptise with ' 
 the same sign. Perhaps th' 
 denoted the "formula" of baptism, and was after 
 wards transferred to the confession of faith. 
 
 men were more ready to hunt after analo- 
 gies with the heathen mysteries, which 
 they did sometimes in a manner by no 
 means suited to the simplicity of the 
 Gospel, they rather caught at an illu- 
 sion to the signal-word* of the initiated. 
 Others thought of another meaning of the- 
 word " symbolum," namely, a commer- 
 cial partnership,! ^'^ that they imagined it 
 to be the covenant-token of a spiritual 
 community. The fable about an apos- 
 tolic confession of faith afterwards paved 
 the way for a notion, that the confession 
 had been formed by contributions from 
 each of the apostles, and then they used 
 the word {rv/^^o^oc or avfjt.Bo\D in a dif- 
 ferent sense, namely, that of a contribu- 
 tion, to indicate a confession, which was 
 composed from the contributions of the 
 several apostles. 
 
 This confession of faith was imparted 
 to the catechumens as containing the es- 
 sentials of Christianity : many who em- 
 braced the faith after much inquiry, and 
 the comparison of different religious writ- 
 ings, as well as from their own study of 
 the Bible, of course, needed it not as a 
 means of learning the first principles of 
 Christianity. The only service it could 
 be of to them was, to create in them a 
 persuasion, that the Church, which they 
 were about to join, coincided in its doc- 
 trines with the Holy Scriptures, from 
 which they had drawn their faith. Cle- 
 ment of Alexandria accordingly desires 
 the heathen to persuade themselves, by 
 inquiries into the Holy Scriptures, what 
 the true Christian religion is, and where 
 it is to be found, saying that it only needs 
 the use of their faculties, to distinguish 
 the appearance from the reality, the real 
 true doctrine that is deduced from the 
 Holy Scripture from that which has 
 merely a semblance of being so.J 
 
 There were, nevertheless, others, who 
 first learned what Christianity is from the 
 confession of faith and the instruction 
 which accompanied it, and who did not 
 
 * Stromal. V. p. 585. The •xiUTMi- is compared 
 with the K<fl<^3-(aof the heathen mysteries. 
 
 I Augustin. Sermon, 212. "Symbolum inter 
 se facient mercatores, quo eorum societas pacto 
 fidci teneatur et vestra societas est commerciuni 
 spiritualium." 
 
 t Stromal, vli. p. 754, 755 Ai a'jraiy rcey ypt^av 
 
 bititpiu. (by perceptive intuition)* km tu Kupt'jeTiru 
 >.'jyiT f/.ui (deepest thought) Toc<X)ifli;u7roTH/?^i'i/-<6vi/W. 
 word at first only | [Pott. 88S.Sylb. 320.] 
 
 Anschauuno. 
 
BELIEF LEARNED BY HEART. 
 
 arrive till afterwards at a state in which 
 they could compare what they had re- 
 ceived from the teaching of men with the 
 Holy Scriptures* Such were the persons 
 of whom Ileracleon, the Gnostic, said,* 
 " They are first induced to believe on the 
 Saviour, being brought to this faith by 
 men, but when thev come themselves to 
 his words, they believe no longer on the 
 mere testimony of men, but for the truth's 
 sake." Clement of Alexandridf -^ays also, 
 "•The first saving change from heathenism 
 is failk^ and faith is a sliort confession 
 (so to speak) of the most urgent truths 
 of religion. On this foundation know- 
 ledge is built, which is a settled convic- 
 tion of the truths received through faith, 
 by demonstrations taken from Scripture." 
 Others, who were entirely uneducated 
 and unable to read, could only learn from 
 the mouths of others, and could never 
 come to the knowledge of the Scriptures 
 themselves ; and yet the Divine truth 
 which they received from the mouths of 
 others, preserved themselves independ- 
 ently in their hearts, as a Divine power. 
 
 Where the word once found entrance, 
 another, and not human teacher, never 
 failed to accompany it; and that was the 
 Holy Ghost. " Many of us," says Cle- 
 ment of Alexandria, " have received the 
 Divine doctrine by faith, without the use 
 of writings, through the power of God." 
 
 The few words of this confession of 
 faith needed not, of course, to be com- 
 municated in icrtting; they were to pass 
 into the heart of the catechumen, to go 
 from living lips into his life, and to be de- 
 clared by him as his own firm persuasion. 
 But when men were inclined to introduce 
 a higher notion into this custom of oral 
 instruction in the faith, the origin of which 
 is so simply explained, the idea was near 
 at hand, that the Christian doctrine could 
 not enter into a man from without, by 
 means of letters, but that it must be writ- 
 ten down in the heart, and there grow like 
 some living thing. (Jer. xxxi. 33. )J In 
 after times, a love of mystery, quite 
 foreign to the simplicity of the Gospel, 
 which first arose in the Alexandrian 
 Ctiurch, from its connection wilh the 
 heathen mysteries, and from the influence 
 
 * Origen, t. xiii. in Johann. § 52. 
 
 ■j- Clemens Alex. Stromal, i. p. 319, o< it n-u 
 
 OHeJ ypl/XfAXTO)/ SvltfAU TC» TTf^; ©S-.U il% TriTTWi TTJ.- 
 
 f^MVifAtt K'.y.i. [PoU. .376. Sylh. 137.] 
 
 \ So Augustin. j) 212. "Hujus rei signifi- 
 candae causa auiliendo syinbolum discitur nee in 
 tabulis vel in aliqua materia, sed in cordc scri- 
 bitur." 
 
 195 
 
 of a Neo-Platonic mysticism, deduced 
 the following meaning from this custom : 
 " That what is most holy could not be 
 committed to writing, nor should it be 
 produced before the uniniiiated, and thus 
 become desecrated •,"* and this they be- 
 lieved, in spite of the fact, that the holiest 
 traditions of Divine doctrine, the Scrip- 
 tures, might yet come into the hands of 
 every heathen ; and that the apologists 
 themselves had no scruple in bringing 
 forward the most sacred doctrines of 
 Christianity to the heatliens. When our 
 Saviour warned us not to throw pearls 
 before swine, this was a recommenda- 
 tion not to preach Divine things to men 
 who are the slaves of their senses, at 
 improper times and places ; but it was by 
 no means an exhortation to withdraw holy 
 things carefully from the eyes of the pro- 
 fane multitude. The very nature of holy 
 things is such, that they need fear no de- 
 secration ; they remain what they are, how- 
 ever men's minds may be afleeted towards 
 them; and man, by mocking that which is 
 holy, can only desecrate that portion of 
 his own nature which is akin to holiness. 
 
 This confession of faith was made by 
 the catachumens at baptism, in answers 
 to separate questions.t 
 
 The declaration of a moral engagement 
 was also connected with the declaration 
 of faith. The view then taken of bap- 
 tism was this : it #as supposed that the 
 person to be baptized was departing out 
 of the kingdom of evil, of darkness, and 
 of Satan, whom he had hitherto served 
 
 * The same mystical fancies and ceremonies, 
 to which men attributed more than was orinrinally 
 intended by them, afterwards gave room for the 
 invention of a sort of indefinite and unhistorical 
 notion of a "disciplina arcani," from which, just 
 because it was indefinite and groundless, men 
 could create exactly whatever they pleased. 
 
 ■\ According to the most natural interpretation 
 of 1 Peter iii. 21, it contains an allusion to the 
 questions proposed at baptism. 'ETSga>T««i is put 
 metonymice, for the pledge that followed the 
 questions. TertuUian, de Corona Milit. c. iii. 
 '• Ami)lius aliquid re>'po)idcntes,i\ua.m Dominus in 
 Evangclio determinavit." And again, TertuUian, 
 do Resurrectione, c. xlviji., says of baptism. 
 « .\nima rerponsione sancitur." The council of 
 eighty-seven bishops, in the time of Cyprian, 
 says of these questions, " Sacramentum inlerro- 
 gare." (•' Sacramentum" is here synonymous 
 with "doctrina sacra.'") In a letter of Dionysius 
 of Alexandria, which is found in Eusebius, (vii. 
 9,) the following expression occurs: 'ET5^»r/)«if 
 Kt! C7r.x.^i7it: Cyprian, Ep. Ixxvi. ad Magnum, 
 [Ep. Ixix. cd. Ox.] quotes one of these questions: 
 " (Jredis remissionern pcccatorum et vitam »ter- 
 nam persanctam ecclesiatn!" 
 
196 
 
 BAPTISM OF JOHN AND CHRIST. 
 
 as a heathen, when devoted to his lusts, 
 and that he was now entering into the 
 kingdom of God. He was, therefore, 
 solemnly to renounce all communion 
 with the kingdom in which he had for- 
 merly served. He gave his hand to the 
 bishop, and pledged himself* to renounce 
 the devil and all his pomps) among which, 
 at that time, the heathen plays and shows 
 were particularly intended) and his angels; 
 and this latter declaration was probably 
 owing to the idea, that the heathen gods 
 were evil spirits, which had seduced 
 them.f This pledge was considered, ac- 
 cording to the favourite comparison of 
 these days, as the Christian soldier's oath, 
 the " sacramentum militiai Christiana?," 
 by which the Christian bound himself to 
 live and to fight as the "miles Dei et 
 Chnsti." 
 
 This form of renunciation, which we 
 find in the second century, must be care- 
 fully distinguished from exorcism^ which 
 could not have proceeded so early from 
 tlie ideas of Christian antiquity. The 
 notion of a deliverance from the power 
 of the evil spirit, in a religious and moral 
 point of view, of a departure from out of 
 the kingdom of wickedness, and of a par- 
 ticipation, through the new birth, in a 
 Divine life, which should be victorious 
 over the evil principle; this notion, we 
 acknowledge, suits the original and essen-- 
 tially Christian ideas d< the earliest times; 
 but then, the whole act of baptism was to 
 be a sensible representation of this idea, 
 and therefore, there was no necessity to 
 bring forward any thing individual and 
 detached, to denote and effect that, which 
 was denoted and represented as effective 
 for the believer by the whole act of bap- 
 tism. The case is slightly different with 
 regard to the formula of renunciation, 
 because this referred, like the confession 
 of faith, to that which man must do for 
 his (mm part, in order to become a par- 
 taker in the blessings of baptism. As 
 faith and practice are so closely con- 
 nected in Christianity, this renunciation 
 followed immediately after the confession 
 of faith. We find, therefore, in the second 
 century, still no trace of any formula for 
 banishing the evil spirit. But wlien the 
 taste for magic, and the confusion between 
 outward and inward, became more and 
 
 * According to Tertullian, de C M. c. iii., this 
 happened twice — first, before he was fit for bap- 
 tism, at his first introduction into the congrega- 
 tions and then again at his baptism. 
 
 \ 'A^TOKTtrwflaU <TU> StX^OKO) KM TJ) 'PrCfATTtt KM TOK 
 
 more predominant, as men imagined an 
 actual possession of the unbelievers by 
 the evil spirit, and invented a proper ma- 
 gical formula for banishing him, and as 
 men were always glad to increase the 
 outward ceremonial in religious aflairs, 
 so it came to pass, that the formula of 
 exorcism, which was used in the case of 
 the energumens or possessed, was in- 
 troduced into the baptism of all hea- 
 thens. Perhaps also another circumstance 
 was closely connected with this change, 
 namely, that in general a mere lifeless 
 mechanical act, attached to a particular 
 office in the Church, had taken the place 
 of the real exorcising, which in earlier 
 times had been a free grace or charisma. 
 In the apostolic constitutions we find nei- 
 ther the one nor the other. The first 
 unequivocal trace of exorcism in baptism, 
 is found in the acts of the council of 
 Carthage, composed of eighty-seven or 
 eighty-five bishops, A. D. 256.* 
 
 As ftr as regards the outward form of 
 baptism, this, as well as so much of Chris- 
 tianity beside, is deduced from Judaism, 
 whether it be an imitation of the baptism 
 of proselytes, since this already existed 
 among the Jews, or whether it be taken 
 from their common habit of outward 
 purification. John the Baptist, in op])o- 
 sition to the '' opus operatum" of the 
 Jewish lustrations, brought forward his 
 baptism, as a sign of preparation for the 
 approaching appearance of the Messiah 
 and his kingdom, — a sign of repentance, 
 by which man w^s to make himself ca- 
 pable of reception into the kingdom of 
 God. Christ also retained this existing 
 form of baptism, as a symbol of conse- 
 cration for the approaching kingdom of 
 the Messiah, and he ennobled it by the 
 new and higher spirit, which he imparted 
 to it, to which John the Baptist had 
 already pointed. Instead of a baptism 
 into the hope of a Messiah, who was 
 about to appear among the people and 
 
 * The North African bishop, Csecilius of Bilta, 
 here .supposes, in delivering his sentence, that 
 exorcism belongs essentially to the integrity of 
 baptism. The sentence of the flmatical Vincen- 
 tius, bishop of Thibari, was, that the "manuuin 
 impositio in cxorcismo," must precede the baptism 
 of a heretic. But from the Ixxvith [Ixix.ed. Ox.] 
 epistle of Cyprian, addressed to Magnus, we can- 
 not prove the existence of exorcism in baptism 
 generally, because there the subject of discussion 
 is exorcism of the energumens, and Cyprian is 
 inclined to show that baptism is far more powerful 
 than exorcism. " Spiritus nequam ultra remanere 
 non possunt in hominis corpore, in quo baptizato 
 et sanctijicato incipit Spiritus sanctus habitare. 
 
ORIGINAL FORM OP BAPTISM. 
 
 19': 
 
 reveal himself to them, men were now to 
 be baptized in the name of the Messiah, 
 who had already appeared, and who was 
 working by Divine power; instead of a 
 negative kind of baptism to repentance, 
 by wa}^ of preparation, the baptism of 
 the Spirit was to make its appearance as 
 the symbol of an inward renovation and 
 elevation, by means of that communica- 
 tion of Divine life, which was to be shed 
 upon this baptism from tlie Messiah, as 
 the Redeemer of man estranged from 
 God, and the founder of the kingdom of 
 heaven among mankind, whom he had 
 redeemed. As long as the fvdness of the 
 Divine nature was hidden under the guise 
 of an earthly and human existence, this 
 Divine efficacy of the Messiah did not 
 reveal itself, the Divine life was then his 
 01C71 exclusive possession among men. As 
 He himself declared, the seed must first 
 fall into the earth and die in order to 
 bring forth much fruit. It was only after 
 He should have ascended into heaven, 
 that the glorified Son of man would be 
 able to bestow that baptism of the Spirit 
 in its Divine and invisible efiicacy. It 
 was then that the true sense of the Chris- 
 tian baj)tism was fully expanded. 
 
 We certainly cannot prove, that when 
 Christ commanded his disciples to bap- 
 tise in the name of the Father, the Son, 
 and the Holy Ghost, He intended to esta- 
 blish a particular formula of baptism. 
 The purpose of expressing the true cha- 
 racter of a consecration to the kingdom 
 of God, and of declaring in a few words 
 the nature of his Divine efficacy among the 
 human race, and the nature of his new reli- 
 gion, was decidedly of more importance 
 with Him, than that of giving a certain form 
 of words, which should last for all ages. 
 He wished to show the dependence of the 
 Avhole life on the one God, who had re- 
 vealed Himself through his Son as the 
 Father of fallen man, and who imparls his 
 Spirit to sanctify man, whom his Son has 
 
 prove from the use of the expressions 
 
 flaTTTto-^o? iJ; ovo/i** Tov Xg«7Tou, tii X^icrrov, 
 haptism into ike name of Christy into 
 Christ., tliat in the apostolic age this 
 shorter formula was commonly used in- 
 stead of the fuller one. For in the pas- 
 sages, where this description of baptism 
 is met with, no verbal formula of baptism 
 is meant to be given at all, but only the 
 characteristic aim of baptism is meant to 
 be brought forward, the expression of a 
 belief in Jesus, as the Messiah, and an 
 engagement to live in faith and obedience 
 to Him. It may be said, perhaps, that 
 the revival of this simple formula of bap- 
 tism by Marcion, is a proof that it was 
 the original, and that the shorter one was 
 of later date, for Marcion (see below, 
 in the history of sects,) was desirous in 
 respect to every thing to separate that 
 which was original and apostolic from the 
 additions of the Church in later times. 
 But this argument is not to be depended 
 on, for Marcion may have drawn conclu- 
 sions from the common expressions of St. 
 Paul on baptism, without any other his- 
 torical grounds, and have been induced, 
 solely from these conclusions, to accuse 
 the Church in this case, as well as in 
 other things, of an adulteration of the 
 original simplicity of the Gospel ; and 
 there may be reasons, why his own sys- 
 tem of doctrine led him to favour the 
 more simple formula. We should have 
 better reason to conclude, from the re- 
 spect which men showed in the Romish 
 Cliurch for this formula in the contro- 
 versies which we are shortly about to 
 mention, that much might be said for its 
 antiquity. At all events, the fuller for- 
 mula, when properly understood, was 
 nothing more than the development of 
 that which was implicitly contained in 
 the shorter form. Justin Martyr quotes 
 the former as that which was generally 
 prevalent in his day. 
 
 Baptism was originally administered by 
 
 redeemed; as well as to point to the true [ immersion, and many of the comparisons 
 worship of God, as He had revealed Him- of St. Paul allude to this form of its ad- 
 self through his Son, in a heart sanctified I ministration : the immersion is a symbol 
 by the Divine life, which is shed forth of death, of being buried with Christ, the 
 from Him. The proper nature of the ; coming forth from the water is a symbol 
 peculiar theism of Christianity (God in i of a resurrection with Christ, and both 
 Christ and through Christ) is briefly set j taken together represent the second birth. 
 
 forth in these words. On that very ac- 
 count, therefore, these words were also 
 most eminently calculated to serve for a 
 formula of baptism, inasmuch as the 
 
 the death of the old man and a resurrec- 
 tion to a new life. An exception was 
 made only in the case of sick persons, 
 which was necessary, and they received 
 
 essential character and relations of the 1 baptism by sprinkling. Many supersti- 
 Christian consecration were so clearly set tious persons imagined, from attaching 
 forth in them. We cannot, however, I too much importance to externals, that 
 
 r2 
 
198 
 
 CLINICI. INFANT BAPTISM ITS ORIGIN. 
 
 baptism by sprinkling was not valid, and 
 therefore they distinguished those who 
 were so baptized from other Christians, 
 by the name of '•' clinici."* Cyprian 
 expresses liimself strongly against this 
 fancy :t "• The breast of the believer is 
 washed in one way, and the soul of man 
 is purified by the merit of faith in another. 
 la the sactaments of salvation, when ne- 
 cessity compels and God gives permission, 
 the Divine service, though abridged, con- 
 fers its whole efficacy on the believer.;}; 
 
 Or if any one supposes that 
 
 they have obtained nothing because they 
 have only been sprinkled with the water 
 of salvation, let them not be deceived so 
 far as to be baptized again, if they recover 
 their health. But if those, Avho have 
 already been sanctified by the baptism of 
 the Cliurch, are not to be baptized again, 
 why should their faith be troubled, and 
 the grace of God made a reproach to 
 them. Have they, then, obtained the 
 grace of God, but obtained it with a 
 shorter and a deficient measure of the gift 
 of God and of the Holy Spirit, so that 
 they may be reckoned as Christians, but 
 not placed on the same footing with the 
 rest.' Nay, then, the Holy Spirit is not 
 given by measure, but is shed on the 
 believer in its whole fulness. For if the 
 day dawns on all alike, and the sun sheds 
 an equal liglit on all, how much more 
 does Christ, the true sun and the true day, 
 impart to all in his Church the light of 
 eternal life with impartial equality." 
 
 As faith and baptism are constantly so 
 closely connected together in the New 
 Testament, an opinion was likely to arise, 
 tliat where there could be no taith, there 
 could also be no baptism. It is certain 
 that Christ did not ordain infant baptism ] 
 he left, indeed, much, which was not 
 needful for salvation, to the free develop- 
 ment of the Christian spirit, without here 
 appointing binding laws. We cannot 
 prove tliat the apostles ordained infant 
 baptism; from those places where the 
 l)aptism of a whole family is mentioned, 
 as in Acts xvi. 33. 1 Cor. i. l(i, we can 
 dravv no such conclusion, because the in- 
 quiry is still to be made, whether there 
 were any children in these families of 
 such an age, that they were not capable 
 of any intelligent reception of Christianity, 
 for this is the only point on which the 
 
 • See page 197. 
 
 ■f- Ep. ixxri. ad Mae;n. [Ep. Ixix. ed. Ox.] 
 i " Totuin crcdcntibus conferunt divina com- 
 pendia." This passage has been slightly para- 
 phraued in the translation to render it mtellie^ible. 
 
 case turns. From the deficiency of his- 
 torical documents of the lirst half of this 
 period, we must also avow that the want 
 of any positive testimony to the custom 
 cannot be brought as an arg-ument against 
 its antiquity. The first passage which 
 appears expressly to point to this matter, 
 is found in lrena3us. We shall consider 
 the whole of this remarkable passage with 
 some degree of accuracy. Irenasus . is 
 endeavouring to show, that Christ did 
 not stop the progress of the development 
 of human nature, which was to be sancti- 
 fied by him, but that he sanctified it, in 
 all its successive stages, in conformity to 
 its essential qualities in each : " He came 
 to redeem all by himself; all I say, who 
 are born again into God through him, 
 infants, children, boys, youths, and the 
 old. Therefore, he passed through every 
 age, and became an infant to infants, 
 sanctifying infants, he became a child 
 among children, to sanctify those of this 
 age, giving them at the same time an ex- 
 ample of piety, of justice, and obedience, 
 and for young men he became a young 
 man, to set them an example, and to 
 sanctify them to the Lord."* It is here 
 of consequence to remark particularly, 
 that infants (infantes) are expressly dis- 
 tinguished from children (parvuli,) to 
 whom Christ can serve as an example ; 
 and that these infants are represented as 
 being only capable of receiving an objec- 
 tive salvation from Christ, who appeared 
 in an age and condition similar to theirs. 
 j This salvation is imparted to them iu 
 j consideration of their being born again in 
 [ reference to God, through Christ. In 
 I Irenaeus the new birth and baptism are 
 intimately connected, and it would be dif- 
 I ficult for one to imagine any thing else 
 j than baptism as meant by the new birth, 
 when used in reference to this age. In- 
 1 fant baptism also here appears the means 
 j by which the principle imparted through 
 I Christ to human nature from its very 
 j earliest development, might be appropri- 
 ated to the salvation of children. We 
 I find here the essentially Christian notion, 
 j from which infant baptism would derive 
 I itself spontaneously, the more Christianity 
 
 I * Irenseus, II. c. xxii. § 4. " Omnes enim per 
 [ semctipsum venit salvare : omnes, inquam, qui 
 per eum renascimtur in Deum, infantes et par- 
 vulos et pueros ct juvenes et seniores. Ideo per 
 omnem venit fctatem, et infantibus itifans factus, 
 sanctificans infantes, in parvulis parvulus, sanctifi- 
 cans banc ipsam habentes (Etatem, simul et exem- 
 plum illis pietatis efi'ectus, et justitite et subjcc- 
 tionis, in juvenibus juveni.s exemplum juvenibus 
 liens et sanctificans Domino." 
 
TERTULLIAN AGAINST INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 199 
 
 penetrated into domestic life ; namely, 
 that Christ, by means of that Divine life, 
 which He commnnicated to human nature, 
 and revealed in it, has sanctified that 
 nature from the very first seed of its de- 
 velopment. If every thing was as it 
 ought to be, the child born in a Christian 
 family would have this advantage, that he 
 did not first come to Christianity from 
 heathenism, or from a natural life of sin, 
 but that he would grow up, from the first 
 dawning of conscience, under the imper- 
 ceptible and preventing* influence of a 
 sanctifying and ennobling Christianity ; 
 with the very first seeds of consciousness 
 in the natural life, a Divine principle, en- 
 nobling nature, would be near him, by 
 which the diviner portion of his nature 
 might be attracted and strengthened, 
 before its ungodliness could come into 
 full activity ; and this latter evil spirit 
 would here find itself overmatched by its 
 counterpoise. In such a life the new I 
 birth would form no division, that began 
 at any one particular moment, but it 
 would begin imperceptibly, and so con- 
 tinue its progress through the whole life. 
 Therefore, the visible token of the new 
 birtli, that is, baptism, was to be given 
 to the child from its earliest hours, and 
 he was to be consecrated to his Saviour 
 from the very first. 
 
 From this idea, founded on the internal 
 feelings of Christianity, which obtained 
 an influence over men's dispositions, the 
 custom of infant baptism proceeded. Oh ! 
 that men had not so soon confused the 
 IJivine thing and the sign which repre- 
 sented it, and had not wished to bind the 
 work of the Spirit on the outward sign ! 
 
 But immediately after IreucEUS,! in the 
 latter years of the second century, Tertul- 
 lian appeared as a zealous opponent of 
 infant baptism, a proof that it was not 
 then usually considered as an apostolical 
 ordinance, for in that case he would hardly 
 have ventured to speak so strongly against 
 it. We see from his arguments against 
 
 • [Zavorkommcnden. I have here used the 
 word ' preventing' in its old sense, as used in our 
 collects.— H. J. K.] 
 
 -(■ If any one were inclined to prove the exist- 
 ence of infant baptism from the passage of 
 Clemens Alcxand. Pa;dag. iii. 247. i^ t'/aroc 
 i)ia(j-7ra!fj.im-i ■n-±iiiu\', which we quoted above, and 
 which certainly relates to baptism, we might re- 
 mark that this is hardly to be considered any proof; 
 for as the notion of the Sa;? ^rWa^o^c was present 
 to the imagination of Clement, he might call all 
 Christians TrcttSta.. But he is undoubtedly here 
 speaking of conversion and regeneration, in refer- 
 ence to all mankind. 
 
 infant baptism, that its defenders had 
 already appealed to Malt. xix. 14, which 
 it would be very obvious to any one to 
 quote: "The Lord did not reject little 
 children, they were to be brought to Him, 
 that He might bless them." Tertullian 
 advises generally, that men should delay 
 baptism, in consideration of the great im- 
 portance of this rite and the preparation 
 necessary for it on the part of the recipient, 
 rather than hasten unprepared to it, and 
 on this he fakes occasion to declare him- 
 self particularly against haste in the bap- 
 tism of children.* In regard to the saying 
 of Christ which was quoted against him, 
 he answers, " Let them come, while they 
 are growing up; let them come, while" 
 they are learning, while they are being 
 taught whither it is they come ; let them 
 become Christians, after they have had an 
 opportunity of knowing Christ. Why 
 does the age of innocence hasten to the 
 forgiveness of sins ? Men will act more 
 prudently in secular affairs, if Divine 
 things are entrusted to those, to whom 
 worldly substance would not be entrusted. 
 Let them first learn to seek salvation, that 
 you may appear to give to one who asks 
 it." Tertullian desires that children may 
 be brought to Christ, while they are being 
 instructed in Christianity ; but he does not 
 wish them to receive baptism until they 
 have been sufficiently instructed in Chris- 
 tianity, and from their own conviction and 
 free choice, with earnest longings of the 
 heart, desire baptism themselves. One 
 may, perhaps, say : he is only speaking of 
 what ought to be done in ordinary cases 
 according to rule; but if any sudden danger 
 of death threatened, even on his own 
 principles, baptism ought to take place. 
 But then, had he thought this so necessary, 
 he would hardly have omitted to state it 
 expressly. It appears, then, from the 
 grounds which he lays down, that he 
 could not imagine any efficacy of baptism 
 widiout the conscious participation of the 
 person baptized, and his own individual 
 faith ; and he also saw no danger to the 
 innocence of infancy (although, according 
 to his own system, this is by no means a 
 logical inference.) 
 
 But whilst, on the one hand, the doc- 
 trine of the corruption and guilt, inherited 
 by human nature, as the consequence of 
 the first transgression, was reduced into a 
 more systematic and distinct form, which 
 was particularly the case in the North 
 
 • De Baptismo, c. xviii. " Cunctatio baptism! 
 \ utilior est, prsecipue circa parvulos." 
 
200 
 
 INFANT BAPTISM RECOGNISED, A. D. 250. 
 
 African Church (see below, in the history 1 
 of the doctrines of Christianity ;) on the 
 other hand, from want of a proper dis- 
 tinction between the external and internal 
 things of baptism (the baptism of water, 
 and the baptism of the Spirit,) the idea 
 was forever gaining ground, and becoming 
 more firmly fixed, that without outward 
 baptism no one could be freed from that 
 inherited guilt, saved from the eternal 
 punishment which threatened him, or 
 brought to eternal happiness ; and while 
 the idea of the magical effects of the sacra- 
 ment was constantly obtaining more and 
 more sway, the theory of the unconditional 
 necessity of infant baptism developed itself 
 'from that idea. This was generally re- 
 ceived in the North African Church, as 
 early as the middle of the third century. 
 But there was still a question whether the 
 child should be baptized immediately after 
 his birth, or eight days after, as in the 
 case of circumcision .? The latter was the 
 opinion of Bishop Fidus, who proposed 
 the inquiry to a council at Carthage. 
 Cyprian answered him, A. D. 252, in the 
 name of sixty-six bishops.* His answer 
 shows us how full he was of that great 
 Christian idea, which we have mentioned 
 above, from which the custom of infant 
 baptism proceeded — and in this respect he 
 says much that bears the genuine stamp 
 of Christianity — but we also observe at 
 the same time how his confusion between 
 outward and inward, — his materialism — 
 prevented him from comprehending it with 
 sufficient freedom and clearness, and led 
 him to mingle much that was erroneous 
 with the truth he brought forward. What 
 he says against the arbitrary appointment 
 of the time advocated by Fidus, is alto- 
 gether just. Let us hear his own words : 
 " None of us could agree to your opinion ; 
 but we all determined that the grace of 
 God is not to be refused to any human 
 being, as soon as he is born. For since 
 the Lord says in his Gospel, ' The Son of 
 man is not come to destroy the souls of 
 men, but to save them,' (Luke ix. 56,) we 
 are to do all in our power that no soul 
 
 should be destroyed For as God 
 
 accepts not persons, so neither does he 
 ages ; since he shows himself a father to 
 all for the attainment of heavenly grace 
 with well-poised equality. For witii re- 
 gard to what you say, that the child is not 
 clean to the touch in the first days of his 
 birth, and that any one of us woidd shrink 
 from giving it a kiss, this ought to be no 
 
 impediment to bestowing heavenly grace 
 upon it, since it is written, 'To the pure 
 all things are pure.' None, therefore, of 
 us ought to shrink from that which God 
 has thought fit to make. Though the 
 child be but just born, yet there is no 
 reason even then, that any one should 
 shrink from kissing it, to bestow upon it 
 the grace of God, and give it the salutation 
 of peace," (the brotherly kiss as a sign of 
 the communion of peace in the Lord, was 
 given to newly baptized persons,) " for 
 every one of us, from his religious feelings, 
 ought to think upon the creative hands 
 of God, fresh from their work, which in 
 some sort we kiss in a human being just 
 born, when we embrace what God has 
 made But if any thing could pre- 
 vent man from the attainment of grace, it 
 would rather be great offences, that would 
 prevent those of riper age. But if the 
 greatest sinners, and those who before- 
 hand have sinned greatly against God, 
 receive remission of their sins, after they 
 come to believe, and no one prohibits 
 them from receiving baptism and grace, 
 how much rather ought the infant not to 
 be forbidden, which being newly born, 
 cannot have sinned, except in as far as 
 being born of Adam according to the flesh, 
 it has contracted the contagion of the old 
 death from its earliest birth ? It comes 
 more easily to obtain remission of its sins, 
 because the sins which are forgiven to it, 
 are not its own, but those of another." 
 
 In the Alexandrian Church also, which, 
 in regard to its whole theological and 
 dogmatical character, was so essentially 
 different from the North African, we find 
 this notion of the necessity of infant bap- 
 tism prevalent somewhat earlier. Origen, 
 in whose system infant baptism stood very 
 high,* though not in the same point of 
 view as the North African Church, de- 
 clares that it is an apostolic tradition,| — a 
 declaration which cannot, in that century, 
 be considered of any great weight, because 
 men were at that time so much inclined 
 to deduce the ordinances, which they 
 
 Ep. lix. [Ep. Ixiv. ed. Ox.] 
 
 * With Origen it obtains a place in connection 
 with his doctrine that human souls are heavenly 
 beinajs that have sinned, and that they must be 
 purified from the guilt that they brought with them. 
 See below. 
 
 •j- This he does expressly in the fiflh book of 
 his Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, 
 according to the Latin translation of Rufinus. 
 Similar difficulties to those which were proposed 
 by Tertullian, were also brought forward in the 
 time of Origen. Compare his Ilomil. xiv. in 
 Lucam. (In the translation of Jerome.) 
 
ORIGEN — GODFATHERS — SPONSORES. 
 
 thought of great importance, from the 
 apostles ; and besides this, there were 
 many partition walls between this age and 
 the apostolic, which prevented a free in- 
 siglu into that age. 
 
 But although in theory the necessity of 
 infant baptism was allowed, yet it was far 
 from being generally prevalent in practice. 
 And it was not always from pure motives, 
 that men were induced to delay their bap- 
 tism. The same false view of baptism, as 
 an " opus operatum," which moved some 
 to hold the unconditional necessity of 
 infant baptism, induced others, who mis- 
 took the nature of baptism far more and 
 in a far more dangerous manner, to delay 
 their baptism for a longer period, in order 
 that they might give themselves up to their 
 vices, and, notwithstanding, in the hour 
 of death, being purified by the magical 
 annihilation of their sins, might be re- 
 ceived into eternal life. We observed 
 above with what pious indignation, and 
 with what force, the same Tertullian, who 
 in other respects opposed haste in baptism, 
 combated this fancy. 
 
 It was probably, also, infant baptism 
 which first gave rise to the appointment 
 of baptismal idtncsses or godfathers ; for 
 as the persons to be baptized in this case 
 could not of themselves declare their con- 
 fession of faith, nor make the necessary 
 renunciation, others were to do it for 
 them, and these engaged to take care that 
 the children should be duly instructed in 
 Christianity, and should be brought up to 
 a life corresponding to the profession made 
 at their baptism, and hence they were 
 called sponsors (sponsores.) Tertullian 
 brings it as an argument against infant 
 baptism, that these sponsors must under- 
 take an engagement, which they may be 
 prevented from fulfilling, perhaps by their 
 own death, or by the evil conduct of the 
 child.* 
 
 The si/mhorical customs, connected with 
 the pimple rite of baptism, were afterwards 
 gradually multiplied, at first hardly with 
 any intention of increasing the holiness 
 and significance of the thing by outward 
 pomp, but because men felt tlicmselves 
 impelled from within, to express ideas 
 and feelings, of which the heart was full, 
 in a manner perceptible to the senses. 
 Only it was a pity that men soon did not 
 know how to distinguish these human 
 ornaments from the substance of the 
 
 • Tertullian, tie Baptismo, c. xviii. " Quid 
 enim necesse est, Rpoiisorcs ctiam pcriculo ingeril 
 quia et ipsi per mortalitatem ilestituere promis- 
 siones suas pwssunt et provcntu malffi indolis falli." 
 
 26 
 
 201 
 
 I Divine ordinance itself, to which they 
 were attached, and that by the niultipli- 
 I cation of outward things they were con- 
 j stantly induced to give them a greater 
 I share of importance. 
 
 I From the essentially Christian idea of 
 the spiritual priesthood of all Christians, 
 another custom was derived, which was, 
 that just as anointing, in the Old Testa- 
 ment, was the sign of the priestly conse- 
 cration, so also the newly-baptized person 
 I should be consecrated to this spiritual 
 priesthood by being anointed with oil, 
 expressly blessed for that purpose. We 
 find this custom first mentioned in Tertul- 
 lian, and with Cyprian it appears a neces- 
 sary part of the rite of baptism.* The lay- 
 j ing on of hands, accompanied by prayer, 
 I with which the ceremony of baptism was 
 concluded, is undoubtedly older than this 
 custom. The imposition of hands (tTriGfcrK 
 \ru» xfi^wc, 3(j£tg&0£o-»«, n!D\!jp) was the 
 1 usual sign of religious consecration, bor- 
 I rowed from the Jews, which was used in 
 different cases as the sign of consecration, 
 as well to the common calling of a Chris- 
 tian in general as to its particular branches. 
 When the apostles or the pastors of the 
 : Church laid their hands on the head of 
 the baptized person, they called upon the 
 I Lord to bestow his blessing on the rite 
 I they had now completed, and prayed that 
 j he would suffer all which this rite typified 
 to be fulfilled in the person now baptized, 
 that he would consecrate him with his 
 Spirit for his Christian profession, and 
 shed his Spirit upon him. This was the 
 closing rite, inseparably united Avith the 
 j old act of baptism ; all here had reference 
 
 * Tertullian, de Baptismo, c. vii. " Egressi de 
 I lavacro perunguimur benedicta unctione de pristina 
 j disci|ilina qua ungui oleodccornu in saccrdotiuni 
 , solebant." Adv. Marcion. c. xiv. de Res- Carn. c. 
 j viii. But in his book de Corona Militis, c. iii., 
 [ where he mentions the customs belonging to bap- 
 [ tism which are taken from the tradition of the 
 I Church, and not from Scripture, he does not name 
 : the anointing. Cyprian, Ep. ixx., in the name 
 
 ; of a synod : " Ungi quoque ncccsse est cum, qui 
 baptijsatus sit, ut accepto chrismate esse unctus 
 Dei et habere in se gratiam Christi possit," (the 
 following words about the Lord's Supper, are 
 clearly a gloss, which destroys the sense of the 
 passage, ar.d which took its rise from the after 
 mention of the Lord's Supper,) " unde baptizati 
 unguntur oleo in altari sanclificato"* 
 
 * [To make the passage in a parenthesis intel- 
 ligible, it must be observed, that in many editions 
 
 I of Cyprian, there is a full stop after " possit," and 
 ! tbe next sentence is read thus: '^Porro autcm 
 I Euctiarislia est unde baptizati unguntur, oleum in 
 ' aliari sanctifieatum." J have put the words which 
 i Dr. Neander condemns in italics. — H. J. R.] 
 
202 
 
 ORIGEN ON CONFIRMATION. 
 
 to the same principal matter, without 
 which no man can be a Christian — the 
 birth into a new life proceeding from God, 
 the baptism of the Spirit, which was sym- 
 bolically represented by the baptism of 
 water. But in after times, men were led, 
 by a misunderstanding, to separate these 
 two things from one another in an errone- 
 ous manner. 
 
 In the apostolic age, when the Divine 
 life first entered into human nature in its 
 rough state, which was gradually to be 
 ennobled by it, it manifested itself, as soon 
 as it found entrance, by many striking 
 appearances. There were the marks of 
 the powerful energies it produced, which 
 ceased afterwards, when the foundations 
 of the Ciiurch being once laid, her pro- 
 gress was made more quietly, but which, 
 in those first times, served to call the at- 
 tention of the carnal man to Christianity. 
 The indications of an extraordinary in- 
 spiration, which had accompanied the first 
 baptism of the Spirit, conferred on the first 
 Church on the day of Pentecost, were re- 
 pealed also at the baptism of individuals. 
 It, therefore, happened, when baptism was 
 conferred on individuals, and the blessing 
 bestowed on them at the last ceremony 
 of laying on of hands, that the Lord was 
 called upon in prayer, to make this bap- 
 tism constantly efficacious in them, and 
 active; such actual proofs of its efficacy 
 followed in the case mentioned in Acts 
 xix. 6. When St. Peter and St. John 
 came to Samaria, in order to inquire more 
 particularly into the efi'ects of the Gospel 
 which had been preached by Philip, they 
 observed that tliese tokens of the baptism 
 of the Spirit, which were then usual, had i 
 not been manifested at all in those who [ 
 had hitherto been baptized there. (Acts 
 viii.) The passage does not speak of the 
 baptism of the Spirit in general, but only 
 of these outward marks of it, and this 
 single case can, therefore, be applicable to j 
 tJiasc times only. The apostles only pray- ' 
 ed (for the abridged account which is here I 
 given must be supplied from other similar t 
 cases,) while they consecrated the baptized 
 in their usual manner, that these effects 
 of the baptism of the Spirit might follow 
 here also — and it was so. In tlie first; 
 case, with regard to St. Paul, (Acts xix. ' 
 5, 6,) baptism and laying on of hands were 
 clearly one -ir/iole ; in the second case 
 (Acts viii.,) where, nevertheless, Philip 
 appears to have given the laying on of 
 hands and baptism at the same time, there i 
 were peculiar circumstances which had j 
 reference only to this particular time. I 
 
 But still, from a wrong view of these 
 cases, a notion was formed as early as the 
 end of the second century, that the com- 
 munication of the Holy Ghost was entirely 
 dependent on this sign of imposition of 
 hands. Tertullian, therefore, considered 
 water baptism as the preparatory purifi- 
 cation, which was to pave the way for 
 the communication of the Holy Ghost to 
 the person so purified, by the imposition 
 of hands ;* but yet, in Tertullian, the 
 baptism and the consecration which fol- 
 lows it, appear connected together as one 
 tvhole. 
 
 But when oncef the notion of the ex- 
 clusively spiritual character of the bishops 
 had been formed, and it was supposed 
 that they, as the successors of the apostles, 
 had alone received all spiritual perfection 
 by the magical consecration of ordination, 
 as well as the right of conferring the Holy 
 Ghost by means of their magical priestlv 
 functions, men ascribed also to the bishops 
 alone the power of producing a real bap- 
 tism of the Spirit. The unfounded view 
 from which this notion proceeded was the 
 following : Philip was unable to confer a 
 true baptism of the Spirit, because he was 
 only a deacon ; the apostles supplied what 
 was here wanting, by means of the seal 
 of baptism (signaculum,) the laying on of 
 hands. So, therefore, presbyters, nay, 
 even deacons also, in cases of necessity, 
 were entitled to baptize ; but the bishop 
 alone could complete the second part of 
 the holy rite. This idea was fully formed 
 as early as the middle of the third century. 
 The bishops were, therefore, obliged at 
 times to travel through their dioceses, in 
 order to administer what was afterwards 
 called confirmation.! to those who had 
 been baptized by the parish priests, the 
 clergy in the country. In common 
 cases, where the bishoj) administered the 
 rite of baptism himself, these two were 
 nevertheless joined together, and together 
 they made up tke cojnplcte rite of bap- 
 tism.'l 
 
 * Tertull. de Baptismo, c. viii. " Dehinc nianus 
 imponitur per benedictionem advocans et invitans 
 Spiritum sanctum." In his treatise de Res. Carn. 
 c. viii., he names all those three things together 
 with baptism, which afterwards were separated 
 from it, and being united together into one whole, 
 formed the sacramentof confirmation in the liomish 
 Church : that is to say, the anointing as the con- 
 secration of the soul, the making the sign of the 
 cross as a preservative against evil, and the laying 
 on of hands as bringing with it the " illuniinatio 
 Spiritus." 
 
 f See above. 
 
 i Cyprian speaks of a " sacrameotum duplex," 
 
BAPTISM OF HERETICS. 
 
 The newly-baptized person in many 
 Churches (in the North African and the 
 Alexandrian,) received a mixture of milk 
 and honey, as a symbol of his childhood 
 in a new life, which was the spiritual in- 
 terpretation of the promise about a land 
 which (lowed with milk and honey — a 
 promise which referred to the heavenly 
 country, to which the baptized belonged, 
 with all its heavenly advantages.* He was 
 then received into the Church with the 
 first kiss of Christian brotherhood, the 
 salutation of peace, of peace with God, 
 which he now shared with all Christians ; 
 and from this time he had the right of 
 saluting all Christians with this token of 
 brolherhood.f 
 
 Before, however, we leave this subject, 
 we have a controversy to mention, which 
 created a great sensation in the latter half 
 of the third century. The question was, 
 "What is necessary to the validity of a 
 baptism ? What is to be done in regard 
 to a heretic, who comes to the orthodox 
 Church, after he has received baptism in 
 his own sect.?" Before any particular 
 inquiries had been set on foot with regard 
 to this point, men acted in different coun- 
 tries in different ways, because, as it com- 
 monly happens, tliey involuntarily set out 
 from different principles. In Asia Minor 
 and the neighbouring regions, the light in 
 which it was regarded was this, that only 
 such baptism as had been administered in 
 
 the baptism by water, and the baptism of the Spirit 
 represented by the laying on of hands, "Sacra- 
 mento utroque nasci," and yet also of both as 
 united in the Church rite of baptism. Ep. Ixxiii. 
 ad Jubajanum, and Ep. Ixxii. ad Stephanum. We 
 must here certainly recur to the flucluating use 
 of the word " sarramentum," by which all holy 
 things, all holy doctrines, and all holy signs were 
 denoted. After introducing the example of Philip 
 and the apostles, he says : " Quod nunc quoque 
 apud nos geritur, ut qui in ecclesia baptizantur, 
 prsepositis ecclesia ofTerantur, et per nostram ora- 
 tionem ac manus impositionem Spiritum Sanctum 
 consequantur et signaculo dominico constimmen- 
 tur." The same representation occurs in the book 
 de Rebaptismate, which was most probably a con- 
 temporary work. This rite is there called " bap- 
 tisma spiritale." Cornelius, (cap. Euscb. vi. 3.3,) 
 in regard to a person who had not been able to re- 
 ceive this confirmation from the bishop, makes the 
 following inquiry : " How could he without this 
 become a partaker in the Holy Spirit]'' 
 
 * See the above quoted passage from Tertul- 
 lian, de Cor. Mil. and Adv. Marcion. i. 14. " Deus 
 mellis et lactis societate suos infantat ;" i. e. he re- 
 cognises them as his new-born children. Clemens, 
 Paid. i. p. 103, i'jiu; avx-yivvniii/Ti; Ttriy.MfjiAx T«f 
 
 juiVii, IV ii /ui}j KM yx\x Ofxlifm uyxyiy^XTTTXi. 
 •j- " Osculum pacis," it^mn. See above. 
 
 203 
 
 I the orthodox Church, in which alone all 
 I religious rites could be duly administered, 
 was valid, that the baptism of heretics was 
 to be looked upon as of no value, and, 
 therefore, that tlie true baptism must be 
 administered to one who came over from 
 one of the sects, just as to a heathen. 
 This is very easily to be 'explained from 
 the violence of the controversial relations 
 wiiich existed between the Church and 
 the sects, just in these very regions, as 
 well as from the nature of these sects, as, 
 for instance of the Gnostic, which had 
 departed from the commonly prevailing 
 principles on the most essential points of 
 doctrine and rites. h\ the Romish Cliurch, 
 on the contrary, where on other occasions 
 the most bitter controversial spirit existed 
 against heretics, men followed the dictates 
 of a milder spirit in this question, because 
 here they looked on the objective part of 
 baptism as of most importance; tliey prac- 
 tically set out from tiie principle, that 
 baptism, by virtue of the objective sign 
 of the name of Christ or of the Trinity, 
 which was invoked in its celebration, was 
 always valid, hy tohomsoeevr and imder 
 whatsoever religious notions it was ad- 
 1 ministered. Therefore the Church recog- 
 ' nised heretics, who came over to her, as 
 baptized Christians; and in order that the 
 1 Holy Spirit might make the baptism which 
 j they had received efficacious, the bishop 
 j administered confirmation to them under 
 J the idea which we have before explained 
 (and we may observe that this was one 
 of the inducements to separate baptism and 
 confirmation.) As Churches were inclined 
 to form themselves on the model of their 
 metrojSolitan Church (the sedes aposto- 
 licae,) most of the western Churches proba- 
 bly followed the example of that of Rome. 
 But in the latter years of the second 
 century, this custom, which had hitherto 
 been observed in silence, became the sub- 
 ject of a particular investigation in Asia 
 Alinor; whether it was, that the Monta- 
 nistic Churches, following the principle 
 which prevailed even there also, those 
 who were glad of any handle to oppose 
 the Montanists, were induced to make 
 this a subject of controversy, or whether 
 it was from some other cause. The 
 ruling party declared itself for abiding by 
 the old principle. Afterwards, when this 
 matter was again the subject of delibera- 
 tion, this, principle was solemnly con- 
 firmed in two synods, assembled at 
 Iconium and Synnada in Phrygia. This 
 also introduced the point as a subject of 
 controversy in other regions. Tertullian, 
 
204 
 
 BAPTISM. 
 
 most probably while he was still a mem- 
 ber of the Catholic Church, wrote a se- 
 parate treatise in Greek upon the subject, 
 in which lie did not hesitate to dissent 
 from the Komish Church on this point. 
 It was natural that he should write on 
 this occasion in Greek, because, in the 
 countries where this controversy was on 
 foot, Greek was the only language un- 
 derstood, hi order to prove the validity 
 of heretical baptism, the opposite party 
 had already appealed to Ephes. iv. 5, 6, 
 " One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one 
 God and Father ;" and they drew from it 
 the following conclusion : Wherever we 
 iind that men call upon the one God and 
 the one Lord, there we must recognise 
 the validity of their baptism. Tertullian, 
 however, says in reply,* " This can only 
 relate to us, who know and call upon the 
 true God and Christ; the heretics have 
 not this God and this Christ; and these 
 words, therefore, cannot be applied to 
 them : and since they cannot duly admin- 
 ister baptism, it is all one as if they had 
 no baptism at all." 
 
 In the North African Church, men 
 were generally inclined to follow the ex- 
 ample of the mother Church at Rome ; 
 but they were far from meaning to submit 
 their own judgment to the authority of 
 that Church.t Seventy North African 
 bishops, in a council held at Carthage, 
 under the presidency of bishop Agrippi- 
 nus, declared themselves for the opposite 
 opinion. Still, no party wished to force 
 its views and practice on the others ; the 
 Cliurches which differed on this subject, 
 did not think of breaking the bond of 
 brotherly harmony, on account of a dif- 
 ference that was of such small importance 
 in regard to the essentials of Christianity. 
 But here again it was a Romish bishop, 
 namely, Stephanus, who, moved by the 
 spirit of hierarchical ambition and blind 
 zeal, attributed so much importance to 
 this controversy. lie excommunicated 
 the bishops of Asia Minor, Cappadocia, 
 Galatia, and Cilicia, about the end of the 
 year 253, and gave them the name o( Re- 
 haplizers^ Anabaptists^ {' AtxBaTnia-ra.i)]'^. 
 a name which, according to their princi- 
 ples, they did not deserve — for tliey did 
 not wish to administer a second baptism 
 to those who had been already baptized, 
 but they did not acknowledge the pre- 
 vious baptism by the heretics as a proper 
 baptism. 
 
 * De Baptismo, r. xv. | Sec above. 
 
 i Dionys. ap. Euseb. vii. 6. Firmilian. ap. Cy- 
 prian. Ep. Ixxv. 
 
 From Asia, the discussions relative to 
 this matter extended themselves into 
 Nortli Africa. Here a party had always 
 remained devoted to the old Romish cus- 
 tom ; the earlier discussions had been for- 
 gotten, and, therefore, new inquiries and 
 investigations were commenced on the 
 subject. These induced Cyprian, the 
 bishop, to propose the matter to two 
 synods held at Carthage, the one of 
 eighteen, and the other of seventy-six 
 bishops, A. D. 255, and both these assem- 
 blies declared themselves in favour of 
 Cyprian's opinion, that " the baptism of 
 heretics was not to be acknowledged as 
 valid." As he was well aware how great 
 weight the Romish Church and her adhe- 
 rents attached to the antiquity of customs, 
 and that they gave out these observances, 
 which were of long standing, as apostoli- 
 cal traditions, although cases like these, 
 from their very nature, could scarcely 
 have arisen in the time of the apostles ; 
 he expressed himself in the following 
 manner in a letter to Quintus, an African 
 bishop, to whom he communicated the 
 resolution of the council.* " But we are 
 not to be governed by custom, but over- 
 come by reasoning. For neither did 
 Peter, whom the Lord chose the first, and 
 on whom He built his Church, insolently 
 and arrogantly, when Paul and He were 
 afterwards a.t variance about circumcision, 
 (Gal. ii.,)! take upon himself to say, that 
 he held the primacy, and that the younger 
 and newer apostle must obey him ; nor 
 did he despise Paul, because he had for- 
 merly been a persecutor of the Church, 
 but he received the counsel of truth, and 
 easily acceded to the just reasons which 
 Paul urged : he gave us, therefore, an ex- 
 ample of unity and patience, that we 
 might not be too much enamoured of our 
 own way, but rather make that our own 
 way, which is suggested to us at times, 
 with profit and advantage, by our col- 
 leagues, if it be true and lawful." A 
 truth, indeed, which it is much more easy 
 to acknowledge and express than to act 
 upon, as the history of the Church, alas ! 
 and even the example of Cyprian himself, 
 give us to learn. lie made known the 
 resolutions of the greater council to 
 Stephanus, the bishop of Rome, in a let- 
 ter which, while it breathes the spirit of 
 
 • Ep. Ixxi. 
 
 f It is worth while to observe how the unpreju- 
 ihced and free-spirited view of tliis event had con- 
 stantly been maintained in the North African 
 Church. 
 
THE PNINCIPLES OF THE ROMISH CHURCH. 
 
 freedom, is written with delicacy ;* but 
 Stephanus, in an answer written in a 
 hauglity tone,! opposed Cyprian by the 
 authority of the tradition of the Romish 
 Church. He went so far in his unchris- 
 tian blind zeal, as to indulge in unworthy 
 abuse against his African colleagues, the 
 bishops, who came to him as deputies 
 from the North African Church ; he 
 Avould not hold a conversation with them ; 
 nay, he forbade his Church to receive 
 them in their houses. Still, Cyprian was 
 iiir from thinking of making his reason 
 submit to the authority of the Romish 
 Church. He called together a still more 
 numerous council, consisting of eighty- 
 seven bishops at Carthage, and this assem- 
 bly also abided by the principles which 
 had been before expressed. The votes 
 and sentiments of many of these bishops 
 show a narrow-hearted and fanatical 
 hatred of heretics, and a pharisaical idea 
 of the holiness of the Church. (A sort 
 of prelude this to those struggles and con- 
 vulsions, which were produced in the 
 North African Church, by means of the 
 human passions that mingled themselves 
 with spiritual matters.) And so it hap- 
 pened, partly on both sides, as is gener- 
 ally the case among men blinded by pas- 
 sion, that while they were striving about 
 the sign, they lost sight of the thing itself; 
 while they were quarrelling with one 
 another about what was required to make 
 the outward sign of the birth of the 
 spirit valid, they destroyed the nature of 
 that birth of the Spirit ! Cyprian now en- 
 deavoured to form a connection between 
 himself and the Asiatic bishops, who 
 thought with him, and he, therefore, com- 
 municated the whole case to one of the 
 most honoured of the Asiatic bishops, 
 Firmilianus, bishop of Caesarea, in Cappa- 
 docia. Firmilianus signified to Cyprian 
 his entire concurrence in his views,J and 
 at the same time spoke excellently on the 
 advantages of general deliberations on 
 spiritual things, when the Spirit of Christ 
 animated them. " Since the Divine doc- 
 trine surpasses the limits of human nature, 
 and the soul of man cannot embrace it in 
 its whole compass and perfection, there- 
 fore, the number of the prophets is so 
 great, in order that Divine wisdom, being 
 multifarious, may be divided among many. 
 Therefore, he that has spoken first as a 
 prophet, is commanded to keep silence if 
 any thing is revealed to a second person." 
 (1 Cor. xiv. 30.) 
 
 205 
 
 Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, whose 
 Christian moderation we observed during 
 a former controversy,* distinguished him- 
 self also in this by the same quality. He 
 agreed on this point with the Churches 
 of North Africa and Asia Minor in their 
 principles^ which had also been for a 
 long time those of the Alexandrian 
 Church ;t but then, it was with this dif- 
 ference, that this frcchrarfcd man loas 
 viore inclined to make exceptions from the 
 rule in the case of certain sects, whose 
 doctrines were altogether in harmony 
 with the Church.;}: But still, he endea- 
 voured to maintain brotherly harmony 
 with the Romish bishops, and to make 
 them disposed for peace. He begged the 
 Romish bishop Stephanus, with most 
 touching representations, not to disturb 
 the Oriental Church again in the enjoy- 
 ment of that external peace, which she had 
 received through the emperor Valerian, 
 and of the inward peace which had ac- 
 companied it (after the schism of Novatian 
 had been got under.) He writes thus to 
 him : "• Know, my brother, that all the 
 Churches in the East, and even further 
 also, which were formerly divided, are 
 now united, and all their prelates every 
 where are in harmonious agreement, re- 
 joicing beyond measure at the peace 
 which has been accorded to them against 
 
 their expectation, and thanking 
 
 God in unity and brotherly love." It 
 was apparently in consequence of his 
 dealing with the Romish Church in this 
 spirit of love and judicious delicacy, that 
 Stephanus did not venture to excommu- 
 
 *Ep. Ixxii. -j- See above. \ Ep. Ixxv. 
 
 * See above. 
 
 f That the Alexandrian Church also rejected 
 the baptism administered in the churches of here- 
 tics, is clearly deducible from the declaration of 
 Dionysius, in his letter to Sixtus II. bishop of 
 Rome, (Euseb. vii. 7,) when he says, that the 
 members of the Catholic Church, who had gone 
 over to the heretics, when they returned again to 
 the (Church, were not rcbaptized, for they had re- 
 ceived the holy baptism already from the bishop ; 
 but then, it was only in this case. They did not 
 with this acknowledge the baptism administered 
 out of the Catholic Church as a holy and valid 
 one. That in the time of Clement the baptism 
 of heretics was considered invalid in the Alexan- 
 drian Church, appears to follow from Strom, i. p. 
 .317, D. where he explains Prov. ix. 8, (in the 
 Alexandrian version,) allegorically, thus : — to 
 ^XTrrta-fAi. ro a/gsrw-v oLn oij>iiicv )t,xi yvn<ricv Jtfoig 
 Koyi^o/uivn. 
 
 t Thus he made such an exception in favour 
 of the baptism administered in Montanistic 
 Churches, probably because he thought more 
 mildly than others on the relation of these to the 
 general Church. 
 
 s 
 
206 
 
 OPPOSITION OF THE AFRICAN CHURCH. 
 
 nicate him also Vith the rest. He con- 
 tinued his corrf'spondence with Sixtus, 
 the successor of Stephanus. Indeed, he 
 himself asks the advice of Sixtus, in a 
 matter w here they could set out Irom the 
 same principles, in order Lo maintain the 
 bond of broilierly love.* These contro- 
 versies were shortly after silenced by 
 reason of the struggle which the Church 
 had to go through during the persecution 
 of Valerianus ; and probably also the 
 successors of Stephanus did not partake 
 in his blind zeal. 
 
 We have now, in conclusion, to con- 
 sider more accurately the points in con- 
 troversy between these two parties, and 
 the manner in which they developed 
 tliemselves on both sides. There were 
 two controverted points ; the first of them 
 was this: the Romish party held that the 
 validity of baptism depended on its having 
 been administered as Christ had com- 
 manded.! It was, according to this view, 
 the formula of baptism wliich gave it all 
 its objective validity, the subjective con- 
 dition of the baptizing priest, who was 
 merely an instrument, and the place 
 where it was an instrument, and the 
 place where it was administered, had 
 nothing to do with its validity. That 
 which is objectively Divine, they would 
 say, can preserve its own power; the grace 
 of God may work objectively in this mode, 
 if it only find, in the baptized person, a 
 soul capable of this grace ; and he may 
 receive the grace of baptism by his faith 
 and feelings, wheresoever he may happen 
 to be baptized.^ Cyprian reproaches his 
 adversaries here with an inconsistency, 
 against which they could not well defend 
 themselves, — it was this: if the baptism 
 of the heretical Churches had an objective 
 validity, their confirmation must equally 
 have an objective validity also. "For," 
 says Cyprian, " if any man born (that is 
 to say, in the new birth) out of the pale 
 
 * Euseh. vii. 5. j Euseb. vii. 9. 
 
 , ^ " Eum, qui quoniodocuiiquo foris (out of the 
 Church) baptizatur, inente ct fide sua baptisini 
 gratiaui consequi." We must not understand the 
 meaning of the Romish Church lo bo, that the use 
 of the i)roper formula of ba[)tism, evv»n in cases 
 where that baptism was, in all other respects, un- 
 like the orisfinal institution, would confer validity 
 upon it. It was presumed on both side?, that the 
 maiter un<lcr discussion related to a baptism, 
 whidi was duly administered in other respects. 
 If the opponents of Stephanus and bis party 
 could have charged them with anj' thing on this 
 account, they would hardly have failed to do so. 
 Dionysius of Alexandria, in the inquiry which he 
 makes of the Romish bishop, (Euseb. vii. 9,) I 
 supposes also that- tliey were agreed on this point. 1 
 
 of the Church, can become a temple of 
 God, why should not the Holy Spirit also 
 be shed upon this temple ? He who is 
 sanctified by having laid aside his sins by 
 baptism, and is become a new man after 
 the Spirit, is made capable of receiving 
 the Holy S|)irit ; for the apostle says : 
 ' As many of you as are baptized in Christ 
 have put on Christ:' and he, therefore, 
 who can put on Christ by being baptized 
 among the heretics, can surely far more 
 
 receive the Holy Spirit; as if Christ 
 
 could be put on without the Holy Spirit, 
 or the Spirit be separated from Christ !"* 
 
 The other party maintained, on the 
 contrary, that only the baptism, which is 
 performed within the true Church, as that 
 in which alone the Holy Spirit is effective, 
 can be valid. If this were understood 
 only of being outwardly in the Church, 
 and of belonging to it outwardly, the de- 
 cision would here be easy enough. But 
 Cyprian here meant really an inward 
 subjective union with the true Church 
 through faith and feelings, and he presup- 
 poses the baptizing priest himself, in vir- 
 tue of his faith, to be an instrument of 
 the Holy Ghost, in order to properly 
 complete the sacramental acts by the 
 magical power of his priesthood ; as for 
 instance to be able to communicate a 
 supernatural power to the watei-.f When, 
 therefore, the matter was so slated, and 
 thus made to depend on the subjective con- 
 dition of the priest ; then it would be 
 difficult in many cases to decide on the 
 validity of a baptistn, and many scruples 
 might arise on the subject, for who could 
 look into the inward heart of the priestj 
 
 But the Romish party went still further 
 in their maintenance of the objective im- 
 portance of the formula of baptism ; it 
 even declared that baptism which was ad- 
 ministered in the name of Christ only, 
 without the use of the fuller formula. 
 
 * Cyprian, Ep. Ixxiv. 
 
 ■f Cyprian, Ep. Ixx. " Quomodo sanctificare 
 aquani potest, qui ipse immundus est et apud quern 
 Spiritus Sanctus non est 1 Sed et pro baptizato 
 quam precem facere potest sacerdos sacrilegus et 
 peccator?" 
 
 Ep. Ixxvi. (Ep. Ixix. ed. Ox.) " Quando haec 
 in ecclesia fiunt, ubi sit et accipientis et dantis 
 fides Integra." 
 
 i The author of the treatise de Rebaptismate, 
 which is found in Cyprian's works, might hence 
 make the objection : " Quid dii-turus es de his, 
 qui plerumque ab episcopis pessimsD conversa- 
 tionisbaptizantur ?" in reference to such (bishops, 
 &c.,) as had been deprived after their vices were 
 discovered. " Aut (juid statues de eis, qui ab epis- 
 copis prave sentientibus aut imperitioribus fueiint 
 baptizati 1" 
 
BAPTISM IN THE NAME OF CHRIST. 
 
 was objectively valid.* Cyprian, on the 
 coiUiary, maintained that the formula was 
 of no value, unless it was the full formula 
 appointed by Christ. We perceive here 
 the freer spirit of the anti-Cyprian party ; 
 the idea was before their eyes, that in the 
 belief in Christ every thing which really 
 belongs to Christianity was properly con- 
 tained.j 
 
 Cyprian himself would not venture to 
 bind ihe grace of God on such outward 
 things in regard to the cases where con- 
 verted heretics had once been received 
 witliout a new baptism, and had enjoyed 
 Church communion, or died in it. "•God 
 
 * It is undeniably clear that this was held by 
 the Romish party, from the lettcrS of Cyprian, 
 and the treatise de Rebaptismate. If Firmilianus, 
 (Ep. Ixxv. ap. Cyprian,) speaks only of the for- 
 mula in the name of the Trinity, it is, however, 
 by no means clear that his adversaries also spoke 
 only of this. Firmilianus brings forward only the 
 point, against which in particular he wished to 
 direct his arguments, namely, the principle that 
 the formula gave an objective validity to the bap- 
 tism, and, therefore, he does not distinguish what 
 ought to have been distinguished in representing 
 the opinion of his adversaries. And yet one 
 catches a glimpse of the other proposition main- 
 tained by his opponents, when he says : " Nun 
 onirics autem, qui nornen Christi invocant, 
 attdiri" &.c. The book de Rebaptismate, which 
 does not want acuteness, I think I may certainly 
 cite as a contemporary writing ; I cannot suppose 
 (after Gennadius, de Script. Eccles.) that it was 
 written in the fourth century or later, by a monk 
 named Ursinus. The author speaks like a man 
 who lived in the midst of these controversies, and 
 in the time of the persecutions, which one cannot 
 expect to find in a later writer. When he says 
 that these controversies will produce no other fruit, 
 " nisi ut unus homo, quicunque ille est, niagnae 
 prudentlae et constantis esse apud quosdam leves 
 homines inani gloria praedicetur;" we see easily 
 that he means Cyprian, and none but a contem- 
 porary could have spoken of him in this way. 
 The expression, however, "post tot seculorum 
 tantam seriem" in regard to an old apostolic tradi- 
 tion, appears unsuitable in the mouth of a man 
 who lived about the middle of the third century. 
 But this expression would still remain very hyper- 
 bolical, even if we suppose it used by a writer at 
 the end of the fourth century, and in general, 
 strong hyperbole is not uncommon among the 
 African ecclesiastical writers. 
 
 -(-In the book de Rebaptismate : " Invocatio hoDC 
 ftominis Jesu quasi initium mysterii dominici, 
 commune nobis et caeteris omnibus, quod possit 
 postmodum residuis rebus impleri." 'i'lie party 
 of Slephanus did not do badly to appeal to the 
 joy which St. Paul expresses, on finding that only 
 Christ had been preached, although not exactly 
 in the proper manner, as was the case with those 
 Judaizing Christians. Philip, i. IG. Cyprian, 
 who wishes to prevent them from making. use of 
 this passage, does not understand it so well him- 
 self. Ep. Ixxiiu 
 
 207 
 
 is powerful," he says, " to make allow- 
 ances according to liis mercy, and not to 
 exclude those who, having been received 
 into the Church without further ceremo- 
 nies, have fallen asleep in it."* Dionysius 
 of Alexandria t relates a remarkable case, 
 which touches on these points : There was 
 a converted heretic in the Alexandrian 
 Church, who for many years had lived as 
 a member of the Church, and had taken 
 part in the worship of God in the Cluirch. 
 Having attended the baptism of some of 
 the catechumens, lie remembered that 
 what he had received for baptism in the 
 sect (probably a Gnostic sect) from which 
 he had been converted, was entirely un- 
 like that which he then witnessed. Had 
 he known that he, who has Christ in faith, 
 has every thing which is needful {or his 
 advantage and his salvation, this would 
 not have given him so much uneasiness. 
 But as this was not clear to him, he 
 doubted whether he could look upon him- 
 self as a real Christian, and he fell into a 
 state of great anxiety and disquietude, 
 because he thought that he was without 
 true baptism, and without the grace of 
 baptism. He fell down at the feet of the 
 bishop in tears, and prayed him to give 
 him baptism. The bisliop sought to tran- 
 quillize him, and told him that he could 
 not now be first baptized afresh, after he 
 had so long been a partaker in tlie body 
 and blood of our Lord. He told him that 
 his having lived so long in tiie commu- 
 nion of the Church ought to satisfy him, 
 and that he should come with a steadfast 
 faith and a good conscience to the holy 
 Supper of the Lord. But the wretclied 
 man was unable to overcome his scruples 
 and his unhappiness. Here was an in- 
 stance of the unhappy effects of holding 
 too fast by outward things, and of the 
 mischief which arises when men know 
 not how to raise themselves with proper 
 freedom to the things of the Spirit, which 
 the inward man embraces through faith. 
 
 We now proceed to the second holy 
 sign which Christ ordained for his Church, 
 the Supper of the Lord. 
 
 We here again look back to the first in- 
 stitution of this holy festival, without 
 which its history in the first Church can- 
 not be understood. The last meal which 
 Christ partook of with his disciples on 
 earth would naturally be full of the 
 
 •* Ep. Ixx. [I am unable to find this passage 
 and I therefore suppose the reference is erroneous. 
 — H. J. R.] 
 
 + Euscb. vii. 10. 
 
208 
 
 THE LORD S SUPPER — LOVEFEAST. 
 
 deepest importance, as the parting meal of 
 him who was on the point of giving his life 
 for their salvation^ and for that of all 
 manJcind, and who, althongh no longer 
 visible among tlieni, as at this meal, yet 
 as truly, and with more powerful Divine 
 influence and richer blessings, was about 
 to prove his invisible presence among 
 them, and bestow upon them himself and 
 all his heavenly treasures. The meal 
 which he chose for this purpose was a 
 passover^ i\\e fimdamenlal covenant feast 
 of the whole Mosaic religion^ which, in 
 conformity with the development of the 
 theocratic economy, was now to exchange 
 its earthly character for a heavenly one, 
 and to stand in a similar relation to the 
 new form of religion. The Jewish Pass- 
 over was a feast of thanksgiving for the 
 Church, which the Almighty Creator, 
 the God who permits the productions of 
 nature to grow for the advantage of man, 
 had bestowed on the people, whom he 
 honoured with his especial guidance^ 
 when he saved them from the bondage 
 of Egypt. The master of the house, who 
 kept tlie Passover with his family, and 
 distributed bread and wine among the 
 guests, thanked God, Avho had given these 
 fruits of the earth to man, for the favour 
 which he had bestowed upon his people. 
 Hence the cup of wine, over which this 
 praise of God was pronounced, was called 
 the cup of praise or thanksgiving.* Christ, 
 as the master of the House, here spoke 
 the Messing ; but this blessing was now 
 to receive a new application in reference 
 to the theocracy ; it was to relate to the 
 deliverance from guilt and from the pun- 
 ishment of sin ; to deliverance from the 
 bondage of sin, and the gift of true moral 
 freedom by the sacrifice of Christ for 
 men ; and to a preparation for the entrance 
 into a hoavenly country, — and this was 
 the foundation of the kingdom of heaven, 
 ■which was laid in the forgiveness of sins 
 and deliverance from sin f^orall humanity. 
 Hence Christ said, while he gave bread 
 and wine to his disciples, that this bread 
 and this wine were to be to them — and 
 hence to all the faithful in all ages — his 
 body and blood ; that body which he was 
 offering up for the forgiveness of their sins, 
 for their salvation, and for the establish- 
 ment of a theocracy under new relations ; 
 and as this outward sign represented to 
 them his body and his blood, so truly 
 
 Tilt!. [The cup of blessing.] 
 
 would he be present among them hereafter 
 in a spiritual manner, as truly as he was 
 now visibly present among them ; and 
 just as they now corporeally enjoyed this 
 bodily sustenance, so should they receive 
 him, being present by his Divine efficacy, 
 wholly wit.hin them to the nourishment 
 of their souls, they should spiritually 
 eat his flesh and drink his blood, (see 
 .John vi.,) they should nieike his flesh and 
 blood their own, and they should con- 
 stantly suffer their nature to be more and 
 more imbued with the Divine principle of 
 life, which they would receive from com- 
 munion with him. Thus they were to 
 keep this feast together, to glorify the 
 eflects of his suflering for the advantage 
 of human nature, and to celebrate their 
 inward lively communion Avith him, and 
 therefore, with one another also, as mem- 
 bers of one body under one head ; they 
 were to keep this feast until, in actual 
 possession of their heavenly country, they 
 should really enjoy in all its full compass 
 the blessedness which his sufferings ob- 
 tained for them, and without again fearing 
 any separation from him, they should be 
 united with him in his kingdom, even with 
 intuitive reality and certainty. 
 
 After the model of the Jewish Pass- 
 over, and the first institution of this rite, 
 the celebration of the Lord's Supper ori- 
 ginally was always joined with a general 
 meal, and both together formed one tphole ; 
 and because the communion of believers 
 with the Lord, and their brotherly com- 
 munion with each other, was represented 
 by it, the two together were called the 
 Supper of the Lord, (^eittvov tow xvfiov, or 
 Smrvov xv^iuKo*,) or the lovefeast, (ay«7ri).) 
 It was the daily rite of Christian commu- 
 nion in the first Church at Jerusalem ; in 
 Acts ii. 46, we are most probably to un- 
 derstand both together under the phrase, 
 xXa» a^rov. We find both connected to- 
 gether in the first Corinthian Church, and 
 one is inclined to suppose tliat this was 
 also the innocent simple meal of the Chris- 
 tians, of which Pliny speaks in his re- 
 port to the emperor Trajan. (See above, 
 Part L) On the contrary, in the picture 
 given by Justin Martyr, we find the Lord's 
 ' Supper entirely separated from those 
 j meals of brotherly love, if, in fact, any 
 such existed at all in the Churches which 
 he had in his eye. The separation arose 
 partly from such irregularities as those 
 which took place in the Corinthian 
 Church, Avhen the .spirit suitable to the 
 following sacred rite had not prevailed in 
 the previous meal, and partly from local 
 
LOVEFEASTS, OR AGAP^. 
 
 circumstances, which prevented generally 
 tlie institution of such meals in common. 
 In Aict, these meals peculiarly attracted 
 the jealousy of the heatlien, and gave oc- 
 casion to the wildest and most abominable 
 reports;* and this miglit early cause their 
 abolition, or, at least, their less frequent 
 celebration. 
 
 We now speak first of these meals of 
 brotherly love, as they were afterwards 
 called (ayaTrai), when separated from the 
 Supper of the Lord. Here all diflerences 
 of earthly condition and rank were to 
 disappear in Christ; all were here to be 
 one in the Lord ; rich and poor, high and 
 low, masters and servants, were all to eat 
 at tlie same table with one another. Ter- 
 tullian paints the celebration of such a 
 feast in the following manner :t "Our 
 supper shows its nature by its name ; it 
 is called ogapp, which in Greek means 
 love. Whatsoever it may cost, it is a 
 gain to be put to cost in the cause of piety, 
 since we delight all the poor by that re- 
 freshment As the cause of the 
 
 supper is honourable, judge ye with what 
 I'egard to religion all besides is conducted 
 in it; it admits of no vulgarity, it admits 
 of no indecency ; Ave do not lie down to 
 table before a prayer has been offered to 
 God ; we eat only that which hunger re- 
 quires, .we drink only what it becomes 
 men of sobriety and modesty to drink ; 
 we do not forget, while we are satisfying 
 our wants, that God is to be adored by us 
 tlu-ough the night. The conversation is 
 that of men, who know that God hears 
 them. (After die meal is over.) After 
 we have washed our hands, and the lights 
 have been brought, each person is required 
 to sing something to the praise of God for 
 the instruction of all, just as he may be 
 able from Scripture or from his own 
 resources; and tliis shows what a man 
 has drunk. The feast is concluded with 
 prayer." These agapaj gradually lost their 
 true original meaning, which could only 
 be maintained in the simple habits of the 
 very earliest Churches; and they often 
 became nothing but a dead form, which 
 was no longer animated by the spirit of 
 that brotherly love, which removes all 
 distinctions between man and man, and 
 unites all hearts together. Many abuses 
 crept into them, which gave an oppor- 
 
 ^ 209 
 
 tunity to the evilminded to represent the 
 whole festival in a hateful light. As it 
 usually happens in cases of this kind, 
 some attributed too much importance to 
 the mere form, as an " opus operatum/' 
 and others unjustly condenuied the whole 
 thing, w ithout distinguishing between the 
 proper use and the abuse; and the error 
 of both parties arose from their no longer 
 understanding the simple childlike spirit 
 from which this rite had derived its origin. 
 Certain rich members of the community 
 gave these agapae, and fancied that they 
 had done something particularly merito- 
 rious ; here, where all should be on equal 
 terms, a distinction of ranks was made, 
 and the clergy,* who ought to set an 
 example of humility to all, allowed them- 
 selves to be particularly distinguished by 
 the undue exercise of an outward pre- 
 ference to their order.! An unkindly, 
 gloomy, ascetic spirit wholly condemned 
 the agapae, and eagerly caught at all the 
 abuses which ever attended their cele- 
 bration in any place whatever, in order to 
 paint them in exaggerated p olours, and so 
 to render the whole tiling odious; and this 
 was the case with TertuUian in his Mon- 
 tanism.J Clement of Alexandria speaks 
 more temperately on the subject,§ although 
 he declares himself against those, who 
 thought that they could buy the promises 
 of God by giving feasts, and who appeared 
 to lower the name of heavenly love by 
 limiting it to these agapae. He says : — 
 
 * In speaking of the impediments a Christian 
 wife would find in her marriage with a heathen, 
 TertuUian says, (ad Uxor. ii. 4,) " Quis ad con- 
 vivium illud dominicum, quod infamaut, sine sua 
 buspicione dimittef?" 
 
 \ Apologeticus, c. xxxix. 
 
 27 
 
 * [" Die Geistlichen." German. — I have some 
 difficulty in translating this word, in consequence 
 of Dr. Neander's notions on the subject of the 
 priesthood. In using the words, " the clergy," I 
 give the notion of a body of clergy, at a time when, 
 perhaps, he would hardly allow of any thing of the 
 sort. I suppose he means the presbyters and 
 deacons; but if so, it would seem that they became 
 a distinct body rather early. — H. J. R.] 
 
 -\ Thus the clergy received a double portion, in 
 consequence of a perverted and carnal application 
 of the passage in 1 Tim. v. 17.* TertuUian, after 
 becoming a Montanist, says, in his treatise de 
 Jcjuniis, c. xvii. : " Ad elogium gulce tua; pertinet, 
 quod duplex apud te praesidentibus honos binis 
 partibus deputatur." Comp. Apostol. Constit. 
 lib. ii. c. 28, where that which TertuUian properly 
 blames is prescribed as a law. Clemens, Strom, 
 vii. 759, says of the Gnostic sects, «' nuvcruui it% 
 
 i De Jejuniis, c. xvii. "Apud te agape in 
 cacabis fervet ; major est agape, quia per banc 
 adolescentes tui cum sororibus dormiunt." So 
 passionate an accuser will naturally appear un- 
 worthy of credit. 
 
 § Pffidag. ii. 141. [Pott. p. 166. 7. Sylb. p. 61.] 
 
 * [This passage has been already adduced on 
 another occasion, p. 108. I must refer to the pre- 
 face for a few further remarks upon it.— H. J. R.J 
 
 s2 
 
CONSECRATION OF THE LORD S SUPPER. 
 
 210 ^ 
 
 " Love is really a heavenly sustenance. . . 
 
 . . In heaven is this heavenly feast ; but 
 though the earthly feast arises from love, 
 yet it is not love itself, but only the proof 
 of a benevolence, which is ready to impart 
 and communicate. Take care, therefore, 
 that your treasure be not ill-spoken of, for 
 the kingdom of God consists not in meat 
 and drink, but righteousness, peace, and 
 joy in the Holy Ghost. He that partakes 
 of this meal will obtain the best of all 
 things, the kingdom of heaven, while he 
 strives even here below to belong to 
 the holy assembly of love, the heavenly 
 Church. Love is a pure thing, and worthy 
 of God, and to bestow is one of its deeds ; 
 
 .... but these feasts have only a spark 
 of love, which is lighted by earthly food." 
 We now go to the separate considera- 
 tion of the Lord's Supper. 
 
 We have already observed that the 
 prayer of praise and thanks in the Jewish 
 Passover was transferred to the Christian 
 Supper of the Lord ; this prayer of praise 
 and thanksgiving was always looked upon 
 as an essential part of this rite, which 
 hence obtained the name of li-jfa^iaTia..* 
 While the principal minister of the Church 
 [the Gemeindevorsteher, or president,] 
 took up the bread and wine from the table 
 that stood before him, he thanked God in 
 the name of the whole Church, because 
 he had created the things of nature, which 
 were here represented by the most essen- 
 tial means of sustenance, for the sake of 
 man, and that he, the Creator, had, for the 
 sake of man also, allowed his Son to 
 appear and to suffer in the nature of man. 
 Both of these, the thanksgiving for the 
 
 • The expression ^■^^^ftv'nx is a metonymical 
 one, entirely to be compared with that of St. Paul, 
 s-crhgKV fvX'-'j./ac, ijK'.y.tjfxti, or that of Justin Mar- 
 tyr, 6 ev;^:<g<!rT«6a? c^to? x.u o/i/oc, the bread and 
 wine over which the prayer of thanks (the bless- 
 ing,) has been spoken. The latter says expressly, 
 that as soon as the president had uttered the prayer 
 over the bread and wine, and the Church had said 
 amen after it, the supper was distributed. [Apol. 
 i. c. Ixxxv.] He mentions no other consecration; 
 he says: tjiv </V ei';t'<c Aojct/ tcu tt-x^ auTou (tcu 
 X^ta-Tcv) f'j)(_ct.^t<7Tif()(i<rav Tficipnv, which cannot allude 
 to a form of words handed down from Christ 
 himself, for there was nothing of the kind, but 
 only in general to Ihe thanksgiving which was 
 established by him, and which was used at this 
 festival after his example. It is possible that the 
 words containing the institution of the feast, may 
 have been interwoven into this prayer. In the 
 words of Cyprian, Ep. Ixxx.: "In vocatione non 
 contemtibili sanctificare pancm et tucharistiam 
 facere;" there seems to be a notion conveyed of a 
 consecration, by which common bread became 
 changed to the Supper of our Lord. 
 
 gifts of nature, and that for the blessings 
 of grace, were closely connected together, 
 for it was only after man was redeemed, 
 when he returned to the condition of a 
 child in regard to his heavenly Father, 
 that he could justly know how all has 
 been given to him by the love of liis 
 heavenly Father ; all earthly gifts had for 
 Him a higher meaning, as pledges of an 
 eternal love, about to bestow far higher 
 benefits on man. All nature, Avhich had 
 before been desecrated by him, when he 
 was in the service of sin, and stood 
 estranged from God, was now sanctified 
 and given back to him, a redeemed crea- 
 ture ; and in the Supper of the Lord, the 
 earthly and the natural became ennobled 
 as the symbols or the bearers of the 
 heavenly and the Divine. A higher and 
 heavenly food for the life of the inward 
 man would now be connected with this 
 earthly food, which had been sanctified 
 by the prayer of thanksgiving, through 
 the power of that same God, who had 
 caused this earthly food to grow for the 
 use of man. (The different representa- 
 tions of the relation between the sign and 
 the thing signified, we here leave un- 
 touched.) 
 
 This connection of ideas was a very 
 favourite one among the first Christians, 
 and was often used by them in contro- 
 verting the contempt of nature shown by 
 the Gnostics. And here also there was 
 an allusion to a peculiar custom observed 
 in the Church at this time ; the members 
 of the Church themselves brought the 
 wine and bread as free gifts, and out of 
 these offerings the elements were taken 
 for the Lord's Supper.* These gifts \fere 
 considered as the spiritual sacrifice of 
 thanksgiving of Christians. When the 
 minister took the elements of the Lord's 
 Supper from these gifts, and consecrated 
 them to God with praise and prayer, he 
 represented the whole Church, considered 
 as one priestly race, as one in the Lord, 
 and he represented her readiness again to 
 consecrate to the service of God all which 
 she received from God. This Christian 
 sacrifice of thanks was considered as a 
 spiritual sacrifice, which existed only in 
 
 * This custom, which may be pretty clearly 
 presumed from the allusions of a Justin Martyr, 
 and of an Irenteus, is expressly stated by Cyprian 
 in his work de Opere et Eleemosynis, where he 
 blames the rich woman for coming to the com- 
 munion without giving an offering of love for the 
 necessities. of the Church. " Locuplcs et dives es 
 ct dominicum celebrare te credis, quce in domini- 
 cum sine sacrificio vcnis, quse partem dl sucrijicio, 
 quod pauper obtulit, suraisi" 
 
OBLATIO AT FIRST SYMBOLIC. 
 
 the heart, and as the free expression of 
 childlike love and thankfulness, and was 
 contrasted with the sacrifice of victims in 
 the Jewish and the heathen service. Partly 
 tliese gifts of the Christians, partly the 
 thanksgiving prayer of the minister, by 
 which they were consecrated to God, and 
 at last, partly tlie whole of the Supper of 
 the Lord was considered as an offerings 
 and called ir^oa<pof*, 6j^o-»a, but it was at 
 first only in this sense.* In this point of 
 view, Justin Martyr says,| "The prayers 
 and thanksgiving that come from worthy 
 men, are the only true sacrifices, well 
 pleasing to God ; for tlvcse alone have 
 Christians learned to make, and particu- 
 larly in remembrance of their sustenance, 
 which consists of dry and moist things,J 
 by which they are also led to remember 
 the sufferings which Christ underwent for 
 their sake." He considers this a proof of 
 the high priestly character of Christians, 
 because God receives sacrifice only from 
 his priests. In this sense Irenaeus,§ while 
 he is contrasting this spiritual sacrifice 
 with every kind of sacrificial worship, 
 speaks thus : " It is not sacrifices^ which 
 sanctify the man, but the conscience of him 
 that offers, if it be pure, sanctifies the 
 offering, and causes God to receive it as 
 from a friend." 
 
 * Hence comes the expression so common in 
 Cyprian, " Oblationem alicujiis accipere, ofTerre;" 
 and to receive these gifts from any one for the 
 Church, to take the elements for the Supper of the 
 Lord from them, and to consecrate them, was a 
 proof that such a person was considered as a regu- 
 lar member of the Church.* 
 
 f Just. M. Dial. Tryph. Jud. p. 345. [p. 340, 
 cd. Jebb.] 
 
 t [The bread, wine, and water of the Eucharist. 
 See Jebb's note.— H. J. R.] 
 
 § Iren. iv. 18. 
 
 * [The question, how far the Lord's Supper is 
 a sacrifice, is by far too wide a field to enter upon 
 in this place. I think, however, that the compari- 
 son between the Jewish prayer o( benediction atifi 
 the Christian, is a subject which demands a fuller 
 investigation than is here given. Those who 
 consider the Eucharist a proper sacrifice, do not 
 allow this comparison to hold — they coniend that 
 Christ had before " performed the office of a mas- 
 ter at the Paschal feast." and that, after supper, 
 when the Paschal meal was over, he blessed the 
 bread and cup as pledges of the new covenant, and 
 that he "did then, under the 8yml)ol of l)rcad, 
 offer his body, and under the symbol of wine, pour 
 out his blood ;" — offerinfr these symbols to God as 
 typical of his own sacrifice. It is impossible here 
 to do more than to hint at this view of the matter, 
 and to recommend its thorouph investigation. 
 The works which take the strongest views in 
 defence of the proper sacrifice, are perhaps, John- 
 son's Unbloody Sacrifice, and Hickes oti the 
 Christian Priesthood. The words in inverted 
 commas are from the former, vol. i- p. 178. — H. 
 J. R.] 
 
 211 
 
 Accordingly, the idea of a sacrifice in 
 the Supper of the Lord, was originally 
 entirely of a symbolical kind, and this 
 idea originally had not the least reference 
 to the sacrifice of Christ. It was only 
 the spiritual offering of praise by the 
 Christians, which was thought of, but 
 this certainly presupposed the sacrifice o*" 
 Christ for man.* Afterwards, however, 
 the reference to this latter sacrifice be- 
 came more prominently brought forward; 
 but still, only as implying the symbolical, 
 or the commemorative, representation of 
 the sacrifice of Christ. But as one error 
 produces another, the false representation 
 of a particular priesthood in the Chris- 
 tian Church which was to correspond to 
 that of the Old Testament, might occa- 
 sion the erroneous notion of a sacrificial 
 worship performed by the pretended priest, 
 which would also answer to the sacrifice 
 of the Old Testament; and this false 
 comparison, and this transference of no- 
 tions from the Old to the New Testa- 
 ment, was the cause that the idea of a 
 sacrifice in the Supper of the Lord, which 
 was originally quite symbolical, received 
 a turn entirely at variance with its real 
 character — a turn which gave it something 
 of a magical character, of which we find 
 traces as early as the time of Cyprian. 
 
 The usual sort of bread, which was 
 brought by the members of the Church, 
 was used for the Supper of the Lord. 
 Justin Martyr calls it expressly, " com- 
 mon bread," (xo»»o5 agro?;) those who 
 went on the supposition that Christ cele- 
 brated the festival of the Passover a day 
 earlier than usual, had no reason at all to 
 use any thing but the common sort of 
 bread in the celebration of the Lord's 
 Supper; and even those who were of a 
 different opinion, did not think the use of 
 
 • One place of Irenaeus seems to contradict 
 what is here advanced, (iv. 18. § 4.) "Verbuin 
 quod ofTertur Deo ;" as if the Logos itself, t. f. 
 Christ, were offered up to God in the Lord's Sup- 
 per. But even if there were no other readincf in 
 existence, this at any rate cannot be the genuine 
 one — for such an expression would not only plainly 
 contradict the rest of the system of Irensus, which 
 is clearly declared, but here it would not suit what 
 immediately goes before. He had just said, " Of- 
 fertur Deo ex creatura ejus," (this relates also to 
 the offering of bread and wine,) and in the pre- 
 ceding chapter, § 6, he says, "per Christum offcrt 
 ecclesia." Undoubtedly, therefore, the reading of 
 other MSS. must be received as the genuine read- 
 ing, "per quod offcrtiir." It is the constant re- 
 ference to Christ as the high-priest, which gives 
 the proper consecration, as well to this spiritual 
 offering as to the whole life. This was the mean- 
 ing of Irenseus. 
 
212 
 
 unleavened bread an essential part of the 
 performance of this rite. We find, how- 
 ever, one exception in the case of some 
 Judaizing Christians,* which arose from 
 the very nature of the case ; for as they 
 kept a festival in commemoration of that 
 Last Supper of our Lord, only once a year 
 at the Passover, it naturally happened that, 
 as Christians who were continuing in the 
 observance of the Jewish ceremonial law, 
 they would eat unleavened bread."j" As 
 among the ancients, and especially in the 
 East, it was not customary to drink pure 
 wine, unmixed with water, at meal times, 
 it was hence supposed that Christ also 
 used wine mixed with water. The taste 
 for higher and mysterious meanings, how- 
 ever, did not content itself with this sim- 
 ple, but apparently too trivial, explanation 
 of this custom, which had become general. 
 The mixture of the water and the wine, 
 was to represent the union of the Church 
 with Christ.J 
 
 Originally, the general celebration of 
 the Supper of the Lord, united with the 
 celebration of the lovefeast, was a mark 
 of daily Christian communion. When 
 these daily assemblies could no longer 
 take place, the Supper of the Lord be- 
 came an essential part of the Sunday 
 worship, as it appears in Justin Martyr, 
 and the whole congregation took part 
 in the communion, as they had respond- 
 ed to the preceding prayer by their 
 Amen. The deacons brought the bread 
 and wine to each of the assembly in 
 order. It was held necessary that all the 
 Christians resident in the town should 
 constantly continue in union with the 
 Lord and with his Church, by partaking 
 of this communion \ and the deacons, 
 therefore, carried a portion of the conse- 
 crated bread and wine to the strangers, 
 the sick, or the prisoners who were pre- 
 vented from attending the congregation.§ 
 
 COMMUNION UNDER ONE KIND. 
 
 • Epiphanius (Hteres. xxx. §16,) says of the 
 Ebionltes of his time, that they celebrated the 
 communion once a year with unleavened bread 
 and water. (The latter was because their ascetic 
 habits would not allow the use of wine.) 
 
 -(• See below, in the remarks on the Ebionites. 
 
 i " Quando in calice vino aqua niiscetur, Chris- 
 tus populo adunatur." Cyprian, Ep. Ixiii. 
 
 § Sec the passage which we have already quoted 
 from Justin Martyr, and that of Iren;cuH,in Euseb. 
 
 V. 24, TrijUTTitV 1-j-^J.iilTTlM T«C "^5 TCcl' ^T^glW^iV Ta- 
 
 erju^tv, where he is speaking of the Komisb bishops. 
 It was thus that the custom arose of communicat- 
 ing with elements that had before been consecrated 
 (which were afterwards called Tg^oifyfx'rfA.irx.) The 
 notion, on which this was founded, was that a 
 communion could oidy have its right meaning in 
 the midst of a community ; and hence the com- 
 
 I But in many Churches, as for instancp, 
 I in the North African, the daily enjoyment 
 of the communion was held to be neces- 
 sary, because they looked upon it as the 
 j daily bond of union between the Lord 
 ' and the Church, and the daily means of 
 I strengthening, enlivening, and salvation, 
 I for Christians. Hence, Tertullian and 
 Cyprian understand the prayer for daily 
 bread in a spiritual sense, and apply it to 
 an unbroken and sanctifying union with 
 Christ, by means of the Supper of the 
 Lord. But as the daily service and cele- 
 bration of the Lord's Supper no longer, 
 existed, there was no other means left to 
 accomplish this object, than to take home 
 some of the consecrated bread, which 
 might stand, in case of necessity, instead 
 of the whole communion. (This is the 
 first trace of a reception of the Lord's 
 Supper under one kind, which was intro- 
 duced through error and abuse.) Thus 
 every man, after the morning prayer, be- 
 fore he went to his eartldy business, en- 
 joyed the sacrament with his family in 
 his own -house, in order that the life of 
 the whole following day might be sancti- 
 fied by communion with the Lord. Oh ! 
 that men had known how to distinguish 
 properly the spiritual feast, which was to 
 continue throughout the whole of the 
 Christian's life, from the outward Supper 
 of the Lord, perceptible to the senses I* 
 
 munion of an absent individual could, therefore, 
 only bo considered in the light of a conttnuatior> 
 of that general communion of the assembled 
 Church. But when Cyprian speaks of the 
 " presbyter! apud confessores offerentes," he pro- 
 bably there means, that the Lord's Supper vfas 
 consecrated by the priests themselves. 
 
 * The following passages refer to this custom : 
 Tertullian, (ad Uxor. ii. 5,) in speaking of the 
 jealousy of a heathen husband towards a Chris, 
 tian wife : " Non scict maritus, quid secreto ante 
 omnem cibum gustes? Et si sciverit panem, non 
 ilium credit esse, qui dicitur." And also, in the 
 parts of the treatise deOratione, first published by 
 Muratori, c. xix., " Accepto corpore Domini et re- 
 servato (by the Christian mistress of a family,) 
 area sua, in qua Domini sanctum fuit." Cyprian, 
 de Lapsis, ed. Baluz. p. 189. [p. 132, ed. Ox.]' 
 In the book de Spectaculis, ascribed to Cyprian, 
 he says of a man who runs from church to the 
 theatre, "Festinans ad spectaculum, dimissus e 
 dominico et adhuc gerens secuih, ut assolet, Eu- 
 charistiam." 
 
 * [I suppose there is some misprint in this note. 
 The Latin words hrfore the parenthesis are from 
 Tertullian, those after, are from Cyprian. They 
 are tindivided in both editions of Dr. Neander. 
 Possibly, however, (as the words in Cyprian are 
 "arcam anam," &c.,) Dr. Neander has intended 
 to join the two quotations, and complete the 
 sense by putting " area sua" in the ablative case. 
 -H. J. R.] 
 
CYPRIAN ON MOURNING. 
 
 Others, perhaps, set out from the notion, 
 that men ought to partake of the Lord's 
 Supper only after a whole course of parti- 
 cular preparation of the inward man, and 
 therefore, only at stated seasons, chosen 
 according to the particular convenience of 
 the individual. • The learned Hippolytus, 
 who lived in the first half of the third cen- 
 tury, wrote, even in those days, a treatise 
 on the question — whether a man ought to 
 communicate daily, or at stated seasons ?* 
 
 As it was in the North African Church 
 that the necessity of infant baptism was 
 first peculiarly insisted on, so also did 
 they join with this notion that of infant 
 communion; for, as men did not distin- 
 guish the sign and the Divine thing signi- 
 fied by it sufficiently from one anotlier, 
 and as they understood all that is said of 
 eating the flesh and drinking the blood of 
 Christ, in .John vi., of the outward parti- 
 cipation of the Lord's Supper, this sacra- 
 ment, they concluded, must be entirely 
 necessary for the attainment of salvation 
 from the very first.l 
 
 The celebration of the Lord's Supper 
 was the seal of every consecration to a 
 religious purpose ; it was used at the 
 conclusion of a marri.age^'l as well as at 
 the service for the commemoration of the 
 dead. We shall take a somewhat nearer 
 view of the latter of these rites. 
 
 Christianity did not annihilate the 
 natural feelings of man, but only ennobled 
 them ; it was as much opposed, on the 
 one hand, to a corrupted civilization, that 
 woukl overwhelm natural feelings, as, on 
 the otiier, to a wild, unbridled indulgence 
 of them in a rude state of nature ; and 
 thus also it showed the same character in 
 regard to mourning for the dead. From 
 the very beginning, Christianity con- 
 demned the wild and often hypocritical 
 expressions of grief, by which funeral 
 processions were accompanied, and it 
 protested against the shrieks of the hired 
 
 * See Jerome, Ep. Ixxi. ad Lucin. [This is 
 Ep. xxviii. in the edition of Victorius. Paris, 
 \?>n, torn. i. p. 247, d.— H. J. R.] 
 
 f Thus it happened that they gave only wine to 
 children who could not eat bread. Comp. Cyprian, 
 de Lapsis. This is another example of the man- 
 ner in which a superstitous abuse, contrary to the 
 insiitution itself, led men to separate the elements 
 of the sacrament, and communicate under one 
 kind. [There is a very elaborate Treatise by 
 Zomius on the subject of the Etirharist of In- 
 fants. The title is "Petri Zornii Historia Eucha- 
 ristiae Infantium, &c." Berolini, 1736. See also 
 Bingham, Antiq. xii. 4, 7; xv. 7, 4. — H, J. R.] 
 
 t " Oblatio pro matrimonio." On the meaning 
 of this word "oblatio," see above. 
 
 2113 
 
 women called " propficaj ;" and yet it re- 
 quired no cold stoical resignation and 
 apathy, but only softened and ennobled 
 the bitterness of lamentation by the spirit 
 of faith and hope, and of a childlike ac- 
 quiescence in the dealings of eternal love, 
 a love which takes away — only to give 
 again in greater splendour and reality; 
 which divides — only to unite again those 
 whom it has divided, in a glorified state 
 for all eternity. When multitudes were 
 carried away by a desolating pestilence 
 at Carthage, Cyprian said to his Church : 
 " Our brethren are not to be lamented, 
 who are freed from the world by the call 
 of the Lord ; surely we know that they 
 are not lost, but sent before us, — that 
 they have taken their departure from us 
 in order to precede us. We may long 
 for tltc7iij as we do for those who are ab- 
 sent from us on a voyage, but we may 
 not lament them ; we may not here below 
 clothe ourselves in the black garments of 
 mourning, while they are already clothed 
 in the white garb of glory above ; we 
 must not give occasion to the heathen to 
 reproach us with our inconsistency, be- 
 cause we lament those as annihilated and 
 lost, whom we declare to be living icith 
 God ; and because we do not prove by 
 the witness of our hearts the faith which 
 
 we profess with our lips We who 
 
 live in hope, we who believe in God and 
 trust that Christ suffered for us and rose 
 again, we who abide in Christ, and rise 
 again by Him and in Him, why should 
 we ourselves be unwilling to depart from 
 out of the world, or why should we la- 
 ment and sorrow for those among us ivho 
 are departed f Christ himself, our Lord 
 and God, exhorts us, and He says : ' I am 
 the resurrection and the life ; whosoever 
 believeth in me, though he die, yet shall 
 he live; and he that liveth and believeth 
 
 in me, shall never die !' Why 
 
 hasten we not to see our country, to 
 salute our parents ? There a vast multitude 
 of them that are dear to us, await our ar- 
 rival, a multitude of parents, brethren, and 
 children, who are now secure of their 
 own salvation, and anxious only about 
 ours. What a mutual joy will it be for 
 them and us, when we come into their 
 presence and receive their embrace !"* 
 From this turn of mind the Christian cus- 
 tom arose, that the remembrance of the 
 dead should be celebrated on the anniver- 
 sary of their death by their relations, hus- 
 band or wife, in a manner suited to the 
 
 Cyprian, de Mortalitate, (sub fincm.) 
 
214 
 
 NATALITIA MARTYRUM. 
 
 nature of the Christian faith and hope. 
 The Supper of the Lord was celebrated 
 on this day,* in the consciousness of an 
 inseparable communion with those who 
 had died in the Lord ; a gift was brought 
 to the altar in their name, as if they were 
 still living members of the Church ; and 
 it was hence, probably, that the prayer 
 for peace to the souls of the departed was 
 interwoven with the prayer of the Church, 
 preceding the communion.f 
 
 But even this custom, which really pro- 
 ceeded from a pure Christian feeling, re- 
 ceived a. false, unevangelic turn, from its 
 connection with that false notion of a sa- 
 crifice in the Supper of the Lord. It was 
 fancied that the magical efficacy of tha 
 celebration of that sacrifice would con- 
 duce to the advantage of the departed per- 
 son, although it really entirely depends 
 on the dispositions which each man gives 
 proof of in his life, whether that sacrifice 
 of Christ shall be a source of salvation to 
 him individually or not; although the 
 efficacy of that sacrifice of Christ can be 
 appropriated to no man by the instrumen- 
 tality of others, unless he has appropriated 
 it to himself by his own lively faith, — 
 and in this case, no man can impart more 
 to him, than he himself has received from 
 his life of faith. The germ of this false 
 view of things is to be discerned as early 
 as the time of Cyprian, 
 
 As individual Christians and Christian 
 families celebrated in this manner the re- 
 membrance of their near relations, whole 
 Churches also celebrated the remembrance 
 of those who had died in the midst of 
 them as witnesses of the faith : the day 
 of their death was looked upon as their 
 birthday — the day of their birth into a 
 glorified existence. J The remains of their 
 bodies were carefiiUy buried, as the holy 
 organs of holy souls, which should here- 
 
 * [Tn the Books of Common Prayer, published 
 •luring the first years of Queen Elizabeth, there 
 was a separate offiice f^r the administration of the 
 sacrament at funerals. It is given in Sparrow's 
 Collection of Articles, Injunctions, &C., p. 199. 
 It is in Latin ; its date is 1560. It is found in 
 some English editions also. — H. J. R.] 
 
 I " Oblationes pro defunctis annua die facimus." 
 TertuUian, de Corona Mil. c. iii., where it is spoken 
 of as an old tradition. He also says to a husband, 
 in regard to his deceased wife: " Procujusspiritu 
 postulas, pro qua oblationes annuas reddis : com- 
 mendabis per sacerdotem," &c. Dc Exhortat. 
 Castitat. c. xi. 
 
 t The "dies natales, natalitia martyrum," 
 
 after come again into their service, when 
 called into another more glorious form. 
 There was a congregation formed round 
 their graves on the anniversary of their 
 birthday, (in the sense mentioned above,) 
 and the story of their confession of the 
 faith and of their sufferings was told, the 
 Lord's Supper was celebrated, in the con- 
 viction of a continued communion with 
 them in union with Him, of whom they 
 had given witness by their death.* The 
 pure Christian character of the commemo- 
 rative festival is shown by the manner in 
 which the Church of Smyrna, in their 
 account of the martyrdom of Polycarp, 
 their bishop, answered the reproach of 
 the heathens, who were unwilling to give 
 up to the Church the remains of the 
 martyr, in order that the Christians might 
 not forsake their crucified Redeemer, and 
 begin to worship the martyr. The Church 
 writes thus : " Ye know not that we can 
 neither forsake that Christ, who suffered 
 for the salvation of the whole world of 
 the redeemed, nor can we worship any 
 other. We pray to Him, but we love the 
 martyrs, as they deserve, for their exceed- 
 ing love to their King and Master ; and 
 as we also hope to become their compa- 
 nions and fellow disciples." The Church 
 then continues : '•' We take up his bones, 
 which are more precious to us than gold 
 and precious stones, and we lay them 
 down in a becoming place ; and God will 
 grant that we may gather together there 
 in peace and joy, and celebrate the birth- 
 day of his martyrdom, in remembrance 
 of the departed warrior, and for the prac- 
 tice and exercise of those whom the battle 
 still awaits." We cainiot, however, deny, 
 that in the time of Cyprian, and even 
 earlier (for TertuUian, as a Montanist, 
 had already combated this error,) the 
 seeds of an exaggerated honour to the 
 martyrs, which had consequences preju- 
 dicial to the purity of Christianity, showed 
 themselves. So inclined is man univer- 
 sally to overvalue what is human, and to 
 idolize the instrument, which ought only 
 to direct his heart to Him, who works by 
 means of that instrument. 
 
 * These " oblationes, sacrificia pro niartyribus," 
 originally presumed that the martyrs were like 
 other sinful men, who might well need the Chris- 
 tian intercession ; in its original intention, there- 
 fore, this custom was in contradiction with the 
 extravagant reverence paid to martyrs; and hence 
 it was afterwards found necessary to give a new 
 meaning to this old custom. 
 
THE TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 In presenting to the public the second volume of this translation of Dr. Neander's 
 History of the Church, I may be allowed to express my regret that the promise of its 
 speedy appearance (made at the publication of the first volume,) has not been duly 
 realized. It would be of little interest to detail the causes of this delay, as they are 
 chiefly of a personal character, if they were not calculated to show that some of them 
 are unlikely again to operate, so as to prevent my rapid progress in finishing my trans- 
 lation of the succeeding volumes of this able work.* The circumstances of our own 
 country, at the period of the publication of the first volume, left those, who took much 
 part, as I did then, in periodical literature, but little time or thought for studies of a less 
 stirring character, and however higher in value, of a more remote interest; and the 
 same cause led me to presume that such a work then would find but few readers. 
 University employments, and many other avocations which I had not anticipated, at 
 first took me away from the subject, and every one knows with what difficulty employ- 
 ments once suspended are again resumed. About the beginning of this year, however, 
 the pubhshers having informed me that the first volume was out of print, I determined 
 to finish the second immediately, part of it having been printed some years ago, and 
 the result has been the present publication. 
 
 The second volume, now published, completes the history of the first three centuries, 
 and the first portion of the work is now finished. I must, therefore, take the present 
 opportunity of offering a few remarks, both upon the original work and on the transla- 
 tion. With regard to the former, I have expressed my own opinion very fully in the 
 preface to the first volume, and I do not see any thing there which I should wish to 
 retract, nor is there much which I think it necessary to add. I have the same opinion 
 of the candour and integrity of the author ; and I entertain the same dissent from some 
 of his opinions. The few remarks which I would here offer, are rather to be taken as 
 cautions to those younger readers, who apply to these volumes for instruction. I would 
 suggest to them the unsatisfactory nature of some of its statements, and attempt to point 
 out one of the causes from which this circumstance proceeds. With regard to the whole 
 of the Church question, I have spoken so fully in the preface and the notes to the first 
 volume, that I need not touch upon it now. But the great doctrinal point, which I thmk 
 is treated in an unsatisfactory manner, is that of the Trinity, (see pp. 255, and 280-90 ;) 
 the most important of all the doctrines of Christianity. 
 
 The author may, perhaps, think it foreign to the province of the historian, to express 
 a decided opinion on doctrinal points, — a view in which I cannot wholly coincide. I 
 think a perfectly impartial statement of the arguments of those who differ from us, and 
 a perfectly fair account of their conduct, are quite compatible, not only with entertain- 
 ing a decided opinion on such matters, but with the expression of it. And I confess 
 that it would have given me great satisfaction to find in Dr. Neander's statements with 
 regard to the great doctrine of the Trinity, something less indistinct and shadowy, than 
 the passages to which I have here pointed attention. I think such statements might 
 have been made, without any fear of appearing to explain that mysterious dogma. It 
 appears to me a question rather of fact than of speculation, as one might attempt to 
 
 * Should no unforeeeen obstacles occur, I trust, in a very short period, to publish two more 
 volumes, which will contain the same proportion (three Bands, or Parts) of the original. 
 
 215 
 
ccxvi THE translator's preface. 
 
 show in the following manner. Without any presumptuous attempt to explain to 
 ourselves the doctrine of the Trinity, if we ask ourselves one or two simple questions, 
 we must bring the matter to an issue at once; viz. Is our Saviour spoken of in Scrip- 
 ture, in language inapplicable to any created Being, and at the same time is the idea of 
 the Father suffering on the cross entirely excluded? And again: is the Holy Spirit 
 spoken of in Scripture in a manner inconsistent with any thing but a clear objective 
 sense? These things belong to the class of facts, rather than to that of opinions, and 
 the doctrine of the Trinity does nothing more than enounce these facts — the Athanasian 
 creed itself contains no speculative explanation of them, and no attempt at it. Let us, 
 therefore, with this impression before our minds, inquire to what the remarks of 
 Dr. Neander are really applicable. I think it will be seen that they not only admit a 
 construction, by which they do not oppose the doctrine of the Trinity, even as laid 
 down in the most precise manner in the Athanasian creed; but that they properly 
 apply to further speculative attempts to explain this doctrine. But still I think they are 
 expressed in so indistinct a manner, that a very large proportion of readers would con- 
 sider them as directed against any positive declarations of the necessity of a belief in 
 this doctrine, as held by the orthodox ; and I think the tendency of the language, and 
 the manner in which it is used, calculated rather to lower the notion of the absolute 
 necessity of a right faith, even in such essential points as this — a tendency, which, in 
 other hands, might be carried much farther, and where the moderatian and Christian 
 feelings of Dr. Neander were wanting, might produce great mischief. We must never 
 forget that the disciples of any erroneous system or tenet, always diverge more widely 
 from the truth than their master. The divergency of error is invariably a progressive 
 operation. 
 
 I regret, therefore, the indistinctness, of which I speak, both for these reasons, and 
 because I think it the province of ecclesiastical history to give witness to the great 
 doctrines of Christianity, and warning to future generations from the errors of those 
 •vC^hich have passed away. The author, however, of this work appears to be chiefly 
 solicitous about the improvement of the heart and the affections of man by Christianity, 
 for which solicitude no one can do otherwise than honour and respect him ; but at the 
 same time it is certain, that to effect this great end, the maintenance of all the great 
 doctrines of Christianity in their integrity is absolutely essential. Whatever is revealed, 
 whatever has been universally maintained in the Christian Church from the first ages, 
 I believe to be necessary to be received, in order that Christianity may produce its full 
 effect m the amelioration of man's nature, and that any departure from them Avill soon 
 be felt in its practical influence. 
 
 The next point to which I would draw attention, is the general view which the 
 author takes of the progress of Christianity, in regard to the formation of the opinion 
 of the Church on great questions of doctrine. We can scarcely conceive more than 
 three ways in which Christian doctrines may be supposed to have obtained their 
 recognition in the Church in express formulse. 
 
 1. They may be supposed to have been explicitly maintained in the same words, and 
 with the selfsame limitations from the very first ages of the Christian Church, — a view 
 which the amplifications of doctrine, as exhibited in the history of existing creeds, 
 sufficiently shows to be untenable. 
 
 2. They may be supposed to have been held implicitly,* and in some degree only as 
 matters of consciousness, until the prevalence of opposite errors required this conscious- 
 ness to be embodied in definite terms, and expressed in public formulae ; — or 
 
 3. We may suppose that all doctrines were in a mere chaotic state till controversies 
 arose, and then that the doctrines were actually formed during the controversies, and 
 new doctrines were thus, as it were, thought out and made by these controversies. 
 
 * Thus a bclirf in the Trinity implied a belief in the eternity of the Son, &c. We must 
 rememlier, however, that the shorter confessions of faith (for liaptism, &c.) are summaries, which 
 vouched for more than they eApressed. See Bull, Judicium Eccl. Cath. cap. iv. 
 
THE translator's PREFACE. CCXVll 
 
 Of these views the second appears to me the most consistent with history, and the 
 third appears to be that which I should derive as my impression from reading tliis 
 work. It may not he the opinion of the author, and he might probably disavow it. if 
 placed thus before him; but still I think jt is the impression, which would generally be 
 entertained by most of his readers. I am not about to argue the question here, as that 
 would, of itself, require a volume.* I only point out the difference between these two 
 positions, and request the readers of ecclesiastical history to bear it in mind, and judge 
 for themselves. I should deeply regret it, if in any way I have misrepresented the 
 view of my author. I only state that this is the impression left upon my mind by close 
 attention to his work. • 
 
 The last point to which I would draw attention is the manner in which the views 
 which Dr. Neander has embraced, appear sometimes to influence the judgment he 
 forms on points only incidentally connected Avith them. His aim, indeed, is to be per- 
 fectly impartial and unprejudiced,^ — an aim which, we know, it is almost impossible for 
 any man entirely to attain; and, therefore, we may not wonder if sometimes we see, 
 in his case, preconceived opinions affecting his decisions. The point, to which I more 
 particularly allude, is the judgment he passes on the genuineness and integrity of some 
 of the most remarkable remains of Christian antiquity. As a single example, I would 
 only mention the decision of Dr. Neander, that ^ 40 of the Epistle of Clement, of 
 Rome is an interpolation. The learned and amiable author of this work believes, that 
 the transference of Jewish terms to the Christian priesthood is of later date'than the time 
 of Clement of Rome, and accordingly decides that this must be an interpolation. He 
 alleges, indeed, that it contradicts the rest of the Epistle; but this term appears to me 
 too strong to apply to the case in question. To a person who had not formed so strong 
 an opinion on this subject as Dr. Neander, such a contradiction would hardly appear 
 to exist. No doubt, whenever so learned and candid a writer as Dr. Neander has 
 arrived at an opinion, hke that to which I have adverted, every passage, which appears 
 to militate against it, challenges an inquiry, at least from him, into its genuineness ; but 
 such an opinion is no argument against its genuineness in the minds of others, whose 
 opinions differ on that very point; and it is hardly a just method of proceeding on this 
 sole ground to refuse the testimony of one of the witnesses before the controversy is 
 decided.f I think in these respects there is a degree of caution required in admitting 
 some of the conclusions of this work; and my conviction of the necessity of such 
 caution probably may originate, and is certainly strengthened by the circumstance, that 
 on many points our views do not coincide. 
 
 These are the principal circumstances which I would point out as likely to prevent 
 this work from being as generally acceptable and useful in this country, as its great 
 merit in other respects would lead us to expect that it might become.:]: I trust that, in 
 expressing my opinion on these points, I have been betrayed into no presumption, and 
 shown no disrespect to the author, whose work I have translated, and also that I have 
 
 * I would only suffffest to my younjrer readers one or two works on the great doctriiio of the 
 Trinity, from which ihey will denve great advantage. I mean the works of Bp. Ilorsley, Dr. 
 Waterland, Bp. Bull, and as a very convenient and useful work of reference, Dr. Burton's 
 " Testimonies of the Ante-Nicene Fathers." . 
 
 t Of course these remarks* are not meant to apply to clear cases of anachronisms, which are 
 often of service in detecting forgeries. Take for example the will of St. Patrick which mentions 
 Indulgences. Which word was not in upc for centuries after his death. 
 
 I I might, perhaps, justly appeal in this point to the almost unanimous opinion of those writers 
 in whose works I have seen any notice of those of Dr. Neander. All bear testimony to the 
 excellence of the author, but all with a reserve on some point. They all e.xpress their unfeigned 
 respect for ilie learning of the author, his excellent qualities of head and heart, as well a.s the 
 general usefulness of his works, hut all qualify it by expressing a dissent from some of his views. 
 See, for instance, tiie Bishop of Lincoln's preface to his work on Tertullian, where he controverts 
 many of Dr. Neander's statements and opinions; or Dr. Burton's introduction to his Bampton 
 Lectures, where, in speaking of this very history, and expressing a hope that it would be translated, 
 he adds, " 'I'he writer is a theorist, as are many of his countrymen ; and I could wish that some 
 of his observatic)ns had not been made. But he has investigated with groat patience of research, 
 and with a very original train of thought, the early history of the Church; and if he carries into 
 execution what he has partly promised to undertake, a full and special history of the Church in 
 the time of the apostles, he will probably confer a lasting benefit on literature in general." p. xvii. 
 
 28 T 
 
ccxviii THE translator's preface. 
 
 not stepped beyond the proper province of a translator. It might be supposed that I 
 coincided in all the views here maintained, if I intimated nothing to the contrary ; and 
 as I think some of them unsound, I should feel that I was thus far promoting erroneous 
 opinions. But havuig pointed out what appear to me, after paying considerable 
 attention to the work, the sources of its chief faults, I leave my readers to exercise 
 their own judgment on the subject, and to derive all the advantage and instruction from 
 this history, which, in most respects, it is calculated to bestow. 
 
 "\\^ith regard to the translation itself, I must, as I before observed, leave others to 
 judge of the manner in which my humble task has been performed. I remain of the 
 same opinion still as to the duty of a translator. In works of this nature fidelity is his 
 first merit, and ought to be his chief aim ; and for this reason, I think Ave ought very 
 rarely to resort to a paraphrastic version.* 
 
 The style of this work in general is not such as to render it particularly easy to bring 
 into English, with fluency and freedom ; but this difficulty is, of course, very much 
 increased, when the subjects of which it treats approach the subtil regions of meta- 
 physics. A large portion of this volume, it will be seen, is devoted to a development 
 of the various systems of Gnosticism, and to an explanation of the views of Manes 
 and his followers. Oriental mysticism and theosophy has long been noted as full of 
 obscurity 5 and even the acute and learned Bayle has not hesitated to express his utter 
 inability to enter into it. After speaking, in his article on Zerdusht, or Zoroaster, of 
 the Persian notions of light and darkness, he adds, "This chaos of thought is incom- 
 prehensible to us western people. None but the eastern nations, accustomed to a 
 mystical and contradictory language, can bear such excessive nonsense without disgust 
 and horror." This is too sweeping a position, and too strong language; much "has 
 been done since his days to introduce us to a more intimate acquaintance with the ideas 
 of the eastern nations, but still this difference in the habits of thought between these 
 two families of the human race, will always tend to make the speculative views of the 
 one difficult to the other. Dr. Neander has done much to arrange and systematize the 
 various theories of Gnosticism ; but their obscurities have not been entirely removed, 
 nor are they in all cases lessened by a passage through the regions of German meta- 
 physics. There is one difficulty, however, which no one can properly appreciate, 
 except those who have known it by experience, in every attempt to present the 
 metaphysical and philosophical speculations of German Avriters to English readers- 
 and that difficulty arises from the copiousness of the German metaphysical vocabulary, 
 and the poverty of our own. 
 
 Without passing any judgment on the various systems of philosophy which have 
 made their appearance in Germany within the last fifty years, we may say that the 
 Germans have paid more attention to metaphysics latterly than our countrymen have 
 done ; and, whether these systems be true or false, they have certainly carried to a very 
 high point of refinement their analysis of the subtle processes of thought within us. 
 In reducing their analysis to systems, they have made minute distinctions between 
 these processes, which they have been enabled to embody in their language, and thus 
 to introduce a definiteness into their copious vocabulary, of which our own language is 
 hardly capable. And besides this, the lax manner in which all words in English, 
 referring to mental processes f are used, renders it impossible to represent such dis- 
 tinctions inteUigibly, without expressly defining beforehand in what sense Ave mean to 
 use the words. Conception^ thought, idea, notion, perception, apprehension, and other 
 
 I am fully aware that a different principle has been maintained, and that some translators from 
 
 Smc^W " .''rf P'^^r'"^ '« f^T »h<^"- »»"'">•'« ^'■'-nse raiher than his words; and have ihou^lu 
 
 n™Jin<; i-"'! ll , '" ''''^T^'' ^'"^ ""^r °"""'"" ^'h°''' passages. It must be obvious that this 
 
 S is always dcJi^a'bie"^ ^"^'"''' " "''" "^^''' '*'^'^^^''' "»^ "'>"d ""^l «pi"i<^"« «*' ^'^e author ; 
 
 + The same is true in -some degree in respect to our mental.faeuliies also. 
 
 .„!,«„ I """"'"""' '" ^18 Prodromus (more particularly mentioned in the next note) has, how- 
 
 fin ^h "^^ nhn.'l" '"''''^ ""V"- ^ "T ^'^""' "'" ""^ '^^''^ ''■''"^'- "« ^^ems rather inclined to 
 banish idea altogether, and substitute for u im«-e or perception. He says, " an idea must either be 
 
THE translator's PREFACE. CCXIX 
 
 words are used synonymously, which might be devoted to different processes, and the 
 very distinction of the Reason and the Understanding, on Avhich so much stress is laid 
 in Germany, is seldom brought forward in English works.* These circumstances 
 make it difficult adequately to represent in any English translation the exact views of 
 the author in those passages, where any words occur, which presuppose a recognition 
 of the distinctions common among his countrymen. I have endeavoured to grapple 
 
 the equivalent of a perception, or a conception ; and these two words are merely abstractions, that 
 could have no sense, if we did not refer them respectively to tlie only assertion any of us can 
 truly make; namely, I perceive Things, and I conceive Stales," p. 20J. It must be remembered 
 that' Sir G. Haughton's fundamental principle is this. Every word necessarily means nothing more 
 than THixG or state, " and even the last of these two terms is a mere sound — a symbol boldly 
 invented by the intellect, for the purpose of reasoning," p. 5. He says also, p. 45, "that all 
 reasoning is effected solely by means of words, either single or linked together in those chains 
 which we call Conceptions", but ko sini^le word, State even not excepted, can be a conception in 
 any other sense than as a sound preserved by the memory." To the class of Perceptions according 
 to him belong all objects we perceive when we see, hear, smell, taste, or touch. To Conceptions 
 belong all the Combinations, Relations and other States, of the objects or things we perceive, and 
 of which we are enabled to think or conceive by the mysterious operations of the intellect, aided 
 by the almost equally mysterious mechanism of language which it had previously prepared hy and 
 for the process, to which we give the name of thought. To this class must likewise be referred 
 those essences which we derive by strict infeiencewhen we observe the design, harmony, and 
 operations of nature, such as God, Soul, and Power." 
 
 This is detinite enough, and this author will perform a service to our language and to our habits 
 of thinking, it we can persuade ail writers to be more precise in the use of such terms, whether 
 they adopt his definitions or not. 
 
 But let not my meaning be misunderstood. I do not here pretend to give any judgment either 
 about the German systems or Sir G. Haughton's book. I only point out the existence of certain 
 refinements of speculation among our German neighbours, which our language scarcely enables 
 to present in the symbols which it affords us. In professedly metaphysical works, the difficulty 
 may, perhaps, be obviated by definitions, but where these words only occur incidentally, as in this 
 history, the difficulty introduced by this consideration is not slight. The cause, perhaps, lies deeper, 
 and this has been most ably touched upon by one, whose memory I revere, whose guidance I 
 daily miss, and whose correcting hand would have rendered these pages far more worthy of con- 
 sideration ; and it would be injustice not to quote his words: — 
 
 " The English are not a thinking and speculative, but a practical people, and they are accus- 
 tomed to look at things only in a practical point of view. This habit is carried into their literature, 
 and he who wishes to gain their attention must not deal in abstractions, or he will write in vain. 
 'I'hings must be presented in a definite tangible form, or the English capacity cannot receive them. 
 It may be a very good or a very bad stale of the intellect; oti that point I say nothing; but I 
 maintain that this is the state of English intellect, and this will sufficiently account for the neglect 
 experienced by many valuable works of latter days." — The State of Protestantism in Germany, 
 by the late Hugh James Rose, p. 208. 
 
 * To this sweeping remark there are of course some exceptions, and among these it would be 
 wrong to omit mentioning the late Mr. Coleridge's admirable little volume, entitled " Aids to 
 Reflection." I may also add that Sir G. Haughion in his Prodromus has distinguished between 
 Reason and Uiiderstandifig, but not exactly in the same manner as the German metaphysicians. 
 Of the understanding he says, " The first great delusion we are under, is in supposing that ihe 
 word Understanding represents any thing whatsoever. We, that is, our thinking selves, may 
 understand what we hear or see; but when we employ the Abstract word Understanding for some 
 part of ourselves, we do so clearly by a fallacy. When we understand any thing, we necessarily 
 feel, are conscious, and intelligent; and were I to analyse the term Understanding, according to 
 the usual mode in these cases, I would consequently say, that it is compounded ol Feeling, 
 Consciousness, and Intelligence. For, if I analyse one Abstraction, I shall most likely do it by 
 the help of others; but in reality there is neither Understanding, Feeling, Consciousness, nor 
 Intelligence; and instead of these, we must remember that it is the union of soul with matter, 
 which, being organized into human frames, understands, feels, is conscious and intelligent." Of 
 the Reason, on the contrary, he says, " Of all the divisions into which we separate ' the Mind,' 
 Reason is the only one which is not a misconception arising from the delusive nature of language. 
 It is not a faculty, but a real agent, aiding and assisting the intellect of man in all its varied opera- 
 tions." The view which Sir (i. Haughton develops is briefly explained thus: " Intellect," (that 
 which thinks.) " Sensorium" (that portion of the brain which is conscious,) and Nerves," (the 
 seat of sensation,) " constitute the mysterious agent called Self;" and he elsewhere says of the 
 Intellect, " It is this unknown organ so highly endowed, and constituting the thinking, reflecting 
 agent, resulting from the combination of soul with matter duly organized, that I call in these pages 
 by the name of Intellect." The author immediately after the above assertion about Reason as 
 an Agent, not si faculty, begs his readers to suspend their judgment on the point till he has 
 devel(»ped his vi^ws in some future work. 
 
 It would be altogether foreign to the subject of these volumes to enter at any length into meta- 
 physical disquisitions, but in noticing )he difficulty which arises to the English translator of a 
 Gernjan work, from the difference in the mental condition of the two nations, it is rot, perhaps, 
 altogether out of place to allude to an English work on the subject of Metaphysics, written with 
 considerable clearness and ability, which proposes to throw a new light on all the phenomena of 
 our minds, and to show that all metaphysical systems have hitherto been founded on delusions, 
 arising from our mistaking the nature and force of the words we use. That the work deserves 
 serious, and impartial consideration, as a remarkable exposition of Nominalism given in a sys- 
 tematic form, and applied ia a novel manner, few persons would be inclined to deny; but whether 
 
CCXX THE TRANSLATOR S PREFACE. 
 
 with this difficulty as well as I was able; but in order that I might apprize the reader 
 that there was something, which could not be rendered by a word exactly synonymous 
 with the original, I have occasionally inserted the German word, and sometimes referred 
 to the preface for some observations on the subject. This is particularly the case with 
 such words as .inschmamg, Begriff, Bewusstseyn, &.c. ; and I have thought that it might 
 be advantageous to the English reader, if, at the end of this Preface, I threw into the 
 form of a brief vocabulary a few remarks on such words, and a translation of a few 
 passages from German philosophical works, in which they are expressly defined. To 
 this I will, therefore, refer those readers who require further satisfaction on this point. 
 
 It will be seen that in some passages, where I have thought a literal translation 
 might appear obscure or ambiguous, I have given a paraphrase in a note, or vice 
 versa, in order that I may not appear to evade a difficulty in this manner. There 
 is, however, one passage in which, if there is no incorrectness in the text, I have 
 left it without any attempt lo explain its meaning, which is certainly obscure. It 
 may, perhaps, be right to state the sense I deduce from it. It appears to express 
 a notion of Origen, in which he intimates that the word of God, through which 
 the Logos communicates himself to the soul of man, is called the flesh and blood of 
 Christ, and is also the heavenly bread, (symbolized under the sacramental bread,) of 
 which we must eat in order to live forever; and that the breaking of the bread, and 
 pouring out of the wine, are symbols of the multiplication of the words, by which it is 
 made effectual to the heart of each individual believer. This I believe to be the general 
 purport of the sentence, although there is an awkwardness about the construction of it 
 in the original which I cannot entirely clear away, and I have accordingly left only an 
 exact and literal translation of it. Had I been able to consult the passages of Origen, 
 on which the statement is founded, I might have been able to remove all difficulty; but 
 the references did not enable me to do this. The only edition of Origen which I possess 
 is that of Huet; and in this place Neander does not refer to that edition, nor does he 
 give means by which it may be traced in that edition. 
 
 With regard to the quotations generally from Greek and Latin Fathers, I have 
 followed the same course as in the first volume. I have verified them whenever I was 
 able, and have generally enabled my readers to do so with much greater ease than 
 
 the author establishes his views, I do not undertake to decide. I think, however, in some instances, 
 our author's Nominalism carries him too far. When he speaks of our attachment to the Church, 
 the State, the Constitution, a principle, &:,c.,as showing the ' hold which Abstractions have upon 
 our nature,' and ' hosv much we are swayed by mere words;' when he observes, — that ' not one 
 of these designate any thing that has a real existence, except as a sound: still we are ready to 
 
 sacrifice our lives for them Without language, not one of these conceptions could have 
 
 had an existence; nor could one drop of the torrents of blood that have flowed from such causes 
 have been shed,' — is not the author carried away by his own theory? We can hardly reaso!i on 
 what we should be " without language ;" but it can scarcely be said that we are ready to sacrifice 
 our lives in these cases lor mere abstractions. Had the author here used his usual clearness and 
 acuteness, would he not have seen that if these words are mere abstractions, they are only conve- 
 nient symbols (abridging as symbols do the processes of reasoning,) which stand for matters which 
 exert a very practical influence on men's happiness? When we say a man is ready to sacrifice his 
 life for the Constitution, what do we mean but that he is ready lo resist changes in all the relations 
 of life, which he considers likely to bring misery on himself and all around him. Let us take 
 another instance to make this clearer. The words Slavery and Freedom express mere abstractions, 
 exactly as much as the words cited by Sir G. Haughton; but would the resistance to the one, and 
 the struggle for the other, appear to him to be a struggle about a mere abstraction? In these cases 
 men contend about changes of condition involving practical consequences to themselves, and it is 
 in vain, in order to persuade them to lay aside their differences, to tell them that the watchwords 
 of their cause arc mere abstractions. And tlie same reasoning is applicable, mutatis mutandis, to 
 the instances selected by Sir G. Haughton. With regard to ' the Church,' to those who believe 
 that our Saviour hound men together under certain laws, to contend for the welfare and extension 
 of the society, comprising all who embrace those laws, must be a duty. The term niay'be an 
 abstract term, but it comprehends truths and realities, for which men are bound to contend, though 
 they cannot be justified in using persecution for the sake rtf them. Men talk about these abstrac- 
 tions, but they contend about realities, included among the complicated notions, of the aggregate 
 of which these abstractions are the conventional symbol. I trust in making these observations I 
 have not misrepresented, nor mistaken this author, for although he appears to despair of a fair 
 hearing in England, and looks for it to the truth-inquiring spirit of Germany, I can say that I 
 opened his essay with perfect impartiality, and shall look with much interest to any further 
 development of his views. 
 
THE TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. CCXXl 
 
 myself, by referring to other editions. This is particularly the case with the very 
 numerous quotations from Clemens Alexandrinus. Tlie edition to which Dr. Neander 
 refers is almost invariably the edition of Paris, 1G"29; and unfortunately it happens to 
 be the most inconvenient one possible for those who possess any other. There are no 
 divisions in it, but that of pages, and these pages are not marked in other editions. The 
 pages of Sylburg's and Potter's editions are marked in that of Klotz, (Leipsic, 1831 :) 
 and I have in almost every instance given the reference to each of these. The books of 
 Clemens Alexandrinus are of very considerable length, and a reference to the page of 
 the Paris edition is of no value except to those who possess that particular edition. I 
 have not always given the reference to Klotz; but the pages of Potter and Sylbui-g 
 being found in the margin of that edition, it is by no means necessary. 
 
 I now proceed to give a list of such words as may be productive of some obscurity 
 or difficulty, with an explanation of them from German works of authority, especially 
 the Philosophical Lexicon of Krug.* I insert also a few words, of which Dr. Neander 
 makes frequent use, and respecting which some brief remarks may be acceptable. 
 
 " Anschiuung (intuitio,) in its most restricted sense, is synonymous with an image 
 presented-to-us-through-the-sight,t from the verb schauen, to see. But because the 
 representations of-the-sight [Gesichtsvorstellungen] have the greatest clearness and 
 objectivity of all our sensuous perceptions, under the term Jlnscluniung, taken in a more 
 extended sense, we understand generally an objective representation to any of our 
 senses, and contrast with it an Empjindung, or sensatioti [sensatio,] as a subjective, 
 sensuous representation. This contrast is, however, not to be understood exclusively, 
 but only as the predominant distinction. In the case of an Anseliauung, the Objective 
 (the condition of the object represented) comes most strongly into consciousness ; in an 
 Einpfinduag, or sensation, the Subjective, (the condition of the subject in which the 
 representation takes place.) In its widest meaning, Aiischaimng is equivalent to a 
 sensuous representation.:}: Hence, sensuous knowledge^ is called anscliauliche, or 
 intuitive. 
 
 " Pure or a priori intuitions [Anchauungen] are those which are referred to space 
 and time generally, and to that which can be constructed therein independently of expe- 
 rience (purely mathematical magnitudes;) empirical, or a posteriori intuitions, are those 
 which are referred to objects of experience, perceivable in space and time. An intel- 
 lectual Anschauung is one which proceeds from the Understanding; a rational one, that 
 which proceeds from the Reason. 
 
 " As soon as we distinguish the Reason and the Understanding from Sense, it be- 
 comes inconsistent to speak of perceiving intuitively [anschauen] as an act of the senses, 
 and at the same time as an act of the Reason or of the Understanding. But still it may 
 be said that the imagination performs this act [anschauet,] because it is itself nothing 
 but an inward sense. But the Sense itself is called also the Anschauungsvermogen, or 
 faculty-of-intuition (facullas intuendi.) The Anschauungsweise\\ [or mode of intuition] — 
 
 * All^emeines Handworterbuch der philosophischen Wissenschaften, nebst ihrer Liieratur und 
 GeschicTite. Nach dem heutigen Standpuncte der Wissenschaft bearbeitet und herausgegeben 
 von D. Wilhelm Traugott Krug, Professor der Philosophie an der Universitat zu Leipzig, &c. 
 Zweite verbesserte und vermehrte Auflage. Vier Bande. Leipzig, 1832. Fiinfter Band, ala 
 Supplement zur zweiten Auflage. Leipzig, 1838. 
 
 t The original word is Gesichts-vorstellung, representation-of-the-sight. Object of sight would 
 not be a just translation, as this would leave out the notion of the subject in whom the represen- 
 tation is formed. Of Vorstellu?ig, Krug says (sub voce,) Vorstellung (repraesentatio,) is properly 
 an outward operation through which we set any thing before ourselves, or before others ; on which 
 account this word is also used when any one at court, or in society, allows himself to be presented 
 to others, to personal acquaintance. But since "with that outward act [Thaiigkeit. act, agency,] 
 there is always conjoined an inward one also, by which something is made present to our con- 
 sciousness ; this making-present to us is also called a vorsleUen, [or setting before us,] and the 
 inward effect is called a Vorstellung, [or representation.] And every [Vorstellung] representation 
 is a more or less clear and striking image of something, which is the circumstance or the object 
 of the representation, as the ego is the subject of it. 
 
 X Perhaps impression would give the best translation of this word. 
 
 ^ Sinnliche Erkenntniss, a cognition obtained through the senses. See the word Erkenntniss, 
 further on in this preface. 
 
 II This expression is used, rather more laxly by Neander, p. 242 See note.] 
 
 t2 
 
ccxxii THE translator's preface. 
 
 the forma iiituitionis, on which account the word .Anschtninngsform is sometimes 
 
 used is nothing but the law, according to which our Sense performs the act of 
 
 intuition 
 
 " Anschauungs- or Intuitiones-Philosophie is opposed by many to Verstandes- or 
 Reflexions-Philosophie, and they prefer the former to the latter. But they ought pro- 
 perly to be taken together, because the ideas derived from intuition, [Anschauungen] 
 and from reflection [or Begriffe, see the next word] are the elements of all human 
 knowledge." — Krug's Lexicon, vol. i. p. 160-1. 
 
 To this extract from Krug, I may append the following from Kiesewetter's Logik 
 zum Gebrauch fur Schulen, Vienna, 1824: 
 
 " All thoiiglits are representations, but all representations are not thoughts. All repre- 
 sentations must present something; this something which they present (which does 
 not, however, on that account require to have a real existence) is called their object [or 
 Gegenstand.] Now that representation which refers itself to a single object, and that, 
 too, immediately, (without any intermediate representation) is called an Anschauung 
 [or Intuition.] All representations, which are not [Anschauungen or] Intuitions, and 
 also all representations which are referred to more than one object, as also all mediate 
 representations, are thoughts. The representation [or image in the mind,] which I have 
 of the picture of my friend, which is hanging before me, and Avhich I look upon ; the 
 representation I have of the tones of a violin, which I am actually listening to; the 
 representation which I have of the flower I am smelling, the tea I am tasting, or of the 
 pain of burning, which I feel at the moment; the representation of the late king, which 
 my imagination recalls into consciousness; or the image of a mountain stream pre- 
 sented to my fancy ; the representation of the present condition in which my mind 
 actually is — all these are intuitions [Anschauungen,] because they refer to 07ie object, 
 and we see at once that this reference is immediate, and that they do not require any 
 intermediate representation. The representations of Man, Flower, &,c., are not intui- 
 tions, for they do not refer to one object, but comprehend many ; and still further, they 
 do not refer immediately to an object, but do so by means of intuitions (the representa- 
 tion, Man, for instance, is referred first to the intuition of individual men, as Caius, 
 Titus, &,c.) and hence are thoughts (Gedanken.) Dr. Kiesewetter then proceeds to show 
 that the statement, ' Caius is sick,' and the syllogism, * All men are mortal, Caius is a 
 man, therefore Caius is mortal,' are thoughts [Gedanken,] not intuitions [Anschauungen,] 
 as in the first case we do not rest in the simple image of Caius, but unite the proposition 
 with it that he is sick, &c." 
 
 To this extract I might add the article from the Conversations-Lexicon, in which the 
 writer draws a distinction between outward and inward intuitions, the former being the 
 intuitions of all objects in space, the latter of all objects only in time, which we per- 
 ceive only as changes in ourselves, such as the images of our imagination [as in the 
 examples of Kiesewetter, the mountain stream, or the late king,] our thoughts, &c. 
 He then proceeds to say, that all outward things, having a representation, and being 
 necessarily in some time, are also inivard, and thus by our imagination we can repre 
 sent the objects of space in our minds ; ' but on the contrary, that inward representations, 
 being only representable in time, not in space, cannot at the same time be outward things, 
 and hence that the latter class of representations have no form.' After speaking of the 
 fine arts, he then proceeds farther to say, that the "effect of any work of art depends 
 chiefly on its Anschaulichkeit, and is more lively and will please more, the more its 
 representations resemble our intuitive representations." 
 
 I might accumulate more extracts on this subject, but the above will be sufficient for 
 our present purpose, which is, not to write an Introduction to the elements of German 
 Philosophy, but to bring forward sufficient to illustrate the use of some of the terms 
 which occur in sections iv. and v., (see pages 239, 242, 243, 244, 263, 264.) It will 
 be seen from these extracts that in its strictest {ihilosopiiical sense, JlnscJuiuung means an 
 image of one outward object in the mind, conveyed thither by the sight, but tiiat it is 
 
THE TRANSLATOR S PREFACE. CCXXIU 
 
 used generally for any ideas of sense. I may, perhaps, observe, that I should 
 have done better to translate it by intuition than by perception. In page 2t>i also. 
 Intuition would, perhaps, be the best translation. In page 242, I believe that the 
 note and the translation when compared with the above extracts from other writers, 
 will convey the meaning of my author with tolerable justice. He there contrasts the 
 v^nscfumimgen of the Eastern people with the abstractions of the Western, — the lively 
 pictures which the former raised in their imaginations with the abstractions of the latter. 
 Thus Sophia became with the Eastern people, not an abstract idea of Wisdom,* which 
 they would not attempt to reason upon, but a person, whom they could picture to their 
 minds, and to which they could attribute all the qualities and actions of a person, and 
 thus represent to themselves all that related to her, Avith the most graphic livehness. 
 Their whole system of ^Eons, Pleroma, &c., are nothing but a set of pictures, called 
 up and figured in their prolific imaginations ; and it is in this respect in which they are 
 said to be so devoted to Anscluiuungcn in preference to Betfriffe. Intuition and pictorial 
 representation to tlie mind, are the two chief points to which we must turn our attention 
 in all passages where the word Anschauung occurs, and these two leading points will, 
 I think, explain all such passages in this work. 
 
 I now pass on to the next word, which may be much more briefly treated, in conse- 
 quence of the length to which the preceding discussion has been carried. 
 
 " Begriff. Begriff is a representation, through which something is thought upon ; but 
 an object is thought upon, when we represent it by means of certain sipis.f From the 
 collecting together of these signs (a concipiendis notis,) such a representation is called 
 a [Begriff, or] Conception (Conceptus, notio.) The Begriff or Conception is, therefore, 
 a mediate and general [or common, gemeinsame~\ representation, and is, therefore, essen- 
 tially distinguished from an ^iiiscfumung, or an Empjindung, through which something 
 individual is always represented ; as when any one beholds a house, or feels a pain. 
 But he, who only thinks upon that, which we call a house or a pain, he has a [Begriff] 
 conception of it, which he may refer to any house or pain whatsoever. A Conception, 
 therefore, [or Begriff] is the unity of a multitude [eines Mannigfaltigen,J] which mul- 
 titude may be greater or less, but is always more comprehensive than the multitude of 
 the Anschauung. He who looks upon the starry heaven, beholds many stars, but the 
 conception [Begriff] of a star goes far wider; it comprehends those under the horizon, 
 and even those which are invisible by reason of their distance. So also, he who thinks 
 upon a house or a mountain by means of conceptions, has a more comprehensive 
 representation of it, than he who merely looks upon many houses and mountains, 
 although the intuitive representation [or Anschauung] is fuller of contents or subject 
 matter, and therefore, more lively than the conception [Begriff] which only contains 
 what is common to these things. If we wish to become thoroughly acquainted with 
 any [Begriff, or] Conception, we must analyse it, that is, divide it into its signs or 
 marks, as far as this is possible. We thus learn its contents [its subject matter, its 
 complexus,] and we can then determine how far it goes, that is, to how many things it 
 applies," &c. — Krug, vol. i. p. 306. 
 
 Kiesewetter (1. c. p. 14 — 17,) says, " There are three kinds of thoughts. Conceptions, 
 Judgments, and Conclusions,^^ (Begriffe, Urtheile, und Schlusse,) and then characterises 
 the first of them thus : — " A Conception [Begriff] is, like an Anschauung, a single 
 representation, but not like the latter, a representation of a single object, as it represents 
 many objects; it is also mediate, whereas on the contrary, an Anschauung is imme- 
 
 * I do not by the use of this word mean to assert we can have really any abstract idea of wisdom, 
 or that wisdom is more than an abstract term, which we must unite with a Being, before we can 
 conceive it : in which case it becomes a concrete, not an abstract idea. I do not enter into tliis 
 quesiion at all, which most metaphysical writers discuss at great length. 
 
 t Under Be^reifen, Knig says, ' This word means to feel with the fingers, as we do in order to 
 acquaint ourselves accurately with any thing. Bui bcf^reifcn also means to form Begriffe, because 
 these exist by means of the taJiin^ lopelher of a variety of things.' 
 
 t This might be translated, ' the unity of ihe Multifarious,' which is always more comprehen- 
 eive than the Multifariousness of the Anschauung. 
 
CCXXIV THE TRANSLATOR S PREFACE. 
 
 diate. The conception Man, is a single representation, but refers to many objects ; I 
 do not obtain the Conception On Man immediately, as I do the Anschauung oi' Caius, 
 but mediately." 
 
 He afterwards says : 
 
 '• Our first conceptions arise out of intuitions, but it is quite clear that we do not 
 merely separately our conceptions only from intuitions, as explained above;* but can 
 also create new conceptions from our existing conceptions. Thus abstracting from 
 Lion, Tiger, Wolf, Stc, all in which they differ, and combining what remains, we have 
 a new conception, ' a quadruped of prey.' " 
 
 This will suffice on the subject of Begriff. 
 
 Beivusstseyn, Consciousness. It is not necessary to enter into the philosophical ques- 
 tions connected with this word, as Dr. Neander seems generally to apply it in its 
 common and usual sense, although sometimes, by a more lax usage of language; he 
 may unite with the common meaning of consciousness, a moral sense, which renders 
 it more nearly equivalent to our word conscience. 
 
 The note subjoined to the word Gottesbewusstsein, Avill suffice for its explanation. 
 
 Erkcnnlniss, Cognition. Erkenntnisse, Cognitions. 
 
 " Erkenncn (Cognoscere) means not only to represent or to think of any thing, but 
 to refer one's representations (Vorstellungenf) to real objects, and to distinguish these 
 objects from each other, as things of a definite character. This Erkennen, or cognizing, 
 is more than merely thinking; it is a real laying hold (erfassen, or ergreifen) of things 
 — on which account the old philosophers designated it also by the name jtAToxiz/jgava/, 
 or coraprehendere — but then this takes place by means of representations (Vorstel- 
 lungen.) These representations are partly sensiious [derived from the senses,] or, are 
 intuitions [Anschauungen, see the word,] and sensations [Empfindungen,] which refer 
 to the Individual (this or that particular object,) and, partly intellectual [derived from 
 the Understanding,] or Conceptions [Begriffe] which refer to the General (or that 
 which is common to many things.) But if any thing real is to be known {erkmnt, 
 cognized,) it must be given (datum,) or at least capable-of-being-given (dabile,) i. e., it 
 must be capable of being seen, or felt; or to speak more generally, of being perceived 
 (wahrnehmen.) Whatever is not in any manner perceivable (neither inwardly nor 
 outwardly) that is also not cognizable (erkennbar, knowahle;) it cannot be pointed out 
 and defined objectively in its reality, although subjectively in the consciousness of the 
 EgoJ there may be grounds for maintaining its existence. In this case it is an object of 
 Belief, not of knowledge, the latter being only said of what we maintain from objective 
 or real sources of cognition." 
 
 '' Erkenntniss (Cognitio.) Cognition, as the result of cognizing (Erkennen, see the 
 foregoing article,) is said both individually and generally. In the case of individual 
 things, cognition is the reference of a representation to a given object, by which it is 
 distinguished as a definite thing, from other things which more or less resemble it. 
 Thus we have a cognition [or knowledge] of the Moon, when it is represented as a 
 heavenly body revolving round the Earth, and undergoing certain changes. Thus we 
 perceive it competently, and consider it a real thing, although to us it is only an 
 appearance [Erscheinung, a Phenomenon;] for what it is, independently of the manner 
 in which it is represented to us, i. e., what it is in its own nature^ Ave do not know. 
 The same is true of other things which we perceive, as we do the moon, constantly in 
 a certain manner, and necessarily represent according to this perception of it. We are, 
 therefore, justified in laying down as a general principle-of-cognition the following 
 proposition. All which is necessarily represented in the case of a real thing, as far as 
 
 * He had explained the process of abstraction in another section. 
 
 t It must be remembered, as an able writer has well stated it, (Ed. Rev. Oct. 1832,) that Vor- 
 stellung is the genua of which Idee, Anschauung, and Begriff, are the species. Of these, Idee is 
 used in strict philosophy only for the ideas of the Reason. 
 
 X The word here stands for the thinking subject. 
 
 '5> Aa a thing-in-itself, is the literal translation, ' Ding an sich.' 
 
THE translator's PREFACE. CCXXV 
 
 It appears, according to our original mode of perception, belongs to it as an objectof 
 cognition, and may, therefore, be predicated of it in judgments which are universally 
 valid. The sum [Inbegriff"] of these judgments is Hnman-knmvledire genemlly. We 
 also consider ourselves as the containers, or bearers of cognition (the subjecta cogni- 
 tionis, or subjects in which these cognitions reside,) and the things which we thus 
 know are its objects (objecta cognitionis.') — Krug, vol. i. p. 816-17. 
 
 In the Conversations-Lexicon the writer, after giving an explanation nearly equivalent 
 to the above, and distinguishing between Sense, Understanding, and Reason, goes on to 
 say, " Reason is elevated above Sense and Understanding, and its peculiar representa- 
 tions are called Ideas, as e. g-. the representations of Godhead, Freedom, Immortality, 
 Duty, Virtue, &c. Whether and how far any thing can be known [erkannt] through 
 these Ideas, is taught by the Theory of the Faculty-of-Cognition, which investigates 
 the laws and limits of this facuhy. But presupposing that something can be known by 
 our Reason, it must be called the highest faculty of Cognition, as there is nothing in 
 human nature higher than the Reason. The Understanding and the Reason are often 
 classed together under the name of the higher faculty of Cognition, because these two 
 faculties in common language are not distinguished so accurately as scientific precision 
 requires. 
 
 •* The distinction between empirical and rational cogntion belongs here. The former 
 (from i/utTv^ia, experience) is a knowledge whose validity rests on experience, and herein 
 upon the lower or sensuous faculty-of-cognition. The latter is a knowledge, the 
 validity of which reposes on grounds which can be known only through the higher, 
 the intellectual,* or the rational faculty-of-cognition. The Avhole knowledge of man, 
 however, is an indivisible whole, connected together within him, and as such, a com- 
 mon production of Sense, Understanding, and Reason, jointly." 
 
 I need not add more on the subject of the word Erkenntniss, which the reader will 
 find used frequently ; but the above observations may serve to rectify any mistake 
 into which the translation might otherwise lead. The word is, perhaps, in neither 
 case used by our author in its strictest philosophical sense ; but if it be, ' definite con- 
 ception,' would not be accurate, but simply 'cognition.' In another place I have 
 translated ' speculative Erkenntnisse' by ' speculative ideas,' which in popular language 
 may adequately represent the original, although it is not philosophically just. ' Spe- 
 culative cognitions' would be the accurate translation, which would be nearly equivalent 
 to what we should call ' a philosophical knowledge,' or theoretical, as opposed to imral 
 and practical. (See Krug's Lexicon, under the word ' speculative.') 
 
 I may here conveniently point out an inaccuracy in p. 270 of this translation ; 
 which, although it does not lead to any great misapprehension of the author's meaning, 
 deserves correction. 
 
 The sentence to which I allude is the following: "All the powers and modes of 
 operation of the soul, which are directed to that which is temporal and perishable — 
 such as. its powers of reflection and the understanding, in which, according to Valen- 
 tinus, is contained the •l'jx>'t will then utterly cease."t 
 
 The error here is very easily corrected. I Avould substitute for the latter part of it 
 the following translation : " such as its faculty of reflection, the understanding, the sum 
 of Avhich powers, according to Valentinus, is the 4u;^«, will then utterly cease." Der 
 Verstand is in apposition with das Reflexions-vefmogen — Avith which it is synonymous, 
 and. therefore, the connecting particle 'and' is erroneous. The former translation ' in 
 which is contained the 4t';t''>' is neither so accurate nor so free from ambiguity as the 
 latter. But the error which I am anxious to correct is the making two faculties out of 
 two words used synonymously. 
 
 These are the chief words which require illustration, or give me reason to fear that 
 
 * EvPti in this sentence the Understanding and the Reason seem too little distinguished. 
 t The original is: Wie das Reflexions-vermogen, der Verstand, deren Inbegriff dem Valentinus 
 die "l^X" ist, &,c. 
 
ccxxvi THE translator's preface. 
 
 my version may in some degree fall short of the full meaning of the original ; but I 
 think, after this full explanation, no one can find any difficulty in placing himself in 
 the condition of a reader of the original work in these passages. 
 
 There are, however, one or two other words or phrases, Avhich are nsed in this work, 
 m a manner which almost baffles exact translation. For instance, the words Mensch- 
 Iieit and die menschliche JVatur, are used with a twofold reference. When we speak of 
 the renovation, improvement, &,c., of human nature, we may mean two things, either 
 a general renovation and improvement over the whole mass of human beings, or im- 
 provement in every part of man's nature, his will, his affections, &c. Now it is not 
 always easy to determine to which of these notions it is to be referred, or whether to a 
 sort of notion compounded of these two. But this cannot offer any obscurity which a 
 little thought and consideration will not readily remove, and it has hardly, therefore, 
 been deemed worth while to add any explanatory periphrasis, which would only en- 
 cumber the text, already sufficiently complicated in its structure. 
 
 Again, the word Leben ' Life,' admits of an use, which is inadequately represented 
 by our word ' Life,' although the word ' vital ' is used in a kindred sense. It is used in 
 a religious sense for all in religion which animates and excites us to an endeavour after 
 improvement in our spiritual condition— all which raises us from the death of sin to the 
 life of Righteousness— all which raises us up from a dead and lifeless unconcern about 
 our souls to a lively interest in them— all that excites, raises, and purifies our religious 
 affections. Now, although 'lively' and 'vital,' are applied in a sense somewhat 
 analogous to this, our English word 'Life,' hardly represents this range of ideas, ex- 
 cept m the combination of particular phrases. Thus, it would be legitimate to use it in a 
 phrase like the following, "There is no life in that man's religion;" and such a phrase 
 would be intelligible, but the word hardly bears so wide an application as the German 
 ' Leben,' in the first sentence, in section v. I have, however, ventured to use it 
 there, as the context would explain it. The word there translated ' understanding' 
 is BegrifT, which is more properly 'conception;' but the word 'understanding,' or 
 ' knowledge,' in the popular acceptation of th# terms, perhaps, conveys the meaning of 
 the author better than a translation more philosophically accurate. At all events, with 
 the context, and these few observations, there can be no difficulty to any one in fixing 
 the exact import of the phrase. 
 
 Eudcemonism, (section v.) Perhaps, the following explanation from Krug, (vol. i. 
 p. 848,) may be of service. After showing the meaning of Eudamonie to be happiness, 
 (ij and SMf^mv, having a condition like that of a good genius, or happiness,) Krug pro- 
 ceeds : — " EmUemonist, therefore, means one who strives only after happiness, and that, 
 too, his own happiness; and Eudcemonism means that line of opinion and conduct 
 which is thorouglily imbued with such an endeavour, as well as a system adapted 
 to it." 
 
 I may, perhaps, be allowed to mention that I have employed the article and the 
 adjective, to express abstract terms, more frequently than is common in English com- 
 position. In German it is a phraseology of most frequent occurrence ; and I have 
 sometimes found- ii almost impossible to express the meaning of the original without 
 it. I have, in order to call attention to the circumstance, usually prefixed a capital 
 letter to the adjective. 
 
 In translating the Avord Kirchen-lehrer, I have generally avoided the more convenient 
 and common phrase of ' the Fathers,' except when reference is made to them as 
 authors. The phrase, Church-teachers, seems more appropriate in the translation of a 
 work of this kind, where the author speaks of what was actually fcxught in the 
 Church, more especially as the phrase of ' the Fathers' is used in German, as well as 
 m English. 
 
 Where I have given explanatory additions, &c., I have enclosed them usually in 
 brackets of this form [ ], to distinguish them from the parentheses of the author. 
 
THE TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. CCXXVll 
 
 which are within the common parenthetical signs. I regret to observe, that in a few 
 cases this precaution has been overlooked, but, I trust, not so as to create any confusion. 
 With these remarks on the phraseology, &.C., of the original and the translation, I 
 now close this preface. I fear some readers may think it too extended, and that I have 
 descended to too minute particulars, and to explanations which can hardly be needed 
 by those into whose hands this volume is likely to fall. But as some of these words 
 and explanations refer to most interesting portions of the original (e. g-. the explanation 
 and development of the Gnostic systems,) I am desirous to place every one as far as 
 possible, in the condition of a reader of the original, and to obviate by every means in 
 my power, any difference between the original and the copy. It is a matter of interest 
 to see the light in which a mind, like that of Dr. Neander, views the subjects he here 
 treats ; and the more faithful I can make my transcript of the original, the more I shall 
 have done for the satisfaction of those who feel this interest. It is still my maxim that 
 it is the chief business of a translator to 'say every thing which the author says, and no- 
 thing whatever Avhich he does not say.' (Pref to sections i. ii. iii., p. vii.) How far I have 
 succeeded in this I must leave others to judge. I will only add that, both in translating 
 the work, and in the observations I have made on any of its tendencies or views, the 
 single object I have had in view has been to serve the cause of truth and religion; and 
 if those who are entitled to judge on these great questions, shall think that I have not 
 entirely failed in that object, I shall feel that my labour has not been in vain. 
 
 H. J. Rose. 
 Hmighton Conquest, 1841. 
 
229 
 
 SECTION IV. 
 
 THE HISTORY OF CHKISTIAIVITY, AS CONCEIVED AND DEVELOPED UNDER THE FORM OF 
 A SYSTEM OF DOCTRINES. 
 
 (1.) Gmtral Introductoivj Remarks. 
 
 Christianity showed itself in doc- 
 trines as well as in human life to be no 
 constraining, dead, and killing letter, but 
 a spirit developing itself freely, and pro- 
 moting its own free development, — a liv- 
 ing spirit that made alive also. It was 
 not given to man as a compact, dogmatical 
 system in one definite form, which was to 
 be propagated from the very beginning 
 as something unchangeable in a lifeless 
 channel of transmission, but the One truth 
 was to be developed in various forms, 
 and manifold relations, and applications, 
 through die means of its Jirst instruments, 
 so characteristically distinguished from 
 each other, and sanctified for the work ; 
 and particularly by the ybi^r pillars of the 
 Church, the apostles Paul and James, 
 Peter and John, who represent whole 
 characteristic dispositions of human na- 
 ture, when enlightened by Christianity. 
 It was left to the free conceptions of each 
 individual human spirit to recognise the 
 oneness of divine truth under the variety 
 of human representation, and just as each 
 man felt himself more attracted by this or 
 that form of apostolic Christianity, accord- 
 ing as his peculiar nature was more akin 
 to this or that disposition, and according 
 as the peculiarities of his nature and his 
 individual education conducted him from 
 this or that side to Christianity, which 
 may be approached from so many difTer- 
 ent sides. It was left to each man also to 
 appropriate Christianity to himself in his 
 own individual mode, and when once ap- 
 propriated to exhibit it again in his own 
 individual mode in his spiritual life. In 
 those first documents of the communica- 
 tion of the grace of the Holy Spirit the holy | 
 truths were revealed in their simplicity 
 and loftiness, and made capable of a mani- ! 
 fold lively application, but not set forth ' 
 in a perfecdy formed human system. | 
 SystPm and organic unity lay in the thing \ 
 itself; there was the real inward uriify and 
 tlie inward connection of Christianity as 
 One whole, in which all individual parts 
 develope Uiemselves from one centre point, 
 and are harmoniously interwoven together 
 
 j by means of one fundamental principle. 
 I Now this inward unity laid its foundations 
 in the hiward life of men, together with 
 ! Christianity itself, as soon as they had re- 
 [ ceived Christianity into their hearts by a 
 lively faith ; and yet it was only by de- 
 I grees that out of this inward unity Christi- 
 I anity could develope itself as a systematic 
 whole, in thought as well as in all other 
 branches of life, with clear and full per- 
 \ ceptions and consciousness. In relation 
 to its spiritual, as well as to its moral re- 
 ception, it proved itself by its peculiar 
 efficacy a leaven destined by degrees to 
 penetrate the whole mass of human life. 
 This is true, as well of the individual doc- 
 trines of Christianity as of the Avhole 
 religion itself. 
 
 As Christianity, therefore, considered in 
 the light of a whole, could only by de- 
 grees, and with a constantly increasing 
 clearness, unfold itself in the spiritual con- 
 science of the thinking man, as a connected 
 system, rejecting every thing foreign to its 
 nature which attempted from without to 
 join itself with it; so also it was only 
 gradually that the full scope of the single 
 doctrines contained in this one whole 
 could stand forth clearly and definitely in 
 this same conscience. As in life, so in 
 thought Christianity found a world already 
 in existence, which was formed on differ- 
 ent principles, and in which it must first 
 create a way for itself by means of its 
 overcoming and reforming spirit. As in 
 life, so in the regions of thought it was 
 necessary for Christianity to contend 
 against the opposite dispositions which 
 were then in vogue, and which opposed 
 it not only with open enmity, but by par- 
 tially stealing something of Christianity, 
 and making it their own, threatened to 
 mix themselves up with it. This was the 
 more likely to happen then, because 
 Christianity appeared in a period so full 
 of ferment and of expectation, and exer- 
 cised a power which attracted tlie oppo- 
 site elements and dispositions of human 
 nature from so many difTerent sides; and 
 those peculiar dispositions which were 
 
EARLY SECTS. LATE REJECTION OF THE LAW. 
 
 230 
 
 unable to resist the attractive power of 
 Christidiiity were yet unwilling to give 
 themselves up to it wholly, and suffer 
 their own deficiencies to be supplied by it, 
 but they were inclined to set up a Chris- 
 tianity of their own for themselves, and 
 capriciously to sever what in that religion 
 is one and inseparable. But still the 
 opposition against these adulterated and 
 partial conceptions of Christianity and of 
 Christian doctrines served well to bring 
 forward more clearly and definitely in the 
 thinking conscience the peculiar nature 
 and inward unity of Christianity, and the 
 peculiar import and character of its seve- 
 ral doctrines. 
 
 But since the development of the Chris- 
 tian scheme of doctrine can only be fully 
 understood by means of its connection and 
 its contentions with these manifold oppo- 
 sitions to it, we shall find it absolutely 
 necessary previously to give these oppo- 
 sitions, as they appear in the various 
 Christian sects, a more accurate conside- 
 ration. 
 
 (2.) TJie History of Sects. 
 
 There were two main divisions of the 
 religious character; the one a carnal 
 spirit, that endeavoured to lower every 
 thing to the level of sense, and the other 
 an exclusively spiritual disposition, that 
 spiritualized and refined every thing away 
 too much ; — which opposed Christianity 
 from the very beginning, or threatened to 
 adulterate it by mixing themselves up with 
 it.* The one party rested wholly on the 
 earthhj appearance of the (Z«)me,and in it 
 overlooked the higher Spirit which ani- 
 mated it; the other thought that they 
 could grasp the overwhelming Spirit with- 
 out the reality of the appearance : the one 
 would have in Christianity only the human 
 without the divine ; the other only the 
 divine without the human. When first 
 Christianity arose out of Judaism, it was 
 from Judaism that the first intermixture of 
 these two dispositions with it proceeded 
 also. The first disposition was the most 
 prevalent among the great mass of the 
 Jewish people, and therefore, this came the 
 first into contact with Christianity, and 
 thence proceeded all those sects, which, 
 mistaking the peculiar and characteristic 
 difference between the law and the gospel, 
 made out of Christianity only a perfected 
 Judaism, and which were unable to com- 
 prehend and acknowledge what is iho- 
 
 • Compare the introduction to this work, 
 page 36. 
 
 i roughly new in Christianity and its effects, 
 as well as that by which Christ is distin- 
 I guished from all the sages and saints of the 
 1 old Testament. 
 
 I (a.) Tlie JiMlttizing Sects. 
 
 j The origin of these sects carries us back 
 : into the apostolic age. Among those 
 ' things of which Christ said that the apos- 
 tles could not yet understand them, and 
 that they should first be revealed to them 
 by the illumination of the Spirit, one of 
 the most pre-eminent was the doctrine 
 which is so intimately interwoven with 
 the nature of the gospel, — the doctrine of 
 the foundation of the kingdom of heaven 
 in all mankind., only by faith in the Re- 
 deemer ; from which the abrogation of 
 the ceremonial law of Moses followed as 
 a matter of course. Even after the apos- 
 tles, by the illumination of the Holy Ghost, 
 had attained to the right knowledge of the 
 Redeemer, they were, nevertheless, not 
 immediately in clear possession of all the 
 consequences which flow from this doc- 
 trine in regard to the all-sufficiency of faith 
 in Him, and the needlessness of the Mosaic 
 ceremonial law. Even when they per- 
 ceived that the preaching of the gospel was 
 to reach the heathen also, and that they 
 were to become fellow-partakers in the 
 kingdom of Christ, (as indeed, many of 
 the better spirits among the Jews had 
 already deduced this from the prophecies,) 
 even then they had no other notion than 
 that the heathen, together with the gospel, 
 were to embrace the whole ceremonial law 
 of Moses. It was only when St. Peter, 
 having been called to the conversion of 
 Cornelius, by means of a vision connected 
 with this call, the meaning and object of 
 which the Spirit of God had taught him 
 to understand, had been persuaded that 
 God made no difference between Jew and 
 Gentile, and when he saw faith in the 
 Gospel working with the same divine 
 power among the heathen, that he became 
 the man to stand up among the apostles 
 at Jerusalem as a witness to the truth 
 which he now recognised ; and the apostles 
 then, by the light of the Spirit, attained to 
 a knowledge of that which hitherto had 
 been sealed up to them in the counsels of 
 God in regard to man's redemption. When 
 St. Paul afterwards was chosen out espe- 
 cially as the instrument of God for the 
 preaching of the Gospel, what he calls the 
 mystery of Christ, into which he had re- 
 ceived so tleep an insight, was announced 
 to the rest of the apostles, as well as to 
 himself, (Ephes. iii. 4, 5 ;) and here also 
 
JEWISH AND HEATHEN CHRISTIANS. 
 
 no contest of principles could take place i 
 among llicm, as is beautifully declared in 
 the apostolic council at Jerusalem. (Acts 
 XV.) But ilie dillln-cnt spheres of opera- ^ 
 ti(m chosen by the apostles, introduced an \ 
 outward difference in their mode of pro- [ 
 ceeding. j 
 
 Tliose apostles, whose exertions lay ! 
 entirely among the Jews in Palestine, 
 themselves observed the ceremonial law, 
 and left its observance to be contined, for 
 this was a matter of perfect indifference, 
 being only an outward thing, as long as 
 the conscience made no more of it, and 
 as long as people did not profess to seek 
 justification and sanctification by it. But 
 the fdHcij, that sanctification might be 
 found in ceremonial observances, could 
 not be destroyed by an outward attack, 
 from simply dirowlng away the ceremo- 
 nial law at once ; for what was founded 
 on persuasion, could only be removed by 
 persuasion also. If the belief, that sanc- 
 tification and holiness can only be attained 
 through the grace of God in Christ, had 
 once been able thoroughly to penetrate 
 the consciences of mankind, ceremonies 
 would have fallen away of themselves. 
 But if men were persuaded overhastily , 
 to throw them away, many weak-minded i 
 people might be led away to do things 
 which their consciences might reproach 
 them for, — and others, who might have 
 been won to the Gospel by degrees, had 
 they only been able to join it outwardly 
 at first, would then be wholly inclined to 
 reject it from the very beginning. This 
 was always the plan pursued by a pure 
 evangelic spirit, not to begin with an 
 ouhoard amendment, but to suffer only the 
 inward power of truth to effect every 
 thing itself, working from within to things 
 without. 
 
 The case of St. Paul, whose sphere of 
 exertion lay among the heathen, was dif- 
 ferent. Among them, the connection of 
 Christianity with the ceremonial law 
 would only increase, to the utmost de- 
 gree, the difficulty of its propagation; 
 because the prevailing peculiarities of the 
 heathen people were so strongly opposed 
 to that law. The only thing which could 
 possibly have brought them to submit to 
 a yoke so burthensome to their peculiar 
 habits, and to make so great a sacrifice, 
 would have been the persuasion, that 
 their justification and salvation depended 
 upon it; and to introduce or to further 
 such a persuasion, would have been 
 nothing else than undermining in them 
 the whole foundation of the Christian 
 
 231 
 
 religion, and giving them a Jewish-Chris- 
 tian ceremonial w,orship, instead of the 
 living faitii of Christianity. Therefore, 
 the apostle St. Paul — the very same per- 
 son whose principle it was to become to 
 the Jews a Jew, in order to win the Jews 
 to Christianity — was obliged so expressly 
 to oppose himself, as a defender of Chris- 
 tian freedom, to the Judaizing teachers, 
 who wished to force the Jewish ceremo- 
 nial law on the acceptance of the Churches 
 formed from heathen converts also. 
 
 Tlie Churches, which consisted entirely 
 of Jews, who, in their Cliristian faith, still 
 lived entirely as Jews, must have formed 
 a striking contrast to the Churches formed 
 from heathen converts, in whom the pure 
 spiritual character of the Christian wor- 
 ! ship was the most prominent feature, and 
 among whom religion was connected with 
 no outward ceremonies whatever. But 
 the communion of faith and love was not 
 to be broken in consequence of all these 
 differences in the outward circumstances 
 and form of life; Christians of both de- 
 scents and classes were to look upon 
 each other as brethren. Those vvho had 
 attained to the full ripeness of Christian 
 knowledge, to tsXeiota? I» X^io-tw, were to 
 bear with those, who were not so far ad- 
 vanced, in a spirit of love and tenderness, 
 in the hope that God would reveal to 
 those also in his own time, those views 
 in which they were deficient, if only all 
 would endeavour to apply faithfully to the 
 purposes of a Christian life the measure 
 of knowledge, which was vouchsafed to 
 them. (Phil. iii. 15.) 
 
 The knowledge of many of the Jewish 
 Christians was deficient also in regard to 
 other things, besides the importance of 
 the ceremonial law. Their limited and 
 narrow-minded representations of the na- 
 ture of Christianity, and their limited 
 views as to the person of Christ himself, 
 served admirably to go hand in hand. As 
 in their opinion the difference between 
 the Gospel and the law was only a dif- 
 ference of degree, they could also per- 
 ceive between what Christ was, and what 
 Moses and the Prophets were, only a dif- 
 ference of degree. They knew, there- 
 fore, in this point of view, tlie Messiah 
 more after the ffesh than after the Spirit; 
 they knew him rather as the Son of Da- 
 vid, than as the Son of God. And yet, 
 in the first place, the belief in Jesus as 
 the Messiah was to be a point of union 
 for all, even amidst all other diircrences in 
 their measure of Christian knowledge, 
 and in their other religious opinions ; and 
 
232 
 
 CHARACTERISTIC DIFFERENCES. 
 
 from this one point all further develop- 
 ment of Christian kiiavvletlge was to pro- 
 ceed. The apostles left it to the guidance 
 of the Spirit, to lead all men from this 
 one point to the unity of the faith, and 
 knowledge of tlie Son of God. 
 
 But, although the apostles agreed in 
 their principles, as to the relation of 
 Christianity to Judaism; although the 
 apostles in Palestine and St. Paul recog- 
 nised each other mutually, as independent 
 fellow-labourers in the same work, this 
 their agreement was, nevertheless, not 
 acknowledged by all, who called them- 
 selves their disciples. There were Jewish- 
 Christians, who were not content with 
 having toleration and tenderness shown 
 to their narrow-minded notions, but who 
 wished to Ibrce those notions on all 
 others, and persecuted every freer evan- 
 gelical spirit with blind zeal. These 
 men maintained most strictly, that no 
 person could have an equal share Avith 
 the Jews in the blessings of the Messiah's 
 kingdom, unless he received the Mosaic 
 law in all its extent : and these were the 
 people who endeavoured to destroy the 
 foundation of Christianity, laid by St. 
 Paul in tlie Churches of the heathen 
 converts, and to introduce, instead of it, 
 doctrines which savoured more of Ju- 
 daism than of Christianity. They would 
 not, therefore, acknowledge St. Paul, who 
 opposed their influence so strongly, for 
 an apostle. In their opinion, those only 
 were apostles whom Jesus himself had 
 instructed during his life on earth, and 
 had placed in their apostolic calling. St. 
 Peter and St. James* were the pillars of 
 the Church, to which they more parti- 
 cularly appealed, although they did not 
 act in accordance with the spirit or the 
 notions of those apostles. Hence there 
 arose a pseudo-Petrian and a pseudo- 
 Jacobite parly of Jewisli-Christians. It 
 was natural enough that the spirit of op- 
 position on one side shoidd call forth a 
 similar spirit on Ihe other ; and a party 
 of zealots among the heathen converts, 
 who prided themselves most haughtily 
 on their freedom, as Christians, opposed 
 themselves to these narrow-minded Jew- 
 ish-Christians, and would not allow the 
 observers of the ceremonial law to be 
 
 * The J.imcs, who is known under the name 
 of the brother of tlio I>ord, probably tlie apostle, 
 the son of Alpheus or Cleophas; being the rela- 
 tion of Jesus by l)lood. He was also called his 
 brother by a use of the word in an extended 
 
 reckoned by any means as genuine Chris- 
 tians : these people vaunted their freer 
 Gnosis, and by their contempt of the 
 Jewish people, and by their exaggeration 
 of the contrast laid down by St. Paul, 
 between the law and the Gospel, they 
 were in danger of being seduced into 
 despising the Old Testament itself They 
 would acknowledge Christianity only in 
 the mode in which it was represented by 
 St. Paul, and St. Paul was to be their only 
 apostle. He, however, would acknowledge 
 only one Christ for all, and only one 
 Church of Christians sanctilied by Him, 
 and calling on their common Lord ; and 
 he would know nothing of PauVs party, 
 and Peter''s party. But still, where the 
 genuine evangelical spirit and the power 
 of love did not quench these diffi^rences, 
 it was necessarily the case, that this oppo- 
 sition should be developed still more dis 
 tinctly as time went on. 
 
 In the first half of the second century 
 we find again the four parties, which had 
 formed themselves in the apostolic age. 
 
 1. The Jewish zealots — the pseudo- 
 Petrians. 
 
 2. The more moderate, and genuine 
 evangelical Jewish Christians. 
 
 3. The zealots among the heathen con- 
 verts — the pseudo-Pauline Christians. 
 
 4. The more moderate and genuine 
 apostolic heathen Christians. 
 
 Among these latter was Justin Martyr. 
 He says in his Dialogue with Trypho,* 
 " There are persons who will have no 
 intercourse with those who observe the 
 ceremonial law, and will not share the 
 hearth with them, and say that they can- 
 not be saved. I do not agree with these 
 persons ; but if the others, from weak- 
 ness of persuasion, wish to observe as far 
 as they can, even those laws of Moses, 
 which we think were given on account 
 of the hardness of man's heart ; if they 
 will only, at the same time, rest their 
 hope on Christ, and do that which is 
 lawful and holy by its own nature, and by 
 eternal laws, and have no hesitation in 
 living with other Christians, witliout en- 
 deavouring to compel them also to the 
 observance of these things, then we say, 
 that such persons are to be looked upon 
 as our brethren in all respects. But if 
 those from among your people (the Jews) 
 who say that they believe in Christ, com- 
 pel those of the heathens, who embrace 
 the faith in this same Christ, to live 
 
 * Ed. Colon, p. 200. [P. 137. Ed. Jebb. P. 
 266. Ed. Paris.] 
 
^LIA CAPITOLINA. 
 
 233 
 
 entirely according to the law laid down j time of Irenapus all those Christians of 
 by Moses, or else decline all intercourse Jewish descent, who considered it neces- 
 with them, then I cannot approve of such sary to continue in the observance of the 
 persons ul all. And yet I believe tliat, per-; ceremonial law, were designated by the 
 haps, those who follow them in the observ-j common name of the sect of the Ebion- 
 ance of the ceremonial law, if they believe j ites. In regard to the derivation of the 
 in Christ at the same time, will be saved." j name, Tertullian is the first who makes 
 The Church of Jerusalem, which must mention of a founder named Ebion, and 
 have been induced by the Jewish war to others have followed him in this account. 
 take refuge in Pella beyond the Jordan,* I Better informed writers, such as Irenaeus 
 from its origin till the first half of the ' and Origen, know of no such person ; 
 second century, consisted entirely of I and it is clear that the invention of such 
 Christians of Jewish descent, who, there- a person only arose from the not under- 
 fore, unitedly continued in the observance ' standing the name of Ebionite. Origen 
 of the ceremonial law. By means of this gives us the proper derivation of the term, 
 outward bond thf^y were all united to- „amely, from the Hebrew tV2X (Ebion) 
 ffether, whatever difierences besidesjnight ' u » .1 • ,» i,- u ,„^ a^A 
 
 ft ^ ' . , . 1 . • Jpoor: but the meannig which w-e find 
 
 be lound ni their opinions on doctrinal ; \, 1 ^ 1 * .u i i t- .u„* ;^ t^ 
 
 ... ,. .' ,. . . , ! attributed to the word hy him, that is to 
 
 points and their rehgmus dispositions. t ^^ containing a reference to the po- 
 
 was a peculiar circumstance of an out-l /^^^ ^^ ^^^^^^ ^^^^ conceptions and 
 
 ward nature which first caused a separa- ,• ^u ■ r m * ,.. » ,.^c<,;ki.r k« tv,^ 
 , , „ 1 II of their faith,* cannot possibly be the 
 
 t.on amongs them In fact, when Ha-, ^ j ^^^^^^. ^^ ^he^term, for they 
 
 dnan was induced by the rebellion of the ; ^j^^-^^^^,^^^^ gave their own sect this name, 
 Jews under Barchochab to prohibit them , ^^^ ^^ ^j^^^j^ ^^,^^jj ^^^ j^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^. 
 
 entirely from setting foot on the ^^^M^^x.es ix^,.me\vhichv^ovMhe?. re^ro^i.-h 
 and the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, since , ^^ ^j^^^^^ g^^^ ^^^^^ -j. ^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ 
 
 they generally drew upon themselves the ° 
 
 jealousy of the Roman governors, it was 
 natural enough that the Christian Church, 
 which apparently had returned back to 
 Jerusalem in this interval,! should wish 
 to escape being confounded with the 
 Jews. Those, therefore, who were re- j 
 strained by religious scruples from doing 
 what might enable them to attain this 
 object, were obliged to separate them- 
 selves from the rest. The others joined 
 themselves with Christians of heathen 
 descent, and formed with them a Church 
 in the heathen colony, ^lia Capitolina, 
 which had arisen on the site of old Jeru- 
 salem, and in this Church the ceremonial 
 law was entirely abandoned-^ 
 
 We often find it the case in the history 
 of sects, that people describe under one 
 common name sects which are really dif- 
 ferent, but agree witli one another in some 
 
 name was given them by others, and by 
 such as were of sentiments hostile to their 
 sect, Avho were the persons who would 
 have branded them Avith this name under- 
 stood in this sense } Could it be Chris- 
 tians of heathen descent ? These might, 
 indeed, have applied the name to them in 
 this very signification ; but then we can 
 hardly imagine that they Avould have 
 chosen an Hebreto name. Or was it the 
 Jews, who were angry at Christianity in 
 general } This might be possible, if we 
 modify in some degree the notion of 
 poverty of thought, after the idea of a very 
 acute inquirer, who has recently distin- 
 guished himself in this walk of know- 
 
 * Origen, t xvi. ; Matt. xii. Tec i^ioDium ksu 
 TTToe^ii/cvTi TTipi T;)V ik 'Jn^cuv TTicnt)/. Origen can 
 
 hardly mean in this place to give an etymological 
 . explanation ; but he is only making an allusion 
 
 points, without remarking the points of, ;„ \^\^ own way to the meaning of the word, 
 difference between them, so that they 1 However, in the hook c. Celsum, ii. c. 1, he says 
 attribute to all these sects what may justly : expressly, i^aiw^uo/ tw »aTa tm ixJi^xnv Trruxti^ too 
 be said only of one or other of tliem. """" 
 This was the case here also ; from the 
 
 • Euseb. iii. 5. 
 
 f Epiphanius de mensuriset pondcribus, c. 1.5. 
 
 i Sec Euseb. iv. 6, and the remarkable words 
 of Sulpicius Scvcrus, after he has quoted that 
 prohibition of Hadrian; Hist. Sacr. ii..31. "Quod 
 quJdem Christiana; fidei proficiebat, quia turn poene 
 
 omnes Christum Deum sub legis observatione j least it is certain there was no such founder of a 
 credebant." ' sect as Ebion." — H. J. R.] 
 
 3 m2 
 
 [In Neander's earlier work, Genetische En 
 twickelung der Vornchmsten Gnostischen Sys- 
 teme, Berhn, 1818, there is a long appendix on 
 the subject of the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies, 
 and on the Ebionites. In Burton's Bampton 
 Lectures, note 80, the authorities may be found 
 by whom the existence and the non-existence of 
 Ebion are respectively supported. Matter, Hist, 
 du Gnosticisme, vol. ii. p. 320, says, that "at 
 
234 
 
 EBIONITES. — ORIGIN OF THE NAME. 
 
 ledge, *and if, putting the word into the 
 mouth of those Jews who expected a 
 Messiah to come in visible glory^ we 
 imagine them to designate by this name 
 the faith in a poor and crucified Messiah. 
 And yet this meaning, taken by itself, 
 does not appear to be tlie simplest nor the 
 most natural; for even this learned writer 
 himself connects this meaning with one 
 we are about to mention. If we follow 
 the interpretation of the name which we 
 find in the later Ebionites of Epiphanius, 
 it originally denoted a class of poor men. 
 This may have been applied to them 
 either as consisting of poor persons of 
 the lower orders^ whom none of the rich 
 and the learned had joined (see John 
 vii. 49,) a reproach which the heathens 
 made to the Christians,! and which 
 the proud and the wise in their own 
 opinion have constantly made to the dis- 
 ciples of simple truth ; or they may have 
 been persons who had voluntarily re- 
 nounced all earthly property, and volun- 
 tarily given up all this earth's wealth, in 
 order that they might devote their whole 
 life to Divine things ; and in this case we 
 should be reminded of a similar name in 
 the case of later sects.J The latter idea 
 corresponds the most nearly with the 
 explanation given by the later Ebionites 
 themselves in Epiphanius ; for they ap- 
 pealed to the conduct of their ancestors 
 in laying down all their goods at the feet 
 of the apostles. Jn truth, however, this 
 is no decisive proof, for we may certaiidy 
 imagine it possible that these later Ebion- 
 ites had introduced a meaning into the 
 term which was foreign to its original 
 sense. According to either of these ex- 
 planations this appellation may have been 
 originally a general name of the Chris- 
 tians in Jerusalem, or it may have been 
 from the very beginning the name of a 
 certain ascetic sect among the Jewish 
 Christians, which the Church teachers 
 afterwards extended by mistake tq all 
 Judaizing Christians. Such an appella- 
 tion, in such a sense, suits admirably the 
 spirit of the ascetic Ebionites, who paint 
 themselves to us in the apocryphal book 
 called the Clementines ;§ for in that book. 
 
 * Dr. Gieselcr, in Staiidlin and Tzschirner's Ar- 
 chive for Ancient and Modern Ecclesiastical His- 
 tory, iv. Band. Second Part, p. 307. 
 
 ■j- See page 4 1 . 
 
 4 Huniiliati, pauperes dc Lugduno. 
 
 § [In Neandcr's Genetische Entwickelunpr, 
 &c., lie says, p. 367, "although all the opinions 
 which the first Fathers, who have given us hut 
 very scanty notices of the Ebionites, attributed to 
 them, are not to be found in him (the author d 
 
 according to the contrast hetween the king- 
 dom of God and the kingdom of Sata7i^ 
 tohich they misunderstood, (as if the whole 
 earthly world, not merely in regard to its 
 sinful misuse, but of itself and by its very 
 nature, necessarily belonged to Satan ;) in 
 this book we find it required of those who 
 wish to belong to the kingdom of God, that 
 they should renounce as far as possible 
 all possessions in a world which was none 
 of theirs, but which belonged to Satan ; 
 that they should possess nothing but what 
 was absolutely necessary to their bare sub- 
 sistence, that they should only possess 
 bread, water, and one garb, and even these 
 necessaries of life they should obtain by 
 the sweat of their brow.* 
 
 Many among these Judaizing Christians 
 had brought their carnal Jewish habits of 
 thought with them into Christianity, and 
 they had thus only applied the common 
 Jewish representation of the 3Iessiah to 
 Jesus. According to this representation 
 they considered him a man, like other 
 men, who had been chosen as Messiah by 
 a peculiar decree of God's counsel, so- 
 lemnly dedicated to this office by Elias, 
 that is, according to their notions, by John 
 who represented Elias, and at this mo- 
 ment had been furnished with the Divine 
 power requisite for the accomplishment 
 of his office. This was the only class 
 of Ebionites known to Irenseus, and they 
 appear to us as the offspring of those 
 old Jewish opponents of St. Paul. Like 
 them, these Ebionites considered circum- 
 cision as an indispensable condition to a 
 perfect participation in the kingdom of 
 God : the earthly Jerusalem was still to 
 them the true city of God., and they abused 
 St. Paul as an apostate from the law.j 
 
 the Clementines,) yet he belongs far more to this 
 class of Judaizing Christains than to the class of 
 the Nazarenes.'' He therefore, considers the work 
 written by a man of Ebionitish views. See also 
 Matter, Hist, du Gnosticisme, vol. ii. p. 329. 
 — H. J. R] 
 
 * Clemcntin. Homil. 15. c. 7, 8, 9. 
 
 f IrensEUs, i. 26, and alibi. I am no longer so 
 strongly of the opinion, that the difTicult passage, 
 " Quae autcm sunt prophetica, curiosius exponere 
 nituntur," is to be understood after the ideas of 
 the Clementine, of a too subtile investigation into 
 the meaning of true prophecies, as I endeavoured 
 to show in my book on the Gnostics, p. 391 ; for 
 only the common sort of Ebionites, whose no- 
 tions were entirely those of carnal-minded Jews, 
 aj)pcar to have been known to IrensEUs ; and the 
 idea brought forward in the Clementine, of true 
 and false prophecies, would be qui'e foreign to 
 their spirit. We can say nothing more than that 
 Irena;us found himself at a loss among interpre- 
 tations of the prophets after the Jewish Rabbinic 
 
The mild manner in which Justin 
 Martyr speaks of these opinions of the 
 Ebionites on the person of Jesus,* is 
 wortliy of observation : — '" There are 
 some," lie says, "of our people, who 
 acknowledge him to be the Messiah, and 
 yet consider him a man, born of men ; 
 with wliom I do not agree: and the 
 greater number also, being of my opinion, 
 do not say this ; for we are commanded 
 by Christ not to follow the doctrines of 
 men, but to hold that which has been 
 proclaimed by the holy prophets, and 
 taught by him."t Thus OrigenJ sees in 
 the Ebionites weaker brethren, who did 
 not reject Christ, who was their Messiah, 
 and to whom they looked for all assist- 
 ance; although they recognised in him 
 only the Son of David, and not the Son 
 of God. He gives a very pretty allego- 
 rical turn to the account of the blind man 
 in Mark x. 46 ; he makes the blind man, 
 who calls on Jesus, an Ebioiiile, and the 
 multitudes around, who commanded him 
 to hold his peace, believers from among 
 the heathen converts, who generally held 
 the more exalted notions in regard to the 
 person of the Messiah ; and he then con- 
 tinues thus: "But although the multi- 
 tudes commanded him to be silent, yet he 
 cried the more, because he believed in 
 Jesus, although his faith was of an hu- 
 man kind ;§ and he cried out aloud, and 
 said to him, ' Son of David ! have mercy 
 on me.' " 
 
 How different would many things have 
 been, if men, in this spirit of love and 
 freedom, had always allowed the grace 
 of the Redeemer to fall on all u-ho call 
 upon him ! if they had ahcays taken into 
 their account the various stages in tlte 
 Christian progress up to the ripeness of 
 manhood in the faith, and had not wished \ 
 to force different spirits all at once into 
 
 method, which were in vogue among the Ebion- 
 ites, but entirely at variance with the usual Chris- 
 tian methods of interpretation, and, therefore, that 
 he took occasion to accuse them as hypocritical 
 subtilties. 
 
 * It is at least probable, although not certain, 
 that he had the Ebionites here in his thoughts; 
 hut, notwithstanding, they arc not mentioned by 
 l)ini at all as a peculiar sect. The reading utto tm 
 ti/ui^ip'.u yc/c-ji;, does not, therefore, appear to me 
 suspicious. Not only the authority of manu- 
 scripts, but the antithesis to the phrase, nu yivcu; 
 vfjteev, which precedes, appears to support this 
 reading. 
 
 t Dial. c. Tryphon. Jud. § 48. [P. 142. Ed. 
 Jebb: p. 267. Ed. Par.] 
 
 t Matt. t. xvi. c. 12. 
 
 § II/3-Ta/W fAit iTTl T6» 'UlTCUV, v.y6^arroutTifi!.f Si 
 
 EBIONITES. 235 
 
 the same measure and degrees ! But even 
 Origen considered the Ebionites as here- 
 tics against St. Paul, and as persons who 
 were but little dillerent from Jews.* 
 
 Frenaius judged all Ebionites together, 
 by those of u)ho/n he had heard, and attri- 
 buted to all the same ideas with regard to 
 the person of Jesus. On the contrary, 
 Origen, a man of more accurate investiga- 
 tion, who had been iij Palestine himself, 
 distinguishes the Ebionites into two 
 classes ; of which one denied the miracu- 
 lous birth of Jesus, and the other admitted 
 it.| We may see from this difference hav- 
 ing been overlooked by earlier writers, 
 how easy it was to overlook the dif- 
 ferences in opinion between different 
 branches of the same party. It is not 
 unlikely that those who acknowledged 
 the supernatural operations of the Divine 
 Spirit at the birth of Jesus, and considered 
 his birth as a miracle which stood forth 
 from the chain of usual human events, 
 supposed also a certain original union of 
 God or of the Divine Spirit, with the hu- 
 man nature of Jesus, — and then they 
 would already have retreated farther from 
 the opinions of the narrow-minded Jews, 
 and more nearly approached those of the 
 Christians, because they did not make the 
 peculiar operation of the Divine Spirit on 
 the man Jesus begin all at once, at one 
 definite moment of his life ; namely, the 
 season of his consecration to the office oi 
 Messiah, by John ; but instead of isolating 
 the human nature of Christ, tliey allowed 
 that it developed itself from the very be- 
 ginning, in union with God; and from the 
 very beginning they made a very essential 
 difference between Christ and the other 
 organs of God among men. 
 
 In the representation of the Ebionites 
 given by Epiphanius,+ we actually find 
 some who believed in the higher nature 
 of the Messiah, and busied themselves in 
 speculations upon it. One party of them 
 recognised in the appearance of Jesus, 
 from the very beginning, a spirit of an 
 higher kind, which could not proceed 
 from the chain of the natural progress and 
 development of human nature ; — that 
 pure outpouring of the Divine Spirit (the 
 original form of human nature) which 
 first existed in the person of Adam, and 
 then again appeared on earth, at various 
 
 * Jerem. Homil. xviii. c. 12. TvTTourt tov 
 
 (Ja-C.irTOA.CV ']»3-iU X^ITTCU Xt^J/C Sui7-<plt/U'A(. Mstt. t 
 
 xi. B. 12. 'Oxtya JuKft^cvTn; Tcty '\<,vJoua>t. 
 -j- Origen c. Celsum, v. c. 61. 
 i Haeres. 30, 
 
236 THE CLEMENTIXE. EPIPHANIUS. 
 
 times, as the renovator of fallen hu- ; certain attachment to the ceremonial law ; 
 
 manitv ; until at last it returned in the per- i and they are as different from his other 
 ' ■ "" ... . ^ • " usual antagonists, as those Ebionites of 
 
 Epiphanius, to whom the author of the 
 Clementine belonged, were from those 
 usually called Ebionites, which was the 
 only party known under that name to the 
 older Fathers of the Church. We recog- 
 nise here one peculiar family of the Ju- 
 daizing Christians ; the seed of which, as 
 well as of the common sort of Ebionites, 
 is to be sought in the apostolic age*. 
 
 If we compare the Clementine with the 
 accounts in Epiphanius, the example of this 
 sect will make it very clear, how people 
 of this kind might have so inward a feeling 
 of religion in one point of view, while in 
 another they adhered so closely to its out- 
 ward things : on the one hand might prize 
 so highly an authority given by God, while 
 on the other they subjected it so capri- 
 ciously to the theosophic system esta- 
 bJlshed in their schools, and separated at 
 the dictates of their own will, whatever 
 did not suit their ideas. 
 
 They supposed a simple original reli- 
 gion, which that first pure man, who re- 
 ceived the immediate outpouring of the 
 Divine Spirit in his heart, and learnt from 
 it all divine truth, had in the first instance 
 delivered to his children. This religion 
 was to be always propagated pure and 
 unmixed, by means of oral transmission ; 
 it did not, however, maintain its purity, but 
 was constantly adulterated more and more 
 by the interspersion of the evil principle. 
 Many new institutions, proceeding from 
 God, were, therefore, needed to purify the 
 original religion from these adulterations. 
 Moses was one of the restorers of this 
 original religion ; it was to be spread by 
 oral delivery, and thus it was also to be 
 constantly propagated among a number of 
 initiated people. But when the revelations 
 of God imparted by Moses were set down 
 in Scripture, many errors mixed themselves 
 up with it, being strewn among them by 
 
 son of the Messiah, in order to bring all 
 children to himself, and to raise them 
 with himself to the eternal kingdom, 
 where he will repose with them forever 
 from all his wanderings, and all his 
 cares. This is the same doctrine which 
 is found in the apocryphal book of 
 the Clementines, from which we have 
 been able in this representation, to fill 
 up the account of Epiphanius. The 
 othws adopted the common Jewish idea, 
 that Jesus was first invested with Divine 
 powers, while yet merely a man, only 
 at his solemn consecration to the office 
 of Messiah. But, instead of the inde- 
 finite notion of Divine power, they ima- 
 gined a Spirit elevated above all angels, 
 the highest representation of God ; and, 
 according to them, this was the real hea- 
 venly Messiah* who united himself with 
 the man Jesus, as his instrument, at his 
 baptism, and effected every thing through 
 him. 
 
 It may be said, that we cannot judge of 
 those older Ebionites by the Ebionites of 
 the fourth century, mentioned in Epipha- 
 nius, for these latter may have appropri- 
 ated to themselves, in latter times, notions 
 quite foreign to their original dispositions, 
 by intercourse with many other theo- 
 sophico-ascetic sects : but then these 
 notions bear completely the stamp of a 
 far more ancient Jewish theosophy ; and 
 their agreement with the ideas of the Cle- 
 mentine bespeaks a higher antiquity ; for 
 the Clementine, at least in its groundwork 
 certainly cannot come to us from a later pe- 
 riod than the second century. Nor can we 
 be surprised at finding theosophico-ascetic 
 dispositions among the Judaizing Chris- 
 tians : for there were many sects of that 
 kind among the Jews, who united a cer- 
 tain attachment to the ceremonial law 
 with these dispositions, and many of 
 whom would be attracted by Christianity 
 in some one point of view, without being 
 
 able to receive it quite pure, and by itself, * Only Methodius, who lived at the end of the 
 and would, therefore, endeavour to amal- third and the beginning of the fourth century, ap- 
 
 gamate it with their earlier habits of 
 tho\ight. And although we usually find 
 St. Paul engaged in controversy with 
 Jews, of entirely gross and carnal habits 
 of thought, which were only directed to 
 earthly views, yet, in the Epistle to the 
 Colossians, his adversaries are those Ju- 
 daizing and false teachers, who united a 
 theosophico-ascetic disposition with a 
 
 pears to have known them, when he says of them, 
 (Symposion Decern Virgin. BibUothec. Gnecor. 
 Patr. auctor. noviss. T. i. Paris, 1672, fol. 113,) 
 that they had denied the inspiration of tlie Holy 
 Ghost in the Prophets, and maintained that they 
 wrote only i^ icTwc xm^rmi; ; and although we can- 
 not here with certainty recognise the whole of the 
 Clementine notion of prophecy, it is at least cer- 
 tain, that he speaks of persons, who, unlike the usual 
 .lews of a Pharisaic cast, very much lowered the 
 authority oftlie Prophets, and would not acknow- 
 ledge their writings to be inspired in the same de- 
 gree as the Pentateuch. 
 
PURE RIOSAISM ONE WITH THE GOSPEL. 
 
 237 
 
 tlie evil principle, as God permitted, in 
 order to try in mankind their sense of 
 divine thintrs, and their love to God, by 
 their separation of the truth from falsehood, 
 and their rejection of every thing which 
 opposed the pure idea of God. (Under 
 this head was reckoned every passage in 
 which God lets himself down to the notions 
 of liumanity in order to instruct mankind, 
 and is represented after an anthopopaihi- 
 cal manner,* as well as all that related to 
 the sacrifice of victims.) "But the mass of 
 carnal-minded Jews did not know how to 
 distinguish the original Mosaism from 
 these. adulterating additions. And then 
 that pure outpouring of the Spirit of God, 
 the Foreljither of the human race, out of 
 love to his children scattered over the 
 whole earth, was impelled to appear again 
 on eardi in the person of Jesus, in order 
 to purify the original religion from the 
 additions which deformed it. He himself 
 points out this object of his appearance, 
 when he says. Matt. v. 17, " Ye must not 
 imagine that I am come to destroy the 
 law, but to fulfil it."t That which he 
 destroyed cannot belong to that which he 
 called the law, cannot belong to that ori- 
 ginal religion.^ He appeared particularly 
 for the purpose also of extending his 
 blessings over the rest of his children, the 
 heathen, of imparting that original religion 
 also to them, which had been always pro- 
 pagated among the initiated§. The doc- 
 trine of Christ is, therefore, entirely one 
 with the pure original Mosaism. The 
 Jewish Mystic, an Essene, or something 
 of the same kind, converted to Chris- 
 tianity, did not need to receive any new 
 doctrines ; the doctrine of Christ was to 
 him only a ratification of his earlier theory 
 of religion, and he was only delighted to 
 
 * Although in the author of the Clementine a 
 lively eastern power of imagination prevailed too 
 strongly over the powers of conception, to allow 
 him to form to himself a pure spiritual idea of God, 
 he himself looked on God as an higher Being, 
 of radiant appearance in a human form. [" Ein 
 hoheres Lichtwesen in menschlicher gestalt." — 
 Geum.] 
 
 [The word I have translated powers of concep. 
 timi is " begriffsvermogen." It must be remem- 
 bered that Bcgriff. means an abstract idea. See 
 the Preface.— H. J. R.] 
 
 ■}• The words twc 5r/ic<f>;)Taf are here capriciously 
 left out, because this sect did not acknowledge the 
 Divine illumination of the prophets, and saw in 
 them, in fact, only the propagators of many errors — 
 as, for instance, of the error of an earthly political 
 kingdom of the Messiah. > 
 
 i Clementin, Homil. iii. 51. 
 
 § Tst L?r itlttvd! iv KfuTTTii c^i'jit 7r!t^aJiS'.y.na. \ 
 
 find that the secret doctrines had been 
 made known for the common good of all 
 mankind, which he had never before 
 thought possible. He saw in Jesus a new 
 appearance of that Adam w,hom he had 
 always honoured as the source of all that 
 is true and Divine in human nature. Only 
 a father could love his children as Jesus 
 loved mankind : '• But what gave him most 
 sorrow was, that he was opposed from 
 ignorance by those for whom he was 
 struggling, as for his own children, and 
 yet he loved those who hated him, — and 
 yet he wept over their disobedience, — and 
 yet he blessed them that blasphemed him ; 
 and yet he prayed for his enemies • and 
 all this he did, not only as a father him- 
 self, but he taught his disciples also to con- 
 duct themselves towards other men as 
 their brethren.""* 
 
 The following conclusion would be 
 deduced from this : one and the same 
 original religion is in pure Mosaism, and 
 in Christianity; lie who has the former 
 can dispense with the latter, and he who 
 has the latter can very well dispense with 
 the former; at least if the Jew will not 
 blaspheme Christ, whom he knows not, 
 nor the Christian Moses, whom he also 
 knows not. The doctrine is given by 
 God, and man has received it without any 
 of his own co-operation, and all depends 
 on this, whether the Jew practises what 
 Moses commands, and the Christian what 
 Christ appoints. Christianity is also here 
 (in this system) only the doctrine of 
 another law ; the author of the Clemen- 
 tine, like many other ascetics and mystics, 
 had experienced nothing of the opposi- 
 tion between this law of God and the law 
 of sin in human nature, — of the gulf be- 
 tween the acknowledgment of this law, 
 and the loving and perfecting it, — or of 
 the diflerence between the letter that 
 kills, and the Spirit that makes alive ; and 
 therefore, he was unable to recognise the 
 real diflerence between Mosaism (of which 
 he had formed an entirely arbitrary no- 
 tionj and Christianity — that is to say, the 
 real, peculiar, fundamental nature of Chris- 
 tianity. He says, in fact, " There would 
 have been no need for the appearance, 
 either of Moses or of Christ, if men 
 would have chosen to acknowledge what 
 is right of themselves.*'! Which means, 
 ' if they would have suffered themselves 
 to be brought to a proper understanding 
 
 * Homil. iii. 19. 
 
 ■\ Horn. viiL 6. Ei.r^ d<p" isLvrav to luKiyc 
 
238 
 
 THE NAZARENES — JUDAISM — GNOSTICISM. 
 
 of the original religion, by means of that 
 part of their own nature which is akin to 
 the Divine.' 
 
 He perverts in a remarkable manner 
 those glorious words of Christ, Matt. xi. 
 25, which require childlike resignation 
 and simplicity.* He finds nothing in this 
 passage more than that God had hidden 
 the Divine Teacher, Jesus, from the wise 
 among the Jews, who knew already from 
 Moses what they had to do, as he had, on 
 the contrary, revealed him to the heathen, 
 who did not yet know, how they ought 
 to live.t 
 
 In the Clementine a certain asceticism 
 is recommended, and yet at the same 
 time the holiness of the marriage state is 
 maintained, and to mislead mankind to 
 celibacy is represented as the mark of a 
 false prophet. Now this appears as a 
 characteristic mark of the Ebionites also 
 in Epiphanius, and the comparison of 
 these two accounts shows that this dispo- 
 sition in the Ebionites did not arise after- 
 wards out of opposition to the monkery 
 of the predominant Church, but that we 
 are to recognise the original Hebraism in 
 it, and therefore, it may have been a trait 
 common to the different Ebionitish sects. 
 Traces of the enmity of the Judaizing 
 parties to celibacy are to be found as early 
 as the time of St. Paul. See his first 
 Epistle to the Corinthians, chap. vii. 
 
 In these Clementine Ebionites there 
 are also symptoms of a Judaizing sect, 
 /vhich although it could only consider 
 the apostle St. Paul, who opposed so 
 strongly their doctrine of the identity 
 of Mosaism and Christianity, and other 
 ideas peculiar to themselves, in the light 
 of a perverter of the doctrine of Christ, 
 was yet mildly disposed towards the 
 heathen, and by no means wished to 
 force the ceremonial law upon them. In 
 Jerome, on the contrary, under the name 
 of JS'azarcne (the original name given to 
 all Christians by the Jews, see Acts xxiv. 
 5,) we find the descendants of those 
 Jewish Christians of a genuine evangelic 
 disposition, who would not allow the 
 existence of any contradiction between 
 the apostles, the same people, of whom 
 we found the last trace in Justin Martyr, 
 (see above.) They pointedly combated 
 the regulations and the ceremonial wor- 
 
 * As we usually find in the Apocryphal Gos- 
 pels, he certainly robs these words in some degree 
 of their simplicity, because he quotes the words 
 (r(,<f(rv with the addition of 7riiiT0urt^ctv. To vnmu! 
 ho adds 6)iX3(<^(M/o-/v. 
 
 I Horn. viii. 6. 
 
 ship of the Pharisees ; and while they 
 themselves observed the ceremonial law, 
 they did not force it on the heathen. 
 They acknowledged the Apostle Paul as 
 a teacher of Divine wisdom, whom God 
 had peculiarly chosen for his instrument, 
 for the purpose of bringing the tidings of 
 salvation to the heathen nations. They 
 lamented the unbelief of their own peo- 
 ple, and longed for the time when they 
 also should be converted to the Lord, 
 whom they had crucified, and renounce 
 all their idols. Then nothing would be 
 done by the power of man, but every 
 thing which Satan set up in opposition to 
 the kingdom of God, would fall down by 
 the power of God, and all who had 
 hitherto pleased themselves, in the fancy 
 of their own wisdom, would be converted 
 to the Lord. They thought that they 
 found this promise in the prophecies of 
 Isaiah (xxxi. 7, 8.)* The conclusion 
 which we are entitled to draw clearly 
 from all this is, that from the very times 
 of the apostles various sorts of Jew- 
 ish Christians spread themselves abroad, 
 which people have been led into confu- 
 sion with each other by the common 
 names which were given to them. 
 
 (b.) Tlie Sects which arose from the mixture 
 oftlie wiental Theosophy with Cliristianity. 
 
 1. The Gnostic Sects. 
 
 (a.) General remarks on their origin, cha- 
 racter, and differences. 
 
 We pass from the' Judaizing sects to 
 the Gnostics, who, proceeding from 07ie 
 common stock with the former, deve- 
 loped themselves afterwards in a manner 
 which set the two parties in a constantly 
 increasing opposition. If we contemplate 
 the characteristics of both dispositions 
 pushed to the extreme, we cannot con- 
 ceive a stronger opposition than that be- 
 tween the narrow and carnal disposition 
 of Judaism, which cleaves to outward 
 things, and comprehends every thing only 
 after the senses, — and the spirit of Gnos- 
 ticism, which gives itself up to unbridled 
 license in its speculation on I)ivine mat- 
 ters, despising the letter, idealizing every 
 thing, and striving to reach beyond the 
 limits of earthly existence and the mate- 
 rial world; and yet, just as one is often 
 led to observe, that dispositions, which 
 in our conceptions are widely opposed, 
 really are connected together in the out- 
 
 * Hieronymi commentar. in lesaiam. ed. Mar- 
 tianay, t. iii. p. 79, 83, 250, 261. 
 
UNCHRISTIAN GNOSIS. 
 
 239 
 
 ward world* by various means, and unite 
 together by many points of communica- 
 tion, so the following considerations will 
 verify such an observation in regard to 
 this very dijf'crcnce. 
 
 At the time of the first propagation 
 of Christianity, the name y»u.o-i:;., [g7iosis, 
 knowledge,] in the widely extended 
 phraseology of the Jewish divines of 
 Alexandria, denoted a deeper insight into 
 the nature and the inward connection of 
 the various doctrines of religion. As far 
 as the word denotes only //us general idea. 
 it might be used in regard to Christianity, 
 Mithout prejudice to the peculiar nature 
 of Christian i'ailh. Nay, even here, in 
 conjunction with other charismata more 
 immediately connected with what is prac- 
 tical^ there might be a charisma of Gnosis, 
 which, setting out from its own peculiar 
 position, migfit exert a general and bene- 
 ficial effect on the development of the 
 Christian life ; and, in fact, St. Paul men- 
 tions such a thing in the first Epistle to 
 the Corinthians. Thus the name Gnosis, 
 in the epistle ascribed to Barnabas, be- 
 tokens that deep insight into the spirit of 
 the Old Testament, and the object of the 
 economy of the Old Testament, which 
 was afforded by Christianity. 
 
 Although this idea was applied in an 
 arbitrary, and therefore, in a false manner, 
 — as, for instance, in that very letter, (see 
 below) — yet, considered in itself, and by 
 itself, it contains nothing repugnant to the 
 simple nature of the Gospel, because that 
 Gospel, in its very simplicity, is destined 
 to imbue and appropriate to itself all the 
 powers and dispositions of human nature, 
 even those that are spiritual, and in its 
 very simplicity it opens the inexhaustible 
 depths of Divine wisdom in the eye of 
 the Spirit. Among the mystical sects of 
 the Jeios and their philosophical teachers 
 of religion at Alexandria* we have 
 already remarked the germ of a Gnosis, 
 conceived under an entirely different no- 
 tion. Here, under the name of "the Re- 
 ligion of the Perfect^ an esoteric system 
 of doctrines, containing only pure ideas, 
 which could be comprehended only by a 
 small number of initiated persons, con- 
 sisting of men distinguished for their 
 high intellectual gifts of perception,^ and 
 their high spiritual nature, (the ■TrtiviA.a.rt- 
 Koi,) — was opposed to the faith founded 
 
 • [" Erscheinungswelt." Lit. World of Ap- 
 pearances, or phenomena. — Tn.] 
 
 ■f See the Introduction, pages 30, 31. 
 ^ [Anschauungsgabe. See Preface.] 
 
 on authority, and entertained by the sense- 
 bound multitude, who held fast only the 
 symbolic covering of these pure ideas, 
 and were utterly incapable of under- 
 standing them in their real meaning. 
 (These were the ^J,t;x"«o^, the 9roA^o^.) 
 Such an opposition, although necessarily 
 grounded on the very nature of the reli- 
 gion that preceded Christianity, would 
 entirely overthrow the fundamental cha- 
 racteristics of Christianity, because Chris- 
 tianity pulled down every such partition 
 wall between man and man, and Greek 
 and barbarian, educated and uneducated, 
 were to become one in Christ, and one 
 source of Divine life and inward illumi- 
 nation was to be present in one common 
 faith; this illumination was to develope 
 itself in proportion to their advances in 
 holiness, and Christian views were not to 
 be made dependent on intellectual powers, 
 bestowed only on a certain class of men, 
 but were to proceed, in all, out of their 
 inward Christian life, and out of their 
 own inward experience, although, never- 
 theless, peculiar depth or clearness of view 
 might be a particular charisma. Christ, 
 indeed, thanks his heavenly Father for 
 having revealed to children what he had 
 hidden from the wise ; and St. Paul re- 
 quires that those who are wise in this 
 world should become fools that they 
 might receive Divine wisdom. But then, 
 such Gnostics as these were unable to 
 comprehend these truths and to become 
 children, in order to enter into the king- 
 dom of heaven, and to he poor with the 
 rest of mankind, and to be rich only in 
 Christ : they wished to have precedence 
 of the multitude of the believers by 
 means of a pretended higher kind of 
 wisdom. 
 
 Another disposition belonging to this 
 Gnosis, which is at variance with the pe- 
 culiar nature of the gospel, is closely con- 
 nected with that of which we have just 
 treated. It was because Christianity pre- 
 sented religion in its independence and 
 elevation above every thing earthly, that 
 it was able to find entrance and extend it- 
 self among all the different habits of life 
 which mankind adopts, and form a Church 
 differing in its constitution from all other 
 social unions aniong men, and indepen- 
 dent of them ; and thus also it presented 
 religion, considered in a doctrinal point of 
 view, in a sulistantial form, entirely inde- 
 pendent of all speculations as well as of 
 all mythology, and in a form adapted to 
 all the various degrees of advancement 
 which are found in human nature, and all 
 
MIXTURE OF RELIGIONS IN THE ROMAN DOMINIONS. 
 
 240 
 
 the various periods of its progress. That 
 Gnosis, on the contrary, brought the doc- 
 trines of religion into connection again 
 ■with all the inquiries which can occupy 
 a speculative reason, as was the case in 
 the old Oriental systems of religion, such 
 as those of Zoroaster, of Brahma, and the 
 Buddhists. A speculative cosmogony, 
 desirous of explaining what is incompre- 
 hensible, and a theosophy, which would 
 anticipate the views reserved for a higher 
 state of being, were made the basis of the 
 doctrines of religion, and these would, 
 therefore, be unintelligible to the greater 
 mass of mankind, and, m consequence of 
 this, an opposition would necessarily fol- 
 low between the esoteric and the exoteric 
 religion. This mixture of religion and 
 speculation would besides necessarily be 
 dangerous to the essentially practical 
 character of Christianity, in virtue of 
 which all is made to turn on the acknow- 
 ledgment of sin, the application of the re- 
 demption provided for man, and the sanc- 
 tificalion which proceeds out of it by 
 means of faith working by love. 
 
 It appears, then, that the view of reli- 
 gion on which this Gnosis was founded, 
 was the old Oriental system, to which 
 also the Platonic joined itself, as well as 
 the new Platonic. Jt might happen that 
 men who were altogether devoted to some 
 such Oriental theosophy would constantly 
 find themselves attracted on one side or 
 the other by Christianity, which is calcu- 
 lated to lay hold on human nature from 
 so many different sides, while yet they 
 might be unable to conquer themselves 
 so far as to sacrifice their former habits of 
 thought entirely to Christianity ■, and hence 
 they endeavoured to form for themselves 
 a theosophistical Christianity of tlieir 
 own, and a theosophic Christ of their 
 own, after their own manner. And thus 
 also, if the Gospel were now to make its 
 way powerfully among the Persians, the 
 Brahmins, and the Hindoos, it is most 
 probable that similar phenomena would 
 take place again ; the real and genuine 
 Christians would be accompanied by con- 
 verts who would endeavour lo amalga- 
 mate Su|)hism, Buddhism, and Brahmin- 
 ism with Christianity ; and in fact we find 
 traces of such an attempt here and there 
 even now.* 
 
 * The English Missionary reports from the East 
 Indies, ami the conversations of that genuine evan- 
 gelical missionary, Martyn, with the Persian 
 Siiphi, in the very instructive biography of that 
 j>er6on, will give proofs of this assertion. 
 
 In order to perceive clearly the forma- 
 tion of those Gnostic systems, one must put 
 oneself into that remarkable lime of fer- 
 ment from which they proceeded. A 
 lively intercourse and an unusual inter- 
 change of ideas was then taking place be- 
 tween the nations of the western and 
 the eastern world, which are otherwise so 
 widely separated by their situation and 
 by their dilferences in their peculiarities 
 of character ; an intercourse that arose 
 from the overgrown empire of Rome, 
 which embraced within it all these nations, 
 or at least brought their boundaries into 
 close connection with each other. The 
 spirit, which sighed after new revelations 
 from heaven, and after some new excite- 
 ment of the spiritual life, unsatisfied alike 
 by the Hellenic mythology and by the 
 dicta of philosophical systems among the 
 Greeks (Hellenes,) mingled together all 
 these various elements of religion, and en- 
 deavoured to put together out of them the 
 fragments of a system of truth which had 
 been lost. The comparison of different 
 systems of religion would of course open 
 many resemblances to their view, which 
 to the surprised inquirer would seem as 
 evidences of truth ; for the religious de- 
 velopment of human nature is a mirror 
 which reflects partly, the original revela- 
 tion of a Divine Being who draws man to 
 him, — a revelation which has been vari- 
 ously propagatad by tradition, either more 
 or less corrupted : partly, the needs, de- 
 sires, and wishes that arise from the reli- 
 gious nature of man ; and partly also, 
 that speculative reason which mixes itself 
 up in all religious contemplations, which 
 has its own fundamental principles that 
 constantly recur under different forms, 
 and which is forever wearying itself in 
 vain to pass over that line, Avhich the 
 limits of human knowledge draw around 
 it. At Alexandria, and in different parts 
 of Asia, even Jewish theologians were 
 unconsciously carried away by this reli- 
 gious eclecticism.* 
 
 Accordingly, in the Gnostic systems the 
 elements of the old Oriental systems of 
 religion, (especially the Persian, but cer- 
 tainly the East Indian also,) of Jewish 
 theology, and of Platonic philosophy, may 
 be found melted down together, and a 
 more extensive acquaintance with the dif- 
 ferent religious systems of the interior of 
 Asia might, perhaps, give us a great many 
 new disclosures as to the connection be- 
 tween these systems ; but then at the 
 
 See the Introduction, p. 38. 
 
ANTICHRISTIAN GNOSIS. 
 
 241 
 
 same time we must carefully guard our- 
 selves agcinst immediately concluding 
 that an outward communication has at 
 some tune or other taken place solely 
 from finding an agreement which may 
 ^ise from an inward source, namely, in 
 the selfsame essential dispositions of hu- 
 man nature, from which similar pheno- 
 mena will result under similar circum- 
 stances. 
 
 This Gnosis opposed Judaism as a re- 
 ligion too carnal, too earthly, too nar- 
 row, and too little theosophical ; for how 
 little spiritual, how cold, how little, and 
 emptv must Judaism appear to men of 
 this disposition, when they compared it 
 with the old colossal systems of religion 
 in Asia, although to one who knows what 
 purpose religion is to serve for man, the 
 very comparison v/hich led them to de- 
 spise Judaism would be the first thing 
 which would lead him to recognise its 
 full value for the religious development 
 of human nature. Those old religions, 
 in their enigmatic form, in which men are 
 inclined to look for lofty wisdom rather 
 than in a simple one, appeared to promise 
 for more decisions on the quesfio7is which 
 exercised their inquiries. Mere Platon- 
 ism appeared to them too jejune* and too 
 measured ;t it appeared to them constantly 
 to confine itself entirely to the narrow 
 limits of finite reason, and to have no 
 sense and perception of higher intercourse 
 with the spiritual world. Gnosis Avas 
 desirous, by means of the new ideas 
 opened to it by intercourse with the East, 
 of obtaining higher and more recondite 
 conclusions about the nature of things, 
 their origin and development, than Pla- 
 tonism had to offer. Had this Gnosis 
 been consistent in its disposition, and had 
 it not been carried away by the mighty 
 attracting power of that which is Divine 
 in Christianity, it might have come in 
 good earnest into controversy with Chris- 
 tianity as a religion of too practical and 
 human a nature, and as a religion that did 
 not raise itself enough into the superna- 
 tural regions. The selfsame character 
 of mind which in the Christian Gnostjcs 
 opposed only the ecclesiastical disposi- 
 
 • Zu niichtem — Germ. Perhaps it may mean 
 too sober, too temperate. 
 
 -j- Zu besonnt.n. — Germ. Too ratiocinative, too 
 much the result of deliberative meditation. 
 
 [I add the German words here that those of my 
 readers who understand that language may draw 
 their own conclusions as to what Neander intends 
 here ; for I am not aware of any expressions in 
 English, which are entirely synonymous with his. 
 -H.J.R.] 
 
 31 
 
 j tion, and a faith that would set limits to 
 speciilation, would have opposed Chris- 
 I tianity in general, had it been carried 
 j to extremes, and had it been clearly 
 : aware of its own principles ; and, indeed, 
 ' the traces of an tmchristian, and also of 
 an openly antichristian Gnosis are to be 
 found, perhaps, in a certain class of the 
 I Ophites (see below), in the Jewish Cab- 
 I balists, and iu the Zabians, or the disci- 
 ples of John. 
 
 Although the Gnostic systems contain- 
 ! ed elements selected out of various old 
 ! systems of religion, yet they can never 
 be entirely explained from the supposi- 
 tion of an intermixture and joining to- 
 ' gether of these alone ; there is a soul and 
 j spirit of a peculiar kind* which ani- 
 1 mates most of these collections. In the 
 '' first place, the time in which they origi- 
 nated, has impressed up(5n them a wholly 
 peculiar character, just as it often hap- 
 pens in times of great ferment, that cer- 
 I tain dispositions communicate themselves 
 I to a whole series of spiritual phenomena, 
 i even without any outward connection or 
 ; intercourse. Now the prevailing tonet 
 in most serious minds of that time, was 
 the feeling of disunion, and of being un- 
 satisfied b)^ the existing world ; a longing 
 which would overclimb the limits of the 
 earth ; a desire after a new and higher 
 order of things. This tone of feeling per- 
 vades also the Gnostic systems, and Chris- 
 tianity worked in an especial manner on 
 this tone ; and without Christianity, the 
 Christian Gnostic systems would have 
 become an utterly and entirely different 
 thing. The idea of redemption was that 
 which formed the peculiar nature of 
 Christianity ; and this idea suited that 
 peculiar tone of feeling prevalent among 
 those systems, although it could be cm- 
 ! braced by them only in a partial manner, 
 I and not in its whole extent, and all the 
 consequences deducible from it. The 
 ideas of restoring an harmonious tone to 
 a world in which it had been broken, of 
 restoring a degraded creation to its original 
 state, of restoring the lost connection be- 
 tween heaven and earth, of the revelation of 
 a mighty and Divine life in man, elevated 
 above the limits of human nature, as well 
 as the notion of a new course of de- 
 velopment, which had entered irito the 
 whole economy of the world ; — these 
 
 • [Ein eigenthiimliche.'i beseelendes Princip. — 
 Germ. Literally, a pcciiliar animating principle.] 
 
 -j- [Grundton, key-note. The word translated 
 disunion is zwiespalt, which expresses division, in 
 consequence of a violent rent.] 
 
 X 
 
242 
 
 FAITH INDEPENDENT OF SPECULATION. 
 
 were the ideas which communicated a 
 new and imposing character to Gnosis al- 
 together. 
 
 Those theosophists busied themselves 
 with the investigation of the great in- 
 quiry, the answer to which has always 
 been the highest problem of human spe- 
 culation ; but in answering which human 
 reason must always recognise its own in- 
 sufficiency ; or, if it will explain that 
 which is incomprehensible, must always 
 deceive itself with mere phrases, or with 
 the fictions of fancy. These Gnostics, 
 as Oriental theosophists, in whom, at least 
 for the most part, the Oriental element 
 predominated over the Hellenic, must in 
 no manner or degree whatever be com- 
 pared with the thinking people of the 
 Western world ; they engaged themselves 
 far more in representations and visible 
 images, than in abstract ideas.* Where 
 the thinking man of the west would have 
 formed to himself only an abstract con- 
 ception, with them a living appearance, a 
 living personality stood before their souls, 
 for them absolutely to look upon in reali- 
 ty. They disregarded the abstract notions 
 of the mind as a lifeless sort of thing; 
 every thing hypostasized itself in their 
 eyes, where nothing but abstract ideas 
 were presented to the thinkers of the 
 Western world. The image, and that 
 which was represented by the image, 
 were so constantly joined together in 
 their modes of thought, that they were 
 unable to separate the one from the other. 
 They were far rather carried away un- 
 consciously by the ideas that floated be- 
 fore their minds, or that inspirited them, 
 from one mental picture to another,! from 
 image to image, so that they were not in 
 a condition to develope these ideas with 
 any thing like a clear consciousness of 
 their nature. The inquiries which chiefly 
 occupied them were these : IIow is the 
 transition from infinite to finite t How 
 can man imagine to himself the be- 
 ginning of a cieation .? How can he 
 think of God as the original projector 
 
 * Sic bewcgtcn sich viel mchr in Anschauun- 
 gen und Bifdcrn, als in Begrlffcn. — Germ. 
 
 [It is ilifiicult to render these words exactly. 
 Anschauung, (hituitio) looking upon, in its ori- 
 ginal sense, means the representation or image of 
 an object conveyed to the mind by the sight ; and 
 it is used also secondarily of the notices conveyed 
 by other senses. It is here used oijinixihle repre- 
 sentations or images, as opposed to Begriffcn or 
 abstract ideas. For some further remarks on 
 these words, see the Preface. — H.J. R.] 
 
 I [PVom anschauung to anschauung. — See 
 last note.] 
 
 of a material world so foreign to his 
 own nature ? Whence come those wide 
 differences of nature among men, from the 
 man of truly godly disposition, down to 
 those who appear given up entirely to 
 blind desires, in whom no trace of the ra- 
 tional and the moral creature can be 
 found .^* 
 
 Now it was exactly here that Chris- 
 tianity made religious faith independent of 
 speculation, and cut off" at once all that 
 could lead to those speculative cosmogo- 
 nies, by which the element of pure reli- 
 gious faith was only troubled, and the 
 confusion between the ideas of God and 
 nature furthered, inasmuch as it (Chris- 
 tianity) directed the eye of the spirit be- 
 yond the whole extent of the visible 
 world, where, in the chain of cause and 
 effect, one thing is constantly unfolding 
 itself out of another, to an Almighty work 
 of creation performed by God, by which 
 the worlds were produced, and in virtue 
 of which the visible did not spring out of 
 that which appears. Heb.xi. 3. Creation 
 is received here as an incomprehensible 
 fact, under the constraint of a faith, that 
 raises itself above the position occupied 
 by the understanding, which wishes con- 
 stantly to deduce one thing from another, 
 and to explain every thing, while it de- 
 nies all that is immediate.f This, which 
 is the only real point of practical impor- 
 tance, the doctrine of the Church endea- 
 voured to maintain in its conception of the 
 creation out of nothing; opposing itself 
 thus to the old methods ofj representa- 
 tion, which limits tli« creation of God by 
 supposing matter already in existence, and 
 represents him, after an anthropopathical 
 manner, not as an independent original 
 Creator, but as a being who acted on 
 and formed pre-existing matter. Gnosis 
 would not acknowledge any such limits to 
 speculation; she wished to explain and 
 represent to the mind hozo God is the 
 foundation and the source of all existence. 
 
 * On this portion of the subject, see the 5th 
 Book of Beausobre's Histoire du Manichisme. 
 Vol. ii. especially p. 205, &c.— H. J. R.] 
 
 ■^ [Alles unmittelhare. — Germ. I understand by 
 this all immediate acts of the Divinity, such as 
 creation. The word translated understanding, is 
 verstand, and we must Iiear in mind the distinc- 
 tion usually made in Germany between verstand 
 and vernunft, the understanding and the reasmi. 
 See Coleridge's Aids to Spiritual Development. — 
 H. J. R.] 
 
 t [Anschauungsweise. — Germ. I suppose this 
 word to mean a habit of considering these subjects, 
 where all the operations of the Divinity are pre- 
 sented to the view of the mind in a palpable form 
 or image. See Preface. — H. J. R.] 
 
SYSTEM OF jENOS — ORIGIN OF EVIL. 
 
 As it misunderstood the negative import 
 of the creation out of nothing, it opposed 
 to it the old principle, " out of nothing- 
 comes nothing." Instead of this it pre- 
 sented to its imagination the idea of an 
 outflowing of all Being, from tlie highest 
 Being of the Divinity. This idea of an 
 emanation would allow itself to be con- 
 ceived under a variety of images : under 
 the form, for instance, of a numerical de- 
 velopment from an original unity ; of an 
 outslreaming of light from an original 
 light; of an unfolding of spiritual powers 
 or ideas, which obtained substantiality, 
 and of an utterance of a series of syllables 
 and sounds, till they were re-echoed. 
 
 The idea of such an emanation corres- 
 ponds to a feeling deeply rooted in the 
 human mind, and found in it something 
 to fasten itself upon ; but at the same 
 time, it gave occasion to manj'^ specula- 
 tions by which men might easily be led 
 away forever, farther from that which is 
 of practical importance for religious belief, 
 and indeed, might lose it altogether. 
 
 In this mode of representation God ap- 
 peared as the incomprehensible original 
 source of all perfection,* and shut up 
 within himself; and no means of transi- 
 tion between this incomprehensible Being 
 of God, and finite existence could be im- 
 agined. Self -limitation^ a letting dovm^ 
 is the first beginning of a communication 
 of life on the part of God, the first re- 
 vealing of the hidden God, from which 
 every other revelation of God, which un- 
 folds itself further, proceeds.! Now from 
 forth of this first member of the chain of 
 life there develope themselves, first, the 
 manifold powers or attributes, which 
 dwell in the very Being of God, which, 
 up to that first time of his letting himself 
 down had been shut up in the abyss of 
 his Being, every one of which represents 
 the whole Divine existence, in some one 
 particular point of view, and to which, in 
 this point of view, the names that belong 
 to the Deity were transferred.* These 
 
 • The unfathomable BoSse, according to Valen- 
 tinus, the Being raised above all description, of 
 whom nothing can be suitably (cigentlich) pre- 
 dicated ; the (Sjc.tTor./u:t!rTcc of Biisilidas, the iy of 
 Philo. — See pages 33, 34. 
 
 \ A Trectm *«Tax»>J,/c tixn-.v : the Trpocrov K±rn- 
 MTTTov t:i/ Qi.u hvpostaticaJly embodied (hypos- 
 tasirt. hypostasizcd) in av;yc or Acyic- 
 
 t Hence conies the difference in the use of the 
 word 'xlotiv among the Gnostics ; accor<l ng to its 
 etymological meaning, namely, eternity, it some- 
 times denotes the eternal, a.s a distinctive predicate 
 ot" the Supreme Being; sometimes it denotes those 
 Divine original energies, and sometimes the 
 
 243 
 
 Divine powers, therefore, unfolding them- 
 selves into substantiality, are the seeds 
 and elements of all other developments of 
 life. The life contained in them developes 
 and individualizes itself constantly more 
 and more, and in such a manner also, that 
 the degrees of this development of life 
 constantly go lower down, and the spirits 
 constantly become w'eaker, the more dis- 
 tant these developments are from the first 
 link of the chain. We must remark that 
 a Gnosis which, in its endeavour to ex- 
 plain the incomprehensible, was forever 
 falling into anthropopathism, has here un- 
 consciously attributed the relations of 
 time to the Eternal. 
 
 Granting now that the existence of a 
 pure spiritual world, akin to God, was 
 fairly to be explained, men could repre- 
 sent to themselves the development of 
 diflferent degrees of perfection ; but how 
 was it possible to explain the origin of 
 the material world* by means of an ema- 
 nation' from God ? and how the origin of 
 evil f Even in respect to tlie latter, — a pro- 
 blem on which speculation has made ship- 
 wreck so often, to the prejudice of God's 
 holiness, and the freedom of man, a being 
 gifted with reason, and destined for mo- 
 rality ; even in regard to this point. Gnosis 
 would not allow any limits to be put to 
 speculation. If God gave freewill to man. 
 and if this freewill is the cause of evil, then 
 the origin of evil, said the Gnostics, falls 
 back on God himself. They would not 
 hear of a difference between a permission, 
 and an actual originating cause, on the 
 part of God.J Now whosoever does not 
 follow the necessities of his moral nature, 
 and tlie law inscribed upon his inmost 
 conscience, and with immovable certainty 
 of faitii, and with the assurance of inward 
 moral experience, firmly hold, that evil 
 can be founded in nothing else, and be 
 explained from nothing else, but can only 
 be comprehended as the act of a wilful- 
 ness^ that falls away from God\s hohj law^ 
 and a self-seeking ichic/i opposes itself to 
 the will of God^ — he must necessarily 
 either prejudice the holiness of God, and 
 take away the objective importance of 
 the opposition between good and evil, and 
 therefore, utterly remove in its foundations 
 
 whole world of emanations, TrKMoijux, in opposi- 
 tion to the temporal world, ft occurs in the 
 latter sense in Pleracleon ap. Origen. 7, xiii. in 
 Joh.c. 11. 
 
 f [Sinnl'che, that which is the object of the 
 senses. The external, or material world.] 
 
 • To fjix KcuKuov xTiov io-Ttv — wiis thcir usual 
 motto in opposing the church doctrine. 
 
244 
 
 EMANATIONS ALEXANDRIAN GNOSIS. 
 
 the idea of moral good and evil, consi- 
 dered in themselves, because he throws 
 back the origination of the latter upon 
 God, — or else he must prejudice the om- 
 nipotence of God, because he establishes 
 an absolute evil, and an independent foun- 
 dation of that evil beyond God, by which 
 also, in fact, he fundamentally removes 
 the idea of evil in a moral point of view, 
 because he deduces it from without, and 
 makes of it an independent nature, which 
 operates necessarily, by which means he 
 involves himself at the same time in a 
 contradiction with himself, through the 
 idea of an independent being besides God, 
 of a God who is not God, who is not good. 
 The Gnostics, avoiding the first rock, 
 made shipwreck on the second. 
 
 They united a Dualism with their sys- 
 tem of emanations, and endeavoured to 
 explain the origin of tliis whole earthly 
 world, in which good and evil are mingled 
 together, and which does not answer to 
 the ideal of the spirit, from the intermix- 
 ture of two opposite principles and their 
 mutual operations ; and this endeavour to 
 explain, opened a wide space to their 
 speculation and their formation of fantas- 
 tic theories. There now developed them- 
 selves here two modes of viewing these 
 matters,* which, however, in those days, 
 of religious and philosophic eclecticisms 
 did not always come into sharp opposition, 
 but came into connection with each other 
 by the amalgamation of various interme- 
 diate members, while tlie same idea, in 
 fact, forms the foundation of both these 
 modes of view, only that it was conceived 
 in the one case after a more speculative 
 fashion, in the other after a more mythical. 
 In the one mode of conception the element 
 of Grecian speculation more prevails, in 
 the other the element of Oriental imagery 
 [anschauung,] and hence these two modes 
 of vieAv make the difference between an 
 Alexandrian Gnosis and a Syrian Gnosis, 
 (the latter being determined particularly 
 by the Influence of Parsisnij) as far as we 
 can oppose, in abstracts, these two kinds 
 of Gnosis to each other, without regard to 
 the intermixture of them together, which 
 we find in the phenomena of those times. 
 
 In the first the Platonic notion of an vXri 
 prevails ; this is dead and lifeless matter; 
 the boundary of which from without, 
 limits the development of life, that pro- 
 ceeds by regular gradations, in virtue of 
 which imperfect beings develope them- 
 selves out of the perfect, each more im- 
 
 perfect than the preceeding ; and this 
 iiT^yj again is represented under various 
 forms — as the Darkness that stands by the 
 side of the Light — as Emptiness (xsca^/z-a, 
 y.evov) in opposition to the Fulness of the 
 Life of God — as the Shade that stands 
 beside the Light — and as Chaos and tlie 
 dark stagnant water. This matter of it- 
 self being lifeless, has by its nature no 
 impulse ; every kind of life is foreign to 
 it, and of itself it makes no attack on the 
 Divine being ; but inasmuch as the Divine 
 developments of life, (the beings that 
 proceed from the preceding emanation,) 
 the farther they are removed from their 
 first member, become always weaker and 
 weaker, because their connection with 
 that first member is always less close, 
 there arises in the last grade of tlie deve- 
 lopment an imperfect work, which cannot 
 maintain itself in connection with tlie 
 divine chain of life, which sinks from out 
 of the world of ^ons into that Chaos, or 
 else — which is the same representation 
 a little diilerently modified — something 
 froths over out of the fulness of the Di- 
 vine life into the neighbouring chaos.* 
 
 Lifeless matter now receives, by means 
 of its intermixture with the Living Being, 
 that of which it was in want, a quicken- 
 ing ^l but then the Divine Being, the Living 
 Being, is also injured by means of its in- 
 termixture with the chaotic. Being mul- 
 tiplies itself; a subordinate, deficient life 
 arises ; ground is taken for a new world, 
 and a creation forms itself beyond the 
 bounds of the emanation-world ; but, as 
 the chaotic principle of matter on the 
 other hand, has obtained a spirit of life, a 
 clear, active opposition to the Divine nature 
 now comes forward, a blind, undivine 
 natural power, of an entirely negative 
 character, which opposes itself hostilcly 
 to all formation through the Divine Being ; t, 
 and thence come as the works of the 
 spirit of the trA») (the wnK/.ia vMy.ov) — Satan, 
 evil spirits, and wicked men, in all of 
 whom no reasonable, no moral principle, 
 no principle of freewill prevails, but only 
 blind desires. As Dualism carries in itself 
 a self-contradiction, it cannot maintain its 
 ground with any clear speculative thinker, 
 who is conscious of the course of his 
 reasoning. The more Gnosis inclined 
 to this side, and became clearly conscious 
 
 [Anschauungsweise.] 
 
 * According to the representations (anschau- 
 ungsweise) of the Ophites, and of Bardesanes. 
 
 -j- [Eine Beseeking — Germ. Literally a quick- 
 ening, an animation, the infusion of a soul of life, 
 H. J. R.1 
 
RELATION BETWEEN THE ALEXANDRIAN AND SYRIAN GNOSIS. 245 
 
 to itself of this disposition, which to say 
 the triitli rarely happened, because of the 
 prevalence of oriental imagination over 
 occidental abstract comprehension, in all 
 Gnostic systems, — the more must if have 
 endeavoured to lead back, this Dualism to a 
 higher unity. It then declared expressly 
 what the Cabbala and the Neo-Platonism 
 taught, — that Matter is nothing else than 
 the necessary limit* bettveen existence^ 
 which can be conceived as any thing hav- 
 ing an independent existence, only by the 
 power of abstraction :t it is the opposi- 
 tion to being, which arises as a necessary 
 limit on every development of life from out 
 of the Deity .J In such a manner Dualism 
 might finally resolve itself into Pantheism. 
 
 The other mode of viewing these 
 matters engrafted itself more upon the 
 Parsic doctrine of an Ahriinan and his 
 kingdom, which it would be an obvious 
 course for the Gnostic sects, especially 
 those which were formed in Syria, to ap- 
 propriate to themselves. This mode of 
 view supposed an active, wildly-raging 
 dominion of evil or darkness, which 
 by means of its attack on the empire of 
 light, introduced a mixture of light and 
 darkness, of the divine and that which 
 opposes it. Different as these two modes 
 of conception may appear in their way of 
 representation, yet the selfsame funda- 
 mental idea may be recognised in them. 
 
 When the latter mode of view takes 
 a somewhat more speculative turn, it 
 passes into the first, of which we shall find 
 traces in the views of Manicheeism, which 
 bears upon it far more than all Gnostic sys- 
 tems the mark of Parsism (see below;) and 
 where the first mode of view takes a more 
 poetical character, and endeavours to pic- 
 ture itself upon the imagination, it passes : 
 over involuntarily into the last.§ 
 
 • It was thus also called the exterior rind of | 
 existence, Hflvp- 
 
 ■f By means of a ycfloc hoyo; according to the 
 Neo-Platonists. 
 
 t Thus the Gnostics in Irenaeus, (ii. 4,) ex- 
 pressly defend themselves against the reproach of 
 DuaUsm. ' Contincre omnia Patrem omnium ct 
 extra Pieroma esse nihil et id quod extra et quod 
 intus, dicere eos secundum agnitionem et ignoran- 
 tiam, sed non secundum localem distiintiam." The 
 lower creation was contained in the Pieroma veluti 
 in tunica maculam. * 
 
 § Thus, for example, where Plotinus paints 
 matter as seized with a longing after light or the 
 soul, and speaks of it as darkening the light, while 
 it endeavours to embrace it, Plotin. Enneas I. 
 lib. viii., c. 14. 'rA*i Traif.urx 7rg',<ra<T«, text iUv m- 
 
 TO IKubty <fft)C iff-JtOTOOfl't T>l /M^ti- 
 
 Even among the Platonists there were 
 some, who supposed that from the very 
 beginning, together with an unorganic, 
 dead matter, as the materials for the bodily 
 20orld^ there existed also a blind, un- 
 bridled, moving power, an undivine soul, 
 as the originally-moving and active prin- 
 ciple. Thus, while that unorganic matter 
 was organized into the bodily world by 
 the formative power of the Deity, that 
 formative power communicated also law 
 and reason to that wild, tumultuous,- and 
 reason-opposing soul. Thus the chaos 
 of the vK-n was formed into an organized 
 body of the world, and that blind power 
 into a reasonable principle of the soul of 
 the world, that animates the universe. 
 Thus, while all reasonable spiritual life 
 in human nature descends from this last, 
 all that is contrary to reason comes from 
 the other : all that is impelled by desire 
 and passion ; all evil spirits are its pro- 
 ductions. One sees easily how the idea 
 of this -^fv^fi u.\uyo<;, floating over the 
 chaos, might fall in with the idea of a 
 Satan, who originally presided over the 
 kingdom of darkness.* 
 
 \\\ the system of the Zabians or dis- 
 ciples of John, Avhich is undoubtedly 
 connected in its origin with the Syrian 
 Gnosis, although there appears an inde- 
 pendent kingdom of darkness with its 
 own peculiar powers, yet this has no in- 
 fluence on the higher kingdom of light-t 
 It was the thought of one of the genii of 
 the kingdom of light, to tear himself loose 
 from the source which every thing ought 
 to glorify, and to form an independent 
 world that should exist for itself it 
 
 * See Plutarch de AnimaeProcreat. e Timseo. 
 especially c. 9. Opera Ed. Hutlen. t. xiii. p. 29G. 
 
 f This sect of Zabians, (^x.^Tiariu, from VHV') 
 Nazarenes, Mandaeans, (according to iSorherg, 
 from y"1*5 fx^fiiiraj or yvuivTMu,) clearly derives its 
 
 origin from those disciples of John the Baptist, 
 who, contrary to his spirit and feeling, after his 
 martyrdom took up an hostile disposition towards 
 Christianity. Traces of such persons are to be 
 found in the Clementine, and the Kccognitiones 
 Clementis, and perhaps, also in the in/Aip'.&j.rTiTTui 
 ■yuhiK'jKJt of Hegesippus. See F. Walcli. de 
 Sabseis comment. Soc. Keg. Gott. t. iv.. Part. Phi- 
 lolog. From these a sect afterwards formal itself, 
 whose system being formed out of the elements 
 of older Oriental theosophy, is of great impor- 
 tance for the history of Gnosticism. A critical 
 treatise on their most important religious book, 
 the Liber Adami, would contribute much to this 
 object. See the critique of that work by Gesc- 
 nius, in the Literatur Zeitung of Jena. Jena. 
 1817, No. 48—51, and (Klcukcr'sl) critique on 
 it in the Anzeigen of Gottiniren. 
 X 2 
 
246 INTERMIXTURE OF THE ALEXANDRIAN AND SYRIAN GNOSIS. 
 
 was this thought that first became the 
 cause of a mixture between the two king- 
 doms, the first foundation of this visible 
 world, built upon an earth won from the 
 kingdom of darkness; i. e. from chaos, 
 which world the powers of darkness at 
 once endeavour to seize upon or to de- 
 stroy, because they will not suffer any 
 strange rule in their domain. Now, while 
 this genius, Matur^ who formed the third 
 stage in the development of life, was 
 looking into the dark water of chaos, 
 there arose out of his reflection in it an 
 imperfect genius, formed from a mixture 
 of this form of light with the being of 
 darkness, and to be ennobled by degrees 
 hereafter, namely, Fctahil^ the former of 
 the world, from whose imperfection all 
 the defects of this world are derived.* In 
 the system of the Syrian Bardesanes also, 
 matter appears as the mother of Satan.f 
 
 This sufliciently shows how the modes 
 of view of the Syrian and the Alexan- 
 drian Gnosis pass into each other on this 
 side. It may, indeed, very fairly be asked, 
 whether one is justified in speaking of 
 a Gnosis as originally Alexandrian, or 
 whether Syria be not the birthplace of 
 all Gnosis, whence it was only trans- 
 planted to Alexandria, and received a pe- 
 culiar stamp at this latter -place in conse- 
 quence of the Platonizing, Hellenizing 
 disposition, which prevailed there .' In 
 Alexandria, such a Gnosis would pro- 
 bably find much to engraft itself upon in 
 certain Jewish idealistic philosophy of 
 religion, already in existence there ; but 
 in this the platonic and occidental element, 
 which keeps itself more on the pure ideal- 
 istic point of view, and does not imme- 
 diately hypostasize ideas, and make repre- 
 sentations of them, was two predominant 
 to sufler the peculiar character of Gnosis 
 to proceed forth from it, without the in- 
 fluence of the pure Orientalism from Syria. 
 
 One might imagine that this double 
 mode of view would have produced a 
 peculiar distinction in the practical spirit 
 of these two systems. As the Syrian 
 mode of view supposed an active empire 
 of evil, which was destroyed with the 
 empire of matter, one might be led to 
 imagine that it made the avoidance of this 
 abominable matter and its hostile produc- 
 
 • Lichtnatur, Being of light. — Germ. 
 
 I This idea is entirely to be compared with the 
 ophiomorphos of the ophitish system, (see below,) 
 although in the ophitish system this appears 
 of a lower kind ; and the ophitish system, in 
 its speculative notions, is yet akin to the Alexan- 
 drian system of ValenUnus in many respects. 
 
 tions, and the strictest asceticism, the chief 
 object of morality. As, on the contrary, 
 the Alexandrian Gnosis considered matter 
 as unorganized materials for formation, and 
 the Divine Being as i\\e formative prin- 
 ciple^ one would think that it would re- 
 recognise no such negative system of 
 morality, but would establish a more 
 active formation and improvement of the 
 world, by the power of the Divine prin- 
 ciple as the foundation of the moral sys- 
 tem. This supposition might, perhaps, ap- 
 pear still more probable on a comparison 
 of many Alexandrian and Syrian systems. 
 
 And yet on a more accurate investiga- 
 tion, it appears that such a difference in 
 the practical influence of these two sys- 
 tems is by no means necessary. Even a 
 system, in which the Parsic Dualism pre- 
 vailed to the utmost extent, might recog- 
 nise in the whole universe a higher life, 
 which was only bound prisoner in the 
 bonds of matter, and might recommend 
 co-operation towards the freeing of that 
 life, by victory over the empire of dark- 
 ness, by means of a practical forming and 
 improving hifluence over nature. And so, 
 in fact, Parsism commanded an outward 
 activity, because it represented all forma- 
 tive influence upon the outward world, 
 especially agriculture, as a struggle against 
 the destroying and order-opposing power 
 of Ahriman, and as an activity which 
 was employed in the service of Ormuzd. 
 And therefore, the dualistic Manicheeism 
 furthered a great reverence towards na- 
 ture, and by no means an enthusiastic 
 and ascetic contempt of it; although on 
 another ground this system led to a strict 
 asceticism : and certainly it cannot be 
 denied, that the prevailing feeling of 
 Oriental notions, as we may even now 
 see from the people of the East, in general 
 shone forth in highly prizing an ascetic 
 and contemplative disposition, which ele- 
 vated itself above the ordinary earthly life. 
 But this disposition had also spread itself 
 already in the district, where a Grecian 
 spirit prevailed, and had found reception 
 particularly in Alexandria.* The pure 
 Platonic doctrine of gross matter, as 
 being the source of blind desires, and of 
 the guilt contracted by the soul in a former 
 life, might become a point for a strict as- 
 ceticism to fix itself upon ; as in fact it 
 did to many Platonists. 
 
 The most essential difference between 
 the difl^erent Gnostic systems, the influ- 
 ence of which was very great on the reli- 
 
 See the introduction. 
 
THE DEMIURGOS. 
 
 24*; 
 
 gious and spiritual character of these 
 sects, concerns their diflbrent view of the 
 relation of the temporal, earthly system 
 of the world, to that higher and invisible 
 one, of the relation of Christianity to the 
 M'hole development of human nature, 
 (whether they supposed a* gradual deve- 
 lopment of the theocracy, as an organi- 
 cally-connected whole ; or whether they 
 made Christianity out to be a fragment 
 wliicli appeared all on a sudden, without 
 previous preparation,) and of the relation 
 of Christianity to Judaism. All these 
 considerations are closely connected to- 
 gether. 
 
 All Gnostics agree in this, that they 
 suppose, as we have above remarked, a 
 world in which there is a pure develop- 
 ment of life out of God ; a creation, 
 wliicli is nothing but a pure unfolding of 
 the Divine Being,* as being elevated far 
 above that creation which was produced 
 from without by means of the formative 
 power of God, and was limited by matter 
 previously existing ; — and they agreed in 
 this also, that they did not allow the 
 Father of that higher emanation-world to 
 be the immediate Former of this lower 
 creation ; but they brought down the 
 Former of the world, (the Srifji.iov^yo<;,) far 
 below that higher system and its Father, 
 because he (the ^-yifitotrgyo?) was con- 
 nected with the universe, which was 
 formed and governed by him. But the 
 ditierence among them was this ; namely, 
 that though they agreed as to the ex- 
 istence of this inferiority, they were at 
 variance as to the mode of it. One party, 
 setting out from views which had already 
 long been prevalent among the Alex- 
 antlrian Jews, supposed that the Supreme 
 God had produced, and still governed this 
 world, by means of the angels, who were 
 his ministering spirits. At the head of 
 these angels stood one, who guided and 
 ruled every thing, and on that account 
 was especially called the Former and the 
 Governor of the world. They compared 
 tliis Demiurgos with the spirit that formed 
 and animated the world, after the system 
 of Plato and the Platonists, which also 
 (according to the Timajus of Plato, en- 
 deavoured to form the image of the 
 Divine reason in that which belonged to 
 time, in that which was " Becoming to 
 be. "I This angel is a representative of 
 
 the Supreme God on this lower stage of 
 existence ; he does not act independently, 
 but only according to the ideas given to 
 him by the Supreme God, as the world- 
 forming soul of the Platonists creates 
 every thing after the ideas imparted to 
 him by the supreme »ov? :* but these ideas 
 are elevated above his own limited being; 
 he is unable to understand them ; he is 
 only their unconscious instrument, and is, 
 therefore, unable himself to understand 
 the meaning of the whole work wrought 
 by him : as an instrument guided by a 
 higher inspiration, he reveals what is 
 above his own comprehension. Here, 
 therefore, they grafted themselves on the 
 current ideas of the Jews, in supposing 
 that the Supreme God had revealed him- 
 self to their ancestors through the medium 
 of an angel that served him as the organ 
 of his will ; and that the Mosaic legis- 
 lation was derived from such an angel. 
 And they considered the Demiurgos as 
 the representative of the Supreme God 
 in this respect also; just as the rest of 
 the nations of the world were partitioned 
 among the other angels, as tlieir guides, 
 so the Jewish people, as the peculiar peo- 
 ple of Jehovah, that is, the Supreme God, 
 were committed to the care of the Demi- 
 urgos, as his representative.f He also 
 revealed here in the establishment of 
 their religion, as well as in the creation 
 of the Avorld, those higher ideas which 
 he himself could not understand in their 
 
 f [As Neander has only referred generally to 
 the Timseus, I have taken this phrase from the 
 translation by Taylor. I add the original of 
 
 Neander : Das ideal der gottlichen vernunft in 
 dem tvcrdenden, zeitlichen darzustellen strebt. 
 We have no word that answers to wtrdetidcn, 
 which expresses the bei^inniiig of existence, the 
 becoming, not the actually being. — H. J. R.] 
 
 [Since the above note was written a friend lent 
 me " Bockshammer on the Freedom of the Will ; 
 translated by A. Kaufman, of Andover, 1835:" 
 in which the word ' becoming' is used substan- 
 tively, e. g. p. 75 : " Yet this connecting love, 
 according to the representation of the above 
 named treatise, is rather an originated becoining, 
 man, an original being :" and a note referring to 
 Neander is added by the translator, to this effect : 
 " The idea of a secondary Being, without begin- 
 ning, anfangslosen werdens, an originated becom- 
 ing in opposition to an unorigiaated Being, (eter- 
 nal generation,) was somewhat refined, was 
 .somewhat incomprehensible ; nay, it appeared 
 even contradictory to Arius, who had but little of 
 the speculative or intuitive, «Scc. Neander," &c. — 
 H. J. K.] 
 
 * I'he {3-T/ (faisv (in opposition to the ywimv, 
 or the 6s'/f yohTi; of Plato,) the Trxf»i«jyix% of the 
 Divine reason hypostasized. 
 
 \ According to the Alexandrian version of 
 Deuteron. xxxii. 8. 9, sti Jiifju^i^tv o i/4<»'T'C eSv*, 
 
248 THE DEMIURGOS. 
 
 true meaning. The old Testament, like 
 the whole creation, was the veiled symbol 
 of a higher system. 
 
 But in the Jewish people itself they 
 made a complete distinction, after the 
 Alexandrian fashion, between the great 
 multitude, which is only a representative 
 type of the people of God (the Israelites 
 according to the flesh, the 'lo-^arjX «tV9»)Tof, 
 xa,Tct 0-a^xa,) and the small number of 
 those wlio l3ecome really conscious to 
 themselves of the destination of the people 
 of God. (The souls of this number are 
 the spiritual men of Philo, the 'la-^unX 
 weviJi.cx,rtKO(;, to-nto;, the generation conse- 
 crated to God which really lived in the 
 contemplation of God, the uvm^ o^uv toi' 
 ©ioc, the 'TniivfA.otTtxoi^ yvuffTtKot, in oppo- 
 sition to tlie -^v^tKoi or m-iariKoi.) The 
 latter (the 4'^X^'^^') '^''^ their fleshly 
 thoughts kept fast to that which was out- 
 Avard only ; they did not observe that this 
 was merely a symbol, and therefore, they 
 did not recognise the intention of that 
 symbol.* Those sensuous-minded men 
 did not recognise the angel through whom 
 God revealed himself in all the appear- 
 ances of God (the Theophanies) in the 
 Old Testament, that is to say, the Demi- 
 iirgos, in his just relation to the hidden 
 Supreme God, who never reveals himself 
 in the world of sense ; they confused 
 form and prototype, symbol and idea.| 
 They did not elevate themselves above 
 the Demiurgos, but considered him as the 
 Supreme God himself. Those spiritual 
 men, on the contrary, have clearly recog- 
 nised the ideas which were wrapped up in 
 Judaism, or at least have a presentiment 
 of them ; they havg raised themselves up 
 beyond the Demiurgos to recognise the 
 Supreme God, and thence they become 
 peculiarly his true worshippers {di^a-n-iv- 
 rai.) Tlie religion of the former class 
 was solely founded on a faith which they 
 took upon autliority, while these latter 
 lived in the contemplation of Divine 
 things. The former required to be edu- 
 
 * Thus a moderate Gnostic, who had not 
 rcaclioJ that refined Gnosticism formed by the 
 mixture of Alexandrian idealism with Syrian the- 
 osophy, determines (in the letter ascribed to Bar- 
 nabas,) that the .lews had entirely misunderstood 
 the whole ceremonial law, by ol)scrvinK it out- 
 wardly, instead of seeing in it only an allegorical 
 representation of general religious and moral truths. 
 It was Gnosis, which first opened this true sense 
 of it. 
 
 j [The form, and the original form represented 
 by it; the symbol, and the idea symbolized. The 
 German is, i^ie verwechselteii auch hier bild und 
 urbild, symbol und idee.] 
 
 cated by the Demiurgos by rewards and 
 punishments, and the means of terror; 
 but these latter required no such means 
 of discipline; they raised themselves up 
 by the force of their spirit to the Supreme 
 God, who is a source of blessing only to 
 those M'ho ace capable of communion 
 with him, and they love him for his own 
 sake.* 
 
 Now, when these Jewish theosopliists 
 of Alexandria had embraced Christianity, 
 and interwoven their former notions with 
 it, they saw the spirit of the Old Testament 
 entirely unveiled in Christianity, and the 
 highest ideas of the whole creation brought 
 clearly before the light; and now for the 
 first time the object of the whole creation, 
 and of the whole development of human 
 nature became clear. As far as the highest 
 ^on,! who appeared in the person of 
 Christ, was elevated above the angels and 
 the Demiurgos, so far is Christianity ele- 
 vated above Judaism and the whole earthly 
 creation. The Demiurgos himself now 
 recognises a revelation which entered into 
 his kingdom, and from henceforth serves 
 it as its instrument, conscious that he was 
 only an instrument.^ 
 
 The other party of the Gnostics con- 
 sisted especially of persons who had not 
 been attached to the Mosaic religion before 
 their conversion to Christianity, but had 
 formed to themselves in former times an 
 Oriental Gnosis opposed to Judaism as 
 well as to all national religions, a kind of 
 system of which we find some traces in 
 the books of the Zabians, and which is 
 constantly found in the East among the 
 Persians and the Hindoos. They did not, 
 like the former, consider the Demiurgos 
 and his angels merely as subordinate and 
 limited beings, but as beings entirely 
 hostile to the Supreme God. The Demi- 
 urgos and his angels wished to establish 
 themselves in their limited condition as 
 independent beings and would suffer no 
 foreign sovereignty in their dominion. 
 Whatever of a higher nature comes down 
 into their sphere they endeavour to keep 
 
 * See page 33, et seqq. on the twofold views 
 mentioned by Philo. 
 
 ■j" Net/; or xoj/oc. 
 
 \ We see easily how these Gnostics might use 
 the passages of the New Testament where the 
 X'-j-cf x^xjiSac it*- Tcu rUu is compared with the 
 Acycc xa^»6ac St iyyiKm, (see e. g. Heb. ii. and 
 Ephes. iii. 10,) in order to form their artificial su- 
 perstructure of doctrines, by means of tlieir fanci- 
 ful and idle speculation, on the foundation of a 
 Jew, hints only thrown out, en passant, by the 
 apostle. 
 
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE GNOSTIC SYSTEMS. 
 
 249 
 
 imprisoned there, that it may never be 
 able to raise itself above their narrow 
 limits. In this system it is probable that 
 the empire of the world-forming angels 1 
 coincided for the most part with that of \ 
 the deceiving spirits of the stars, which i 
 are hostile to man's freedom and exercise i 
 a tyrannic sway over the afi'airs of this ; 
 world.* The bemiurgos (according to ' 
 this system,) is a limited and limiting j 
 being, proud, envious, and revengeful, and i 
 this his character declares itself in the i 
 Old Testament which is derived from him. 
 As tliese Gnostics were unable, from 
 want of the requisite exegetic and herme- 
 neutic knowledge, as well as of the pro- j 
 per pffidagogo-historicalt point of view, to 
 understand the Old Testament, which ; 
 was so opposite to their system, and were | 
 yet, nevertheless, accustomed to give their 
 judgment upon every thing, they attributed : 
 all die errors which arose from a gross j 
 and sensuous anthropopathical view of 
 the Old Testament among the common j 
 sort of Jews, to the Old Teslameni itself. 
 But, according to their view, the error of 
 the Jews consisted solely in this, that* 
 they considered the Demiurgos who re- 
 veals himself such as he is, in the Old 
 Testament, to be the Supreme God, who 
 differs from him infinitely. The Demi- 
 urgos is (according to them,) really such 
 a being as that which the Jews represented 
 to tliemselves under the notion of the Su- 
 preme God. These Gnostics believed 
 that they recognised the form of that 
 hateful Demiurgos in the Old Testament, 
 and also in nature, which they judged 
 with the same dogmatical human rashness. 
 The Supreme God, the God of holiness 
 and love, who stands in no connection 
 with the world of sense, has not revealed 
 himself in this earthly creation by any 
 thing, except by some Divine seeds of 
 life which are scattered abroad in human 
 nature, and whose unfolding the Demi- 
 urgos endeavours to stop and to over- 
 
 * Thus the seven star spirits, and the twelve 
 star spirits of the zodiac, which were produced liy 
 the evil connection between the deceived Fetahil 
 with the spirit of darkness, in the Zaliian system, 
 play an important part in all that is evil. It is 
 from their deceitful artifices that Judaism and 
 Christianity, which are so hateful to the Zabians, 
 are produced. 
 
 I [I suppose Neander here considers the Jew- 
 ish history a-s afTording an instructive lesson to 
 man, as containing the Divine mode of education 
 for human nature; but as I am not certain that 
 this is his view, I have only put the German com- 
 pound word into literal English; {iridagogisch- 
 geschicbtliche gesichtspuncht. — H. J. K.] 
 23 
 
 whelm. He can be acknowledged and 
 honoured in the highest degree only in 
 the mysteries, by the few who are spiritual 
 men ; and now (according to thein,) this 
 God has let himself down all at once, 
 without previous preparation, to this 
 system of the world by means of his 
 highest JEon^ in order to draw up to him- 
 self the higher spiritual natures akin to 
 himself which are imprisoned Uiere. — 
 Christianity can lind no point in all crea- 
 tion to attach itself upon, except in some 
 mysteries and philosophical schools, in 
 which a higher kind of wisdom is propa- 
 gated as their common doctrine. 
 
 This difference between the Gnostic 
 systems was of the greatest importance in 
 a theoretical and practical point of view. 
 As the Gnostics of the first class recog- 
 nised in the Demiurgos the instrument of 
 the Supreme God and his representative, 
 who formed nature according to the ideas 
 of the Supreme God, and conducted the 
 development of the kingdom of God, in 
 history, they might, in accordance w^ith 
 their principles, search for the revelation 
 of the Divinity in nature and in history; 
 they needed not of necessity to be en- 
 tangled in an unchristian hatred of the 
 2corld. They might acknowledge Uiat 
 the Divinity might be revealed under 
 earthly relations, and that every thing 
 earthly might by this means become en- 
 nobled. They might, therefore, be very 
 moderate in an ascetic point of view, as 
 in fact we find was the case with many 
 of this class, although the practically in- 
 jurious disposition of deducing evil only 
 from the existence of objects of sense, 
 must easily have arisen from their notion 
 of the vXn ; and aUhough their overprizing 
 of a contemplative Gnosis must have been 
 in danger of becoming prejudicial to the 
 spirit of active love. 
 
 On the contrary, the other sort of 
 Gnosis, which considered the Creator of 
 the world as a being entirely at enmity 
 with the Supreme God and his system, 
 would naturally produce a wild, dark 
 I hatred of the world, entirely at variance 
 with the spirit of Christianity. This ex- 
 j hibited itself outwardly in two ways; it 
 either showed itself with nobler and more 
 rational men in an extravagantly strict 
 asceticism, and an anxious avoiding of all 
 intercourse with the world, — on which, 
 however the Christian is bound to exert 
 a forming iiiduence, and then, at all events, 
 morality would be a thing merely of a 
 negative kind; nothing, in short, but a 
 way of purification as a preparation for 
 
250 
 
 DIFFERENT VIEWS OF MARRIAGE. 
 
 contemplation, — or else it showed itself 
 in men of an impure nature, and inclined 
 to wild fancies, and in men of ungoverned 
 passions, in a licentious contem'pt for all 
 jiioral laws. Wiien once these Gnostics 
 set out from this principle, — ' this whole 
 world is the work of a limited ungodly 
 spirit, it is utterly incapable of all revela- 
 tion of the Divinity, and we higher natures, 
 who belong to a far higher world, are im- 
 prisoned in it,' — this conclusion would 
 immediately follow; 'Every thing out- 
 ward is utterly and entirely indifferent to 
 the inward man; nothing of an higher 
 nature can here be expressed, and the 
 outward man may give himself up to 
 every kind of lust, provided the inward 
 man be not thereby disturbed in the tran- 
 quillity of his contemplation. The very 
 means by which we must prove our con- 
 tempt and our defiance of this wretched 
 and hostile world, is by not suffering our- 
 selves to be affected by it in any condition 
 whatever. The means by which we must 
 extinguish the empire of our senses, is by 
 remaining undisturbed in our tranquillity 
 of spirit, while we give ourselves up to 
 every kind of desire. " We must struggle 
 against our lusts by the indulgence of 
 them," said these freethinkers; " for there 
 is nothing great in abstaining from plea- 
 sure, if w^e have never tried it; but it 
 argues greatness when a man finds him- 
 self in the midst of pleasure, and yet is 
 not overcome by it."* The heathen phi- 
 losopher Plotinus makes a very striking 
 remark against these men, which all, who 
 view the matter even from the ground of 
 Christianity, must recognise as true, 
 namely, that while they venture with 
 more boldness than Epicurus, who denied 
 any overruling Providence of this world, 
 to throw out the same accusations that he 
 (lid, they must necessarily bring men to 
 tlte same result^ in regard to morals ; which 
 result would be this: "That nothing is 
 left for us here, except to give ourselves 
 up to our desires, and to despise all tiie 
 
 * Clemens, Stromata, lib. ii. p. 411. Porphyry 
 de Abstinentia Carnis, lib. i. § 40, &c., paints the 
 notions of these men in a manner quite accordant 
 with that of Clemens. " It is only some little 
 standing water," say they, "which can be defiled 
 by receivinK into it something unclean ; not the 
 ocean, which receives every thine;, because it knows 
 its own greatness. So also little men may be over- 
 powered by what they feed upon, but not he who 
 is an ocean of power (j^ot/or/, ajjparently an ex- 
 pression jjeculiar to them, founded on a misuse 
 of that of St. Paul in 1 Cor. viii. 9; vi. 12,) which 
 receives all things into itself, and becomes not de- 
 filed." 
 
 j laws of this world, and all morals, for 
 
 i there is nothing good to be found in this 
 
 j abominable world."* 
 
 This diflj3rence is also shown in the 
 consideration of individual moral rela- 
 tions. The Gnostics of the latter class 
 either prescribed celibacy and abhorred 
 marriage, as something unclean and pro- 
 fane, or else, according to the principle 
 that every thing relating to the senses is 
 entirely indifferent, and that people here 
 must only defy the Demiurgos by con- 
 
 j tempt of his limiting laws — they justified 
 
 I the indulgence of every desire. Those of 
 the former class, on the contrary, honoured 
 marriage as an holy state, by which the 
 natural state of man was to be ennobled. 
 And the Valentinian Gnosis, in fact, as it 
 universally considered the lower world as 
 a symbol and mirror of the higher, and as 
 it sought for the revelation of the highest 
 law of that higher system in the different 
 stages of existence in manifold degrees, — 
 
 I so also it recognised, in the marriage" con- 
 nection, the image of a higher connection, 
 which runs through all stages of existence, 
 from the very highest link of the whole 
 chain. (See below.) Besides, the influence 
 of the originally Jetoish yiotions, which 
 were inclined to prize the marriage con- 
 dition highly, is also shown here. 
 
 The difference between these two classes 
 of Gnosis is still farther brought promi- 
 nently forward in their different mode of 
 considering the person of Christ. Jill 
 Gjwstics, however, in a certain respect 
 agree in this, that, as they separated the 
 God of heaven and the God of nature 
 from each other, and as they, therefore, 
 severed also the invisible and the visible 
 system, the Divine and the human, too 
 widely from each other; so also they 
 would not recognise the union of the 
 Divine and the human in the person of 
 Christ. And yet, just as we have observed 
 a remarkable difference in regard to the 
 first of these matters, between the two 
 chief divisions of the Gnostic system, we 
 
 1 shall also be able to remark such a dif- 
 ference in regard to the latter of them. 
 We shall find here also an essential gra- 
 dation in the views entertained of tlie 
 
 j relation between the Divine and the hu- 
 man in Christ. The one party, indeed, 
 recognised the manhood of Christ as real, 
 and also conceded to it a certain dignity, 
 although, as they made two Gods out of 
 the one God of heaven and of nature, and 
 
 ; * See the excellent argument in Plotinus, 
 1 Ennead. ii. lib. ix. c. 15. 
 
CLASSIFICATION OF GNOSTICS. 251 
 
 allowed the Creator of the latter to be only 1 C/<m//rtn(7y only an insulated fragment 
 the instrument of the former, they also I in the history of man ; or, as we may ex- 
 divided the one Christ into two Christs, a | plain it more shortly, the sects 2vhich 
 higher and a lower, a heaverdy and an \ founded their viejcs on Judaism^ anil those 
 earthly one, in such a manner, that the which set themselves entirely at enmity 
 latter was merely the instrument of the against it* It is, we avow, natural 
 former; and these two they held were not ; enough, that between these opposite ex- 
 originally indissolubly bound together, but ' tremes many intermediate opinions should 
 the former had united himself to the latter, be found, which do not, however, in- 
 for the first time, at tlie baptism in the validate the correctness of the division, 
 river Jordan. But the other class of it is peculiarly instructive to consider 
 Gnostics, as they denied the connection ' the mode and manner by which these 
 of Christianity with Judaism, and with all ' Gnostics were able to come to tlie persua- 
 historical development of God's kingdom sion, tliat their doctrines, so foreign to the 
 among mankind, and as they made out of simple Gospel, could have been delivered 
 the God of Christ and of the Gospel a ! by Clirist and the aposdes, and how they 
 diflerent God from tliat of nature and of endeavoured to prove this. We find here 
 history, so also they rejected tlie connec- ' the same phenomena, which, arising out 
 tion of the appearance of Christ with ' of causes that lie in the very inmost 
 nature and with history. Christ did not nature of man, were often repeated in fol- 
 here, (according to them,) enter into na- | lowing centuries. With a ready-formed 
 ture, nor into the historical development ' Theosophic system, based on its own 
 of human nature. The view, wliich suited j fundamental principles, they went to the 
 the fantastic disposition of the East, and ' Holy Scriptures, and sought to find in 
 had long since been spread abroad among; them something to hang theirsystem upon, 
 the Jews, namely, that a higher Spirit j And this they might easily find, because 
 might' represent itself^ to the eye of sense i they were wholly unacquainted with the 
 in a multitude of delusive forms,* which { rules of grammatical and logical interpre- 
 appeared to the senses, but had no reality, j tation,|and despised attention to suchmat- 
 — this notion was applied to Christ, and ters as carnal.+ for their inward intuition 
 one whole essential part of his earthly was to open every thing. But they were 
 existence and his personality, Avas thus I punished for the pride, which, trusting to 
 argued away ; the lohole of his human a certain inward light, only granted to 
 nature was denied; the whole human «j:>- higher natures of a certain class, despised 
 pearance of Christ was made a mere do- \ the usual human means of knowldege. 
 ceptice appearancey a 7ncre vision — and | Therefore, they were given up to every 
 this was Docetism^ the direct contrary to ; kind of error which can arise from the 
 mere Ebionitism, wljich would recognise want of considering the occasion and the 
 nothing but the human in Christ. And this ! connection in which any thing is said, from 
 view might, at last, be carried so far — as it the confusion hetween different meanings 
 
 was among the more fanciful Basilidians i 
 
 —as exactly to despise the most holy I , * ™s ^^j^'.^'O" has this circumstance in its 
 points in the human life of Jesus in lhe\^:^:^l'!^,!':^^^l}'l'^_^T'^_!^_}^^_V^ 
 most profane manner. 
 
 culiar system ofMarcion — which, however, 
 cessarily connected with the Gnostic systems only 
 f)-oiii one side, — can find its proper place among 
 them. Clement of Alexandria in a certain degree 
 confirms this division, when he calls Valentinus 
 
 The Gnostic systems will also admit 
 of a very natural division into two classes 
 by means of their most essential and in- _ 
 fluential differences. The first class, con- I [!^ >^^f'^9fr.fjmrrpiT/ii^,viu<vr,y khv^txt^. (Strom. 
 • .■ /. ,1 ^. I'l ; 7 , lib. VI. 641,) — the leader of those who mamtam 
 
 sisting of those seeis which acknowledge „ ^ /.,, , ,• ni n- ■, 
 
 o . I • -17 7 ^ a common nource of the revdati(ini)j lite Divimtu 
 
 the connection betioeen the visible and the amomr mm, and do not deny the co.mection of 
 invisible loorld, — beticeen the relation of Christianity with all earlier revelations of God. 
 God in nature, in history, and in Chris- The ^r^tj-fiiw.vTK to IS'it.v t:i/ xP"''^''-^^'^f*"-"y ^^lio 
 tianity, and the connection between the \ ^o"''! ""^ acknowledge any such K-Av<,T-^i between 
 Old and theMw Testament, as the deve- (^hristianity and any other revelation whatever of 
 
 Divine truth, according to him, also, would be the 
 contrast to this class. 
 
 ■f Grigen (Philocal. c. 14,) shows how much 
 strengthened in their errors the Gnostics were by 
 their Seyvux raiv kcyuutv in their interpretation of 
 • My readers may rememlwr the Indian ]\Iaja, j the Bible, 
 and many other Indian Myths. j ^ Only fit for the ft';^;^^. 
 
 lopment of one whole theocratical scheme — 
 and the second class, of those which tear 
 asunder these connections, and ichich make 
 
252 
 
 DOCTRINE OF ACCOMMODATION. 
 
 of a icord* from the want of distin- 
 guishing leticccn metaphorical and proper 
 expressions^ and from the arbitrary appli- 
 cation of single traits in comparison, 
 u-ilhoui regard to that which constitutes the 
 real points of comparison. The subjective 
 caprice of the imaginative faculty, of the 
 feelings, and of speculation, without an 
 objective law, proceeding from the appli- 
 cation of the rules of thought and lan- 
 guage, might find whatever it chose in the 
 Scriptures and introduce it into them. 
 The Parables, for the simplicity and prac- 
 tical depth of which they had no feeling, 
 M'ere, therefore, peculiarly acceptable to 
 them, because an arbitrary interpretation, 
 when they had once put the real point of 
 comparison gut of their view, had the 
 freest play here. But contention against 
 the arbitrary biblical interpretation of the 
 Gnostics had also the advantageous effect, 
 that it made their opponents attentive to 
 the necessity of a more accurate gram- 
 juatical and logical interpretation of the 
 Bible, and induced them to the establish- 
 ment of the first Hermeneutic Canons, 
 as we may observe from various proofs 
 in the writings of Irenajus, TertuUian, 
 Clemens, and Origen. 
 
 The bolder among the Gnostics used a 
 theory of interpretation likely to lead to 
 arbitrary principles of criticism. They 
 said, — Christ and the apostles spoke ac- 
 cording to the different conditions and 
 views of the man to whom they spoke ; 
 they took these different positions them- 
 selves. With the -i^vx^^oi — those who 
 were in the condition of a blind unintel- 
 lectual faith (those who were fettered 
 by Jewish prejudices) — they spoke only 
 of a Dcmiurgos, because their limited 
 natures could not understand any thing 
 higher. (The Gnostics are the fathers of 
 the theory of an accommodation as used 
 in the Christian Church., in an exegetical 
 jjoirit of view, although of itself the 
 theory of an accommodation is as old 
 as the diflerence between an esoteric 
 and an exoteric religious system.) The 
 liigher truths from the world of iEons, 
 and those above that world, they (i. e. 
 Chirst and the apostles,) had (according 
 to this view,) communicated only to a 
 
 * As, for example, where they found the word 
 " world" used with blame in the New Testament, 
 these passages served them for a proof, that this 
 whole creation is something imperfect, and could 
 not come from the supreme and perfect (lod ; for 
 it never entered into their heads, that the word 
 " world" might be used in the New Testament in 
 a diiVerent sense. 
 
 small circle of initiated men, who were 
 capable of receiving such truths in virtue 
 of their higher spiritual natures (as tthv- 
 fA.oe.riy.oi,) and these truths they indicated 
 only in detached images and hints, which 
 could be understood by none but such 
 natures. That higher wisdom they had 
 delivered (as St. Paul says, 1 Cor. ii.6,) 
 only orally among the perfect, and only 
 orally was it forever to be propagated in 
 the narrow circle of the initiated. 
 
 The knowledge of this secret tradition, 
 therefore, first gives the true key of the 
 deeper interpretation of the Scriptures, 
 Irenajus says, on the contrary,* " For 
 the apostles, who were sent forth to find 
 the wandering, and to give sight to those 
 who saw not, and to heal the sick, did 
 not address them in language suited to 
 their then notions, but according to the 
 
 revelation of truth For 
 
 what physician who wishes to heal the 
 sick, would act according to the desires 
 of the sick man, and not according to that 
 which is proper to cure him ? . . . . 
 yThe apostles, who are the disciples of 
 the truth, are far from all lies ; for a lie 
 has nothing in coiiimon with the truth, 
 any more than darkness with light. . . 
 . . . . Our Lord, who is the truth, 
 lied not." 
 
 Or else they said, " From the account 
 of the apostles itself, we cannot learn the 
 pure doctrine of Christ, for the apostles 
 were fettered by psychical, and Jewish 
 opinions; and the Pneumaticus (i. e. the 
 spiritual man,) must separate the psy- 
 chical from the pneumatical in their writ- 
 ings." Or they even ventured to sepa- 
 rate, in the very discourses of Christ him- 
 self what the psychical Christ spoke 
 in him by the inspiration of the Demi- 
 urgos, — what the Divine wisdom, still 
 hovering between the dominion of the 
 Demiurgos and the Pleroma, and not yet 
 arrived at its full perfection,+ — and what 
 the highest kjkj, uttered from out the 
 Pleroma.§ 
 
 If these Gnostics had been thinkers of 
 the same sort with the people of the 
 western world, they would have separated 
 in their composite (construirten) Christ 
 what he said under the influence of im- 
 mediate inspiration, out of an intuition 
 elevating itself above all that belongs to 
 
 * Contra Jlseres. iii. 5. 
 
 f [This passage, in the original, precedes the 
 rest of the quotation — H. J. R.] 
 
 i " Sophia," or "Achamoth." See below. 
 § See Irenoeus, lib. iii. c. 2. 
 
GNOSTICISM FAVOURED BY PRIDE. 
 
 time ; and what he said speaking from a 
 reflection disturbed by ideas belonging to 
 time ; but they wouhl only have been 
 expressing the same notions in diflerent 
 language. 
 
 These Gnostics were, in part, not 
 thoroughly resolved to break from the 
 rest of the Church, and to found separate 
 communities. They were, indeed, per- 
 suaded that the 4'f%t'<ot, as they were con- 
 ditioned, could receive Christianity in no 
 other than the churchly form ; that they 
 could arrive at no higher degree than that 
 of faith upon authority, that their faculty 
 for the higher spiritual intuition was 
 utterly gone, and therefore, they wished 
 not to disturb these men,* whose views 
 were more of the common ecclesiastical 
 kind, in their tranquil faith, — but tliey 
 wished, after grafting themselves upon 
 the conmion Church assemblies, to found, 
 in connection with them, a kind of theo- 
 sophic schools, and of Christian myste- 
 ries, into which all those in whom they 
 believed they could observe that higher 
 faculty, not conceded to all, might be re- 
 ceived. They made complaints also that 
 men would not suffer them to remain in 
 the communion of the Church, and called 
 them heretics, Avhereas they entirely 
 agreed with the doctrine of the Church.| 
 
 But what would have become of the 
 Church, if this intention of theirs,J of ex- 
 tending themselves in the Church by this 
 distinction of two different stages of reli- 
 gion, had succeeded } How deeply would 
 it have injured the simplicity, the confi- 
 dence, and the clearness, of the Christian 
 faith, the practical spirit of Christianity, 
 the bond of Christian communion that 
 unites all hearts, and reason also which 
 attains the development due to its nature 
 in the light of Christianity, while it is 
 conscious to itself of its natural limits,, — 
 limits which a presumptuous intellectual 
 intuition pretended to pass over.§ But the 
 
 * Touc Kt/Vii^c iiMKiKrtoLc-'riiuiii;. 
 
 ■\ Queruntur de nobis, quod cum similia no- 
 biscum sentiant, sine causa abstineamus nos a 
 communicatione eorum, et cum eadem dicant et 
 eandcm habeant doctrinam, vocemus illos here- 
 ticos. Iren. lib. iii. c. 1.5. 
 
 ^ In which they themselves were conscious of 
 no impropriety, because this sort of proceeding 
 was founded on the entice view wliich they enter- 
 tained of religion. 
 
 § The doctrine of Plotinus, — ro it iyTVif mi/v, ;!/« 
 'iTTCv i^ce rou v.u to Tnrm, — is quite just, in as far as 
 it opposes the Gnostics, who spoke of a higher 
 origan than reason for the knowlcdi^e of the Divine 
 nature, that is to say, the ^rveu^wjiTutdv, a faculty 
 which resided only in certain natures. But this 
 
 253 
 
 spirit of Christianity, as we shall see when 
 we come to consider the theological de- 
 velopmeitt of spiritual knowledge in the 
 Church, awakened two different disposi- 
 tions, which, uniting in this warfare, op- 
 posed Gnosticism. 
 
 That Avhich procured an entrance for 
 Gnosticism, was a pride (founded, we 
 confess, on one side in human nature,) 
 which has always especially contributed 
 to further those dispositions which are not 
 willing to content themselves with that 
 which is simple, but are always anxious 
 to have something of their own, which 
 sets them above others, a pride whicli 
 finds it very hard to let itself down so far, 
 as simply to receive and accept^ together 
 with the rest of mankind. Irenreus and 
 Plotinus, two men of such thoroughly 
 different characters, both point out to us 
 how the pride of human nature is flattered 
 by the phantasies of the Gnostics. The 
 former says,* " He who has given himself 
 up to them becomes instantly puf!cd up; 
 he believes himself to be neither in heaven 
 nor on earth, but to have entered into 
 the Pleroma, and carries himself most 
 proudly." And Plotinus says, " Irrational 
 men are at once caught by such speeches 
 as these : ' Thou shalt become better, not 
 only than all men but than all Gods also," 
 for great is the pride of men. The man 
 who was before humble and discreet, now 
 hears with pleasure — ' Thou art a son of 
 God,"!" but the rest, whom thou lookest 
 up to with admiration, are no sons of 
 God; thou art also higher than heaven, 
 without doing any thing for that pur- 
 pose.' " 
 
 On the other hand, as it usually happens 
 that every prevailing error of any age has 
 its opposite in another error, by which it 
 has been called forth, and the combating 
 of which lends it a plausible appearance ; 
 and as, for the most part, it happens that 
 whenever any false tendency spreads itself 
 abroad among one part of mankind, it has 
 
 prnposition is fake when it- is used, as in the 
 notions of Plotinus it might be, to oppose Chris- 
 tianity in general, which gave us an objective 
 source of knoivhdfre of Divine things, elevated 
 above human reason, in a revelation of God, from 
 which reason, as an organ (or instrument) is to 
 draw (its knowledge) under the illumination of a 
 higher Spirit. 
 
 * Lib. iii. c. 15. [This passage is paraphrased, 
 but not translated, by Neander ; in fact, the first 
 part of it almost baffles translation. Wo must 
 remember that part of Irenaeus has descended to 
 us only in a Latin translation. — H. J. K.] 
 
 \ A TrvBJU'jLTiKoi:, who alone could descend im- 
 mediately from the Supreme God. 
 
UNSATISFIED LONGINGS. CERINTHUS. 
 
 254 
 
 for its foundation some truth, which is 
 misunderstood, and partially conceived, 
 and some want of human nature, which, 
 in itself, and of itself, is real, but has been 
 led astray, — so it happened here also. It 
 was opposition against a gross and 
 sensuous conception of Divine things, 
 among the Jews and Christians, which 
 called forth Gnosticism; and it furthered 
 its propagation the more, because Chris- 
 tianity had awakened also new spiritual 
 wants, which could fnid no satisfaction in 
 a mere faith founded on authority, which 
 despised every thing ideal, cast away from 
 it all higher contemplation and intuition, 
 and abruptly rejected all speculation, li' 
 the Gnostics did imagine faith so mean 
 a thing, and if they did not attain to a 
 knowledge of what it is in vital Chris- 
 tianity, and in the ideas of St. Paul, they 
 
 led astray, and took a false and destruc- 
 tive turn, because they would not know 
 Christianity from its own peculiar and es- 
 sential nature, because they mixed hetero- 
 geneous elements with Christianity, which 
 is complete and sufficient in itself, because 
 they did not regard the natural limits of 
 human knowledge, and because they were 
 unable to perceive the limits which be- 
 long to religion, and those which belong 
 to knowledge. Their tremendous errors 
 stand in history as an instructive warning 
 and example. 
 
 After these general reflections, we now 
 proceed to the individual Gnostic sects, 
 and, according to the division which has 
 appeared the most suitable, we shall first 
 speak of those Gnostic sects loJiich, en- 
 grafting themselves on Judaism, supposed 
 
 gradual development of the theocracy to 
 
 may have been induced to such a course take place in mankind, proceeding from 
 by their opposition to men, who either 
 did not in their lives manifest the true 
 
 power of faith, by showing that it was an 
 
 animating principle of life, or at least did 
 
 not understand how to show, in its full 
 
 development, the truth, that faith is some- 
 thing more than a mere belief on the 
 
 strength of authority, and than a mere 
 
 subjection to outward authority, that it is 
 
 an inward, living disposition and an inward 
 
 principle of life, the source of a new life 
 
 within. 
 
 Many have been led to Gnosticism by 
 
 an unsatisfied desire after a deeper Chris- 
 tian knowledge, and after a knowledge 
 
 of the inward organic connection of the 
 
 doctrines of Christianity.* The Gnostics 
 
 made the first attempt to develope the 
 
 Christian doctrine as a whole, and in its 
 
 individual parts, according to their interior 
 
 connection, and to form out of Christianity 
 
 a continued and connected mode of view- 
 ing divine and human things. The desire 
 
 and endeavour after an inward connection 
 
 and an inward unity of knowledge, is not to 
 
 be mistaken among them ; although we ac- 
 knowledge this endeavour of theirs, which 
 
 in one point of view was right, was sadly j a^cise from a mixture of Jewish theosophy 
 
 . with Christianity. 
 
 The most striking contradiction be- 
 tween the accounts of the doctrines of 
 Cerinthus appears to lie in this; that 
 lrena!us makes him out a complete Gnos- 
 tic, while the Presbyter Cains of Rome, 
 who wrote at the end of the second cen- 
 tury, and Dionysius, bishop of Alexan- 
 dria, after the middle of the third century, 
 
 • See Acts XX. 29. Comp. 1, and 2, Epistles 
 to Timothy, and the Epistle to the Coloasians. 
 
 one original foundation. 
 
 ($.) Tlie individiud sects. 
 
 (1.) 77ie Gnostics, whose system was engrafted 
 071 Judaism. 
 
 (a.) Cerinthus. 
 
 As the doctrine of this Gnostic shows 
 us clearly how Gnosis formed itself out 
 of Judaism, he forms the natural transi- 
 tion-point from the Judaizing sects to the 
 Gnostics. In the accounts which remain 
 to us of his opinions, we find contradic- 
 tions and difficulties which can only be 
 explained by taking a just view of the 
 manner in which Gnosticism was deduced 
 from Judaism. Cerinthus, according to 
 an old tradition which we have no valid 
 reason to doubt, lived at Ephesus at the 
 same time with St. John. He lived in 
 those regions, where corruptions of Chris- 
 tianity had already in early times threat- 
 ened Christianity; which were, however, 
 different corruptions from those* with 
 which Christianity had to contend in its 
 very birth, and which proceeded from a 
 Pharisaical Judaism, while these rather 
 
 * As Ambrosius, of whom and to whom the 
 great Oriajen (who converted him from the errors 
 of Gnosticism,) said : " From want of persons who 
 preach the better truths, while you could not, out 
 of your love to Jesus, bear an unreasonable and 
 ignorant folth (at/T6c yow > Trc^iaToi* Tr^itrffiw.yTm ru 
 
 KfilTTCVCt, /MO tfl^aiV TDV ( /vSJ-iV KM iJioniKy.v mtTTiy, if/* 
 
 Tuv TTKc Tcv ^U^ivv ly^TTuv.) you pavc yours<'lf up 
 formerly to doctrines which afterwards, using the 
 understanding bestowed upon you rightly, you : 
 knew to be erroneous, and cast away." — Origen. I 
 T. V. Joh. towards the end. 1 
 
CERINTHUS. BAPTISM OF OUR LORD. 
 
 ascribe to him a gross sensual Chiliasm, 
 whicli bears upon it the garb of the carnal 
 notions of Judaism. We might, however, 
 bring these two accounts nearer to each 
 other, if we were at liberty to subtract a 
 little from each. It may easily have hap- 
 pened to Jrenaeus, that, where he found a 
 few traits resembling Gnosticism, he made 
 out of them a whole Gnostic system. To 
 the Presbyter Caius, as a zealous opponent 
 of Chiliasm, every thing was welcome 
 which could serve to place Chiliasm in 
 an unfavourable point of view; and cer- 
 tainly he was not inclined to explain the 
 expressions of a system whicti he detested, 
 in the mildest manner; and was the less 
 likely to do so, because these expressions 
 might easily be misunderstood by a per- 
 son not accustomed to the .Jewish-Orien- 
 tal mode of speaking allegorically. And 
 besides, it was natural that Irena^us, in 
 whose persuasion a belief in Chiliasm 
 was necessary to a perfect orthodoxy, 
 should not quote such a view among the 
 pecidiar opinions of a Gnostic, whom he 
 hated. We shall now endeavour, from 
 the fragments which we can gather from 
 the above cited reports, compared with 
 the account of Epiphanius, to put together. 
 a whole. 
 
 According to Irenaeus,*Cerinthus taught 
 that the w'orld was created by a powerf 
 quite subordinate to the highest God, 
 which did not even so much as know this 
 God who was elevated above every thing. 
 According to Epiphanius,^ he held that 
 the world was created by angels. The 
 Jewish element, which is the foundation 
 of all this, is here easily recognised; he 
 thought that the God,§ who was elevated 
 above all contact with material things, 
 and vvho came not forth from the hidden 
 recesses of his incomprehensible nature, 
 had created this world by means of min- 
 istering angels. He supposed, in accord- 
 ance with the Jewish theories, different 
 ranks and degrees in the higher world of 
 spirit^;, and ascribed to the angels or 
 powers, through which God had created 
 earthly things, a lower stage in this gra- 
 dation ; just as he chose to place earthly 
 things, without denying their divine 
 origin, yet far below heavenly things. 
 
 * The passage which is most to be used for this 
 purpose, hcin? that in which Ircnseus mixes up 
 Cerinthus less than elscwiiere, with other Gnostics, 
 is lib. i. 26. 
 
 -{■ Virtus, /wa^i.-, nTl^JI' ^ terminus tech, 
 
 cus of .Fcwish theology. 
 i Hreres. 8, or 28. 
 § 'I'he if of Phtio. 
 
 255 
 
 Perhaps he did not teach, that iliose 
 angels did not know the Supreme God ; 
 but only that they had a very imperfect 
 knowledge of God, and of the highest 
 heave s, and not the perfect knowledge 
 which was first to be communicated by 
 the revelation of the Divine Logos. At 
 the head of these angels, Cerinthus (ac- 
 cording to Irena;us) placed a power, 
 which was taken from among them, an(l 
 presided over them. lie maintained alst), 
 according to the apparently common re- 
 presentation of the Jews, that the Mosaic 
 law had been revealed by means of this 
 angel.* While he said this, he still de- 
 sired strictly to bring forward and elevate 
 the dignity of the Mosaic law, as com- 
 pared with all human systems, and all 
 other national religions : but then when 
 compared willi the revelation of the 3Ies- 
 siah, he desired to sink this same law as 
 low as the angels are below the highest 
 Logos. In his doctrine as to the person 
 of the Messiah, he was in some respects 
 entirely inclined to cling to the usual 
 Jewish notion. (See above.) The man 
 Jesus was (in this view) a son of Joseph 
 and Mary, begotten in the natural way, 
 provided with no sort of miraculous gifts, 
 who had distinguished himself O'om the 
 rest of the Jews only by a superior de- 
 gree of obedience to the lawf and wisdom. 
 By these qualities he made himself worthy 
 of being chosenj from among all mankind 
 as the Messiah. He himself knew nothing 
 of this destination appointed for him ; this 
 was first revealed to him in his baptism by 
 John, at the time destined to his consecra- 
 tion for the office of Messiah, and at the 
 same time he was furnished with thepov/ers 
 necessary to him for the fulfilment of this 
 destination. That Supreme Logos or 
 Spirit of God§ appeared and descended 
 from the heavens which opened above 
 Jesus, in the radiant form of a dove, and 
 it sunk down into the heart of Jesus. The 
 narrative given in an Ebionite recension 
 of the ^vcx.yyi>.iot v.a9' "E^gatou?, where it 
 is said, II " While the people were being 
 
 * According to Epiphanius, by one of those, 
 perhaps the presiding one, to whom, as the repre- 
 sentative of the Supreme God on this stage of 
 being, the guidance of the people consecrated to 
 God, was especially confided. 
 
 •j- By StK^Ktrvyn in its usual Jewish sense. 
 
 i Tit 6iKcyri X^/cTTic. 
 
 § It is quite allowable to suppose that Cerin- 
 thus, like many Jewish theologians, considered 
 the ?r\Bjfj.^ ayioi and the Kcyc; as identical. 
 
 n [This extract is taken from Kpi[)hanius 
 Hseres. xxx. Ebion. § 19, and is printed in Grabe 
 Spicilegium Palrum Sseculi I. p. 27. — II. J. K.] 
 
CHRISTOLOGY AND JUDAISM OF CERINTHUS. 
 
 256 
 
 baptized, Jesus came and suffered himself 
 to be baptized by Jolin," (probably with- 
 out being conscious that he was different 
 from the rest of those baptized by John, 
 or that any thing peculiar would take 
 place in regard to him,) "-and when he 
 came forth from the water, the heavens 
 were opened, and he saw the Holy Spirit 
 of God, in the form of a dove, descending 
 and entering into him."* (The luminous 
 form descended visibly upon his head, 
 and entered into him. It now disap- 
 peared ; a proof that the Holy Spirit or 
 Logos had wholly united itself with his 
 person.) " And there was a voice from 
 heaven which said, Thou art my beloved 
 Son, in thee I am \vell pleased;" and 
 again, " this day have I begotten thee ;"t 
 that is to say, I have brought thee to the 
 dignity of a Son, that is of the Messiah, by 
 means of the connection with this Spirit 
 of God ; " and immediately there shone 
 around a great light."J By means of a 
 connection with this Supreme Spirit, Jesus 
 now first attained to a rank, a power, and 
 a wisdom, elevated above this whole 
 world, and the angels that preside over it. 
 He now first attained to the perfect know- 
 ledge of the Supreme God, and of hea- 
 venly thhigs. JYow the angels themselves 
 might learn from his revelations ; and 
 now he performs miracles by the Divine 
 power of this Spirit which is united to 
 him. This is that which used him as its 
 instrument in every thing; this is the 
 TTvivfjict rov X^ia-Tov, the Messiah himself, 
 in the highest sense of the word.§ The 
 idea of a Messiah, who should redeem by 
 means of his sufferings, did not suit the 
 notions of a Cerinthus, who had no feeling 
 for the Divine nature in the form of a 
 servant, and who was attached to the im- 
 posing grandeur of a magical and theoso- 
 phic system.il I" union with the mighty 
 Spirit of God, Jesus could not have suf- 
 fered : by this union he must necessarily 
 have triumphed over all his enemies. 
 The very fact of suffering is of itself a 
 
 * EiSi TO TrvWfjt-'Ji Tit/ Qiciv TO ayiov, h uSu cripi^iifAt 
 K!frixbr,v7»i; K-JU itcihBcu^x; ik auT'-v. 
 
 "[■ tyai uajumv ytyftviiKH erf. 
 
 i [I have distinguished the parts which occur 
 in the Greek text by inverted commas ; the rest is 
 the interpretation put upon it by Neander, which 
 is hardly distinguished enough in the German. It 
 contains his view of the interpretation the Gnos- 
 tics put upon this passage. — H. J. R.] 
 
 § The am K^icrroi, the Xpia-rct 4Tot/pav;of , of whom 
 Jesus was only the human instrument, the xjit* 
 
 Xg'^'TCf. 
 
 II [Literally, who loved magic-theosophic gran- 
 deur.-H. J. JR.] 
 
 proof that the Spirit of God which was 
 united with him, had been beforehand 
 separated from him, and had gone up 
 again to the Father. To the suffering of 
 the mifn, now left to himself, Cerinthus 
 apparently ascribed no part of the re- 
 demption.* 
 
 According to Epiphanius, this theo- 
 sophist, who arranged every thing anew 
 so as to suit his own notions, denied the 
 resurrection of Jesus Christ, hi pur- 
 suance of this idea ]?e may have supposed 
 that the Divine Logos would unite itself 
 again to the man Jesus, only when it was 
 about to appoint him the victorious king 
 of the Messiah's kingdom, and to raise 
 up all the faithful with him to take their 
 share in that kingdom. The account of 
 Epiphanius, however, is not entirely to be 
 relied on : because as he proceeded on 
 the supposition that St. Paul was contend- 
 ing in every place against the followers 
 of Cerinthus, he may have attributed to 
 Cerinthus a doctrine which he did not 
 hold, in consequence of the passage in 
 1 Cor. XV. 
 
 Cerinthus further agreed with the 
 Ebionites in holding the perpetual obli- 
 gation of the Mosaic law, in a certain 
 sense, upon Christians. He might well 
 suppose that the highest meaning of Ju- 
 daism, which was not clearly known 
 even to the lawgiving angel himself, the 
 lov^ciia-[A.o<; 7rv£v^aTJxo?, the heavenly Ju- 
 daism, which was shadowed forth by the 
 earthly, had been first revealed by the 
 revelation of the Logos, and that yet that 
 earthly and shadowy form was still to 
 last till the triumphant approach of the 
 kingdom of the Messiah, or to the begin- 
 ning of a new and heavenly order of 
 things. But as Epiphanius says of him, 
 that he partlyf held fast to Judaism, ^ml 
 it is not likely that the latter should have 
 invented any thing of this sort; we may 
 conclude from it, that Cerinthus did not 
 look on every thing in Judaism as equally 
 divine; and that in some degree, like the 
 author of the Clementine, and many 
 other mystic sects of the Jews, he made 
 a distinction between an original Judaism, 
 and the latter corruptions of it ; and that 
 he insisted on the continued obligation 
 only of that part of the ceremonial law 
 which he considered as among the genuine 
 parts of it. As a sort of middle and 
 transition point from the earthly system of 
 the world to the new, eternal, heavenly 
 
 • See p. 257, under the head Basilidcs. 
 
CHILIASM. BASILIDES. DIVINE ENERGIES. HIS OGDOAD. 
 
 257 
 
 system, Cerinthus, with many Jewish 
 theologists, supposed a thousand-year 
 season of happiness, under the govern- 
 ment of the Messiah rendered triumphant 
 tlirough the power of the Logos, which 
 was to take place in Jerusalem as the 
 centre point of the ennobled earth. A 
 too literal interpretation of the passage in 
 Vs. xc. 4, led people to suppose, that as a 
 thousand years in the sight of God are 
 but as one day, the world would last 
 in its present state six thousand years ; 
 and then at the conclusion of the earthly 
 course, a Sabbath (a lime of undisturbed 
 blessing) of a thousand years would take 
 place on earth for the pious, now delivered 
 from all struggles. We are certainly in- 
 clined to ask, whether he made to him- 
 self so gross and carnal a representation 
 of the blessings of this thousand-years' 
 Sabbath, as Caius and Dionysius accuse 
 him of, which does not appear to har- 
 monize well with the general character 
 of his opinions. He spoke of a marriage 
 feast, which was at that time an image 
 commonly used to represent the happy 
 union of the Messiah with his own peo- 
 ple ;* but those who explained his words 
 with a feeling of bitterness against him, 
 might misinterpret such images. Diony- 
 sius says, that when he spoke of fasts 
 and sacrifices, he was only endeavouring 
 to gloss over his gross and carnal repre- 
 sentations. But what was there to justify 
 him in this declaration ?| 
 
 (b.) Basilides. 
 We pass now from Cerinthus to Ba- 
 silides, who wrote in the first half of the 
 second century. It is most probable that 
 Alexandria was the sphere of his activity ; 
 the stamp of an Alexandrian Jewish edu- 
 cation cannot be mistaken in him and in 
 his son Isidore, whose name points out 
 his Egyptian birth. But the account of 
 Epiphanius, that Syria, the general birth- 
 place of Gnostic systems, was also the 
 native land of Basilides, is not in itself 
 improbable, although it is on the other 
 hand not a sufficient proof The doc- 
 trines of emanation and dualism were the 
 foundation of his system; at the fountain 
 head of these emanations he placed the 
 
 hidden God, elevated above all represen- 
 tations and images.* The middle point 
 between this incomprehensible origin and 
 all following developments of life, is the 
 unfolding of that Being in his several 
 powers which individualize themselves, 
 and become in fact, so many names of 
 the unnameable Being. Man can only 
 think on God after the analogy of his oivn 
 spirit ; and an objective truth forms the 
 foundation of that analogy, inasmuch as 
 the spirit of man is the image of God. 
 He can form to himself no representation 
 of the most perfect Being, without break- 
 ing the idea of the most perfect, which 
 resides within his spirit, into the several 
 parts of which it consists •, and he feels 
 himself compelled to distinguish the 
 several attributes of this most perfect 
 Being, in order to make this idea compre- 
 hensible to himself: but a deep thinker 
 is well convinced, that this is merely a 
 necessary expedient to assist human im- 
 perfection, and knows how to distinguish 
 that which is objective, from that which 
 is subjective. And yet the Gnostic was 
 not capable of entering into this distinc- 
 tion : what is necessary to human concep- 
 tions^ he attributed to the objective de- 
 velopment of existence ; as thus : — in 
 order to bring forth life out of himself, 
 the Being which contains all perfection 
 within himself, must first unfold himself 
 into the several qualities which the idea 
 of absolute perfection contains ; and then, 
 instead of the abstract conception of attri- 
 butes, that suits not with Oriental habits 
 of thought, there come livings personi- 
 fied [hypostasirte] po7vers, vjhich continue 
 working in independent activity ; as, for 
 instance, first, the intellectual powers, the 
 Spirit, (vov?,) Reason, {■\oyo(;^) Thought, 
 {(ppovncTii,) Wisdom, (aoipix,) and then 
 Power, (Jv»oti^ii,) by which God puts the 
 resolves of his wisdom into execution ; 
 and, lastly, the moral attributesj without 
 which God's almighty power never shows 
 itself active ; namely, holiness or moral 
 perfection^ ((Jix«Kwt;»>),t a word which 
 must be understood according to the Hel- 
 lenistic and Hebrew phraseology, and not 
 in the narrow sense of the German word, 
 gerechtigkeit, unless people will under- 
 
 • The Gnostics also pictured the happiness of 
 the Trvwixa.TtKoi received into the Pleroma, under 
 the image of a marriage festival, a marriage be- 
 tween the (ra)T»5 and the 3-o<|)/5t ; between the spi- 
 ritual natures and the angels. (Sec l)clow.) So in 
 Heracleon ap. Origen. t. x. Joh. § 14, we find 
 
 \ Euseb. Hist. Eccles. iii. 28. 
 
 33 
 
 \ It is remarkable that Basilides used the word 
 SiKtu<,^vvn according to its Hebrew and Hellenistic 
 sense, to denote moral perfection, while other 
 Gnostics, especially those of the second class, 
 used it only to denote a more imperfect moral con- 
 dition ; an idea of righteousness (gcrechtigkeits- 
 1 begrilT) in a more confined sense. 
 t2 
 
ABRAXAS. DUALISM. PROCESS OF PURIFICATION. 
 
 258 
 
 stand this German word in its original 
 etymological sense,) and then, after moral 
 perfection, follows inward tranquillity, 
 peace [il^nvr,^) which, as Basilides justly 
 acknowledged, can only be there where 
 holiness is ; and this tranquillity is the 
 characteristic of the Divine life : and this 
 forms the close of this inward Divine 
 development of life.* The number seven 
 Avas a holy number to Basilides, as well 
 as to many theosophists of these times ; 
 and thus, in his system, these seven 
 ^vvd^n^, together with the first original, 
 which had unfolded himself into them, 
 formed the v^uTn oySoocq, and the root of ! 
 all existence. From thence the spiritual j 
 life went on developing itself, constantly 
 farther and farther into manifold degrees 
 of existence, every lower one being always 
 the impression, the resembling image (civ- 
 TtTi^TTo?) of the higher. If we may draw 
 conclusions as to the doctrines of the 
 original school from what we find of the 
 later Basilidians in Irenaeus, and from the 
 gems and amulets of the Basilidians, as 
 Basilides, in accordance witli the seven 
 days of the week, always supposed seven 
 similar beings in every stage of the spi- 
 ritual world, — so also, in consideration of 
 the days of the year, he supposed there 
 were three hundred and sixty-tive such 
 regions, or stages, in the spiritual world. 
 This is expressed in the mystical word : 
 a^ga|a? (which was a symbol of his sect) 
 when it is interpreted by the usual method 
 of reckoning Greek letters numerically.! 
 
 Within this emanalion-ianrld everything 
 was tliat which it ought to be in its own 
 proper position : but out of an union be- 
 tween the Divine and the undivine there 
 arose a disharmony, which was to be 
 brought again into harmony. 
 
 There is, alas ! in this place, an hiatus 
 in our accounts of the Basilidian system. 
 It is a matter of question whether Basilides 
 followed the mode of conception in use 
 with those who supposed the intermixture 
 to take place by the falling down of some 
 of the Divine sead of life into the chaos 
 bordering upon it; or of those, who ima- 
 gined an empire of evil, which was active 
 
 * Iren. lib. i. c. 24, lib. ii. c. 16. Clem. Stiom. 
 lib. iv. 5,39. 
 
 -j- [* _1 4- y2_ 2 + p =100 + * .-=1 + I = 
 60 + *=1 -I- c = 200'.— H. J. R.] 
 
 It may be that this name, which desitmatcs the 
 whole emanation-world as development of the .Su- 
 preme Being, had also another meaning; but all 
 attempts at an explanation of it will forever be 
 merely arbitrary ones, for there are no sure grounds 
 in existence from which one could argue about it. 
 
 by its own energy, and supposed the 
 intermixture to have taken place bv an 
 aggressive assault of this empire upon the 
 Empire of Light. In a fragment* which 
 is still extant, Basilides quotes the opinion 
 of the Persians on the two opposite em- 
 pires of Ormuzd and Ahriman ; but as 
 the passage which follows has not been 
 preserved to us, we cannot with certainty 
 conclude whether he quoted this doctrine 
 in approbation or disapprobation. If we 
 remember that he belonged to those who 
 wished to complete the propositions of 
 the Grecian, that is, the Platonic philo- 
 sophy, by means of the profounder wis- 
 dom of the East, the first of these suppo- 
 sitions will appear the most probable. 
 Also, when he spoke of a confusion and 
 intermixture of principles,! this might 
 very naturally lead to such a conclusion. 
 The accusation made by Clemens of 
 Alexandria against Basilides, that he deified 
 the devil,! leads also to the supposition 
 that Basilides gave occasion to this accu- 
 sation by his representation of a substan- 
 tial evil Being.§ And, besides, the Basi- 
 lidian doctrines have much that is akin to 
 the Parsic and Manichaean.|| 
 
 But howsoever this intermixture of 
 Light and Darkness, of the Divine and 
 the undivine, might have arisen, it would 
 nevertheless, according to this system, 
 necessarily be subservient to the glorifi- 
 cation of the Divine Being, to the fulfill- 
 ing of the ideas of the Supreme' Wisdom, 
 and of the law of all the development of 
 life ; because the empire of evil is of itself 
 naturally nothing worth. The empire of 
 the Divine Being is the real empire, and 
 that which is naturally victorious. 
 
 Lights Life, Soul, Good ; on one 
 side : — Darkness, Death, Matter, Evil, 
 on the other — these in the system of 
 Basilides, were the members which an- 
 swered to each other, and maintained the 
 opposition which he supposed to exist 
 
 * Disputat. Archel. et Mani. opp. Hippolyt ed. 
 Fabricii. lib. iii. p. 193. 
 
 ! TOffi^o; Kcu <ruy^ui7l( ifX'^"' C!lem. 1. ii. f. 
 408. 
 
 \ Clemens Strom, lib. iv. p. 507. 7n»f cuk ^Skc, 
 
 § Ai-j^ji-.Koc, Ahriman. 
 
 !| If Basilides, 1. c. in the Dissertation of Arche- 
 laus, speaks in his own person of a pauperis na- 
 tura, sine radice et sine loco rebus superveniens, 
 must not these enigmatic words be taken to express 
 the doctrine- of an ein[)ire of evil, witiiout begin- 
 ning, which, in its poverty, is smitten with desire 
 after the treasures of the kingdom of Light; and 
 penetrating into the light, would wish to seize 
 these, and carry them off for itself. 
 
METEMPSYCHOSIS DEVELOPMENT OF LIEE. 
 
 259 
 
 throughout the whole course of the uni- 
 rerse. In general, just as rust fastens 
 itself from without on iron, so Darkness 
 and Death cleave to the fallen seed of 
 Light, and Life^ Evil cleaves to Good, 
 and the imdivine to the Divine, without, 
 however, effecting the annihilation of the 
 original Being; it must only by degrees 
 purify itself from every thing foreign 
 to it, in order to attain to its original 
 splendour, just as iron must be cleansed 
 from rust in order to obtain again a 
 higher polish.* Such a process of puri- 
 fication the whole course of this ivorld 
 affords to the fallen being, as a system 
 which was formed for the perfection 
 of this purification, in order to sepa- 
 rate that which is Divine from that which 
 is foreign to its nature, and to conduct it 
 again to what is akin to it, and to a re- 
 imion with its original source. 
 
 One would be inclined to think that a 
 system in which a moral retribution was 
 the prevailing idea, might, perhaps, admit 
 the notion of a passage of the soul into 
 various human bodies, according to the 
 measure of its deserts in a former state of 
 existence, so that it might be placed, ac- 
 cording to its deserts, in a different hu- 
 man body, and in different circumstances, 
 and a different situation, and so that it might 
 have to expiate by penitence ihe guilt con- 
 tracted in its former state, although only 
 conscious of it in a mysterious and gen- 
 eral manner. But the doctrine of a ban- 
 ishment of the soul into the bodies of 
 animals does not appear to suit so well 
 the prevailing moral notion of the system, 
 as one cannot imagine any penitence 
 taking place where there is no moral 
 consciousness at all. And yet, in all sys- 
 tems of this nature, the moral element is 
 not purely and abstractedly conceived, 
 but is always mixed with physical con- 
 siderations. We have, therefore, no reason 
 to doubt an account which makes Basi- 
 lides introduce such a metempsychosis in 
 his own words ; as it is a doctrine which, 
 by means of the intermixture of Ori- 
 entalism, Platonism, and Jndaism, was 
 cert;iinly at that time widely diffused even 
 among many Jewish sects. 
 
 Two modes, however, of viewing this 
 doctrine may now be thought of; the 
 one, when the notion of moral retribution 
 
 j is constantly kept steadfastly in view, and 
 \ the soul is supposed to be banished into 
 I the bodies of animals, only as a mode of 
 \punishment : the other, when it is con- 
 I ceived under the more physical notion of 
 ja gradual development of the spiritual 
 j seed of life, which constantly becomes 
 I more freed from matter, which keej)s it 
 prisoner, and constantly attains more and 
 more to consciousness, and to the deve- 
 I lopment of its original nature. Basilides 
 j appears in one passage to favour this 
 latter notion, and appears to be declaring 
 how the soul struggles itself into con- 
 sciousness, in the body of an animal out 
 i of an unconscious state. The words in 
 Rom. vii. 9, about a life without the law, 
 he understands as relating to such a life 
 in the body of an animal, whether that 
 of a quadruped, or that of a bird ; where 
 no law for the soul could exist.* The 
 view, that the soul might be still more 
 imprisoned and hemmed in by matter, in 
 yet lower degrees of existence, would 
 easily engraft itself on this interpretation ; 
 and also that in plants, and in stones, there 
 I is a soul, only more imprisoned, wliich, 
 [ by degrees, freeing itself more and more, 
 developes itself from stone to plant, from 
 ! plant to animal, and from animal to man. 
 iThis mode of representation suits also 
 : with his whole system ; because he con- 
 ! siders matter not as any thing that lives, 
 but oidy as that dead stuff, which has 
 joined itself with that which is living. 
 And beside, there is with him no such 
 thing as a dead nature ; but in all nature 
 there is a life which is held prisoner 
 by matter, and striving to set itself free. 
 And thus he might well say, that all ex- 
 istence is connected together one part 
 with the other; and that, according to 
 the will of God, man must love all that 
 exists, in virtue of this mutual connection.-j- 
 Two different views were here also 
 united together: the one was, a gradual 
 development from the lowest to the high- 
 est, from M'hich that original intermixture 
 and that original fall had proceeded; and 
 the other, a voluntarily-incurred degrada- 
 tion into a lower state of being. And 
 yet, one is inclined to ask, whether Ba- 
 silides really supposed that the being of 
 light (lichtnatur) or soul, which had once 
 I attained to humanity, in the process of its 
 
 • Basilides speaks thus in general terms about 
 the sufferings of all fallen Beings of Light ; 
 "Trouble and anxiety naturally fall on things, as 
 rust on iron." 'O xovic ift o <;)c/?of irfju/u0ouv(t tkc 
 
 ?rgxyuu<ri¥ itr i l:; Tct (n<fiiga Clciliens Alex. Strom. t,;re;wi <fifjii» T6 iyLTTf)!.!! 
 lib. iv. p. 609. a. I (^(.uii ■rfi( to toui uTra-tTa, 
 
 * See Origcn Commentar. in Ep. ad Rom. 
 vol. iv. 0pp. p. 549. 
 
 Strom, lib. iv. fol. 508. 
 
260 PROVIDENCE WISDOM OF THE PATRIARCHS. 
 
 purification and development, could ever the temple of God." (See below.) It 
 sink back into the body of an animal; or | was a great object to him to justify Pro- 
 whetherhe did not, on the contrary, con- i vidence against every reproach. His con- 
 tine the process of purification for a na- 
 ture which liad once attained to this 
 point, entirely within the limits of human 
 nature. 
 
 To the whole earthly system, or to 
 this whole purifying process of nature 
 and history, Basilides assigned such a 
 Creator (of whose place in the Gnostic 
 systems we have already spoken in the 
 introductory remarks,) as he called by 
 the name of the Ruler, or the angel that 
 has the government of this world, (5ci§- 
 ;^w^,) and yet, according to the doctrine 
 of Basilides, this Archon does not act in- 
 dependently and by his own power in the 
 conducting of the universe; all at last pro- 
 ceeds from the providenceof the Supreme 
 God, which presides over every thing. 
 
 In the first place, all beings develope 
 themselves according to the law implanted 
 in their peculiar individual natures ; whicl 
 
 elusion always was, "■ J will rather say 
 any thing whatever, than cast the slightest 
 imputation on Providence."* 
 
 With regard to the relation of Judaism 
 to the revelation of the loftiest truth and 
 to Christianity, it is in the highest degree 
 probable that Basilides thought in a man- 
 ner analogous to the Alexandrian Jewish 
 notions on this point, and to his own no- 
 tions as to the relation between the earthly 
 world and the loftiest system of the uni- 
 verse. He supposed that the Archon, in 
 the conduct of the Jewish people, as well 
 as in the conduct of the universe, had 
 served the Supreme God as an instrument, 
 which was not itself conscious of the 
 ideas which were implanted in it, and that 
 the Archon had been taken by the great 
 mass of the Jewish people for the Supreme 
 God himself, whom he was to represent. 
 It was only those higher natures, which 
 law, together with their nature, proceeds I were to be found dispersed among the 
 from the Supreme God. The Archon only j Jewish people ; it was only the "■ people 
 gives the first impulse to this natural of God," in its true sense ; the irvtvjjLX'n- 
 course of development, and then he him- ko? 'ic^u-nX, that had been able to raise 
 self becomes guided in his whole conduct themselves above the Archon himself, to 
 by the ideas of the Supreme God, who a recognition of the Supreme God repre- 
 animates every thing, without being able j sented by him, and thus, above the sen- 
 
 to comprehend them.* We c*nnot, there- 
 fore, in any way accuse Basilides of an 
 unchristian contempt of the world, a 
 denial of a revelation of God in the uni- 
 verse, or an unchristian dualism, which 
 does not recognise the God of grace as 
 the God of creation, and which tears 
 asunder the harmonious connection be- 
 tween revelation and nature ; such a vio- 
 lent dualism can by no means be laid to 
 his charge. It was rather that he made 
 it a matter of great consequence to set 
 forth the law of unity which bound every 
 thing together, from the highest to the 
 lowest ; " the world is only one, and is 
 
 • Clem. Strom, lib. iv. p. 509. 'H Trcovcia, u 
 X2i/ iXTTo rcu d^^ovTct nivittrBai if^naj, dx?C iyic<i<Ti<7-- 
 ?rx(h Toi; cuiriajc avv km tm tciiv o^a'V yvur'u TTfoi tou 
 Tut ihuv Qku. Thus, also, in Plotinus (Ennciul. 
 iii. lib. ii.,) on the subject of vrptvciet as a natural 
 development in virtue of an indwelling eternal 
 law of reason, we find the following remark: t«v 
 TTfcvimv Tat ■ra.vTt iivti, to xtTM. Viuv auro Hint. There 
 is, however, this difl'erence, that in Basilides there 
 is a more Christian consideration brought forward ; 
 because he supposes, in co-operation with the law 
 of nature, a personal God, who acts independently, 
 and guides the development of that law of nature ; 
 and, by means of the act of redemj)tion, brings 
 to perfection higher results, than could proceed 
 
 suous covering of Judaism to the con- 
 templation of those ideas, which were 
 contained under this covering, but not 
 understood by the Archon himself. An 
 example of his allegorical notions is 
 found in the following saying, " The one 
 temple of Jerusalem is the type of the 
 one world, which is the temple of God."t 
 But he supposed also the existence of 
 written documents, in which the liigher 
 wisdom was brought forward, perhaps 
 more unreservedly than in the writings of 
 the Canon of the Old Testament. h\ ac- 
 cordance with an idea then widely spread, 
 I he traced the tradition of such a philo- 
 sophical secret doctrine up to the Patri- 
 archs in particular ; and it would appear 
 to him hardly any thing else than natural, 
 that the great mass of the sensuous- 
 minded Jews should not receive those 
 writings, of which they could understand 
 
 • Clem. Strom, lib. iv. p. 506. c. nai'T* ifo jag 
 
 fASlXKOV, )» XOXiV TO TrgiVOit/V i^ce. 
 
 •j- Clem. Strom, lib. v. p. 583. D. 'Ev* vmv 
 lifuT-jfAVio; Tov &iou (o Md'crxc) fAovoywi Tt Koa-fA(.v 
 KiLTny-yfiKi. Similarly also, Philo says, ysg/ ^5v«g;^/«c. 
 lib. ii., TO fj(iv uvceTUTce xa; tt^oc <iX>iSv3.v li^oy ©mo 
 
 tO/Uli^ilV TOV a-U/ATr^LVTO. ^» K'jO-/U0V llVil, ' 
 
 Xis^o. 
 
 /unToy. 'I'his idea is still farther carried into par- 
 from the mere development of the law of nature, I ticulars both by Philo and Josephus. 
 
DOCTRINE OP REDEMPTION. — CHRISTOLOGY. 
 
 nothing, as canonical. According to the 
 Alexandrian fashion, he deduced all the 
 traces of truth found in the best Greek 
 philosophers,* Which he eagerly hunted , 
 after, from that original tradition. '' Let 
 no one believe," says Isidorus, the son 
 of Basilides, *' that that which we call a 
 peculiar possession of the elect, was ear- 
 lier said by some philosophers ; for it is 
 not their discovery, but they have taken 
 it out of the Prophets, and attributed it to 
 their pretended sages (or to their false : 
 wisdom.")! It certainly deserves to be j 
 remarked (as Gieseler has remarked,) that | 
 Basilides supposed even Ham to have 
 been among those who handed down this 
 liigher wisdom, and perhaps, he deduced 
 peculiarly from him the (pt^oc-of »« Ba.^Bot- 
 foj,J which he probably, as a recogniser 
 of the higher wisdom, set above the 
 Greeks.§ 
 
 The fundamental Christian doctrine of 
 a redeeming grace had its essential place 
 in the system of Basilides, as the Supreme 
 God was to manifest himself to human 
 nature, and communicate to it a life akin 
 to his own, in order to raise it above the 
 limits of the mundane system, or the 
 world of the archon, to communion with 
 himself, and to the higher world of spirits. 
 It is clear that this operation of the Su- 
 preme God, according to the system of 
 Basilides, could only relate to those spi- 
 ritual natures which were destined by 
 their very constitution for a higher world, 
 but which found themselves prisoners in 
 a lower one. These might, through the 
 progressive development of the metem- 
 psychosis raise themselves from one stage 
 to another in the kingdom of the Archon ; 
 but they could not, in compliance with 
 the desire implanted in them, attain beyond 
 this kingdom and the Archon himself, to 
 communion with the highest system of 
 the world, and to clear knowledge, as well 
 as to the free exercise of their higher na- 
 ture, unless the Supreme God himself 
 brought his Divine life near to their kin- 
 dred seed of life, and thereby first set this 
 
 • As with Plato and Aristotle. 
 
 ■j- Clem. Strom, vi. 641. KiU ^ji t/c oiVSm, i 
 
 ■XW x/rr'j rivani <p<A.C(r;cci)V, oii yij> sstt/v adnctv iCpn/uoi, 
 
 vrr^ifXj.v'rt kxt adircu; a-!.<pa. It appears to me now, 
 that this passage requires no emendation, if we 
 may take the word o-o^pa cither as masculine or 
 neuter. The expression that follows, d Trfonrot- 
 cufAivu <p;hca-'.<fi^\/, confirms this explanation of it. 
 
 ^ The traces of the higher wisdom, to be found 
 among the Persians and Hindoos. 
 
 261 
 
 into activity. And while spiritual natures, 
 by the act of redemption, are raised to 
 tlie highest position, the influence of re- 
 demption at the same time extends itself 
 also to the subordinate stages of being; 
 harmony becomes universally re-esta- 
 blished, and every class of being attains 
 the condition which is conformable to its 
 nature. But although Basilides on the 
 one side brought forward an element in 
 the doctrine of redemption, which was 
 entirely foreign to the fleshly Judaism that 
 clung to eartli, — he was on the otlier side, 
 like Cerinthus, altogether Ebmiitish^ inas- 
 much as he supposed a sudden entrance 
 of the Divine nature into the life of Jesus, 
 and did not recognise any God-man, in 
 whom the Divine and the human natures 
 had been inseparably united from the first. 
 He supposed, as his fundamental position, 
 a redeeming God, but no redeeming God- 
 man. 
 
 The man Jesus was not to him the 
 Redeemer, he was distinguished from 
 other men only in degree ; and Basilides 
 does not appear ever to have ascribed 
 absolute unsinfulness to him. He was, in 
 the notions of Basilides, only the instru- 
 ment w^hich the redeeming God chose, in 
 order to reveal himself in human nature, 
 and to seize on that nature so as to work 
 upon it. With him the Redeemer, in the 
 peculiar and highest sense of the word, was 
 the highest iEon,* who was sent down 
 from the Supreme God for the fulfilment of 
 the work of redemption; this Being united 
 himself with the man Jesus at his baptism 
 in the Jordan. From this point the whole 
 work of redemption set forth : from that 
 time the man Jesus spoke things w'hich 
 were far beyond the reach of this lower 
 creation. 
 
 The Archon himself, as well as John 
 the Baptist (who was, in the name of the 
 Archon, to consecrate Jesus to the office 
 of Messiah, in the subordinate sense in 
 which the Archon wished, and had pro- 
 mised a IMessiah,) was surprised, and 
 seized with astonishment, when he saw 
 the Not/? descend, and when he heard at 
 the same time the voice that sounded from 
 heaven, and perceived the accompanying 
 appearances,! and heard this Jesus, whom 
 he had supposed a man of his own king- 
 dom, announce such extraordinary things. 
 He now himself, for the first time, recog- 
 
 " Or VM(, which is called cfisowvoc, as serving to 
 the salvation of mankind. 
 
 ! Which Basilides apparently learned from an 
 apocryphal GospeL 
 
262 
 
 nises the Supreme God, and the higiiest 
 system of the world, to both of which 
 he had mvoluntarily served, till now, as 
 an unconscious instrument, which be- 
 lieved that it acted iudependently. He 
 now submits himself willingly to a higher 
 Power, imploring it with astonishment; 
 and from this moment he works freely 
 and consciously, as the instrument of 
 that higher Power. He now recognises 
 the truth, that even in the kingdom in 
 which he had hitherto believed himself to 
 be supreme, there are beings imprisoned, 
 which are elevated above himself and his 
 world, and which the Not;? will free from 
 these bounds, as well as the man Jesus, 
 and raise them to the higher system of 
 the world ; he recognises the essential 
 distinction between the natures that be- 
 long to him of right and are akin to him,* 
 and those which, by their kind, belong to 
 a higher kingdom, and are capable of 
 communion with the Not;; ; he separates 
 each from the other, and lets the latter go 
 free out of his kingdom, without putting 
 any impediment in the way of their ele- 
 vation. We shall now quote the very 
 words of this man, who conceived every 
 tiling under his own peculiar imagery : 
 "When the ruler of the world heard the 
 words of the Redeeming Spirit,! he be- 
 came astonished at that which he heard 
 and saw, as he heard unexpectedly the 
 glorious message ; and his astonishment 
 was called fear." The words, "The fear 
 of God is the beginning of wisdom," are 
 thus to be understood ; they mean that 
 the fear of t/ns God is the beginning of 
 wisdom, which separates the different 
 kinds of beings from one another, allows 
 them to come to perfection, and leads 
 them all to the stage of existence for 
 which they are destined; for he that 
 rules over all does not separate merely 
 tliose which belong to the world, but 
 even the elect, and suffers them to depart 
 freely from his dominion.J 
 
 * The K^fjio;, — the ktio-k, — the Kt>r/uiKOi, — the 
 
 •j- Also in the Eittyyo^nv xaS" 'Efi^nou;, which 
 Jerome had received from the Nazarenes, the 
 words which sounded from heaven, are ascribed to 
 the "fons omnis Spiritus Sancti, qui requievit 
 super Christum," who descended from heaven. 
 
 ir Clemens, Stromat. lib. ii. p. 375, ti» ' A^-^ovthl 
 
 'i>L7rK:tyi'y!U Tai ts vM.aicr fx-xTi km tm fiiJf/.u.Tt icxi thv 
 
 ^Uk'.K^lV>}T:Klli TS *3U itm^nlKK X.M TS\SaT«))C KH ^TT'j- 
 KJ.TX(7r:i7tK>i;, oil ytp JUOVOV TOV KCCTfAlJV, u\K!l x.at T«V 
 
 lukoyhv (fwKg/v«, iTi TTdirt Tr^oTrijuTru- Wc must 
 here add a few remarks. The explanation of the 
 
 THE ARCHON UNDECEIVED. 
 
 We see here how Basilides conceived 
 and painted after his own eccentric man- 
 ner, that which Christianity effects, as a 
 divinely animating, freeing and enlighten- 
 ing principle, as the matter which sets 
 human nature in fermentation. These 
 effects, partly judging by the deep pene- 
 tration of his own mind, and applying its 
 inward operations to outward things, he 
 traced to some fundamental law of Chris- 
 tianity, and partly from observation of 
 the phenomena of his own time. That 
 which Christianity effected generally, in 
 reference to the history of human nature, 
 Basilides represented as an impression 
 made on the Archon which represented 
 that nature. 
 
 Like Cerinthus, he also attributed the 
 whole work of redemption to the redeem- 
 ing heavenly Genius, and most probably 
 coincided with him in the supposition 
 that this Genius had left the man, whom 
 he had hitherto made use of as his in- 
 strument, to himself at the time of his 
 suffering. According to his system, the 
 suffering of Christ could have nothing to 
 do with the work of redemption ; for, ac- 
 cording to his narrow views of justice, it 
 was not consonant to the Divine justice 
 that one, who deserved it not, should 
 suffer for others ; and it was required, 
 that all evil should be atoned for by suf- 
 fering. He considered not merely suffer- 
 ing in general, but also every suffering in 
 particular, as a punishment for sin. He 
 
 words of Ps. cxi. 10, or of Eccles. i. 16, according 
 to the Basilidian system, gives a remarkable ex- 
 ample of the caprice of a theosophical exegesis, 
 which, without regard to the context in which the 
 words stand, lets them, according to this system, 
 mean any thing which they can possibly mean in 
 any context whatever. If the announcement of 
 the heavenly itumvo; is called an ilaL-^yixtcv for the 
 d^X^'v, then it is clear (they conclude,) that he did 
 not merely submit himself by compulsion to the 
 higher powers, but that his first astonishment 
 passed into a mingled feeling of delight and reve- 
 I rence. The prospect, as soon as the elect natures 
 j should have attained tiie glory destined for them, 
 I of becoming freed from the tiresome regimen of 
 this world, and of entering into rest with his own 
 ' people, (to which expectation of the Demiurgos 
 j the Gnostics referred, Rom. viii. 20, 21, according 
 j to Origen, t. i. in Joh. p. 24,) must assuredly have 
 been a joyful one for him. Comp. Didascal. 
 anatol. opp. Clem. p. 79t> D., where the fact that 
 the Demiurgos established the Sabbath, is adduced 
 as a proof how disagreeable labour is to him. Per- 
 haps it may occur to some persons, that we ought 
 to read rcn iTti Tra-ai instead of o 6?r/ 7ri.<n, so that it 
 would mean that the Archon freely leads the elect 
 natures out of his kingdom to the God who is 
 above all, to whom it is their last destination to 
 elevate themselves. 
 
THEODIC^A. NO OBJECTIVE JUSTTFICATION. 263 
 
 held the theory against which Christ .with that heavenly redeeming Spirit (the 
 spoke in John ix. 3. Luke xiii. 2. Every i .Jiaxo»o?.) hi order to become worthy of 
 one suffers for his actual sins, or for the t being redeemed before all others who 
 evil present in his nature, — evil which he j needed redemption, and being used as an 
 bro'ight with him out of a former state of instrument to extend farther the opera- 
 existence, and which, nevertheless, had [ tions of the redeeming Spirit to others, it 
 not yet come into a state of activity.* i was suflicient if he, as the most excellent 
 And thus, by reference to evil of this and purest man, and the most advanced 
 kind, he justified Providence in the suf-| in the process of purification, had merely 
 ferings inflicted on children. If any one the minimum of sinfulness. We must 
 made an objection to him from the suffer- '■ here observe that the Basilidian system, 
 
 iiigs of acknowledged good men, he had 
 fair right to answer by an appeal to the 
 general fact of the presence of sinfulness 
 
 which at any rate supposed a proportion 
 between the sin and the degree of punish- 
 ment, was certainly liable to the follow- 
 
 in human nature, and to say, — "Be the ing objection: "How does so great suf- 
 man you show me what he may, he is ; fering consist with the smallest degree of 
 still a man, and God only is holy; who sinfulness .?" But, apparently he was not 
 will find harmony among those, where at a loss for an answer here, if we may 
 there is no harmony ?"| Job xiv. 4. | judge from what he says on the subject 
 But then the case was different, where of martyrdom. He says, "The conscious- 
 tliis proposition was applied to the Re- j ness of serving as an instrument for the 
 deomer, who, as sure as he is the Re- i highest and holiest things of human na- 
 deeiner, must be free from sin. Clemens ture, and of suffering in this office, (per- 
 of Alexandria expressly blames Basilides haps also, a prospect of the glory into 
 because he went so far in the extension ! which he should enter by means of his 
 
 of this proposition. But in those icords 
 of his which Clemens quotes, this is not 
 necessarily implied ; he says only, — 
 " But if you, leaving this whole inquiry 
 on one side, come to this, that you put 
 
 suffering,) sweetened his sufferings to him 
 so much, that it was to him as if he did 
 not suffer at all. 
 
 According to the same principle, he 
 also consistently acknowledged no justi- 
 
 me into a difficulty by particular persons, \ fication in the sense indicated by St. Paul, 
 if you say, for instance, — ' Then he has j no objective justification before God ; no 
 sinned because he has suffered.' " — It may ] forgiveness of sin as a release from sin 
 be said that Basilides here speaks only of and the punishment of sin. According to 
 certain persons held in particular reverence, i his doctrine, every sin, whether before or 
 and in great fame for holiness ; and that I after faith in the Redeemer, or baptism, 
 Clemens has allowed himself to draw an must be alike atoned for by suffering. That 
 inference. But, in the first place, the re-; is a necessary law of the system of the 
 proach which Basilides here suffers to be: world, which nothing can annul. The 
 made against his proposition, would lose only exception he makes is in the case of 
 its proper force and signification, if it were sins proceeding from ignorance, or invo- 
 not so understood ; and in the second, j luntary sins :* but it is a pity that his ex- 
 the extension of tliis proposition dins far, planation of this very indefinite expres- 
 
 altogether coheres also with his theory 
 of the relation of suffering to sin, and 
 with his theory of the Divine justice, and 
 of the process of purification, to which 
 
 sion has not been preserved to us. But 
 if, on the contrary, under the term justifi- 
 cation (iJixanwo-Ki Siy-ccKjo-vtrt,) be understood 
 an inward subjective making just, a sanc- 
 
 pvery nature belonging to the kingdom of i trfication through tlie communication of 
 the Archon is subject. The Jesus which ! Divine life, then such a doctrine would 
 belonged to this kingdom required re- 1 hold a very necessary place in the sys- 
 tem of Basilides. 
 
 Among the religious and moral notions 
 of the Basilidian school, there is much 
 that deserves attention, which we are de- 
 sirous of bringing forward particularly. 
 
 In regard to the idea of Faith, the Ba- 
 silidian school distinguished itself by this: 
 
 demption even himself, and could be 
 made partaker of it only by his connection 
 
 * Sutferings, — the penances and purifications 
 of aurtpTtu., or u/x»c^;/T«:v. — *^tromat. iv. 506. 
 [Sylbui),', p. 217. Potter, p. 600. Klotz, vol. ii. 
 p. 322.] 
 
 f [Germ. " Wcr will eine Stimme finden bei 
 denen, da keine Stimme ist T" The Hebrew of 
 the passage, however, is different from this, and 
 exactly agrees with our English translation. — H. 
 J. R.] 
 
 * M.0V3K Tic iji:.VTIt< KM KtT iyVOti-t i^llJ^H. 
 
 Strom, iv. 536. [Sylb. p. 229. Potter, p. 633-4. 
 Klotz, vol. ii. p. 362.] 
 
264 
 
 DOCTRINES ABOUT FAITH. 
 
 that they expressly opposed the usual 
 Jewish and Jewish-Christian notion of 
 Faith, as another kind of opus opcratum, 
 an acknowledgment of certain religious 
 truths, which exists as something indi- 
 vidual in the soul of man, and operates no 
 farther on the whole inward life, a mere 
 outwardly existing traditional belief, which 
 brings forth no fruits in the life of man — 
 and also that they, with a deeper penetra- 
 tion into the spirit of St. PauPs doctrines, 
 represented Faith as an inward thing, an 
 entire bent of the inward life, an entrance 
 of the Spirit into a higher sphere, and a 
 real communion with that higher system. 
 But, on the other hand, he receded from 
 the genuine notion of St. Paul, because, 
 like all Gnostics (except Marcion) he con- 
 sidered religion in its contemplative, more 
 than in its practical, character ; and also, 
 in his notion of Faith, made the contem- 
 plative element more prominent than the 
 practical. With him Faith is a certain 
 kind of view,* which includes in itself a 
 certain intellectual appropriation of that 
 which is beheld, and a new spiritual life 
 also in it. On the contrary, according to 
 the genuine Christian idea of St. Paul, 
 Faith is a practical appropriation of Di- 
 vine things, by a devotion of the will, a 
 practical entrance into a new relation with 
 ' God, given by a peculiar revelation from 
 him, from which an entirely new direction 
 and employment of the inward life pro- 
 ceeds. From this we acknowledge, as 
 the whole spiritual life is formed anew from 
 this foundation, an entirely new kind of 
 religious view must develope itself. When, 
 therefore, Basilides supposed different 
 degrees in this view [anschauung] (in re- 
 spect of purity, clearness, elevation and 
 depth,) no objection could lie against him 
 on that account, on any genuine Christian 
 grounds, had he only recognised the com- 
 mon foundation of faith in all Christians, 
 and deduced every thing only from the 
 different degrees in which the influence 
 of that faith developed itself on the 
 spiritual life. But he, confounding be- 
 tween faith and sight,t supposed, instead 
 of one and the same life in a Faith, Avhich 
 is the same in all Christians, different 
 kinds of Faith, according to the dillerent 
 sorts of natures. That is to say, just as 
 
 men, according to their nature, belonged 
 to a higher or a lower grade of the 
 spiritual world, so also they were capable 
 of a higher or a lower kind of view. 
 Those higher ideas need no proof, but 
 they prove themselves through them- 
 selves, to those higher spiritual natures 
 which are akin to them, and which be- 
 come involuntarily attracted by the reve- 
 lation of the higher world, which is their 
 proper home. Therefore, Basilides says, 
 " The faith of the elect finds out doctrines 
 without any demonstration by means of a 
 spiritual comprehension" (an intellectual 
 sight 5)* and in this sense he gives this 
 definition of faith ; " an assent of the soul 
 to something which does not act upon the 
 senses, because it is not present."! That 
 is to say, — although the elect live in this 
 world as strangers, nevertheless, by the 
 influence of faith, they recognise, as real, 
 those things of the higher world which 
 beam upon them from afar. And hence 
 he supposes the degree of faith to which 
 a person can elevate himself as a stranger 
 in this world, to correspond to that grade 
 of the spiritual world to which he be- 
 longs.J 
 
 From the principles of Basilides, his 
 moral doctrines must have been of a severe 
 nature. In his morality the ruling princi- 
 ple must have been this^ that man should 
 free himself from that foreign admixture, 
 which having attached itself to his original 
 nature, disturbs and controls it, and that 
 he should constantly attain more and 
 more to a free development and exercise 
 of that original nature. According to this 
 system, man is a little world; just as, 
 according to his spirit, he may be akin to 
 the different natures of the higher spiritual 
 world, so also, in accordance with his 
 lower nature, he bears within himself 
 that which is akin to the different grades 
 and natures of the lower earthly world. 
 He has within himself many admixtures§ 
 of a foreign nature, wherein the different 
 qualities of the world of animals, of 
 vegetables, and of minerals, are reflected : 
 
 * [Anschauiincf. See the former notes on this 
 word, and the Preface— H. .1. R.] 
 
 j- [Aiischaiiune;. Between faith and that 
 faculty, by which IJasilidcs supposed a view, an 
 image or visible representation, to be present to the 
 mind of the believer. See Preface. — H, J. R.] 
 
 * Clem. Strom, ii. .363, i ma-rK tmc sx^cjof t« 
 fjtt&nfjtUTtt dvarroJfiKTax iii^ttr)icu<r^ jcxTiAx^s' vitiT/Jtu. 
 [Sylb. p. 156. Potter, p. 433-4. Klotz, vol. ii. 
 p."l28. 
 
 I Clem. Strom, ii. 371. 4"/^"^ ovyKUT'^Bitri: 
 fr«oc T/ Tuv jun Ktvcvvrm ctla^nvtv, Ji* to /um o-u^uvm. 
 [fevlb. p. 159. Potter, p. 443. Klotz, vol. ii. p. 
 139.] 
 
 i Clem. Strom, ii. 363, iria-T/f xoj 'ntxcyn oIkh-jl 
 
 ii7rifx.C(Tiuii,v It K'tr/MKii ma-TK. 
 
 § Appendages of matter, 5r/i6«-afTJi//aTa. 
 
GRACE AND FREEWILL. 
 
 and thence come the desires, passions, [ 
 and affections corresponding to these (as, [ 
 for example, the imitative and pranksome I 
 nature of the ape, the murderous pro- 1 
 pensities of the wolf, the hardness of the 
 diamond ;) and the collection of all these j 
 influences of the world of animals, plants, 
 and minerals, forms the blind unreason-; 
 able soul,* which always opposes the '■ 
 operations of that part of man's nature j 
 which IS akin to God. It seemed of im- 
 portance to Isidorus, the son of Basilides, 
 to guard this doctrine from the objection, 
 or the misunderstanding, which would 
 represent it as endangering moral free- 
 dom, and holding out an excuse for every 
 wickedness, as- if it proceeded from the 
 irresistible influences of these foreign ad- 
 mixtures. He appealed to the superior 
 power of the Divine nature : " Since we 
 have so much vantage-ground by means 
 of our reason, we must, therefore, appear i 
 as conquerors over the lower creature in [ 
 us."t He says also, " Let a man only 
 desire to do good, and he will attain it."J 
 It is already to be deduced from the whole 
 connection of the Basilidian scheme, that 
 while he placed the power of the will so j 
 higb, yet he by no means ascribed to it { 
 an independent self-sufficiency, nor at all : 
 denied the necessity of the assistance of 
 grace from a higher power. According 
 to his theory of redemption, he acknow- 
 ledged it as necessary that the Divine in 
 man should receive power from its con- j 
 nection with a higher source in order to j 
 give it a just activity. How far men were j 
 admonished by him of their need of help, \ 
 is shown by the advice which Isidorus i 
 gives to him who is^ suffering under ! 
 temptations: "Let him only," he 'says, ! 
 •' not withdraw himself from the brethren; ; 
 let him only confide in his communion { 
 with the body of saints; let him saVi ' I 
 am entered into the sanctuary, nothing 
 evil can happen to me.' "§ It is also | 
 proved by the distinction which he made, ; 
 of the two conditions of the inward life, 
 the one, where a man in temptations 
 prays for strength to conquer, and the ' 
 other, where he gives thanks for the vie- ' 
 lory, which he has obtained by the sup- j 
 
 • The 4%" w^i^-owc a>,cyc(. I 
 
 ■j" Att Si Toi X'.yi^'rtKw KgiiTTiv^c y&zfxtycu;., ruf 
 
 i Strom, iii. 427, dsKuroLrai ju'^voy oLTrnfrtraj to 
 xi>.:v KM 'trriTw^mi. [S3 lb. p. 183. Potter, p. 510. 
 Klotz, vol. ii. p. 213.] 
 
 § Strom, iii. 427. [See the last note for 
 references.] 
 
 34 
 
 265 
 
 port of the Divine power.* I grant that 
 the doctrine of certain higher natures, 
 which are elevated above the weaknesses 
 of other men, migiit always easily create 
 dangerous self-deceits of pride, because it 
 is irreconcilable with the existence of 
 Christian humility. There were later 
 Basilidians, who corrupted this doctrine 
 in a most pernicious manner, and thence 
 deduced the freedom of the saints, which 
 was to be bound by no law.l (See below.) 
 The doctrine of matter might have led to 
 an exaggerated and partial ascetic ten- 
 dency in morality: but the acknowledg- 
 ment of the communication and the inter- 
 lacing which exists between the visible 
 and the invisible world, as well as the 
 recognition of the Divine nature as a 
 victorious forming-principle for all crea- 
 tion, had here a counter-balancing effect, 
 as we have already observed in regard to 
 this whole class of Gnostics. Basilides 
 considers marriage as a holy state, in no 
 way inconsistent with tlie existence of 
 Christian perfection; and, under certain 
 circumstances, as a means of guarding 
 against evil propensities. And it was only 
 under certain circumstances that he al- 
 lowed celibacy to be efficacious, as a 
 means of attending to Divine things, with 
 less interruption from earthly cares.J 
 
 (c.) Vahntinus and his Sclwol. 
 
 Next to Basilides we place Valentinus, 
 who was contemporary with him, although 
 a little later. If we judge from his Hellen- 
 istic expressions, and the Aramaic names, 
 whicii appear in his system, he was of 
 Jewish origin. He was born an Egyp- 
 tian,§ and most probably he owes his 
 education likewise to Alexandria. He 
 travelled thence to Rome, where he ap- 
 pears to have passed the latter part of his 
 life; and this gave him an opportunity of 
 making his doctrines more known, and 
 propagating them in these regions also. 
 In his fundamental notions he agreed 
 with Basilides; it was only in (he man- 
 ner of explaining them, and in the repre- 
 sentation of the images in which he 
 developed his ideas, that he differed from 
 him. But as people did not carefully dis- 
 tinguish from one another, the doctrines 
 of the founders of Gnostic schools, and 
 
 * Strom. 1. c o'rav ii ji ti^t^is-TM tm tif umoiv 
 
 UTroTiT-ll. 
 
 ■j- Strom, iii. 427. [See note first column.] 
 i Strom. Ill), iii., from the beginning. 
 § According to the account given by Epi- 
 phanius. 
 
 z 
 
SELF-LIMITATION OF THE BYTHOS. 
 
 266 
 
 those of their later followers, by wliora 
 these doctrines had only been modified 
 in a peculiar manner, and as they joined 
 with the Valentinian system many kindred 
 doctrines, which flowed from one com- 
 mon source, it is difficult, from the repre- 
 sentations whicli have come down to us, 
 to determine with certainty what doctrines 
 properly belonged to Valentinus himself, 
 as the founder of the school. 
 
 What the Svfai/.ai were with Basilides, 
 the jEons* were with Valentinus ; but the 
 following notion is peculiar to him, namely, 
 that as the veil (or covering) of all life 
 resides in the original source of all exist- 
 ence, (the Bythos,) but is not yet un- 
 folded, together with the development of 
 life that proceeds from that first source, 
 members which mutually supply the de- 
 fects of each other form themselves, that 
 is to say jEons, both male and female, one 
 of which is chiefly generative^ the other 
 receptive ;] and that by the mutual com- 
 munication of these J^^ons the chain of 
 that development of life constantly goes on. 
 The female is the supplement of the male, 
 TO 7rAu§w/xa,J and the perfect line of ^ons 
 is now considered as a whole, as the 
 fulness of the Divine life streaming out of 
 the Bythos, which must again be con- 
 stantly rendered fruitful, as it were, by it, 
 (the Divine life,) and it is called, m rela- 
 tion to him, the female, the Pleroma ! The 
 hidden being of God cannot be known by 
 any one ; it is the absolutely uyniXTrov ; it 
 it only in as far as he has revealed himself 
 in the unfolding of his powers or iEons, 
 that he can be recognised. All individual 
 iEons, in their varied modes of revelation, 
 are called forms and names of that Being,§ 
 who, in his secret existence is incon- 
 ceivable, not-to-be-named, and elevated 
 above conceptions and images, just as the 
 Monogenes, that first self-revelation of 
 the hidden Being, is called peculiarly the 
 Invisible Name of the Bythos. It is an 
 idea deeply rooted in the Valentinian sys- 
 tem, that since all existence has its founda- 
 tion in the self-limitation of the Bythos, 
 so also the existence of all created being 
 
 depends on limitation. When every thing 
 remains within the limits of its peculiar 
 sphere, and is that which it ought to be 
 according to its assigned position in the 
 development of life, then every thing can 
 dovetail together well, and a just harmony 
 exist in the chain of the development of 
 life. As soon as any being endeavours to 
 overpass these limits, — as soon as ever a 
 being, instead of recognising God in the 
 revelation which he makes of himself to 
 that being, according to his position, — 
 emboldens himself so as to wish to pene- 
 trate into His hidden Being, it runs a 
 risk of sinking into annihilation. Instead 
 of laying hold of that which is real, it 
 loses itself in that which is without ex- 
 istence. The Horos (o^o?,) the Genius of 
 limitation, of bounding, (the power of 
 truth personified, which assigns and sets 
 fast the boundaries of each individual 
 being, which watches over those bounda- 
 ries, and when they are broken restores 
 them,) therefore, takes an important place 
 in the system of Valentinus. Gnosis is 
 here, as it were, giving testimony against 
 itselfl The ideas of the Horos and the 
 Redeemer must have been much akin to 
 each other in the Valentinian system, and 
 in fact the Horos was called by many the 
 
 \v'v^uryj<; 
 
 and 
 
 aurri^, 
 
 the Redeemer and 
 
 * See the explanation of this won], p. 261, 
 f Just as in all the rest of the creation, which 
 represents an imacje of that higher world, this two- 
 fold line of agents is to be found. 
 
 t nxipM/za. These Theosophs, who certainly 
 <lid not scrupulously adhere to the strict grammati- 
 cal meaning of terms, i)erhaps understood this 
 word both ill an active and a passive sense at the 
 same time, and applied it both to to TrKhpuuv and 
 
 To TTKWjVfJLi^'.l. 
 
 § The ^ons are fji.of<^M tow ©sow, oyofxxTit tow 
 asmofA.stT'riu. 
 
 Saviour; and we find traces which indi- 
 cate that he was meant to represent only 
 one mode of operation of the one redeem- 
 ing Spirit, — that Spirit which, according 
 to the different places of his operations, 
 that extend themselves throughout all the 
 stages of existence, and according to his 
 diflerent modes of operation, is betokened 
 by different names, and by others is di- 
 vided into different persons, (Hypostases.) 
 The Valentinians ascribe two modes of 
 operation to this Horos; the one of a ne- 
 gative kind, by means of which he lays 
 down the limits for all existence, and se- 
 parates and removes from it all that is 
 foreign to it;* and in virtue of this power 
 he is properly called h^oi ; and the other 
 is that operation, by means of which he 
 sets fast and establishes, in their peculiar 
 sphere and forms, all those beings who are 
 purified from that, which, being foreign 
 to tlieir nature, troubles their existence \\ 
 and in virtue of this power he is called 
 aTctv^oii^ a word which is used both for a 
 cross, and a slake or bulwark ; to both 
 of which meanings the Valentinians here 
 made allusion. Their remarks on those 
 
 * The hifiyv^ /utfiJ'Tuyt **/ JiipiTruui. 
 ■j" The hipyux hSfi-j.yTiK>i x.3U <rriipi(TTiKn. 
 
THREE STAGES OF BEING. 267 
 
 sayings of the Redeemer in which they i are akin to aotptx, to tlie soul of the 
 thought they recognised the Horos, make \ world, and to the Pleroma. 
 their ideas on the subject plain. Thus j 2. The (pvarn; -vj/v;^.**!, or such natures 
 they referred Luke xiv. 27, to the es- \ as proceeded from the life that had been 
 tahlishing power of the Horos,* and ' divided by admixture with the bxr, ; and 
 Matthew x. 34, and Mark x. 21, to /(/s i an entirely new stage of being begins with 
 separating power.1[ In the first of these these natures, an image of llie higher 
 passages, according to them, our Saviour world, but in a subordinate position 
 means that only those persons can be his j 3. The ungodly, which is opposed to 
 disciples who bear his cross, i. e. who \ all improvement ; the being which can 
 give themselves up to that Divine power J only disturb, and is entirely the slave of 
 of the Redeemer which is symbolically i blind desires and passions, 
 represented by the cross, and suffer them- There is only a difference of degree. 
 selves to be formed and firmly established between all, which proceeds from the un- 
 by it in his own peculiar way. In the folding of the I)ivine life (which flows 
 second passage our Saviour hints at his forth from the Bythos through the iEons,) 
 Divine purifying power, by which he from the Pleroma downwards to its seed, 
 clears that which is akin to God from the j which has fallen down into human nature 
 admixture of the ungodly, and produces — that seed which, being sown, must 
 the annihilation of the latter.;!: Both are attain its ripeness in the earthly world ; but 
 intimately connected togedier, the clear- between those three classes of being there 
 ance from the foreign admixture of the is an cs5('7J/ta/ difference o/na/ifre. Each 
 iMi from intermixture with which this ir- [ one, therefore, of these classes must have 
 regular, indefinite, and unquiet vacillation i its own independent principle which pre- 
 between existence and non-existence pro- j dominates in it, although every process 
 ceeds, and a firm establishment in a de- [ of improvement and development leads 
 finite, peculiar. Divine existence, un- back in the end to the Bythos, which 
 mingled with any thing else. works on every thing by means of various 
 
 ]f Basilides deduced the intermixture of i organs in the various grades of being, and 
 the Divine with matter from an assault of j whose law is the only ruling one. He 
 the kingdom of darkness upon the king- ! cannot, however, himself enter into any 
 dom of light, on the contrary, Valentinus | inmiediate connection with that which is 
 deduced it from a commotion that arose ; foreign to him, and, therefore, in that sub- 
 in the Pleroma, and a descent of the Di- ordinate grade of being which lies be- 
 vine seed of life from the Pleroma into tween the perfect or Divine, and the un- 
 niatter, consequent upon that commotion, godly or material, there must exist a Being 
 He acknowledged, as well as Basilides, a ' as the image of the Most High,* which, 
 Divine wisdom, which revealed itself in j while it thinks that it acts independently, 
 the world ; but here, also, in his view, the must yet serve the universal law, from 
 lower is only an image of tlie higher. It j which nothing is exempt, for the realiza- 
 is not the Divine wisdom itself, not the j tion of the ideas of the Supreme even to 
 jEon o-oifjja herself, but the untimely fruit i the very extreme limits of matter. This 
 of her travail, which is to unfold itself j Being is in the psychical world, what the 
 and arrive at its maturity only by degrees, j Bythos is in the higher world, only with 
 He distinguishes between an uvu and a | this difierence, that it involuntarily acts 
 xaTO) o-&<p»a ( Achamolh :)§ this latter is the as the organ of the former ; and this being 
 
 soul of tlie world, from the admixture of 
 which with the iM all living existence is 
 produced, and is in difierent stages, higher, 
 in proportion as it can keep itself clearer 
 from connection with the u^r), and lower, 
 in proportion as it is attracted and af- 
 fected by matter. There exist, there- 
 fore, these three stages of being. 
 
 is the Demiurgos of Valentinus. Tlie 
 Hyle also has its principle, which repre- 
 sents it, and through which it operates; 
 but by its very nature it is not of a form- 
 ing and creative, hut of a destructive kind : 
 this is Satan. 
 
 1. The nature of the Trveu^aTixo* is that 
 which is essentially akin to God {the 
 
 1. The (pvam vtiv/xeiriKen, or those o/jkuova-iov ru ©£«,) and thence comes sim- 
 Divine seeds of life, which arc elevated pie and undivided existence,! the life of 
 above matter by their nature, and which } unity or oneness (ovaia. inxv fj-oton^n^.) 
 
 * The iyu>}ft3L <rr:pt7TiKM )i»i 'bf^ua-TMn 
 t The ivifyii^ /utifio-rix.» mu iiopij^iiut. 
 i Irena?us i. c. 3. § 5. 
 
 • The ^wcT«f. 
 
 ■j- [The German is here " das Lebcn der Ein- 
 heit." I think in English the same idea would be 
 better rendered ' oneness of existence.' — H. J. R.] 
 
268 
 
 2. The Being of the -^vyjKoi, divided 
 into number and variety, but still sub- 
 mitting itself to a higher unity, and allow- 
 ing itself to be guided by that unity, at first 
 unconsciously, afterwards consciously. 
 
 3. The Being of Satan and his whole 
 kingdom : mere opposition to all unity ; 
 the Being divided and distracted in itself, 
 without any capability for unity, or any 
 point for unity to begin from ; and with 
 all this, an endeavour to destroy all unity, 
 to spread its oum indwelling distraction 
 over every thing, and to distract every 
 thing.* 
 
 In that first grade of being, the life, 
 which, by its very nature, is eternal, 
 exists as something inalienable, a neces- 
 sary afGafo-ia; the •v)/v;)(;;»Ko», on the Con- 
 trary, stands in the middle between im- 
 mortal and mortal. The -^vx^tyioi obtain 
 immortality, or they become subject to 
 death, according as they give themselves 
 up by their inclinations to the Divine or 
 to ungodliness. The nature of Satan, 
 like that of the ix*), is death itself, anni- 
 hilation, the negation of all existence, 
 which, in the end, when all existence, 
 which has been divided by its means, 
 shall have developed itself to the full ex- 
 tent of all its properties, and sliall have 
 fixed itself sufficiently in itself, shall then 
 destroy itself in itself, being overcome by 
 the power of the positive, after it (the 
 negative, annihilating power,) has drawn 
 to itself all its kindred ungodliness. The 
 existence of the first is the pure develop- 
 ment of life from within, — an activity 
 which is not directed outwards, and 
 which has no obstacles to overcome; and 
 a tranquillity which is a life and action. 
 
 2. The existence of the v>.v) is of itself, 
 and by its own nature, the stillness of 
 death ; but after a spark of life has fallen 
 into it, and communicated to it a certain 
 something analogous to life, it becomes 
 in its representative, Satan, a wild kmd 
 of self-contradicting impulse. 
 
 3. To the Demiurgos, and to those that 
 are his, namely, the Psychical, there is 
 peculiarly assigned an activity directed 
 outwardly ; an impelling activity : they 
 desire to do much, as it usually happens 
 with such busy people, without rightly 
 understanding what they do,f — without 
 becoming themselves properly conscious 
 of the ideas which direct them.]; 
 
 VALENTINUS ON REDEMPTION. 
 
 * The oua-ti TroKva-^iim, which endeavours to 
 assimilate every thing to itself. 
 
 + The documents on wliich this rests will be 
 
 The doctrine of the redemption took 
 also a very important place in the Valen- 
 tinian system, and peculiarly forms its 
 centre point; but it was by him, even more 
 than by Basilides, removed from the re- 
 gions of practical things into those of spe- 
 culation and metaphysics. As, according to 
 his system, a process of the development 
 of life pervades all regions of existence, 
 and as the disharmony, which, as far as its 
 seed is concerned, first arose in the Ple- 
 roma itself, beginning thence, has spread 
 itself farther,* so the ichole course of the 
 world can only then first attain its proper 
 object^ when harmony shall be again re- 
 stored, m all grades of existence ^ as well as 
 in the Pleroma ; that which happens in 
 the Pleroma must be imaged in all other 
 grades of existence. And thus, therefore, 
 as the work of redemption takes place in 
 different stages of existence and the same 
 law is here fulfilled in difl'erent forms, 
 and in different conditions, it is the same 
 agent of the revelation of the hidden 
 God, the same agent, through whom the 
 life that streamed forth from God be- 
 comes united with him again, who, con- 
 tinuing his work, till the completion of the 
 whole, is imaged (or reflected) in different 
 hypostases, wherever he is perfecting his 
 work in different stages of existence. So 
 it is the same idea which is represented in 
 a Monogenes, a Logos, a Christus, and a 
 Soter. The Soter is the Redeemer for 
 the whole of the world that lies beyond 
 the Pleroma, and therefore, also the plastic 
 Being for that world ; for in this system, 
 to form and to redeem hang closely 
 together, as is already evident from the 
 twofold operations of the Horos. By 
 means of this formative process^ the 
 higher nature is first made free from the 
 matter that adheres to it; and out of an 
 unorganic, formless being, is unfolded 
 into a definite, organized being, gifted 
 with individual qualities."]" It is by means 
 of redemption that the higlier property 
 first attains to its mature and perfect de- 
 velopment, and to clear consciousness. 
 Redemption is the completion of the for- 
 mative process. All the Divine life of 
 j the Pleroma concentrates itself, and is 
 
 found in the writings of Heracleon, quoted hy 
 Origen, torn. xiii. Joh. c. 16, 25, 30, 51, 59; 
 j torn. XX. c. 20. 
 
 * The foundation of the whole of the new 
 j creation, lying licyond the Pleroma, which new 
 j creation can proceed from division alone. 
 
 f [Literally, "into a definite, individual, and 
 i organized being." — H. J. R.] 
 
THE PLASTIC SOTER. IMAGE OF GOD IN THE CREATION. 
 
 reflected in the Soter, and through him [ 
 extends its operations for the individual- 
 izing of the Divine life, in order that the 
 spiritual natures, which are akin to the ' 
 Pleroma, may be sown abroad in the 
 M'orld, and ripen into perfect existence. 
 The Christus of the Pleroma is the work- 
 ing principle, the Sotqr beyond the Ple- 
 roma* is the receiving, the forming, and 
 the perfecting principle. f 
 
 The Soter first proves his redeeming 
 and forming power on that still imperfect 
 soul of the world, which came from the 
 Pleroma, as this soul must, at some lime 
 or other, spread itself abroad over all the 
 spiritual natures that are akin to it, and I 
 which sprouted forth from it, as the uni- 
 versal mother of spiritual life in the lower j 
 world. (See above.) The Soter is the ] 
 proper fashioner and governor of the 
 world, as he is the Redeemer; for the 
 formation of the world is the first begin- 
 ning of the process of development, which 
 can only be brought to completion by 
 means of redemption. The Soter, as the 
 inward active principle, puts into the soul- 
 of-the-world,J destined to make up a 
 syzygy§ with him, the formative ideas, 
 and she communicates them to the Demi- 
 urgos, who imagines that he is acting 
 independently; and he, unconsciously to 
 himself, under this cultivation becomes 
 animated and influenced by the power of 
 these ideas. Whilst Valentinus|| repre- 
 sented the Demiurgos and the world 
 fashioned and animated by him as one 
 whole, he paints this whole as an image 
 
 • In the TCTTOf ^KTOT^TiC. 
 
 ■j- Thus Heracleon says of the Soter, in rela- 
 tion to Christians, that the former receives the 
 Divine seed out of the Pleroma from the latter, as 
 a yd undeveloped seed; and that he communi- 
 cates to it the formation into a definite and sepa- 
 rate being — rnv nitinw /jii^f^mT-iv tuv a-^tx ytn^iv, 
 iU Mi^ifJiv, nut (puriiTfx'jV, tcrti 7rifiiyg:t<p>iv aytnyoiv x.^ 
 civaja|af. Origen, Joh. t. ii. c. 1.5. To bring to 
 light, loform, and to individualize, are identical 
 ideas among the Gnostics. The indefinite, the 
 unorganic, corresponds in spiritual beings to the 
 i,K>f. Thus in the Valentinian fragment in Ire- 
 na;us i. c. 8. § 4, the /j.'.^<p'M\i, <^ufTi<^uv, (favai'.uv, is 
 opposed to the 7ri>c0:txkuy (rm^/uiTiKox t»v o\>'v 
 bia-Ktv. Christus sows the seed, the Soter harvests 
 it. Origen, Joh. i. 13. p. 48. 
 
 t KsiTOJ o-i<pi!t, Achamoth. 
 
 § [It will be remembered that in this system all 
 the ^^ons were evolved by pairs, or syzygies. — 
 H. .T. R.] 
 
 II After Plato, who considers the Spirit that 
 fashions the world, and the world animated by 
 him. as one whole, one e^c ^jvxtoc, sv ^itcv ; and 
 after the example of Philo, who represents the 
 Ac^c, and the body of the world animated by 
 him, as one whole. 
 
 269 
 
 of the glory of God, sketched by the 
 Soter, as by a painter. But, to say the 
 truth, as every image, from its very nature, 
 is an impeifect representation of the ori- 
 ginal prototype, and can be rightly under- 
 stood only by him who has the power of 
 behoKling tiic original, — thus also the 
 Demiurgos, with his creation, is only an 
 imperfect image of the glory of God; and 
 he alone who has received in his inward 
 soul the revelation of the invisible Divine 
 Being, can rightly understand the world 
 as the image, and the Demiurgos as the 
 propliet, of the Supreme God. The in- 
 ward revelation (which is the portion of 
 the 7rv£f/L*aTixot) is an authentication of 
 the outward, an authentication of the 
 Demiurgos as the representative of God. 
 Valentinus himself expresses this thus:* 
 " as much as the picture is less than the 
 living countenance, so much the world is 
 less than the living God. And what is 
 the cause of the picture ? The greatness 
 of the countenance, which afforded the 
 original to the painter, in order to be- 
 come honoured by the manifestation of 
 his name ; for no form has been invented 
 as an independent thing. But as the 
 name of the thing itself supplies that 
 which is wanting in the paintings, so 
 also the invisible Godf acts for the 
 authentication of the image which is 
 made." 
 
 It is a fundamental notion of the Valen- 
 tinian and of all Gnostic systems, that 
 man is destined to represent and to main- 
 I tain the connection between the higher 
 I world and the empire of the Demiurgos, 
 I that is, to reveal the Supreme God in this 
 world. Human nature, and the revelation 
 of God, are here kindred notions ; and 
 I hence i\\e first mavi^, [Urmensch] was one 
 of the Valentinian J?Lons; and, according 
 to other Valentinian systems, it was said, 
 " When God wished to reveal himself, 
 this was called ??ir/?i."§ The Demiurgos 
 I created man, to image and represent him- 
 self; he breathed into him a soul akin to 
 
 I * Clem. Strom, lib. iv. 509. [Sylb. p. 218. 
 
 Potter, p. 603. Klotz, vol. ii. p. 326-7.] 
 
 [The quotation from Valentinus is probably 
 I corrupt, and recjuires the alteration of ejrwi^a'a-ay into 
 : iTKwucri)/, which the common interpreters, as well 
 
 as ISeander, have made. The only difficulty lies 
 I in the latter part, which I here quote : t/c -.w ctWut. 
 
 '• ^a^-)f)u<pai Tov TUTr'ji, ivu. Tiunb^ Si iyi'.[/.i.'r(.<; olutcu: au 
 
 TO ClTTtf.n'T^V JV TTKrtlTti. H. J. R.] 
 
 ■j- God's invisible Being. 
 I \ The Adam Kadinon of the Cabbala. 
 ' § See Iran. Ub. i. c. 12. § 4. 
 
 z2 
 
270 
 
 VALENTINIAN NOTION OF INSPIRATION. 
 
 his own being. But, even here, he was 
 acting as the instrument of a higher Being. 
 Man was to represent that first man. With- 
 out the Demiurgos being conscious of it, 
 the Sophia communicated to him the spi- 
 ritual seed, which he transplanted into the 
 soul of man; and thence it happened that 
 man at once revealed something which was 
 of a more elevated nature than the whole 
 creation, into which he entered ; so that 
 the Demiurgos himself, and his angels, 
 were seized with astonishment, for as yet 
 they knew nothing of a higher world. 
 The Demiurgos thought that he himself 
 was an independent ruler; but now, to 
 his astonishment, he saw a higher power 
 enter into his dominions. This astonish- 
 ment is universally repeated, wherever 
 man, limited as he is, being animated by 
 the ideas of a higher world, expresses 
 them in his works, as in art, and indeed, 
 universally, where the hands of men exe- 
 cute any thing in relation to tlie name 
 of God. Thus it happens that men fall 
 down and worship their own images, 
 being filled with a reverential astonish- 
 ment by the sensation* of a higher power, 
 which is unknown to them. We will 
 bring forward the words of the man him- 
 self: "And just as the angel was seized 
 •with fear at that creature (■7r^«(7/>l«,) when 
 it spoke of loftier things than such as 
 suited its creation, by means of him who 
 had invisibly communicated to it the seed 
 of the life from above, (namely, the Soter,) 
 and when it spoke with freedom and con- 
 fidence, — so also, in the race of the men 
 of this world, the works of man become 
 a terror even to those who made them, 
 such as pillars, and statues, and every 
 thing which the hands of all men execute 
 in honour of the name ofGod."t 
 
 But that which human nature was uni- 
 versally to represent, became now really 
 brought to pass only in those spiritual 
 men.t Through them was the life-giving, 
 purifying principle of the Divinity to be 
 spread abroad, and penetrate oven to the 
 utmost limits of the vXv] these spiritual 
 natures are the salt and the light of the 
 earth, the leaven for all the race of man. 
 The ^vxri is only the vcluculum for the 
 7rr£ff*aTt>!oc, in order that it may be able to 
 enter into the temporal world, in which 
 it is to develope itself to maturity. When 
 
 * [AhnuniT. Literally, a pre.te«/t/nen/. It ex- 
 presses here a feclinp; inclicating a sen>!e that leads 
 us to recoijiiise this hi<,'her power. — H. J. It.] 
 
 f Cletn. Strom. Ill), ii. 375. [Sylb. p. 161. 
 Potter, p. 448. Klotz, vol. ii. p. 145.] 
 
 \ The i^wjttz wiUfAXTUM. 
 
 I this aim shall have been attained, the 
 spirit, which is only destined for the life 
 I of intuition,* will leave thatvehiculum in 
 the lower sphere ; and every spiritual 
 nature, as the female and recipient ele- 
 1 ment in regard to the higher world of 
 spirits, will be elevated in the Pleroma to 
 its syzygy with the angelic nature which 
 corresponds to it. Only the highest and 
 immediate intuitive powers (that is the 
 meaning of Valentinus,) will then come 
 into operation. All the powers and modes 
 of operation of the soul, which are directed 
 to that which is temporal and perishable, 
 — such as its powers of reflection, and 
 the understanding, in which, according to 
 Valentinus, is contained the 4't/;!^^*), will 
 then utterly cease.f 
 
 The attractive power, with which the 
 Divine Being works on every thing, with- 
 out those who receive the impression un- 
 derstanding it, or being able to explain it 
 to themselves, is a favourite notion with 
 Valentinus. The Demiurgos was attracted 
 by the spiritual natures which were scat- 
 tered among the Jewish people, without 
 being conscious of the reason of it. He 
 made them, therefore, prophets, priests, 
 and kings. Therefore, it ha{)pened that 
 the prophets were enabled especially to 
 hint at the higher order of things, which 
 should be brought among men by the 
 Soter. According to Valentinus, a four- 
 fold principle acted upon the Prophets : — 
 
 1. The psychical principle, the human 
 and limited soul, the unassisted soul. 
 
 2. The spirltualization of this -^vxty 
 which is derived from the Demiurgos 
 working upon it. 
 
 3. The unassisted vvtviJiciTtyoy. 
 
 4. The pneumatical spirltualization, 
 which is derived from the influence of 
 the Sophia.J 
 
 Thus Valentinus, in reference to these 
 four principles, could distinguish in the 
 writings of the prophets, different pro- 
 mises of a higher and lower character 
 and meaning, and a higher and lower 
 sense, which differed from each other, in 
 the same passage. 
 
 1. The mere human sayings. 
 
 2. The single prophecies of future 
 events, which the Demiurgos, who, 
 although not Omniscient, yet looked into 
 a wider circle of the future, was able to 
 communicate; and the prophecies of a 
 
 * [Das Leben der Anschauung. See Preface. 
 — H. i. R.] 
 
 f Comp. Aristot. de Anima., lib. iii, c, 5. 
 4 See Iren. Ub. i. c. 16, § 3, 4. 
 
TRACES OP TRUTH AMOXG HEATHENS. 
 
 2T1 
 
 Messiah, which came also from the same 
 source, but were still enveloped in a tein- 
 ponil and Jewish form ; the prophecies 
 of a Messiah, such as the Demiurgos 
 Avould send, — a Psychical Messiali for the 
 Psychical world, the ruler of a kingdom 
 of this world. 
 
 3. The ideas which verged upon the 
 Cliristiau economy, and pointed to it, the 
 enlightened Messianic notions, brought 
 forward in more or less purity, according 
 as they proceeded purely from the higher 
 spiritual natures, or the itrmiediate influ- 
 ence of the Sopliia. This view might 
 lead to remarkable investigations as to 
 the mixture of the Divine and human in 
 the prophets, and introduce conclusions 
 which would be fruitful towards the 
 interpretation of the prophets themselves. 
 The Valentinian view was opposed to the 
 determination of those, who, in spite of 
 the words of Christ in Matt. xi. 9, &.C., 
 and in spite of 1 Pet. i. 12, attributed a 
 perfect and Christian knowledge to the 
 prophets. It may be asked, whether Va- 
 lentinus recognised the beams of higher 
 truth only among the Jews; whether he 
 allowed the existence of spiritual natures 
 only among the Jews, or whether he 
 acknowledged that they were spread 
 abroad also among the heathen. Accord- 
 ing to Heracleon,* he held the Jews to be 
 the kingdom of the Demiurgos, — the 
 Heathen the kingdom of Matter, or of 
 Satan, — and the Christians ttie people of 
 the Supreme God ; but this does not 
 prove that he excluded from the heathen 
 all that belongs to the superior race ; be- 
 cause, although he expressly assigned 
 Judaism to the Demiurgos, he supposed 
 that it contained some scattered seeds 
 of the higher pneumatical system ; and 
 although he assigned Christianity to the 
 Supreme God, he saw also, even among 
 the Christians, a large class of Psychical 
 persons. He, therefore, only speaks of 
 the prevailing ingredients ; aiul therefore, 
 notwithstanding tlie prevailing state of 
 the Ixrt among the heathen, he might re- 
 cognise scattered seeds of the pneu- 
 matical. He was in fact obliged to con- 
 fess this according to his own principles, 
 according to which the higher spiritual 
 principle of life (the irvtvj.ci.TiKov) was to 
 pervade all grades of being even to the 
 very I. mils of matter, in order to prepare 
 the universal ahnihilation of the uAj). 
 What Valentin us says, in the passage 
 above quoted, of the power of art, which 
 
 * Origen, in Job. t. xiii. ^ 16. 
 
 turns itself to tlie formation of idols, 
 allows us to conclude that he. judged the 
 polytheistic system more mildly than the 
 common Jews, to whom the idols were 
 only evil spirits, and that he, supporting 
 himself by Acts xvii. 23, believed that 
 even in this system, although it was 
 sullied by the prevalence of the hylic 
 principle, there might be observed traces 
 of an unknown God, who spread his 
 unrecognised influence over all things. 
 Thus Valentinus, in a still extant frag- 
 ment of a homily,* actually hints at the 
 traces of truth spread about even in the 
 writings of the heathen, in which the 
 inward being of the spiritual people of 
 God, or of the ■sri'£t;/x:tT»Koi, who are 
 spread abroad in the whole world, reveals 
 itself. " Much of that which is written 
 in the books of the heathen, is found 
 written in the Church ai God; this com- 
 mon part is the voice out of the heart, 
 the law written in the heart; this is that 
 people of the beloved (t. e. this higher 
 consciousness which is found in common, 
 is the mark of the scattered community 
 of the Soter, the 7rr£i;/xaT»itot,) which is 
 beloved by him, and loves him in return." 
 
 The Soter^ who from the beginning had 
 conducted the lohole process of the deve- 
 lopment of the spiritual seed of life, 
 which had fallen down from out of 
 the Pleroma for the formation of a 
 new world, the invisible Faskiont'r and 
 Ruler of this new world, — was now 
 obliged at last, himself, to act upon the 
 course of the world, without any inferme' 
 diate agency, in order to spread forth the 
 act of redemption, which he had originally 
 perfected in the mother of all spiritual life, 
 the soul of the world, or the Sophia, — 
 upon all the spiritual life which had 
 flowed forth from her, and thus to bring 
 the whole work to completion. All 
 being, even down to the very hylic mat- 
 ter that struggles against all being, was 
 capable of ennoblement, each after its 
 own degree. The Soter must, tlierefore, 
 enter into connection with all these stages 
 of being, in order to fashion all, both the 
 lower (the Psychical) as well as the 
 higher (the Pneumatical,) into the degree 
 of the hisihor life, of which each is 
 capable. Except for this, according to 
 the usual course of nature, the Soter 
 could enter into connection only with the 
 spiritual nature, which is akin tohim,and 
 such a nature could enter into this tem- 
 
 * Clem. Strom. lib. vi. p. 641. [Svlb. p. 272. 
 Potter, p. 792. Klotz, vol. iii. p. 128.J 
 
PSYCHICAL MESSIAH. THE TWO UNITED. 
 
 272 
 
 poral world only in connection with a 
 
 Valenlinus might here coincide with 
 the doctrine of Basilides, only with this 
 diflerence, that with the first of them, the 
 human part in the person and in the life 
 of the Redeemer received a somewhat 
 higher character, although not the right 
 and hecoming one; the Christ, composed 
 and decomposed hy him, according to his 
 own notions, was always very different 
 from the Idsloriccd Christ. 
 
 Tlie Deniiurffos had promised to his 
 own people a Redeemer, a Messiah, who 
 would release them from the dominion of 
 the hylical, introduce the annihilation of 
 every thing which opposed itself to his 
 empire, — rule over every thing in his 
 name, — and rejoice all that obeyed him 
 with all kinds of earthly happiness. He 
 sent down this Messiali, who represented 
 the very image of the Demiurgos, out of 
 his own heaven ; but this elevated Being 
 could not enter into any connection with 
 matter ; nay, as it was to introduce the 
 annihilation of every thing material, how 
 could it receive any thing whatever from 
 matter .'' There would then have been 
 joined with the material body a material 
 spirit* of life, akin to it, and the source of 
 every thing evil ; and how could he have 
 been the Redeemer, if the principle of evil 
 had been present in his own nature } The 
 Demiurgos also formed a body for the 
 psychical Messiah out of the finer ethereal 
 matter of heaven, out of which he sent 
 him down into this world. This body 
 was so formed, by some wonderful con- 
 trivance,! that he appeared visibly, and 
 could subject himself to all sensuous ac- 
 tions and afiections, and yet do this in a 
 manner entirely different from the usual 
 kind of bodies.! But the miracle of the 
 birth of Jesus consisted in this, that the 
 psychical nature which came down from 
 the heaven of the Demiurgos, together 
 with the ethereal body brought from 
 thence, came into the light of the world 
 through the body of Mary only as through 
 a canal.§ But yet this psychical Messiah 
 Avould never have been able to complete 
 the work laid upon him by the Demiur- 
 gos : there was need of a higher power 
 for the conquest of the empire of the bx-n \ 
 the Demiurgos acted as well here as in 
 everything as the unconscious instrument 
 
 * The ■\'U)(jf dxcyc;. "I" 'E^ owovoMWf. 
 
 i Se,iju!t in TDc u9«i'c[/c 4"A;,""'f oiicrioi.;. — Theodot. 
 DiJascal. Anatol. 
 § '(if Si* caiXJivof. 
 
 of the Soter. This latter had appointed 
 the moment in which he would unite 
 himself with tliis psychical Messiah as 
 his instrument, in order to fulfil the work 
 which had been prepared and promised 
 by the Demiurgos in a far higher sense 
 than he himself anticipated, and to found 
 a Messianic kingdom of a far higher kind, 
 to the real circumstances of which only 
 the most elevated predictions of the pro- 
 phets, and those not understood by the 
 Demiurgos himself, had pointed. 
 
 The psychical Messiah, who did not 
 perceive the destination which was to fall 
 to his lot through his union with tlie Soter, 
 in the mean time laid before man the 
 Ideal of ascetic holiness. He was able to 
 exert an extraordinary dominion over 
 matter from the peculiar nature of his 
 body. He let himself down, indeed, to 
 man, so as to eat and drink ; hut still 
 without being subject to the same affec- 
 tions as other men: he carried on every 
 thing after a divine manner.* 
 
 At the baptism in the Jordan, where he 
 was to receive his solemn consecration to 
 his calling as the Messiah, from John the 
 Baptist, the representative of the Demi- 
 urgos, the Soter, who had thus conducted 
 every thing through his invisible guidance, 
 united himself with him, descending under 
 the symbol of the dove. On this ques- 
 tion, whether the psychical Messiah from 
 the first bore a spiritual nature within ^ 
 him, which, descending with the vehicu- 
 lum of a soul, was to develope itself to 
 maturity in this world, that it might then 
 first become capable of redemption ; or 
 whether it was only at his descent, into 
 this world that the Soter first received 
 from the Sophia a spiritual nature as a 
 veliicle, in order to be able to unite him 
 self with the human nature, and that also 
 the higher pneumatical nature was com- 
 municated to the Messiah of the Demi- 
 urgos during baptism : on this point there 
 might be a diversity of opinions even in 
 the Valentinian school itself.| 
 
 * Clem. Strom. Lib. iii. 451. 
 
 -j- The latter view is apparently found in a pas- 
 sage of Heracleon ; Origen, t. vi. § 23. ; Grabe 
 Spicileg. t. ii. p. 89, where I once (see my Gene- 
 tische Entwickelung, &c., p. 149,) erroneously 
 supposed that I could recognise the doctrine that 
 the Soter himself became man, and that of his 
 union with the human nature from its first de- 
 velopment. He explains John i. 27, in his man- 
 ner, first justly, according to the sense expressed 
 by the words, " John avows that he is not worthy 
 to render the smallest service to the Redeemer ;" 
 and then afterwards he arbitralily introduces a 
 higher sense into the simple words, according to 
 
THE PASSION NOT THE CHIEF MATTER. 
 
 2T3 
 
 Accordinor to the doctrine of Valen- 
 tinus, as well as that of Basilides, the ap- 
 pearance of the redeeming Spirit in human 
 nature, and its union with the psychical 
 Messiah would be the chief business in 
 the work of redemption. He also agreed 
 with Basilides in this, that tlie Soter had 
 left the psychical Messiah to himself at 
 his passion, but he ascribed more impor- 
 tance than Basilides to the passion of the 
 Messiah, although a theosophy, which 
 sought peculiar mysteries every where, 
 despised a simple explanation, and in 
 consequence of its multitude of mystical 
 and speculative relations and meanings 
 would not allow the feelings of the heart 
 to show themselves ; although this theo- 
 sophy was too contemplative and super- 
 Iniinan to be able rightly to comprehend 
 the passion of Christ in its human and 
 moral aspect. As the psychical Messiah 
 spread himself upon the cross, and with 
 the cross spread himself over the lower 
 Avorld, this was an image of that first act 
 of redemption by which the Soter (see 
 above,) had extended himself over the 
 Sophia with the aTa.v^o(;. Just as in the 
 higher region this effected the freeing of 
 the Sophia from that which is foreign to 
 her, so also it effected in the lower the 
 freeing of the psychical from the material, 
 which is the groundwork of all that is 
 evil, even to the final annihilation of it 
 
 his own theosophic ideas : oix, iyai ii/ui iKaivi;, hm. 
 ii \ul xxtsaSji drrs y.!ry^ovi X-M irafKt K^ji-^, 
 L; vrr'.ixiA.A, Trtpt i; sjco \'.ycY u7r:icuvuj cii iwi.fx:u, 
 cuSi Sii}-}>KTia6*t w imwatt Txv 7rtf,i airx; eu.vo- 
 /uixv- We can hardly here, under the term " the 
 Hesh," which the Soter, who came down out 
 of the higher region from the bounds of the 
 Pleroma and the tctoc ^«75t«toc, had received, 
 understand the body of the psychical Messiah, 
 forme-d by some peculiar oixovc^ui^ ; for he is 
 certainly here speaking of the Soter, who re- 
 vealed himself to John at the baptism, and at all 
 events, according to the Valentinian doctrine, he 
 did not unite himself with the body but with the 
 psychical Messiah who bore this body. And 
 then John, who here represented the person of the 
 Demiurgos himself, would never have uttered his 
 aiStonishment thus at this wonderful body, formed 
 by the latter person himself (the Demiurgos.) 
 But the Valentinians called every coveriiif^, every 
 vehicle for a higher being, which lets himself down 
 into a lower region, a o-af^. The Sophia gave a 
 a-^Tt'fjft mzjfjturiicov, in order that he might let him- 
 self down to the earth in this as a vehicle for his 
 appearance, and might thereby enter into union 
 with the •l^'^X"' '^^^ opening words of the Didas- 
 cal. Anatol. give us the proof of this, for it is said, 
 TTji-.i^-iKiv 7-:)fiia'A' ^ui Kcym (as well as to the Soter) 
 
 » 3"6<f(* TO 7rVSJJUlX.TIX,'^V O'nflfJI.X, TOUTO (TTCtaO'X/UWO! 
 
 KrLTntSa triDTufi. It was also of this wonderful 
 apparatus that Heracleon spoke. 
 
 35 
 
 altogether, after it has become dissolved in 
 itself.* By the words, '•'■ Into thy hands, 
 O Father, I commend my spirit^'''' he com- 
 
 mended the 
 
 7ri'£ff*«TiJtO» aiTf^ixx 
 
 which 
 
 was then leaving him, in order that it 
 might not be detained in the dominion 
 of the Demiurgos, but that it might raise 
 itself up free into the higher region, and 
 that all those spiritual natures, whose 
 representative this spiritual nature united 
 with him was, might also be raised up 
 with it. The psychical Messiah raises 
 himself up to the Demiurgos, who trans- 
 fers to him in his name the sovereign 
 might and rule, and the pneumatical 
 Messiah raises himself up to the Soter, 
 whither all freed spiritual natures are to 
 follow him. 
 
 The most important matter, the chief 
 concern for the pneumatical natures in the 
 work of redemption, is still the redemp- 
 tion, which was imparted to human na- 
 ture by its union with the Soter at the 
 baptism in the Jordan. This must be re- 
 peated in every individual case. Valen- 
 tinus speaks thus of the sanctifying ef- 
 fects of inward communion with the 
 Redeemer. " But there is one Good, 
 (whose free appearance is the revelation 
 through the Son,) and through Imn alone 
 can the heart become pure after all evil 
 spirits have been banished out of the 
 , heart, for many spirits inhabiting it will 
 ,; not allow it to be pure. Each one of 
 these fully performs its oAvn work, while 
 they defile it in manifold ways by un- 
 seemly desires. And it appears to me to 
 ' be with such a heart as with an inn, 
 I which is trampled upon and trodden 
 down and often filled with dirt, while men 
 1 dwell within it without restraint, and take 
 no care whatever about the place, as one 
 I in which they have no concern. Thus 
 ! also the heart, until it attains heavenly 
 grace, remains unclean, as being the 
 ' abode of many evil spirits. But where 
 ! the Father, the only one that is good, takes 
 j possession of it, then is it sanctified and 
 jit shines with light; and thus he who 
 I possesses such a heart, is declared to be 
 j blessed (/xaxagj^ira*) because he will see 
 j God."t 
 
 j He who is thus united with God is 
 I already a member of the heavenly com- 
 
 » The declaration of Heracleon in Origen, t. vi. 
 § 23, TM o-rM^CD u}/>iKu'7B:u Kxt ii^u.via-BAi TrsLo-^f rnv 
 KiKtxv, must be understood in connection with the 
 whole Valentinian system. 
 
 t Strom, lib. ii., p. 409. [Ed. Par. 1629.] 
 [Sylburg, p. 176. Potter, p. 488—9. Klotz, vol. 
 ii. p. 191.] 
 
PNEUMATICAL AND PSYCHICAL. 
 
 274 
 
 munity, is already incorporated by the 
 power of the Redeemer into the host of 
 blessed spirits, which is thus expressed in 
 the language of the Valentinian school: 
 "■ As every pneumatical soul has its other 
 half in the higher world of Spirits (the 
 angel which belongs to it) for union with 
 which it is destined, so does it receive 
 through the Soter the power to enter at 
 once into this syzygy in regard to its 
 spiritual life."* 
 
 As the psychical and pneumatical be- 
 ings are difierent from one another in 
 their nature and their destination, so 
 they remain different also in Christianity. 
 There is a j^gto-r»ancr^ot -^vyjuioi; and a 
 ^ptaTtuvis'fjLai 7rȣf/xaTi)to{. St. I aul de- 
 clares to the psychical, that for them he 
 has known nothing and could preach 
 nothing but Christ crucified ;t that he 
 could not preach to them that wisdom of 
 the perfect which is hidden even to the 
 Demiurgos and his angels. Tiie Valen- 
 tinians distinguish also, according to their 
 system, a twofold signification of redemp- 
 tion and of baptism, in regard to the psy- 
 chici and the pneumatici. The psychici 
 must be led to believe by means of mira- 
 cles and other acts that strike the senses ;J 
 they are only capable of a belief ujwn 
 authority^ and not capable of a pcrsuasio7i 
 which proceeds from the inward essence 
 of truths nor of the intuitive perception 
 (anschauung) of truth itself To such 
 men Ciirist speaks in John iv. 48. The 
 spiritual men, on the contrary, need no 
 such outward means of instruction : in 
 virtue of their kindred nature they are at- 
 tracted by truth itself without any inter- 
 mediate nieans.§ When truth reveals it- 
 self to them, there follows instantly in 
 them a confident belief, such as could 
 not be effected from without, and could 
 only proceed from the immediate influ- 
 ence of truth upon their kindred spiritual 
 nature.ll Their worsliip of God founded 
 on tlieir knowledge of the truth is the 
 true "reasonable service of God." 
 
 That seed of the spiritual nature is that 
 by which men are attracted by the Re- 
 
 1 deemer, and led to him, the men of the 
 Spirit ; therefore, tliey who possess that 
 I seed are the salt and the soul of the out- 
 ward Church, those through whom Chris- 
 I tianity is farther propagated as the forming 
 [principle of human nature.* By these 
 spiritual men the illumination of all this 
 j earthly universe, the final annihilation of 
 all that is material and evil, is to be pre- 
 j pared, after matter has been deprived of 
 all the life which it has seized upon for 
 ! itself. Valentinus thus addresses these 
 'pretended spiritual men: "Ye are, from 
 I the beginning, immortal, and children of 
 [ eternal life, and ye have been desirous to 
 ! divide death among yourselves,| in order 
 that ye may exhaust and expend it, and 
 that death may die in you and through 
 you ; for when ye dissolve the world, 
 (prepare the dissolution of the material 
 [ v/orld,) but ye yourselves will not be 
 I dissolved, ye are lords over the crea- 
 tion, and over all that is corruptible.";|; 
 I Although at the bottom of these high- 
 sounding words, as far as they were ap- 
 plied to the calling of Christians, as 
 instruments for the revelation and exten- 
 sion of God's kingdom, there is some- 
 thing of truth ; yet this truth is here 
 mixed with a pride, which in the case of 
 certain peculiarities, might easily intro- 
 duce the most mischievous excesses of 
 fanaticism. If the Valentinians had been 
 able to found a Church according to their 
 own notions, the Pneumatici would have 
 been the Christian Brahmins. 
 
 Now, when the end prepared by these 
 spiritual men should have been attained, 
 then, after the dissolution of the whole 
 material world, the Soter, united into a 
 syzygy with the Sophia, and under him 
 the matured spiritual natures in pairs 
 with the angels, were to enter into the 
 Pleroma, and the last (lowest) stage of 
 the spiritual \vorld§ was to receive the 
 psychici under the Demiurgos; and they 
 also were to receive that measure of hap- 
 piness, which was suited to their peculiar 
 nature. The Demiurgos rejoices himself 
 
 * Heracleon, ap. Origen,t. 13, § l], x.c/uii^i^u 
 
 7TA^ ctUTiU TUV Sul^ fjltV X.il Itll lyOXTtt H3t TKV dvax^iaiv 
 TT^Ot TO Try^H^UtfAX ctUTK. 
 
 ■(- Diilnscal. Anatol. Of a twofold mode of 
 preaching of St. Paul. In regard to the Psychici, 
 iKupv^i Tcy <rft)T)if « ytvif'Tiy kji Tra&tiny. 
 
 i At ie^-^aiv i^uo-iv s;^;(;vT4■ kji St ata-6n<rtre- ■ 
 Kcucv^i Ao>« TTto-Tiuiv. Orig. f. xiii § .59. 
 
 § Heracleon in Joann. t. xiii. c. 20, the Siktpoi 
 faixc JtxdiTtc. 
 
 J 'H lJiuk^ith k-u tcxTcUJoiKc; th <f«int. 
 
 * See the proof of this in Heracleon, to be 
 given almost immediately. 
 
 I While they were sent down into the midst 
 of the material world. 
 
 i Strom, lib. iv. p. 509. B. [Ed. Pari?, 1629.] 
 'Aw' '^X"' '■6'-'»*T(u io-Ti K1J Twcx ^ainr sfTTe diiaivn.;. 
 K*/ Tiy BauXTcv /flsAfTS /Ai?tT*ab-u th iavnu; lyx 
 JrtTTxyiia-nri ou/tcv k-u . MXayrMtt k-u . rrS^yy o BxyxTCi 
 h CfAtv K-u it v/JCfty. 'OT-av y^ Tcy juty k cr/mcy MxTt, 
 
 CfJ.U: Si ftM KtT(t\U>lirSt, KU^IfOiTt Tur nrKTlai^ Ktt TOC 
 
 'fQopxr avicnig. lSylb.p.218. Potter, p.603. Klotz, 
 vol. ii. p. 326.] 
 
 § The Tcwftf /Mjj-oTjrref. 
 
ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATIONS. 
 
 in the appearance of the Soter, through 
 wliich a hi<fher world, to which he had 
 hitherto been a stranger, is revealed to 
 him, and through wliich also he, being 
 freed from his harassmg service, is enabled 
 to enter into rest, and receive an echo of 
 the glory of the Pleronia. He is the 
 friend of the Bridegroom (the Soter) who 
 stands there and belongs to him, and de- 
 lights himself in the voice of the bride- 
 groom, and delights himself in the fulfil- 
 ment of the marriage.* John the Baptist 
 spoke those words, John iii. 29, as the 
 representative of the Demiurgos. 
 
 <j Distinguished Men (f the School of 
 Valentinus. 
 
 Among the men of the Valentinian 
 school, the Alexandrian Heracleon is dis- 
 tinguished by more learning and pro- 
 foundness than the others. He composed 
 a commentary on the Gospel of St. John, 
 from which Origenf has preserved some 
 fragments of importance, perliaps also a 
 commentary on that of St. Luke, from 
 which (if such be the case,) Clement of 
 Alexandria^ has handed down to us a 
 fragment, — the explanation of Luke xii. 
 8. It is easy to understand that the deep 
 and inward spirit of St. John's writings 
 would be attractive to the Gnostics. 
 Heracleon brought to the explanation 
 of this Gospel a deep religious feeling 
 directed to interior things, together with 
 an understanding which was clear, when- 
 ever he was not led into error by theo- 
 sophical speculations ; but that which 
 was wanting in him was a feeling for the 
 simplicity of St. John, and a knowledge 
 or a recognition of the principles of 
 grammatical and logical interpretation in 
 general, without which free room is given 
 to every caprice, even in the interpreta- 
 tion of the Scriptural writers, inasmuch 
 as they, as men, although inspired men, 
 obeyed the laws which regulate the modes 
 of speech and thought among men. Al- 
 though as far as we can see, Heracleon 
 intended honestly to deduce his tlieology 
 oLt of St. John, yet he was altogether 
 taken possession of by his own csystem, 
 and so thoroughly entangled in it in all 
 his modes of thought and conception, 
 that he could not stir a step free from it, 
 
 • The union of the Soter with the Sophia, and 
 of the angels with the spiritual natures in the 
 Pleroina. 
 
 f In his Tomi upon John, in which he fre- 
 quently refers to the explanations of Heracleon. 
 
 I Strom, iv. 503. [Sylliuri;, p. 215. Potter, 
 p. 593-6. Klotz, vol. ii. p. 316-8.] 
 
 275 
 
 I and involuntarily introduced its views 
 and ideas into the Holy Scriptures, which 
 he considered as the source of divine 
 truth. As a proof of what is here said, 
 we will take a closer view of Heracleon's 
 explanation of the glorious conversation 
 of our Saviour with the woman of Sa- 
 I maria. He could not stand by the simple 
 j historical narrative, nor content himself 
 j with the profound, psychological con- 
 ' sideration of thi.s Samaritan woman in her 
 relation to the Saviour. Immediately in 
 this Samaritan woman, who was attracted 
 by the words and the appearance of 
 Christ, an image is presented to his mind 
 of ail spiritual natures, which are attracted 
 by that which is divine ; and, therefore, 
 in this narrative the whole relation of the 
 Tcvtvix-ccrixoi to the Soter, and to the higher 
 spiritual world, must be represented. And 
 therefore, the words of the Samaritan 
 woman must bear a double sense ; one, a 
 sense of which she herself was conscious, 
 and the other that higher sense, which 
 she uttered as the representative of the 
 whole class of wntiftaTtxo*, without being 
 conscious of it ; and therefore, the words 
 of the Saviour in reference to these 
 things must also bear a twofold sense, a 
 higher and a lower, a notion which in- 
 volves the unnatural supposition of a 
 double conversation going on at the same 
 time. And yet he had seized upon the 
 fundamental idea of the words of the 
 Redeemer in a very understanding spirit, 
 if he could only have prevented himself 
 from being drawn away from the main 
 matter by seeking too much in subordi- 
 nate particulars. He explains justly the 
 words of Christ, (John iv. 10, 13, 14,) 
 which are to be understood spiritually:* 
 " The water which the Saviour gives, is 
 
 from his spirit and his power 
 
 His grace and his gift are something which 
 can never be taken away, nor corrupted, 
 nor consume away in him who partakes 
 
 of it They who receive that 
 
 which is abundantly given to them from 
 above, themselves also let that which is 
 given to them bubble over for the eternal 
 life of others." But then he draws the 
 false conclusion, that because Christ 
 meant the water which he wished to 
 give, to be taken in a symbolical sense, 
 consequently also the water of the well 
 of Jacob must be understood in a 
 symbolical sense. It was to be a sym- 
 bol of Judaism, which satisfies not the 
 
 * [This passatjc is quoted. Grab. Spicileg. vol. 
 ii. p. 94-5.— H. J. R.] 
 
2T6 
 
 VIEWS OF MARTYRDOM. 
 
 desires of the spiritual nature, and of its 
 perishable earthly glory. When the Sa- 
 maritan woman says, " Give me this 
 water, that I may not thirst, that I may 
 not come hither to draw •," then the bur- 
 densoineness of Judaism was to be be- 
 tokened by this, the difficulty of finding 
 in it (Judaism) the nourishment of the 
 inward life, and its unsatisfactoriness.* 
 When the Redeemer desired the woman 
 to call her husband, he meant her other 
 half in the world of spirits, the angel 
 which belonged to her, in order that she, 
 coming with him to the Saviour, might 
 receive power from him to bind herself 
 with this her other half, and thus unite 
 with him.f The ground for this arbitrary 
 interpretation was this : " He could not 
 speak of her earthly husband, because he 
 was well aware that she had no lawful 
 husband. . . . According to the spiritual 
 
 fession before the civil power to be the 
 only thing : but this is wrong, for even 
 the hypocrite niiglit make this confession. 
 This is a particular confession ; it is not 
 the common confession, which ought to 
 be made by all Christians, of which he is 
 here speaking; it is the confession through 
 works and conduct, which answer to a 
 belief in him.* This common confession 
 is followed by that peculiar one, if it be 
 
 needful, and if reason enjoins it 
 
 Those persons who confess him with 
 their mouth, may deny him through their 
 works. Those only can truly confess 
 him, who live in the confession of him, 
 among whom he himself confesses, be- 
 cause he has received them into himself, 
 and they have received him into them- 
 selves.! Therefore can he never deny 
 himself'J 
 
 W^e next make mention of Ptolem.cus, 
 
 meaningl; the Samaritan woman did not I who to judge from the work of Irenreus, 
 
 know her husband ; she knew nothing 
 of the angel, that belonged to her : ac- 
 cording to the literal meaning,§ she was 
 ashamed to say that she was living in an 
 unlawful connection." Heracleon further 
 concluded, that as the water is the sym- 
 bol of the divine life bestowed by the 
 Redeemer, so is the pitcher a symbol of 
 the capacity in the disposition of the Sa- 
 marit an woman for this Divine life. She 
 left the pitcher behind with him ; that is 
 to say, as she had such a vessel with the 
 Saviour, as was fitted to receive the living 
 water, she returned into the world, in 
 order to announce the coming of Christ 
 to the psychical.il 
 
 Heracleon properly opposed the habit 
 of prizing martyrdom as an opus operatum. 
 " The multitude," he says,t " hold con- 
 
 (which was specially levelled against the 
 party of this man^) must have laboured 
 much for the propagation of Vafentinian 
 principles. One is led to inquire whether 
 it be true, as TertuUian asserts,§ that 
 Ptolemaeus was distinguished from Yalen- 
 tinus, because he imagined the ^ons 
 rather under the form of Hypostases, 
 while Valentinus conceived them to be 
 powers in-dwelling in the being of God \ 
 or at least one inquires, whether this dif- 
 ference was of so much importance ; be- 
 cause, in fact, the representation of the 
 iEons by the Gnostics, far from being 
 mere abstract notions of attributes, always 
 must have bordered on hypostasizing. 
 
 A very important piece of Ptolem?eus, 
 which has been preserved — his letter to 
 one Flora, whom he endeavoured to gain 
 over to the Valentinian principles|| — shows 
 that he was extremely skilful in present- 
 ing his views to others in a manner likely 
 to recommend them. As he was appa- 
 rently writing to a Christian lady of the 
 ^, , , ^ ,^ , . , , Catholic Church, he had particularly to 
 II The thought of Heracleon ,s here a just one,, j ohjcclion, which she would 
 that only he who IS in union with the Saviour by I , , -' v • ? i- 
 his feelings can preach him properly to others,- [ '"a^e on the contradiction between his 
 although this just thought is introduced into this [ doctrines and those of the Church, and 
 place by an arbitrary interpretation of that which j 
 
 * To iVlfAO^&OV, IteU SuTTTOfltO-'TCiV Kill 
 
 "[ To TrKii^uy.^ ttint^. See above. 
 
 ^ KtfTSt TO VOrMfAitai. 
 
 (j K«Ta TO aTTKCUV, 
 
 historical. We must here do Heracleon the 
 justice to acknowledge, that Origen, here as well 
 as in many other places, attacks him unjustly, as 
 if he contradicted himself; " for how could the 
 Samaritan," says he, " preach to others, when she 
 had left behind her, with the Redeemer, from whom 
 she departed, her organ for the reception of the 
 Divine lifel" But Heracleon was here quite con- 
 sistent in his application of the allegory ; he did 
 not think of any local leaving beldiid. 
 
 ^ In the fragment of his Commentary on St. 
 Luke, quoted above. 
 
 * Here again, what Heracleon says is in itself 
 quite just ; and yet his explanation, which has no 
 reference whatever to the context, is quite false. 
 
 "t" 'Ev6/\))jMjMSvoc airov; nm i^c/uivoi utto Tcinav. 
 
 i Which would necessarily happen, if those 
 who are in connection with him were to deny him. 
 
 § Nominibus et numeris .(Eonum distinctis in 
 personales substantias, quas Valentinus in ipsa 
 summa divinitatis, ut scnsus et aflcctus et motus, 
 incluserat. Adv. Valentinian. c. 4. 
 
 II Epiphan. Hares, ixxiii. §.3. 
 
PRINCIPLES OF PTOLEM.EUS. 
 
 277 
 
 against the supposition that the Old Tes- 
 tament and the creation of the worlds did 
 not proceed from the Supreme God. In 
 regard lo the first, he appeals to an apos- 
 tolical tradition, which had come down to 
 him through a series of hands, as well as to 
 the ivords of our Saviour., according to 
 which men must determine every thing. By 
 tradition he probably means an Esoteric 
 tradition, which he, being self -deceived, 
 doubdess deduced from some pretended 
 disciple of the apostles; and as to the 
 words of our Saviour, he could easily 
 bring them into accordance with his own 
 system by the Gnostic exegesis. In re- 
 gard to the second point, we may well 
 conceive that he has represented his prin- 
 ciples under the mildest possible form, in 
 order to obtain acceptance for them with 
 one who was uninitiated ; but still we 
 lind in his conclusions nothing which 
 contradicts the Valentinian principles. He 
 combats two opposite errors, the error of 
 those who held that the creation of the 
 world, and the Old Testament, were the 
 work of an evil Being, and the error of 
 those who attributed them to the Supreme 
 God ; in his opinion, the one party was 
 in error, because it knew only the Demi- 
 urgos, and not the Universal Father., 
 whom Christ, who alone knew him, had 
 been the first to reveal : the other, because 
 it knew nothing of an intermediate Being, 
 like the Demiurgos. Ptolemaeus, also, 
 would probably say, — the first view is 
 that of men, who remain Jews even in 
 Christianity ; the other that of men, who, 
 without any intermediate state of transi- 
 tion from the service of Matter and Satan, 
 in heathenism, had attained at once to the 
 recognition and knowledge of the Su- 
 preme God ; and who believed, because 
 they had made this sudden spring in their 
 religion and knowledge, that a similar 
 sudden transition took place in nature. 
 " How can a law," he justly inquires, 
 " which forbids all evil, proceed from an 
 evil Being, who wars against all mo- 
 rality .^" And he adds, " They who do not 
 recognise the providence of the Creator 
 in the world, must be blind not only in 
 the eyes of the soul, but even in those of 
 the body." 
 
 He throws the Mosaic religious code 
 into a threefold division : — 
 
 1. That whicii proceeds from the 
 Demiurgos ; 
 
 2. That wliich Moses settled after the 
 dictates of his own unassisted reason :* 
 
 • This distinction of diflerpnt agents (factors) 
 who worked together in the composition of the 
 
 3. The oldest additions to the Mosaic 
 law.* 
 
 The Saviour clearly distinguishes the 
 law of Moses from the law of God (i. e. 
 of the Demiurgos,) in Matt. xix. 6, Sac. 
 He, however, exculpates Moses again, and 
 seeks to show, that he gave way to the 
 weakness of the \>eoy)\e only when forced, 
 in order to avoid a greater evil. That 
 wliich proceeded from the Demiurgos he 
 divided again into a threefold division ; 
 
 1. The purely moral enactments, dis- 
 turbed by nothing extraneous, which are 
 properly called " The Law," in reference 
 to which, our Saviour says that he is 
 not come to destroy the Law, but to 
 fulfil it ; for as it contained nothing alien 
 to the nature of the Saviour, it required 
 only fulfilment ; as, for instance, the com- 
 mandments. Thou shalt do no murder, — 
 Thou shalt not commit adultery, — were 
 fulfilled in the commands neither to be 
 angry, nor to lust. 
 
 2. The law, disturbed by the intermix- 
 ture of evil, as that part, which permits 
 of revenge, Levit. xxiv. 20 -, xx. 9 : "He 
 who recompenses evil for evil, does no 
 less evil, because he repeats the same 
 conduct, but in a difTerent order." 
 
 The Gnostic has here only one measure 
 for all cases ; he could not discover the 
 distinction of the politico-juridical from 
 the purely moral, nor the necessary connec- 
 tion between the two, from the very nature 
 of the economy of the Old Testament. 
 And yet he recognises here, as well as in 
 Moses, an element of instruction. "This 
 command," says he, " was, and remains 
 still, in other respects a just one, given on 
 account of the weakness of those who 
 receive the Law, though it transgresses 
 the pure Laio ; but it is foreign to the 
 nature and goodness of the Father of all, 
 perhaps not consonant to the nature even 
 of the Demiurgos,t but probably only 
 forced upon him ; for while he who for- 
 bade one murder, commanded a second, 
 he suffered himself to be surprised by ne- 
 cessity, without being aware of it." He 
 means to say, that the Demiurgos was 
 wanting, not in the will, but in the power, 
 to overcome evd ; and this part of the 
 Law is entirely abolished by the Saviour, 
 
 Holy Scriptures, is quite conformable to the Valen- 
 tinian notion of Inspiration. 
 
 * According to the theory of the Clementine, 
 viz, that when the fiuw was written down from 
 the oral tradition of it, many foreign additions 
 were mingleil with the oldest part of it. 
 
 j I have translat«d after an emendation of the 
 text, 1. c. c. 3, which I consider necessary : iacec 
 dlii Toxrtu, or m tcwtcw jciraxAJiAov. 
 
 2A 
 
278 
 
 TYPES. MARCOS. 
 
 as contrary to the nature of the Supreme 
 God. 
 
 3. The typical ceremonial Law, which 
 (see above) contains the type of the higher 
 spiritual things, the Law of Sacrifices, of 
 Circumcision, of the Sabbath, of the Pass- 
 over, and of Fasts. " All this, which was 
 merely type and symbol, was changed 
 after the truth had appeared. The sen- 
 suous and outward observance is removed, 
 but it is transferred to the spiritual : the 
 names remain the same, but the things 
 are changed. For the Saviour has com- 
 manded us also to offer sacrifices ; but 
 not sacrifices by means of irrational ani- 
 mals, nor such incense, but through 
 spiritual praise and thanksgiving, and 
 through charity, and doing good to our 
 neighbour. He wills also, that we should 
 be circumcised ; not, however, by the cir- 
 cumcision of the foreskin of the body, but 
 the spiritual circumcision of the heart. 
 He wills also, that we should observe the 
 Sabbath, because he wishes us to rest 
 from doing evil. Also, that we should 
 fast; but not with a bodily fast, but a 
 spiritual, in which abstinence from all 
 evil consists. Our people, however, do 
 observe the external fast, because it may 
 be of some service even to the soul, if 
 reasonably used, and neither used in imi- 
 tation of any one, nor out of habit, nor on 
 some particular day, as if some one day 
 were appointed for that purpose,^ — but 
 where it is used also with remembrance 
 of the real fast, that those who are unable 
 to keep that fast, may be reminded of it 
 by outward fasting." And yet what true 
 insight into the spirit of the system of 
 religion proposed in the New Testament; 
 what tlioughtfulness and mildness of 
 judgment does he show here ! 
 
 Marcus and Bardesanes* are distin 
 
 * We can only mention Secundus in a cursory 
 manner; for the only thing worth remarking about 
 him is his modification of the ideas of Valcntinus, 
 l)y which he made a distinction in the first ogdoad 
 between a tst^«c it^in and a Tng^rtf opi^ripx, naming 
 the first, l'f!;/it, and the second, darkness: this 
 is remarkable, because it shows that, like most 
 mystics, in the pride of his speculation he placed 
 tilt (>ris;inal foundation, of evil in God, while he 
 elevated God above the opposition of good and 
 evil, but supposed that the seed of the division 
 took its rise when the development of life began to 
 proceed from God. Iren.TUs, !. i. c. 1 1. § 2. A 
 similar view is found with those magi among the 
 Parses, who taught, after Scharistani, that " Yez- 
 dan cogitasse secum ; nisi fucrint mihi controver- 
 Hi;B, quomodo erit 1 Hancque cogitatioiiem pra- 
 vam, naturaj lucis minus analogam, j)roduxisse 
 tencbras, dictas Ahriman." (Hyde, Hist. Relig. 
 Vet. Pers. p. 295.) 
 
 guished persons among those who are 
 called the disciples of Valentinus ; we 
 say, "• who are called the disciples,'''' be- 
 cause it would probably be more correct 
 to state that both of them drew from the 
 same sources in Syria, the native land of 
 Gnosticism, which Valentinus had used. 
 Marcus apparently came from Palestine 
 in the latter half of the second century. 
 His coming from Palestine appears pro- 
 bable, from the aramaic liturgical formulre, 
 of which he made use. While in an 
 Heracleon and a Ptolemseus the Alexan- 
 drian style of knojvledge and learning 
 formed rather the characteristic of their 
 theosophy, so on the contrary, in Marcus 
 the poetic and symbolic was the prevailing 
 character. He brought forward his doc- 
 trines in a poenij in Avhich he introduced 
 the iEons speaking in liturgical formula, 
 and in imposing symbols of worship. 
 (We sliall hereafter introduce specimens 
 of these latter.) After the Jewish caba- 
 listic method, he hunted after mysteries 
 in the number and the position of letters. 
 The idea of a Xoyoi rov oi'to?, of a word as 
 the revelation of the hidden Divine Being 
 in creation, was spun out by him with 
 the greatest subtilty ; he made the whole 
 creation a progressive expression of the 
 inexpressible.* As the divine seeds of 
 life,| which lie enclosed in the jEons, con- 
 tinually unfold themselves wider and in- 
 dividualize themselves, this represents, 
 that these names of tlie unnameable being 
 divide themselves into their separate 
 sounds. An echo of the Pleroma falls 
 down into the i;^»), and becomes the 
 formative principle of a new inferior crea- 
 
 * To appDTcy puTci ytniBwui. 
 
 •j" The tT-TrlpudTA TrVlUfAiTIKH. 
 
 i In general, it is a peculiarly Gnostic idea, to 
 conceive that the hidden Divinity expressed him- 
 self aloud till it was re-echoed, and died away, 
 and then again that the echo fashioned itself into a 
 clear note [or /one, ton] and into a clear lourd, 
 for the revelation of the Divinity ; and this idea 
 they could apply under a variety of different rela- 
 tions. Thus Heracleon says. The Saviour is the 
 Word, as the revelation of the Divinity, all the 
 body of prophecy, which predicted him, without 
 being justly aware of the idea of the Messiah, in 
 its spiritual sense was only one note [ton,] which 
 preceded the revealing word : John the Baptist, 
 standing in the middle between the economy of 
 the Old and of the New Testament, is the i^oice 
 [or tone, sfimiuc,] which is akin to the word, as 
 the word expre.sses thoughts, with a consciousness 
 of their meaning. The voice [stimme, voice, note, 
 or tune,] becomes a word, when John becomes the 
 disciple of Christ, and the note [or sound, ton] be- 
 comea a voice [stimme] when the prophets of the 
 
BARDESANES. — FATE. — MORAL FREEDOM. 
 
 279 
 
 The second of these, Bardesanes, who 
 is still less to be reckoned as a proper 
 disciple of Valentinus, lived at Edessa in 
 Mesopotamia, as we learn from his name, 
 " the son of Daisan,'' derived from a river 
 of tliis name in the town of Edessa: he 
 made himself known by his extensive 
 learning; many among the older writings 
 give notices of changes in the system of 
 Bardesanes. According to the account 
 of Eusebius, he was at first devoted to 
 the system of Valentinus; but when he 
 had seen, after accurate inquiry, how un- 
 tenable much of it was, he went over to 
 the orthodox Church ; and yet at the same 
 time retained much of his old doctrines, so 
 that he became the founder of a peculiar 
 sect. According to Epiphanius he went 
 over from the orthodox Church to the 
 Valentinians. But Ephraim Syrus, the 
 learned Syrian writer, in the fourth cen- 
 tury, who lived in the land of Bardesanes, 
 and wrote in his language, and who had 
 read his writings, gives us absolutely no 
 notice whatever of these changes in the 
 doctrinal notions of Bardesanes, and it is 
 easv enough to explain how those false 
 reports arose. Bardesanes, when he spoke 
 publicly in the Church, like the rest of 
 the Gnostics (see above,) made the pre- 
 vailing doctrinal notions his starting 
 point: he let himself down after his own 
 fashion to the capacities of the psychici. 
 On many single points he really coincided 
 with those notions more than other Gnos- 
 tics, and he might also, from sincere con- 
 viction, unite against many other Gnostic ! 
 sects, at that time prevailing in Syria, as 
 against those who denied the connection 
 between the Old and the New Testament, 
 or those who derived the visible world 
 from an evil being, or those who held 
 the doctrine of fate to the prejudice of 
 moral freedom; just as the Gnostic Ptole- 
 nifEus (see above) notwithstanding his 
 Gnosticism, had also written against such 
 people. 
 
 It was in entire accordance with the 
 Valentinian system, that Bardesanes ac- 
 knowledged something in the nature of 
 man, incomprehensible to itself, and ele- 
 
 vated above the whole world, in which 
 the temporal consciousness of man de- 
 velopes itself; the human soul being a seed 
 shed abroad from out of the Pleroma ; its 
 I essence and its powers, which are derived 
 from higher regions, remain, therefore, 
 hidden even from itself, until it shall have 
 arrived at a full consciousness and use of 
 them in the Pleroma.* This, however, 
 according to the Gnostic system, could 
 only be true about the spiritual natures ; 
 but according to that system he must 
 have ascribed to the psychici also, a moral 
 freedom, elevated above the power of the 
 influences of nature, or the power of the 
 vXi). He, therefore, although like many 
 of those inclined to Gnosticism, he busied 
 himself with astrology, contended against 
 the doctrine of such an influence of the 
 stars (an sJ/Lta^fitu)) as should be supposed 
 to settle the life and affairs of man by 
 necessity. Eusebius in his great literary 
 
 treasure-house, the Trpovcc^otcT-nevri evccyye- 
 
 Aix*}, has preserved a large fragment of 
 this remarkable work; he here introduces 
 among other things the Christians dis- 
 persed over so many countries,! as an 
 example of the absurdity of supposing 
 that the stars irresistibly influence the 
 character of a people. " Where they are^'' 
 he says of the Christians, " they are nei- 
 ther overcome by abominable laws and 
 customs, nor does dieir nativity, deduced 
 from their prevailing stars, compel them 
 to practise the wickedness which is for- 
 bidden by their Lord. But they are sub- 
 ject to sickness, to poverty, to pain, and 
 to that which is accounted shame by 
 men. For as our freeman does not suflier 
 himself to be compelled to slavery, and 
 if he is compelled resists those who com- 
 pel him, so on the other hand, the man 
 who appears to us a slave,J does not easily 
 escape from subjection. For, if every 
 thing was in our own power, we should 
 be TO ■jTo.v (the universe,) as, if we were 
 not able to do any thing, we should be 
 the ynere instruments of others, and not 
 of ourselves. But when God helps, every 
 thing is possible, and no obstacle can 
 exist, because nothing can resist his will. 
 
 Demiurgos, together with the Demiurgos himself, * See Ephraem. Syr. 0pp. Sys. Lat. t. ii. p. 
 
 arrive at a consciousness of the higher worl<l-sys- ; 5.53 — .5. 
 
 tern, which the Messiah reveals, and serve that j j- See pages 46, 47. (Euseb. Prtep. Evang. b. 
 
 system knowingly and willingly. Origen, t. vi. vi. c. 10.) 
 
 Joh. § 12. 'o K-.y^Q /J.IV lanti^ imv, ^etvn Jf » iv \ t [" Unser Erscheinungsmensch alsein dienst- 
 
 ru i^tijuai TTdLTx Tf04)HT/K« Tat^r, T<iv i^aiv^vojxa'.TSgav barer," &c. The original is thus: 'iioTri^ ytp o 
 
 tic <tmin /xeT:i^:M]i, /xaSxrcw /J.a X^P*^' ^'^'■'■'' Ti) f*irit- I livaj «-/5^» uibt^THTit tc/c i-vuyii.ii^'.urn, iVTcei ivSi o 
 ^■t>X'-uTn w xcycv <fa)v>t « (it ought rather to be t«v,) <?3uv;/.(svo: i/xmv i'.vKo( uv9gaiiT3f T«f t/-T«T«j)),- iK^vyuv 
 
 i-UKiU ii TJI ua-0 tt)(^iU t't! (^HV. 1 fuJiu; JuVATOU. — H. J. R.] 
 
280 
 
 THE OPHITES AND VALENTINIANS. 
 
 And even if any thing does appear to op- 
 pose him, it then happens so because he 
 is the Good^ and suffers every nature to 
 retain its peculiarities and its freeioill.^''* 
 In accordance with his system he searched 
 for traces of truth among all nations, and 
 he remarked in the East Indies a class of 
 (the Brahmins, Saniahs) who lived 
 rigid ascetic life, and amidst idolaters 
 preserved themselves free from idolatry, 
 and worshipped only the one God. 
 
 2. T%e Gnostic sects, which denied the con- 
 nection between the Old and JVeio Testctr- 
 ments, and between tlve visible and the 
 invisible world. 
 
 (a.) Tlie Ophites. 
 
 As Cerinthus formed the most natural 
 point of transition from the Judaizing 
 sects to the Gnostics, — so the Ophites 
 make the most natural point of transition 
 from the Valenlinians to this second class 
 of Gnostics ; for it is here shown how 
 the same ideas, by a slightly different 
 turn, may lead to entirely different pro- 
 positions. 
 
 • In die system of this sect, as well as in 
 that of the Valentinians, the notion of a 
 soul of the world prevailed, of a weak 
 reflection of light from the Pleroma, 
 which falling down into matter, animated 
 the dead mass, and yet was itself affected 
 by matter also; this soul of the world, 
 the source of all spiritual life, which at- 
 tracts again to itself all which has once 
 flowed from it, this Pantheistic doctrine, 
 of which the seed had already been sown 
 in the Valentinian system, in the Ophitic 
 scheme, only comes forward in greater 
 prominence, as the essential doctrines of 
 Christianity are driven further into the 
 back ground ; and even in this respect 
 again, different modifications appear to 
 have found place in diflerent branches of 
 the Ophitic sects. The same fundamen- 
 tal principle might, at the same time, be 
 conceived and applied in diflerent modes, 
 just according as the Christian, the purely 
 oriental and theosophic, or the Jewish ele- 
 
 • [The passage which Neandcr has here se- 
 lected is so limited that it does not give an ade- 
 quate view of the meaning of Bardesancs. The 
 argument of 13ardesanes appears to be of this 
 kind : Some things arc etvrt^'.va-iu-t and these things 
 are changed sometimes in nations, others are not. 
 The things that are in our own power are not 
 bound down in stern laws of necessity by climate. 
 Such things may be instanced, as circumcision 
 and keeping of the Sabbath ; these the Jews cele- 
 brate every where. — H. J. K] 
 
 ment happened to predominate in each 
 case. 
 
 The Ophitic system represented the 
 origin of the Demiurgos, who is here 
 called Jaldabaolh, exactly in the same 
 way as the Valentinian ; and even in the 
 doctrine of his relation to the higher 
 order of the world, the point of transition 
 (i. e. from one system to another,) may 
 be easily recognised. The Valentinian 
 Demiurgos is a limited Being, who ima- 
 gines, in his finite faculties, that he acts 
 independently. The higher order of the 
 world is a thing altogether strange to 
 him; he serves it without being conscious 
 of it. In the phenomena which pro- 
 ceeded from it, he was at first entirely at 
 a loss, he was surprised ; but this is not 
 the fault of a wicked disposition in him, 
 only of his ignorance. At length he is 
 attracted by the Divine nature, and out of 
 a condition of unconsciousness, attains at 
 length to a state of consciousness, and he 
 now serves the higher order of the world 
 with delight. According to the Ophitic 
 scheme, on the contrary, he is a being 
 not merely finite, but entirely at enmity 
 with the higher order of the world, and 
 obstinate in his hatred of it. Whatever 
 of higher light he derived, in virtue of his 
 descent from the Sophia, he only misused, 
 that he might set himself up against the 
 higher world, and make himself an inde- 
 pendent Lord. Thence came the desire 
 of the Sophia to detach him from the 
 spiritual being which had accrued to him, 
 and to draw this latter again to herself, 
 in order that Jaldabaoth, with his whole 
 creation, deprived of all reasonable being, 
 might be destroyed. On the contrary, 
 according to the Valentinian scheme, the 
 Demiurgos forms, for all eternity, a sub 
 ordinate grade of rational and moral ex 
 istence ; subordinate, indeed, but required 
 for the harmonious development of tlie 
 Avhole. And yet, here again, kindred- 
 ideas are found in the two systems, in 
 the circumstance that the Demiurgos 
 is obliged, without knowing it or wish- 
 ing it, to serve the Sophia, and to bring 
 to pass the fulfilment of her intentions, 
 and in the end, even his cum fall and 
 annihilation. This, how^ever, is here no 
 distinction for the Demiurgos, as in the 
 Valentinian system ; but in this very cir- 
 cumstance he is placed exactly on the 
 same footing with the Absolute Evil (the 
 evil principle itself.) It flows not from 
 the excellence of his nature, but from the 
 omnipotence of the higher system of the 
 world. Even the Evil Spirit, the serpent- 
 
NATURE OP THE SERPENT. — THE FALL. 
 
 281 
 
 spirit., o(p»0|t*o§(po? whose existence arose 
 from ihe circumstance that Jaldabaoth, 
 full of liatred and envy against man, 
 looked down into the iA»), and formed a 
 reflection and image of himself there, 
 even this being was obliged, against his 
 will, to become only an instrument for the 
 accomplishment of her designs. The doc- 
 trine of the origin and of the destination 
 of man, in this system, has, however, 
 much in common with the Valentinian, 
 but at the same time, also, much which 
 belongs to another branch of the Gnostic 
 systems. 
 
 In order to establish himself as an in- 
 dependent Creator and Lord, and to hold 
 in subjection the six angels* begotten by 
 him, and to distract them, so that they 
 should not look up to and observe the 
 higher Light of the world, Jaldabaoth re- 
 quired his six angels to create man, as 
 their common form, that such a work 
 might set the stamp upon their indepen- 
 dent Divine power.f They now create 
 man, who is, however, as their likeness, 
 a monstrous mass of matter, but without 
 a soul ; he crawls upon the earth, and is 
 unable to hold himself upright. They 
 bring, therefore, this helpless being, man, 
 to their father, that he may bestow 
 upon him a soul. Jaldabaoth communi- 
 cated to him a living spirit ;J and by that 
 means the spiritual seed proceeded, with- 
 out his being aware of it, from out of 
 his being into the nature of man, whereby 
 he himself became deprived of this higher 
 principle of life : the Sophia had so de- 
 creed it. In man (i. e. in those men who 
 have received any portion of the spiritual 
 seed,) the light, the soul, the reason of 
 the whole creation, concentres itself. Jal- 
 dabaoth is now seized with surprise and 
 anger, because he sees a being, created by 
 himself, and dwelling within the limits of 
 his dominion, on the point of raising him- 
 self above him and his kingdom. Thence 
 arose his endeavour, not to allow him to 
 come to a consciousness of his higher 
 nature, and of the higher world to which 
 he is allied in virtue of that nature, and 
 to keep him in a state of dull uncon- 
 
 • It must be observed, that according to the 
 Ophitic system, Jaldabaoth and his six angels are 
 the spirit-s of the seven stars, — the sun, the moon, 
 Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, and Saturn : the 
 same from which, in the books of the Zabians, 
 and in many systems of Jewish Theosophists, a 
 variety of delusions and seductions of mankind 
 have proceeded.' 
 
 ■[ Thus they explain the words of Genesis i. 26. 
 
 ^ This they thought they found in Genesis ii. 7. 
 
 36 
 
 sciousness, and thereby of slavish ser- 
 vitude. It was from the jealousy of Jal- 
 dabaoth, who was thus limited, tiiat there 
 proceeded that command to the first man ; 
 but the sold of the world made use of the 
 scrpcnt-spiril (of the oipto^o^ipof) as an 
 instrument in order to frustrate the design 
 of Jaldabaoth, while through it she en- 
 ticed the first man to disobedience. Ac- 
 cording to another view, the serpent was 
 itself a symbol, or a veiled appearance of 
 the soul of the world ;* and those Ophites 
 who held this doctrine are the persons, 
 who, properly, bear the name of Ophites^ 
 because they worshipped the serpent as 
 a holy symbol, to whicli a kindred no- 
 tion of the Egyptian religion might have 
 led them, because in that the serpent is 
 considered as the symbol of Kneph, or 
 the uyx^ola.ii/.ut^ which was similar to the 
 cro(p»a of the Ophites, At all events it 
 was the soul of the world, by which, 
 either mediately or immediately, the eyes 
 of the first man were opened. 
 
 The fall by sin (which gives us a cha- 
 racteristic trait in the Ophitic system,) 
 was the point of transition from a condi- 
 tion of unconscious restriction to a condi- 
 tion of conscious knowledge. Man, be- 
 come a being of knowledge, now re- 
 nounces his allegiance to Jaldabaoth, who, 
 being irritated at his disobedience, pushes 
 him out of the ethereal region, where he 
 had hitherto existed in an ethereal body, 
 down into the dark earth, and banishes 
 him into a dark body. Man finds himself 
 now in such a condition, that on the one 
 hand the seven star-spirits attempt to keep 
 him in imprisonment, and to overwhelm 
 the higher principle of consciousness 
 within him, — while, on the other, the evil 
 spirits of a purely material nature, en- 
 deavour to seduce him to sin and to 
 idolatry, in order that he may become 
 lial)le to the punishments of the severe 
 Jaldabaoth. But yet the Sophia constantly 
 strengthens anew the men who were of 
 kindred nature witli herself, by new com- 
 munications of that higher spiritual na- 
 ture; and she was able, during all the de- 
 structions and storms, to preserve a race 
 of people belonging to herself from the 
 time of Seth, whom all Gnostics look upon 
 
 * The serpent, an image of the 7juK,y:v:i: (To<pi*; 
 the form of the intestines winding itself represents 
 the image of a serpent, a symbol of that wisdom 
 of nature, that soul of the world, which winds 
 itself concealed through all the grades of life found 
 in nature. Theodoret. ha?ret. fab. vol. i. 14. 
 One sees how far more the pantheistic principle 
 here sliines through these notions. 
 2a2 
 
282 
 
 as the representative of the w»EtijM,«Tixo», 
 the men of a contemplative character, in 
 which race she preserves the seed of the 
 spiritual nature. 
 
 The doctrines of the Ophites corres- 
 ponded with those of Basilides and the 
 Valentinians, as to the relation of the 
 psychical Christ, or Jesus, to the Christ 
 of the u-orhl of JT-ons, who united him- 
 self to the former at his baptism. This 
 only is peculiar to them (the Ophites,) 
 that while the higher Christ descended 
 through the seven heavens of the seven 
 angels, or traversed the seven stars, in 
 order to arrive at the earth, he appeared 
 in each heaven, in a form akin to that 
 heaven, as an angel allied to it, and that 
 he concealed from them his higher natnre, 
 and attracting to himself all which they 
 still possessed of the spiritual seed, he 
 thus weakened their power. But now, 
 when .Jaldabaoth, the God of the Jews, 
 saw his expectations frustrated by his 
 Messiah, and when this Messiah did not 
 further his kingdom as he had wished and 
 expected him to do, but announced the 
 unknown father as the instrulnent of the 
 higher Christ, and destroyed the law of 
 Jaldabaoth, or rather Judaism, Jaldabaoth 
 then brought about his crucifixion. Jesus 
 remained eighteen months on earth after 
 his resurrection, obtained through the in- 
 spiration of the Sophia a clear knowledge 
 of the higher truth, and then communi- 
 cated it only to a few of his disciples, 
 whom he knew competent to receive such 
 mysteries. Jesus is now raised by the 
 heavenly Christ into heaven, and sits at 
 the right hand of Jaldabaoth, without the 
 latter being conscious of it, in order that 
 he may attract to himself, and receive into 
 himself, all the spiritual substance, which 
 is set free and purified by the operation 
 of redemption among mankind, as soon as 
 that substance has been detached from its 
 covering of flesh. Tlie more Jesus, by 
 tin's drawing to himself all that is akin to 
 him, is enriclied in his own spiritual na- 
 ture, so much the more is Jaldabaoth de- 
 nuded of all higher qualities. The object 
 of all this is to set free all the spiritual life 
 which is held captive in natm-e, and to re- 
 conduct it to its original source, — to the 
 soul of tlie world from which all pro- 
 ceeded : Jesus is the channel through 
 which this happens. The s/ar.s also must 
 at last be deprived of all being gifted with 
 reason which is found in them. 
 
 In this family of Gnostics there were 
 some who maintained even a more con- 
 sistent pantheism, and supposed that the 
 
 PANTHEISM OF THE OPHITES. 
 
 same soul was extended throughout the 
 whole of nature, animate and inanimate 
 and that, in consequence, all the life which 
 was scattered abroad and held in impri- 
 sonment by the bonds of matter in the 
 limited state of individual existence, would 
 at last be attracted by the original source, 
 the soul of the world, the Sophia, from 
 which it had flowed forth, and thus flow 
 back again into it through this channel. 
 Such persons would say, when we use 
 the objects of nature to our sustenance, 
 we draw to ourselves seed which are scat- 
 tered over them, and we raise them with 
 us to the original source of all things.* 
 Therefore, in an apocryphal gospel of 
 this sect, the soul of the world, or the Su- 
 preme Being himself, spoke to the ini- 
 tiated thus : " Thou art 1, and I am thou ; 
 and where thou art, there am I, and I am 
 spread over every thing. Where thou 
 wilt thou canst collect me, and where thou 
 collectest me, there thou collectest thy- 
 self." (Chap, iii.) 
 
 Pantheism, and the intermixture of the 
 natural and the Divine which flowed from 
 it, by their very nature could not be very 
 exacting in a moral point of view, although 
 in those men who had embraced Pantheism, 
 their previously existing moral sentiments 
 might communicate even to the system 
 itself a moral spirit which was foreign to 
 its own nature. Pantheism, and a wild 
 enthusiastic spirit of defiance towards 
 Jaldabaoth, and his pretended restrictive 
 statutes, appear in fact to have misled a 
 part of these Ophites into the most unna- 
 tural excesses.f 
 
 * Epiphan. Haeres. 26. c. 9. 
 
 -f As the accounts of Epiphanius in this matter 
 a^ree with those of Clement of Alexandria, a 
 person more worthy of credit, and of Porphyry, 
 about similar Gnostic sects, and as they bear an 
 entirely characteristic stamp upon them, we are 
 by no means justified in calling their correctness 
 into question. Nor can the fact alleged here be 
 considered a thing to astonish us at all ; similar 
 excesses, arising from a pantheistic mysticism, 
 have been often found, not only in the east, but in 
 the west also, as the history of the sects of the 
 middle ages and of modern times will prove. The 
 latest examples may be found in De Potter's Via 
 de Kicci. v. i. 
 
 The instances are too well known to readers of 
 any general information to require specification, 
 I\o references will, therefore, he given. It is 
 enough to state the fact as illustrating a mental 
 and spiritual phenomenon, but it is unfit to dwell 
 upon. 
 
 [Other instances might be found in modern 
 days where what was originally, perhaps, only a 
 highly wrought speculative doctrihe, became sub- 
 ject to this dreadful perversion. They could 
 easily be cited, but it is needless, and perhaps, 
 
PSEUDO-BASILIDIANS. 283 
 
 ft is of great importance towards the \ end a token to show that men were disci- 
 history of the Gnostic sects to inquire, | pies of the higher Christ. Something 
 altiiough the inquiry be difficult of solu- I similar is found in the sect of the Sabians^ 
 tion, whether these Ophites sprouted forth | who referred much which they took out 
 from a religious sect, which originally had of the history of Christ to a heavenly 
 no connection at all with Christianity, ^C7i/«s, </<e ow^e/ of ///e, Mando di Chaje, 
 and whether, on that account, as a part of whom they worshipped as the proper 
 this sect had already appropriated to itself [ Christ, from whom the true baptism pro- 
 much which was Christian, a party existed ! ceeded, while they referred the rest to 
 also of those Ophites, who were quite out i the Antichrist Jesus, (who had counter- 
 of the pale of Christianity, and who [ feited the baptism of John,) who was sent 
 rather set themselves in hostility to it ? ! by the star-spirits for the seduction of 
 The latter appears to be attested by an I mankind, 
 account given by Origen, who says, that 
 
 the Ophites were no Christians, and that 
 they suffered no one who did not curse 
 Christ to enter into their assemblies. He 
 names a certain Euphrates, who may have 
 lived before the birth of Christ, as the 
 founder of their sect.* The Ophitic 
 pantheism may very probably have been 
 borrowed from an older Oriental system 
 of religion, and have been set in opposi- 
 tion to Christianity only by some, while 
 
 (b.) Psendo-Basilidians. 
 
 As we see in the Ophitic system how 
 entirely different a direction the princi- 
 ples allied to the Valentinian system may 
 receive by a slightly different modifica- 
 tion and application, so we find a similar 
 circumstance in the relations borne by a 
 variety of the Basilidian scheme, the doc- 
 trines of which are often confused with 
 those of the genuine Basilidians. The 
 
 It may have been clothed m a Christian calm and moderate spirit of the Basilidiaa 
 
 garb by the others. The remarkable like- system* was here entirely extinguished, 
 
 ness between the Ophitic system, those and the direct opposition to the Demi- 
 
 of the Sabians, and the Manichemis may „rgos, and the Antinomianism, which was 
 
 indicate an older and a common source 
 in an antichristian Gnosis. But, on the 
 other hand, it cannot be denied, that the 
 Ophitic formulae of adjuration, which 
 Origen quotes immediately after this de- 
 
 connected with it, degenerated here into 
 a wild dreaminess that made light of all 
 that is most holy. According to their 
 theory, the redeeming Spiriff could enter 
 into no connection with the detested do- 
 
 claration, plamly contam allusions to minions of the Demiurgos, and he took 
 Christian notions. And it may still be | „pon himself only the semblance of a 
 the case, that although the Ophitic sect [ corporeal form. When the Jews were 
 appeared from the very first as a Christian ijnmded to crucify him, he, as a highly 
 sect, yet the contrast to the nature of gifted Spirit, knowing how to clothe him- 
 Chnstianity which lay in its peculiar self in every kind of corporeal appear- 
 constitution also constantly became out- ^nce, and to cast every sort of illusion 
 wardly more prominent ; and that, as |)ef„re the eyes of the gross-minded mul- 
 the contrast between the Demiurgos and ^ titude, caused Simon of Cyrene, (Mark 
 the Supreme God was so strongly brought xv.,) to appear to the Jews in his likeness ; 
 forward by them, so also, in consequence j^e himself took the form of this Simon, 
 of the distinction between the psychical a„d raised himself up unencumbered into 
 and the pneumatical Christ, there arose the invisible world, making a mockery of 
 at last in some portion of the Ophites, a the deluded Jews. To these men the 
 hostile opposition to the tormert (the iJoctrine of the cross M'as foolishness ; 
 psychical;) so that, to curse the finite ! g^d in the conceit of their theosophic 
 Messiah of the psychici, became in ihejprjde, they mocked those who confessed 
 
 . : 7~r~, ; : '. r. lit as the confessors of a mere illusory 
 improper, as it might lead to inquiry on a subject, 1 , . ,, o i v .1 11 
 which could end only in disgust It is enough to ' Phantom. " Such men," they would say, 
 state the fact as a mental phenomenon, and to | "are no Jews, neither are they Chris- 
 leave any specification till the assertion is called in ■ 
 
 question. — H. J. R.] I • Were it not that Clement of Alexandria 
 
 • Origen c. Gels. lib. vi. c. 28, &c. The ' spoke of practical errors in pretended followers of 
 obscure and uncritical Philaster, who sets the Basilides, similar to those found in this sect, we 
 Ophites at the head of the antichristian sects, might be led to suspect that those whom Irena;us 
 cannot be valid as an authority. calls Basilidians had nothing whatever to do with 
 
 f I am indebted for this observation to the pro- Basilides. 
 found critique on my work about the Gnostics, ; j- The tcus. See p. 2.57, on the system of Ba- 
 written by i)r. Gieseler. | silides. 
 
284 SATURNINUS. 
 
 tians." They despised tha martyrs as 
 men who gave up their life merely to con- 
 fess in the name of a phantom. " Those 
 who are initiated into the true mysteries 
 know well, that only one out of thousands 
 can understand them : as your nou? was 
 able to make himself invisible to all men, 
 so could they* also, like this your jot/;, 
 hide themselves in all kinds of phantoms, 
 and pretend to take a part in every thing, 
 in order to deceive the gross multitude, 
 and to withdraw from their persecu- 
 tions."! 
 
 (c.) Sethites and Cainites. 
 
 The example of the Sethites and 
 Cainites, who most probably are derived 
 from the same source as the Ophites, 
 teaches us how the same Gnostic princi- 
 ples, by being differently applied, may 
 produce an opposite kind of Gnosis. The 
 first of these two sects maintained, that 
 from the beginning two human pairs 
 were created, the one by the angels of 
 darkness, from which the race of ^oixoi 
 or i^ixot arose, the other, by the angels 
 of the Deiniurgos, from which the race 
 of -^vxiy-oi was derived; that Cain sprung 
 from the first, Abel from tlie second ; and, 
 the two opposite natures contending to- 
 gether, that the weaker psychical nature 
 was overborne; but that then Sophia 
 allowed Seth to be born in his stead, in 
 whom (viz. Seth,) she had implanted the 
 higher spiritual seed, by which he was 
 rendered capable of overcoming the hylic 
 principle. From Seth the iT»eviJ.a.Tmoi de- 
 rived their origin ; but, the opposing 
 powers now seeking constantly to defile 
 the propagation of this spiritual race by 
 the intermixture of ungodly natures, So- 
 phia, on this account, produced the de- 
 luge, in order again to purify the degene- 
 rated race ; but her adversaries contrived 
 to suffer a Ham to insinuate himself 
 among those who were saved out of the 
 mass of mankind that was destroyed, and 
 by him their dominion was again to be 
 set up and extended. Thence came new 
 mixtures and disorders, and again Sophia 
 had to endeavour to produce new purifi- 
 
 • This art of becoming invisible is amons; the 
 Cabbalistic arts also. A very remarkable instance 
 of this fancy is to be found in Maimonides' history 
 of his own life; and there are generally many 
 interesting echoes of Gnosticism to be found in 
 the latter Jewish sects, which Beer has delineated 
 in his instructive history of the .Jewish sects. 
 (Briinn, 182'2.) 
 
 j- Irenaeus i, 24. 
 
 cations : Seth appeared at last in the per- 
 son of the Messiah.* 
 
 The Cainites, on the contrary, were 
 abominable Antinomians ; they M^ent to 
 such a length in their hatred to the Demi- 
 urgos and to the Old Testament, that they 
 made all those whom they found repre- 
 sented in the latter (the Old Testament) 
 in the worst colours, their Coryph.'Ei, as 
 being sons of Sophia and enemies of the 
 Demiurgos; and hence they claimed Cain 
 for their party. It was these persons 
 who, while they considered the rest of the 
 apostles as narrow-minded men, ascribed 
 the higher Gnosis to Judas Iscariot, who 
 effected the death of Jesus, because he 
 knew, in virtue of his superior illumina- 
 tion, that the destruction of the dominion 
 of the Demiurgos would by this means 
 be brought about. 
 
 (d.) Saturninus. 
 
 We recognise a peculiar branch of the 
 Gnostic systems in the doctrines of Sa- 
 turninus, who lived at Antioch in the 
 reign of Hadrian ; but we have, it must 
 be confessed, in both the principal sources 
 of information,! too imperfect data, to be 
 able to recognise this system in its whole 
 connection. (We pass over without men- 
 tion whatever he has in common with 
 the Gnostics, whom we have already de- 
 scribed, as to the emanation-doctrines, 
 and as to those of dualism.) 
 
 In the lowest grade of the emanation- 
 world, on the very borders between the 
 domain of light and the region of dark- 
 ness, or of (Hyle) iA»), stood the seven 
 lowest angels, those star-spirits; they 
 unite together in order to win from the 
 region of darkness a land on which they 
 may carry on an independent kingdom. 
 Thus arose our world, tlie eartii, into 
 different parts of which these star-spirits 
 apportioned themselves, the God of tlie 
 Jews being at their head : they carry on 
 a constant war against the reign of dark- 
 ness and Satan its prince, who will not 
 suffer their dominion to be extended at 
 the expense of his, and who constantly 
 attempts to destroy that which they con- 
 struct. Only a faint gleam from the 
 higher regions of light shone down upon 
 them here. This gleam of light filled 
 them with a desire of it, and they wished 
 to possess themselves of it, but were too 
 1 weak to do so : it constantly recedes 
 
 ' * See the representation of the doctrines of the 
 I Clementine, jtages 236, 2.37. 
 [ ! Epiphanius and Irensus. 
 
SATURNINtJS. — ^TITIAN. 
 
 a^ain, just as they desire to lay hold of 
 it They unite, therefore, in order to 
 drive these higher beams of lig^ht into 
 their dominion by means of a form cast 
 after the image of that form of light which 
 played before them. But the form of the 
 angel rs unable to raise himself into 
 heaven ; he cannot stand upright ;* he is 
 a lump of matter without a soul. The 
 supreme Father, from the kingdom of 
 light, at last takes compassion on man, 
 being thus helpless, although made in his 
 likeness ; he communicates a spark of his 
 own divine nature to him, and man, now 
 for the first time, becomes a being endued 
 ■with a soul, and can lift himself up to 
 heaven. In the human natures^ into whicli 
 it is transplanted, this divine seed of life 
 is to develope itself till it arrives at inde- 
 pendence, and after a certain time to return 
 to its original source. Those men who, 
 bearing this Divine seed w'ilhin them, are 
 destined to reveal the Supreme God on 
 earth, are constantly opposed to those 
 who bear within tliem only the hylic 
 principle, as being the instruments of the 
 kingdom of darkness. The Supreme God, 
 therefore, — in order to destroy both the 
 kingdom of the star-spirits, of the God 
 of the Jews, which endeavoured to render 
 itself independent, and that of darkness 
 also, and in order to set free those men 
 who w^ere akin to him (the Supreme God,) 
 by means of the Divine seed of life, from 
 the imprisonment of the star-spirits, and 
 to procure them a victory over the king- 
 dom of darkness, — the Supreme God 
 sent his ^on »ot;j down ; this iEon being 
 unable to enter into union in any way 
 with the kingdom of the stars, or with 
 the material world, could hence only show 
 himself in the phantom (or semblance) of 
 a corporeal form. The doctrines of Sa- 
 turninus led to a strict system of asceticism, 
 and to the precept of celibacy, which was 
 possibly, however, observed only in its 
 strictness by those who were peculiarly 
 initiated into the sect, and not by its ordi- 
 nary members. 
 
 (e.) Tatian and the Encratitcs. 
 
 Tatian, of Assyria, lived in Rome as 
 a rhetorician, and was there converted to 
 Christianity by Justin Martyr, who had 
 much in common with him, in virtue of 
 the similar mental education he had un- 
 dergone, as having formerly been a Pla- 
 tonist. As long as Justin lived he ad- 
 hered to the doctrines of the Church. 
 
 285 
 
 And even farther, after the death of Justin, 
 he composed an apologetic writing,* con- 
 ceived in the same tone of thought, in 
 which, however, there was much which 
 might afterwards afford an opening for 
 Gnosticism. Tatian in this writing, as his 
 master Justin had done, received, after 
 Philo, the Platonic doctrine about matter, 
 in its whole extent, into his system, little 
 calculated as that doctrine was to suit his 
 system, as he at the same time maintained 
 the notion of a creation out of nothing. 
 This Platonic theory also prevailed upon 
 him to maintain the notion of an undivine 
 spirit of life, united with and akin to 
 matter, a reason-counteracting soul; and 
 hence he deduced evil spirits, whom he 
 represents as iniviA.xT» vM>ioc, little as this 
 theory was in accordance with the Chris- 
 tian doctrine of the nature of the evil 
 spirit, and of the origin of evil. Even in 
 this writing he already maintained a pro- 
 position which was elsewhere transplanted 
 by many of the first Christian Fathers 
 from the Jewish theology ; viz. that the 
 souls of men, like every thing else, are 
 formed out of matter, and are akin to it,! 
 and therefore, by their nature, mortal; 
 that the first man. living in communion 
 with God, had within himself a principle 
 of divine life, of a more elevated nature 
 than this soul, sprung from matter, and 
 that this principle was properly the image 
 of God.J whereby he was immortal. By 
 losing this through sin, he fell under the 
 power of matter, and was subject to 
 mortality. 
 
 It is easy to see how these opinions, 
 which, according to Titian's system, were 
 not very consistent with each other, might 
 serve as a means of introduction to the 
 Gnostic ideas of the v\yi, and of the dif- 
 ference between the \,v'j(^y.ov, and the 
 7tviV(xa.riKoy ; and a system of asceticism, 
 which strove after a complete detachment 
 from the things of sense,§ might be the 
 result.ll According to the account of 
 Irenfeus^f he formed for himself a system 
 of jEons, like that of the Valentinians ; 
 
 See the history of the Ophites, page 280. 
 
 • His Ac>oc TTfji 'Exxxv*;. 
 
 "(■ A TTVauX* ■jKlK'iV. 
 
 i Qi-.u tlicaiv K!U ojucia^rt: 
 
 § [Entsinnlichiing.— H. J. R.] 
 
 II Accordins; to Irenjcus, i. 28, he maintained at 
 first the condemnation of the first man, which 
 would harmonize well enougrh with the difTcrcnce 
 we have remarked t)Ctwecn the -[uyjit.i and the 
 cTvai^«T«'-v in the nature of the first man, which 
 latter [i. e. the Tvec/w^Tix-.v] he lost by sin. 
 
 ^ Comp. Clem. Strom, iii. 46.5. C. [Sylb. p. 
 100. Pott. p. 553. Klotz. voL ii. p. 259.] 
 
286 
 
 but this is not a sufficient ground to con- 
 clude with certainty that his system was 
 connected with the Valentinian. Accord- 
 ing to Clement of Alexandria* he be- 
 longed to the class of anti-Jewish Gnos- 
 tics ; he referred the contrast made by St. 
 Paul between the old and the new man to 
 llie relation between the Old and the N ew 
 Testaments; but this also he might express 
 according to the Valentinian Gnosis, 
 which sets by no means an absolute op- 
 position between the two systems of reli- 
 gion. A remark of Tatian, which has 
 been preserved, appears to indicate, that 
 he by no means so entirely detached the 
 Demiurgos, the God of the Old Testa- 
 ment, from connection with the higher 
 world. t The words of Genesis, " Let 
 there be light," he considered (an instance, 
 by the way, of his arbitrary mode of Scrip- 
 tural interpretation) not as the words of a 
 commandment given by the Creator,butas 
 the words of prayer. The Demiurgos, 
 sitting in dark chaos, prays that light may 
 shine down from above. His wild, 
 ascetic turn, however, may have arisen 
 from the following circumstance, namely, 
 that he made a more direct opposition 
 between the creation of the Demiurgos 
 and the higher world, and hence, also, 
 between, the Old and the New Testa- 
 ments, than could find place according to 
 the principles of the Valentinian school ; 
 for that practical opposition to the crea- 
 tion of the Demiurgos was usually found- 
 ed in a theoretical one. Tatian wrote a 
 book on Christian perfection after the 
 example of our Saviour^'l in which he 
 sets forth Christ as the ideal of a single 
 and abstinent life. If in this he kept simply 
 to our canonical Gospels, and used no 
 apocryphal narratives,§ in which the 
 
 • Stromat lib. ill. 460. D. [Sylb. p. 197-8. 
 Potter, p. 548. Klotz, vol. ii. p. 2.59.] 
 
 f TheJot. Di<]a.scal. Anatol. fol. 806. Origeties 
 tie Oratione, c. 24. 
 
 i Ilipt T u x,ir% Tcv a-enDipt Kfrttpria-jucv. 
 
 § We should know more of this matter, if the 
 tj-j-yyiktvi Stt iM-trvpaiv had been preserved. This 
 writing ap[)eare<l to the ancients to be a short har- 
 mony of the four Gospels, Euseb. iv. 29 ; l)ut it is 
 a question whether Tatian did not use, for that 
 work, many apocryphal Gospels at least; as, ac- 
 cording; to the notice of Epiphanius, p. 26, 
 which is, however, very indefinite — this collection 
 appears to have had some similarity to the t'j i.y- 
 yiMv K 6' y.p.fxi'.v: Theodoret found more than 
 two hundred copies of this writing in use in his 
 Syrian diocese, and he found a necessity for send- 
 irig them out of use, because, probably, he found 
 much that was heretical in them. — Theodoret. 
 Haeret. Fab. i. 20. Tatian. 
 
 -ASCETICIS.M. ^JULIUS CASSIANUS. 
 
 picture of Christ had already been drawn 
 after a theosophico-ascetic mode], much 
 must have met him here in such direct 
 opposition, that it might have removed 
 him from this mode of thinking. But 
 we see by an example how Tatian was 
 able, by means of his illogical mode of 
 interpretation, to explain into an accord- 
 ance with his opinions the passages of 
 Scripture the most unfavourable to him. 
 since he could find in the passage in 
 1 Cor. vii. 5, that St. Paul sets marriage and 
 incontinency on the same footing, and 
 calls them both a service of Satan.* As 
 the disposition for such a theosophic asce- 
 ticism was then, having arisen in the east, 
 widely diffused, it cannot surprise us to 
 find that there were different sects of such 
 continentes,\ who had no immediate con- 
 nection with Tatian. 
 
 To these belonged Julius Cassianus, 
 who considered Adam as the symbol of 
 souls sunk down out of a heavenly con- 
 dition into the world of bodies, and he, 
 therefore, made it a chief point that man 
 should detach himself from matter by a 
 strict asceticism, and on that very account 
 also would not allow any appearance of 
 Christ in the world of bodies; he was 
 therefore, one of the Docetce. He may, 
 probably, have been an Mexandrian Jew; 
 his peculiar opinions, his doctrines of the 
 materializalionj of souls and about mat- 
 ter^ and his docetism, which last theory 
 Philo had already applied to the Theo- 
 phanise (appearances of God) of the Old 
 Testament,§ fitted on remarkably well to 
 notions which had long been current 
 among the Alexandrian Jews, and in his 
 
 * St. Paul gives permission in that passage only 
 apparently ; he withdraws again instantly from that 
 which he permits, by saying, that those who fol- 
 low his permission serve two masters. By their 
 mutual abstinence united with pwyer they would 
 serve God ; by the opposite conduct they would 
 serve immodesty, lust, and Satan. — Strom, iii. p. 
 460. (See note to p. 109.) According to Euse- 
 bius iv. 29, he was accused of having made 
 many changes in St. Paul's expressions ; but from 
 the words of Eusebius, tnu^ aurcv /uiT-X'^pta-st.t 
 <^yit 'i'" iTriSr.pBcvjuiviiv oLuTm tdv 'Di: cfp 'erne: avv- 
 T-i^iv, we cannot see plainly whether they were 
 changes in favour of his own doctrinal and ethi- 
 cal princi[iles, or changes from Hebraistic ex- 
 pressions into purer Greek ; and then one is led 
 to inquire whether Tatian really allowed himself 
 to use such licence as a critic (which may have 
 been the case,) or whether he had only difierent 
 readings. 
 
 f'F.j-xftr/Tsu iTTcrtiiTiKU. 
 
 ^ P^inkorperung ; Lit. Embodying, Incorpora- 
 tion. 
 
 § See Philo on Exod. xxiv. 13. Opp. Ed. Mang. 
 t. ii. p. 679, 636. de Abrahamo, 366. Ed. Francof. 
 
ANTINOMIANS. CARPOCRATES. EPIPHANES. 
 
 2S7 
 
 i^rtyrtnxa.* lie endeavoured apparently 
 to introduce these notions into the Old 
 Testament by an allegorizing mode of in- 
 terpretation, an example of wiiich is to 
 be found in his explanation of Gen. iii. 
 21, by applying it to the material bodies 
 in which fallen souls are clothed. 
 
 Such also were the persons who, after 
 a certain Severus, called themselves Seve- 
 riani, of whom we know nothing more 
 than that they rejected tlie epistles of St. 
 Paul and the acts of the AposUes. The 
 first of these circumstances might lead us 
 to suppose that they were derived from 
 the Jewish Christians : but this cannot 
 be considered as a proof, because it is 
 also possible that, instead of taking refuge 
 in forced and arbitrary interpretations, in 
 order to bring the authority of those 
 writings into harmony witli their own 
 principles, they found it an easier plan to 
 throw away those writings entirely and at 
 once.j 
 
 (f.) Eclectic Jlniinomiaa Gnostics; Carpo- 
 crates and EpipUanes, Prodicians, Antitacti, 
 JSicolaitiviis, Simonians. 
 
 As on the one hand, we observe a ten- 
 dency of Gnosis to a strict asceticism^ 
 which opposes itself to Judaism as to a 
 sensuous and carnal religion, — so we re- 
 mark, on the other, that it has also a ten- 
 dency to a wicked antinomianism, which, 
 confusing Christian freedom and unbridled 
 license, set Christianity in opposition not 
 only to the killing letter of a law, whose 
 commands are outwardly, but to the very 
 inward nature of the law itself, and which 
 therefore, contended against Judaism, and 
 witli Judaism also against all moral law, 
 as a thing too limiting for the inward life, 
 and as proceeding from the limited and 
 limiting Demiurgos. This was a misun- 
 derstanding against which St. Paul had 
 given warning, when he developed the 
 doctrine of Christian freedom.^ We re- 
 cognise in this a pantheistic mysticism, 
 which opposed itself under various forms 
 to the popular religions of the East, which 
 had now mingled itself with the doctrines 
 of the Greek philosophers of Alexandria, 
 in consequence of the then intermixture 
 of Oriental and western modes of tliought, 
 and which imagined that in Chrisitianily, 
 as a common religion for all mankind, 
 which destroyed the Jewish exclusiveness, 
 
 and the old popular religions, it could fnul 
 a point on which it might engraft itself. 
 Suck an antinomian Gnosis is shown in 
 the system of Carpocrates and his son 
 Epiphanes. The first probably lived in 
 the reign of tlie emperor Hadrian, at 
 Alexandria, where, at tliat time, there was 
 a religious eclecticism which had struck 
 the emperor himself* Me laid out a sys- 
 tem of religion, whicli was propagated 
 and extended by his son Epiphanes, a 
 young man, who, by the perverse turn of 
 mind given to him by his father, had 
 abused great talents, but who died in the 
 seventeenth year of his age. As Clement 
 of Alexandria says, Carpocrates had busied 
 himself much with tlie Platonic philoso- 
 phy, and had instructed his son in it. 
 The Platonic notions of the pre-existence 
 of souls of higher knowledge, as being the 
 remembrance brought from a former exist- 
 ence in heaven, are prominent parts in 
 
 j this system ; and the originators of this 
 system seem to have appropriated to 
 
 j themselves much out of the Phscdrus of 
 
 j Plato. They made their Gnosis to consist 
 in the recognition of one supreme first 
 existence,! from which all being proceeds, 
 and to which all being strives to return. 
 The finite spirits, which had rule over the 
 individual places of the earth, endeavoured 
 to counteract this universal endeavour 
 after unity; and from their influence, their 
 laws, and their institutions, proceeded 
 every thing which restrains, every thing 
 
 j which destroys and checks, the original 
 and fundamental connection,;]; which is 
 found in nature, considered as the revela- 
 tion of that Supreme Unity. These spirits 
 endeavour to retain unden their subjection 
 those souls, which, having flowed from 
 out of the Supreme Unity are akin to it, 
 but have sunk down into the material 
 woild, and are imprisoned in the body, 
 so as to compel tliem, after death, to enter 
 into new bodies, and to ren(U;r them 
 unable to raise themselves up in freedom 
 to their original source. From these limit- 
 ing spirits of the world proceed all popu- 
 lar religions. But those souU, which by 
 the remembrance they retain of their for- 
 mer higher condition, elevate themselves 
 to the contemplation of that Supreme 
 Unity, attain the true freedom and tran- 
 
 • Clom. Strom, lib. i. 320. [Sylb. p. 138. Pot- 
 ter, p. 378. Klotz, vol. ii. p. 71.] 
 \ Tlieodoret. hseret. fall. i. 21 
 % Galat. V. 13. et alibi. 
 
 • See his Letter to the consul Servianus in Flavii 
 Vopisci Vita Saturnini, c. ii. Illi, qui Serapin 
 colunt, Christiiini sunt ct devoti sunt Serapi, qui 
 se Ckr/sli EpLscupos dicunt. 
 
 -|- Ifencc, comes the phrase^i/aKTc ^cuj/jtH, which 
 occurs ill (element of Alcxiin Iria. 
 
 ^ [Gemeinschaft, communion, common nature.] 
 
288 
 
 quillity, which nothing again can limit or 
 destroy, and such souls raise themselves 
 above the popular gods and popular reli- 
 gions. They considered a Pythagoras, a 
 Plato, and an Aristotle, among the heathen, 
 to belong to this class of men, and Jesus j 
 among the Jews. To him they ascribed 
 only a peculiarly pure and powerful soul, | 
 bv means of which, through reminis-1 
 cences brouglitfrom his former existence, I 
 he raised himself up to the loftiest contem- 1 
 plation, freed himself from the limiting j 
 laws of the Jewish God, and destroyed j 
 the religion which had been established 1 
 hy that God, although he himself was \ 
 brought up in it. By his union with the; 
 fjiova-^ he obtained Divine power, in virtue 
 of which he was able to triumph over the 
 spirits of the world, and the laws which 
 they had imposed on nature, to perform i 
 miracles, and to endure suflerings in un-; 
 disturbed tranquillity. By this divine 
 power he was afterwards enabled in free- 
 dom to raise himself up again to the Su-I 
 preme Unity, beyond the power of the ! 
 spl.^its of the world. Thus this sect put' 
 no difference between Christ and other! 
 sages of all nations ; they taught that ; 
 every other soul also which could elevate 
 itself to the same height of contemplation, 
 was to be put on the same level with 
 Christ. This sect hardly deserved the 
 name of a Christian sect, since they only 
 appropriated to themselves some proposi- 
 tions, taken at their own will and plea- 
 sure, out of Christianity, and then connect- 
 ed them with other ideas totally foreign 
 to them. They preverted, after their 
 own Pantheistic mysticism, the assertions 
 made by St Paul of the nothingness of 
 the merit of works, and about justification, 
 not by works, but by faith; for under the 
 name of faith they understood nothing 
 but that mystical brooding over the ab- 
 sorption of the spirit into the original 
 Unity. It needs only faith and love, they 
 said ; all outward things are indifferent ; 
 he who introduces a moral meaning into 
 outward things, makes himself dependent 
 upon them, and remains subject to the 
 dominion of the spirits of the world, from 
 whom all religious, moral, and political 
 ordinances are derived, he cannot raise 
 himself up after his death, out of the mere 
 circle of Metempsychosis. But he who 
 gives himself up to all kinds of pleasure, 
 without being affected by it, and so des- 
 pises the laws of those spirits of tlie world, 
 he raises himself up to union with the 
 One First Ihin<^^ with whom, being 
 already united here below, he has made 
 
 ABOMINABLE ANTINOMIANISM. 
 
 himself free from all that can limit his 
 nature* Epiphanes wrote a book on 
 righteousness, wherein he carries out the 
 principle, that universal nature reveals a 
 struggle after unity and communion \ and 
 that the laws of men, which are against 
 this law of nature, but which are unable 
 to conquer the desires planted by the 
 Creator himself in tlie heart of man, first 
 produced sin. Thus did he pervert what 
 St. Paul had said of the insufficiency of 
 the law to make man holy, and of its ob- 
 ject, viz. to call forth the consciousness 
 of guilt, in order that, with profligate 
 pride, he might despise the ten command- 
 ments. These sects used to traffic much 
 in magical arts, which they deduced from 
 tlie power of their union with the First 
 One, who is victorious over all the world- 
 spirits ; they worshipped an image of 
 Christ, which was said to have come from 
 Pilate, together with the images of heathen 
 philosophers, who, like Christ, had raised 
 themselves above the popular religion ; 
 and they worshipped it with heathen cere- 
 monies, which latter certainly were not 
 in accordance with the system of Carpo- 
 crates and Epiphanes, but proceeded from 
 the superstition of their followers. At 
 Same, the chief town of the island of Ce- 
 phalonia, in the Ionian sea, from which the 
 maternal ancestors of Epiphanes were 
 sprung, this young man is supposed to 
 have made so great an impression on the 
 multitude, that they erected a temple, a 
 museum, and altars to him, and offered 
 him divine worship. As Clement of 
 Alexandria,^ a writer by no means of 
 great credulity, relates this circumstance, 
 which appears by no means incredible, if 
 we take into account the circumstances 
 of those times, we have no reason to doubt 
 the fact. But, perhaps, it was only some 
 members of this sect, which might have 
 found peculiar success on the island ; who 
 offered this honour to him, as one of the 
 greatest sages.J 
 
 * Iren. i. 25. 
 
 f Strom, ill. 428. [Sylb. p. 183-4. Potter, 
 p. 511. Klotz, vol. ii. p. 214-15.] 
 
 t The spiritof these antinomian, eclectic Gnos- 
 tics, who arbitrarily jumbled together all religions, 
 and all systems of philosophy, in which they could 
 find a point whereon to fix their own sy.stem, as 
 they might do in separate tenets detached from 
 that with which they are connected, is shown in 
 a marked manner in two inscriptions which were 
 found very lately in the territory of Cyrene, and 
 which prove the propagation of this sect to have 
 lasted till the sixth century. They were published 
 and explained by Gescnius in his Christmas thesis, 
 1825, [in dem Weihnachtsprogramn:i.] 
 
PRODICIANS. — NICOLAITANS. 
 
 To these unbridled Jintinomians be- 
 longs the sect of the Antitacti (whose 
 fundamental principle it was to set them- 
 selves in opposition to the Demiurgos, or 
 the God of tiie Jews, who had sown evil, 
 imperfection, and weeds, among the works 
 of the Father of good,*) and the Prodi- 
 cians, the followers of a certain Prodicus. 
 These last maintained that they, as sons 
 of the Supreme God, and as the royal 
 race, were bound to no law', because for 
 the king there was no written law; and 
 hence they were lords of the Sabbath, 
 lords over all ordinances. They appa- 
 rently placed the worship of God only in 
 the inward contemplation of the Divine 
 nature; they rejected praver, and probably 
 all external worship, as fit only for puny 
 spirits, who were still under the dominion 
 of the Demiurgos; and they appealed to 
 apocryphal writings that went under the 
 name of Zoroastcr.'f 
 
 The first of them, in which the sect conceals 
 itself under general expressions, which may, how- 
 ever, be taken in an innocent sense, ascribes the 
 following words to Simon of Cyrene, whom the 
 pseudo-Basilidians, who had the same sentiments, 
 made a subject of their fictions : <pu6 (Hermes 
 Trismegistus, under whose name there exist spu- 
 rious writings containing much Gnosticism,) Kpovo^, 
 Zai^caiTTpiif, Uu^xyo^^c, ETrwjue^o;, M^a^Suivic. (Mas- 
 dek, the founder of a Persian sect in the time of 
 the Emperor Justinian, who appears, like Prodi- 
 cus, to have drawn from apocryphal writings that 
 went under Zoroaster's name. See Gesenius, 1. c. 
 p. 17.) 'laxfwc, X^/3-Tcc T= X.1U ol >i//.m^ct Kcupx- 
 vaucot KiBttynTAt, (with which last Clement 1. c. p. 
 722, also classes Prodicus,) a-vy.'^m'ui^ iv^-iKXaiTiv 
 hutv /AnSiv clKitc7r.ii:T6v, tck J'i v./xoK i^piiyiiv, (f/'Cy 
 nnderatood hy these words, according to //jeir sense 
 of them, the vc^oc ci^-ca^ii?, which is derived from 
 the Supreme, is implanted in nature, and strives 
 after communion and unity, with which (i. e. the 
 ro/uo; ay^jiaoc) the separating and limiting ordi- 
 nances of the Demiurgos, the spirits of the world 
 and of men, are at variance,) km tuv ;rag*yo//jxv Ku.rx- 
 TToXi/uiiv. T:uTi yjf, « TXi SiK^arun; Triiyn (Jwxt:o-wn 
 here has the meaning of the divine natural justice, 
 founded on that v://i? feaoc, on which Epiphancs 
 wrote a treatise,) touto to fAayLi^im: h ic.ivyi (Jw. 
 
 The other inscription, in which the sect comes 
 forward without disguise, is in the following terms : 
 ii TTUs-aiv cixrui^v Kut yvi-Jnnm xi«:T;)? 7ri\yit t«c 6a*c 'utti 
 iiKiwiruvK, tl^xvM n TSXa:£ tci; rcu rvaxcu, o^k<.u iKKtt- 
 TOK iyiAoK uvifAo-n, cJc Zagst/jic ts km ni/Saj-c^xc, 
 Ta)v ti^c<^Avrcev (ftrvA, Kuvri <7vfA^:aniiii (rt/v.fVTo. We 
 cannot, however, exactly maintain more decidedly, 
 that these inscriptions proceed from the sect of 
 Carpocratians, because so many similar sects, as 
 the Prodicians, the pseudo-Basilidians, the Nico- 
 laitans, &c. , had the same principles. 
 
 * To LvTlTX^^iTb-JU. 
 
 f Clem. Strom, i. 304. [Sylb. p. 13 f. Potter, 
 p. 357. Klotz, vol. ii. p. 50;] iii. 438. [Sec Sylb. 
 p. 189, et seq. Potter, p. 526, et seq. Klotz, vol. ii. 
 p. 230.] vii. 722. [Sylb. p. 306-7. Potter, p. 
 854-5 ; Klotz, vol. ii. p. 236.1 
 
 37 
 
 289 
 
 To this family of Gnostics belong also 
 the Nicolaitans, if the existence of any 
 such sect can be proved. Irenaeus, indeed, 
 names such a sect as existing in his time, 
 deducing them from Nicolaus the deacon 
 I mentioned in the Acts, and he believed 
 that he found their portraiture in the 
 , second chapter of the Revelations.* But 
 [ it may be tloubted whetlier Irenajus has 
 really penetrated the meaning of the 
 Revelations in this case, and whether the 
 I name of Nicolaitans is the proper name 
 I of a sect, and still farther, whether it is 
 { the name of a Gnostic sect. The passage 
 relates to such persons as seduced the 
 Christians to partake in the heathen feasts 
 ' at a sacrifice, and the excesses consequent 
 upon them, as the Jews had formerly suf- 
 fered themselves to be seduced by the 
 I Aloabites. (Num. xxv.) The name of 
 Nicolaitans might also be a merely sym- 
 bolical name, as such an usage of it would 
 suit very well with the whole character 
 of the Revelations : " destroyer of the 
 people," " seducer of the people," like 
 Balaam, and thus Nicolaitans might mean 
 Balaamites in this senscj Now it was a 
 favourite idea with Irena;us, that the 
 apostle St. John had actually contended 
 with many different sorts of Gnostics; 
 and he was in the habit of searching for 
 remarks which were meant to oppose the 
 Gnostics, in the writings of St. John. As 
 he found several of those errors, which 
 are blamed in the Revelations, among the 
 Gnostics of his own day, he concluded 
 that the practical errors contended against 
 by the Apostle had also had their founda- 
 tion in a theoretical Gnosticism, and the 
 name induced him to deduce them from 
 the well known Nicolaus. But, in fact, 
 we find in Irena;us only such indefinite 
 expressions in regard to this sect, that it 
 by no means follows necessarily that he 
 wrote from any decided view of them. If 
 we had only the account given by Irenreus, 
 we must acknowledge it as possible that 
 the story of this sect may have arisen 
 solely out of a misunderstanding of the 
 Revelations. Although it might then sur- 
 prise us that Ireneeus, widiout any ex- 
 
 • Irenteus i. 26. This refers to their practical 
 errors: qui indiscrete (uSioip-.pai;) vivunt. — In loc. 
 cit. 11, he speaks of their sfioculative errors, but 
 he does not altogether separate them from other 
 Gnostics, in order to bring forward what is pecu- 
 liar to them. 
 
 f Balaam, that is, v/x'Aasc; according to the 
 etymology which deduces this name from V'^Il 
 and D^- 
 
 2B 
 
290 
 
 NICOLAITANS. glMONIANS. 
 
 ternal evidence to induce him, should have 
 made a man, distinguished by having a 
 public office coni'erred on liim by the 
 apostles, the founder of a heretical sect. 
 But such a mistake could never be laid 
 to the charge of that learned Alexandrian 
 Clement, an unprejudiced man, and one 
 accustomed to historical criticism; and 
 he appeals to facts which could not have 
 been invented. There v\^ere people who 
 had the corrupt principles which we have 
 mentioned before, viz. that man must 
 conquer his desires by giving himself up 
 to them and not allowing himself to be 
 affected by them, and that he must abuse 
 his flesh and annihilate it by its own 
 instrumentality, in order to show his con- 
 tempt for it: their motto was words to 
 this effect, which they ascribed to the 
 deacon Nicolaus.* The same Clement 
 afterwards, in another passage, quotes 
 another trait out of the life of this Nico- 
 iaus, which this sect used in order to 
 justify their own excesses.! The apos- 
 tles, it would seem, had reproached him 
 with his jealousy about his wife, and in 
 order to show how little this reproof 
 would attach to him he brought her for- 
 ward and said, " Let him that will, marry 
 her." But Clement was far from holding 
 JSTicolaus to be the founder of this sect, 
 although the sect itself claimed him. He 
 clears the character of that man of the 
 Apostolic Church, and quotes the tradi- 
 tion, that this Nicolaus lived in unspotted 
 wedlock to the end of his days, and left 
 children, whose conduct was irreproach- 
 able, behind him. We see, therefore, that 
 Irenaeus did not err in sufposlnq the ex- 
 istence of Slick a sect, but only in not 
 examining more carefully its pretences. 
 It was the fashion for such sects, as we 
 have often before remarked, to engraft 
 themselves to some great man or other 
 of antiquity, in tlieir choice of whom they 
 were often guided by accidental circum- 
 stances. Thus the Nicolaitans made Nico- 
 laus, the deacon, their founder, without 
 any fault of his. Clement thought that 
 they had only corrupted liis words and 
 actions in a perverted manner, and he 
 endeavours to explain both one and the 
 other in a more favourable mode; but 
 one is led to inquire whether Clement 
 has viewed it in a sufficiently critical 
 manner. All which is here ascribed to 
 
 * To Jiiv 7rai>n^p»<rci3-Qet: tm a-jfKi, Strom, ii. p. 
 411. 
 
 f Strom, ill. p. 436. 
 
 Nicolaus bears a very apocryphal stamp 
 upon it; and perhaps, that sect had a life 
 of that Nicolaus, in which all this was 
 found, put together by themselves or by 
 others from fictions and unauthentic tra- 
 ditions. If this sect be not the same 
 which was in existence in the apostolic 
 times, a point which cannot be decided 
 with certainty,* the name of the Nico- 
 laitans in the Apocalypse may have in- 
 duced the later sect to name itself after 
 Nicolaus. But as they probably belonged 
 to the party of anti-Judaizers, and there- 
 fore, acknowledge only St. Paul as an 
 apostle, they would also be induced by 
 what they read in the Apocalypse to 
 maintain the antiquity of their sect, as 
 one which the Judaizing St. John had 
 opposed; and the name induced thera 
 naturally to deduce it (i. e. the sect) from 
 that Nicolaus. We have before found 
 instances in which the Gnostics chose 
 for their founders persons who appear in 
 an unfavourable light either in the Old or 
 the New Testament. • 
 
 The Simon ians are also to be mentioned 
 here, an eclectic sect, which it is difficult 
 to bring into any one definite class, be- 
 cause they appear to have attached them- 
 selves, sometimes to heathenism, some- 
 times to Judaism, or to the religious opi- 
 nions of the Samaritans ; and appear to have 
 been sometimes strict ascetics, sometimes 
 wild despisers of all moral laws (the Enty- 
 chites.) Simon Magus was their Christ, 
 or at least a form assumed by the redeem- 
 ing spirit which had appeared also in 
 Christ, whether it was that in their first 
 origin they had^ really proceeded from the 
 party founded *by that Goeta (magician,) 
 mentioned in the Acts, or whether the 
 sect which arose later, merely to please 
 their own fancies, had made Simon Magus, 
 whom the Christians abominated, their 
 CoryphiEus, aiul had forged under his 
 name pretended books relating to the 
 higher wisdom. What some learned men 
 liave supposed, viz. that another Simon, 
 distinct from that old Simon Magus, 
 founded their sect, and that he was con- 
 fused with that older Simon Magus, is too 
 arbitrary a supposition, and is by no means 
 
 * Even supposing that tlie name Nicolaitans 
 in tlic Apocalypse should be really the proper 
 name of a parly founded by a person named 
 Nicolaus, and tliat the mere existence of the name 
 there had given occasion for allusions to Balaam, 
 it would still not be a necessary deduction from 
 these premises that this party which was then in 
 existence was a Gnostic sect. 
 
291 
 
 required for the elucidation of the liisto- 
 rical phenomenon presented to us* 
 
 (g-.) Marcion and his Scliool. 
 
 Marcion forms the most natural close 
 to the series of the Gnostics, because he 
 belongs to the Gnostics only 07i one side-, 
 and, on another, rather forms a contrast to 
 them : he stands on the boundary between 
 
 • This Simon Magus, to whom properly no 
 place belongs among the founders of the Chriaiian 
 sects, has obtained an undeserved importance in 
 the old Church, by being made the father of the 
 Gnostic sects. As the representative of the whole 
 thcosophico-goctic character, in opposition to the 
 simple faith in revelation, he has become in the 
 same manner a mythical personage, and given 
 rise to many fables ; as, for instance, that of his 
 disputation with St. Peter, and his unhappy at- 
 tempt at the art of flying ; and the Ckiitcntine 
 is the place where the fable is most ingeniously 
 conducted. But it was an extraordinary circum- 
 stance that Justin Martyr, in his second apology 
 before the Roman emperor, should appeal to the 
 fact, that there was a statue at Rome to this 
 Simon Magus, on an island in the Tiber, (jv to, 
 Ti^ipt TT'.TJ-fjtu) ui^a^u Tttv /i/3 jf^i/f&v) with the m- 
 scriplion, Simoni Deo Sancto. Although such 
 GoetfE at that time found much acceptance even 
 with the highest classes, yet one can hardly be- 
 lieve that it could have amounted to the erection 
 of such a statue and to a decree of the senate, 
 by which Simon Magus was received into the 
 number of the Dii Romani. We should be 
 obliged to question the correctness of Justin's 
 assertion, even if we were not able to explain the 
 cause of his error. But this seems now to be as- 
 certained, as in the year 1574, at the place desig- 
 nated by Justin Martyr, a stone was dug up, which 
 seemed to have been the pedestal of a statue, and 
 it bore the inscription, " Semoni Sanco Deo Fidio 
 Sacrum." Now certainly this statue was not 
 erected by the Roman senate or emperor, but by 
 one Sextus Pompeius; but Justin, full of the his- 
 tories then current about Simon Magus, over- 
 looked this, and confused the Scmo Sancus (a 
 Sabine Roman deity, which might have remained 
 unknown to Justin, well acquainted with the 
 Greek, but not with the Roman mythology,) with 
 Simo Sanctus, especially as in the surname of that 
 deity Sanctus was sometimes written instead of 
 Sancus. Tertullian, indeed, as better acquainted 
 with the Roman antiquities, might have been able 
 to form a better judgment on the matter, but in 
 such cases he was too prejudiced, and too little 
 inclined to the critical art, to investigate any far- 
 ther an account which was to his own taste, and 
 came also from a man of reputation. The more 
 critical Alexandrians do not mention the circum- 
 stance, and Origen, lib. i. contr. Cels. c. 57, by say- 
 ing that the name of Simon Magus was known 
 beyond Palestine only to the Christians, who 
 knew him from the Acts of the Apostles, seems 
 himself to stamp the story of a statue erected to 
 him at Rome as a fiction. The Samaritan Goetaj 
 and founders of sects, DosUheu.i and Mcntmder, 
 (who is made out to be a disciple of Simon 
 Magus,) are even less deserving still of any par- 
 ticular mention in a history of Christian sects. 
 
 the Gnostic turn of mind, where specula- 
 tion was the prevailing characteristic, and 
 a character of mind tlioroughly opposed 
 to speculative Gnosticism. Christian feel- 
 ing is far more appealed to by him than 
 by other Gnostics, because his whole being 
 was far more deeply rooted in Chris- 
 tianity, because Christian feeling was the 
 keynote of his whole inward life, and his 
 whole religious and theological character, 
 wliile among the rest of the Gnostics this 
 (although sometimes the prevailing turn 
 of mind,) formed only one of the dispo- 
 sitions belonging to them, and was inter- 
 mixed with much of a diflerent character. 
 It is instructive to mark how an endea- 
 vour, which proceeded from the very 
 depths of Christianity, could receive aix 
 unchristian turn by means of a gross 
 partiality ; it is a warning and a startling 
 circumstance to see a man, whose errors 
 themselves were connected with a spirit 
 of love, only that it was a mistaken spirit, 
 and a man, to witom the Christ who filled 
 his heart was one and all, misunderstood 
 and called a heretic by most of the Chris- 
 tians of his own day, because they were 
 unable to understand /;/smode of concep- 
 tion, and indeed, chiefly by those who 
 might have dwelt iu the most intimate 
 communion with him, in virtue of that 
 which they bore within their hearts, if 
 any other mode of communication had 
 existed besides those of words and de- 
 finite ideas, (begrifl":) any other mode 
 than that which is only a dim reflec- 
 tion of the inward life, — a source of so 
 many misunderstandings and mutual mis- 
 takes among men, which would be re- 
 moved if one man could read the inward 
 life and conscience of another! What 
 Marcion had in common with the Gnos- 
 tics, and particularly in common with the 
 Gnostics of this class, was partly the dis- 
 tinction which he made between the God 
 of nature and of the Old Testament, and 
 the God of tlie Gospel, and the distinction 
 between the Divine and the human gen- 
 erally, as well as many speculative ele- 
 ments, which he connected with his sys- 
 tem of religion. And yet he had evidently 
 arrived at tliat which he had in common 
 with them by an entirely diflerent road. 
 It was in Clirist that he first found his 
 God ; and that glory of God which had 
 revealed itself to him in Christ, he was 
 never able to find again in nature and in 
 history. The spenilative elements, which 
 he borrowed from other Gnostics, were 
 to him only neces.sary aids to fill up the 
 gaps which his system, being founded on 
 
MARCION NO PRESUMPTUOUS CHRISTIAN. 
 
 292 
 
 an entirely different and a ivholly practical 
 plan, would necessarily have. It was 
 evidently not his intention, like that of 
 other Gnostics, that Christianity should 
 be completed by means of the speculative 
 conclusions of other doctrinal systems, 
 but he wished originally only to restore 
 again to its purity Cliristianity, which 
 had, in his opinion, been adulterated by 
 admixtures foreign to its nature. The 
 partial point of view, from which he set 
 out with this disposition, was the occa- 
 sion of most of his errors. 
 
 He did not make a secret doctrine the 
 source of the knowledge of this genuine 
 Christianity ; but he would not suffer 
 himself to be bound by a general Church 
 tradition., because, in his opinion, foreign 
 matter had already mixed itself in such 
 a tradition with pure Apostolic Chris- 
 tianity. As a genuine Protestant (if we 
 may transfer to an ancient day this appel- 
 lation which arose, indeed, later, but de- 
 noted a genuine primitive Christian turn 
 of mind,) he wished to consider the word 
 of Christ and of his genuine disciples 
 [i. e. original apostles, Tr.] the only 
 valid source of a knowledge of the true 
 Gospel. He certainly, instead of recog- 
 nising the many-sidedness of Christianity 
 from the variety of the instruments se- 
 lected for its propagation, allowed him- 
 self to make an arbitrary division between 
 them, founded on a one-sided view. His 
 endeavour to tind the genuine documents 
 of pure original Christianity, led him into 
 historical and critical investigations, which 
 were far removed from the contemplative 
 disposition of the other Gnostics. But 
 he gives us here a warning example, how 
 such inquiries, as soon as they are swayed 
 by the preconceived doctrinal opinions, 
 in which the tlioughts are fettered, must 
 lead to unhappy results, and how easily 
 an arbitrary hypercriticism is formed in 
 opposition to an uncritical credulity ; how 
 easily, in short, man, in struggling against 
 one class of doctrinal prejudices, falls into 
 another. 
 
 The other Gnostics united a mystical 
 allegorizing interpretation of Scripture 
 with their theosophic idealism. The 
 single hearted Marcion was a zealous 
 enemy of this artificial mode of interpre- 
 tation. He was, on the contrary, a warm 
 adherent of the literal interpretation 
 which was in vogue among the opponents 
 of the Gnostics ; and it was shown in his 
 case, how even this mode of interpreta- 
 tion, if it is not combined with other her- 
 meneutic principles, and if it is carried 
 
 to the extreme, must lead to arbitrary 
 results. 
 
 The opposition between Trurrn; and 
 yvua-ti, between an exoteric and an eso- 
 teric Christianity, belonged to the essential 
 attributes of the other Gnostic systems ; 
 but it was impossible that such an oppo- 
 sition could be recognised by Marcion, 
 whose attachment was chiefly to the 
 practical St. Paul. With him vis-tk; was 
 the common source of Divine life for all 
 Christians ; he knew nothing higher than 
 the illumination which all Christians 
 ought to have ; that which he recognised 
 as true Christianity was to be known and 
 recognised as such by all who were gene- 
 rally capable of receiving Christianity ; 
 and the only difference he could make 
 was that between mature Christians, and 
 those who still needed farther instruction 
 in Christianity (i. e. Catechumens.) This 
 characteristic of Marcion's doctrine, so 
 wholly unlike the usual spirit of Gnos- 
 ticism, leads us to conclude that it re- 
 ceived its development also in a wholly 
 different mode. But, alas, we have no 
 authentic accounts of the life of Marcion, 
 so as to enable us to inquire into that 
 point satisfactorily. Many gaps in that 
 life can only be filled up by conjecture. 
 
 He was born in Pontus in the first half 
 of the second century. If the account 
 of Epiphanius is founded in fact, his 
 father was bishop of that Church; but 
 even then, if it be true, it is still most 
 probable that he was elected to that office 
 when Marcion was already a youth or 
 arrived at the age of manhood ; for it is 
 most probable, if we may judge from the 
 development of his system, that Marcion 
 lived the early part of his life as a Hea- 
 then, and afterwards turned to Christianity 
 from the free impulse of his own heart. 
 Like many others, he felt himself, in the 
 first glow of faith and love, impelled to 
 renounce every thing earthly ; he bestowed 
 his goods or a part of them on the Church, 
 and began to live* as a continens or iax»)T»)?f 
 in strict self-denial. His contempt of na- 
 ture, which was at first only of a j)ractical 
 and ascetic kind, proceeding from a falsely 
 conceived opposition between the natural 
 
 * Pecuniam inpriinocalore fidei Ecclesia; con- 
 tulit. TertuU. adv. Marcion. lib. iv. c. 4. When 
 Epiphanius calls Marcion a fj.'jVJ.^u>v, he is only 
 making a confusion between the circumstances of 
 his own and' of earlier times ; and by the word 
 ^cva^^av we must understand an do-*))T«,-. Ephraem 
 Syrus, blames Marcion for acquiring a delusive re- 
 putation through his asceticism. 0pp. Ed. Lat. 
 Sermo i. p. 438, and seq. 
 
 f See above. 
 
MARCION S ENMITY TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 and the Divine, might now, under a va- 
 riety of dilTerent influences, lead a man 
 of a soul so impetuous in its apprehen- 
 sions and so abrupt in its determinations 
 as his, to a theoretically conceived sepa- 
 ration between the God of nature and the 
 God of the Gospel. Nature appeared so 
 cold and stiff to his heart, filled and 
 glowing widi the image of the God of 
 love and mercy, as he appeared in Christ. 
 He was, doubtless, right in the belief 
 that the contemplation of nature cannot 
 lead to the knowledge of that Father of 
 love and mercy; he was right in his 
 opposition against the Deist, who sets the 
 preaching of nature on the same level 
 with that of the Gospel, and who finds in 
 nature alone and by itself a temple of 
 eternal love ; but Marcion was always 
 inclined to push matters to the extreme. 
 Even in history, Marcion, full of the 
 glory of the Gospel, thought that he could 
 find no trace of the God who had revealed 
 himself to him there, (i. e. in the Gospel ;) 
 he, like many other zealous Christians, 
 ■would look back into the heathen vvorld 
 only with horror, and it appeared to him 
 notliing hut the kingdom of Satan; but even 
 in the Old Testament he could not find 
 again his God and his Christ; his fiery and 
 impatient spirit, which was too deficient 
 in calmness and reflection, to be able pro- 
 perly to investigate the relation between 
 the Old and New Testament, was now at 
 once struck with the contrast between 
 the two forms of religion. He had no 
 notion of a gradual (literally pa?dagogical) 
 development of the Divine revelation, 
 and Judaism appeared to him too carnal 
 to have proceeded from the same source 
 as the spiritual religion of Christianity : 
 and he believed that that same God of 
 love, of mercy, and compassion, whom 
 he knew from the Gospel, was not to be 
 recognised here, (i. e. in the Old Testa- 
 ment.) It is easy to see that (after this 
 nolion of the contrast between the Old 
 and the New Testament had once be- 
 come the prevailing idea in his soul,) if 
 he, standing in this position, considered 
 the Old Testament, he would be able to 
 find many points on which he could rest 
 this opinion. We must add also, that, ac- 
 cording to his principles of a thoroughly 
 literal interpretation of the Bible, he be- 
 lieved that all the anthropomorphical and 
 anthropopathical expressions of the Old 
 Testament must be maintained to the 
 very letter, without distinguishing the 
 idea from the dress in which it is clothed. 
 A man of Marcion's character would 
 
 293 
 
 naturally be induced by opposition only 
 to develope himself more strikingly in his 
 partial views, and to harden himself in 
 them. In reality he had to contend with 
 such an opposition, and this contention 
 had, no doubt, a remarkable influence on 
 the formation of his religious and doc- 
 trinal views. There was, in existence, to 
 say the truth, at that time, particularly in 
 A^ia Minor, a false turn of mind, which 
 interpreted the Old Testament without 
 sufficient spirituality, which did not suf- 
 ficiently distinguish between the different 
 positions taken in the two dispensations, 
 and which in many doctrines (as, for 
 example, the doctrine of Christ's king- 
 dom, the idea of a millcnarian kingdom,) 
 mixed up a carnal Judaism with Chris- 
 tianity. This disposition he combated 
 with violent zeal, and blamed, not wholly 
 without foundation, those who were its 
 slaves with adulterating the Gospel, and 
 hence there might easily arise in his mind 
 a suspicion of the genuineness of the 
 whole traditional system of the Church, 
 {■irapocSoat^,) and of the Biblical documents 
 which he had received from that tradition; 
 and hence, also, he may have been in- 
 duced to endeavour, by his own inquiries, 
 to form for himself a Christianity, puri- 
 fied from all that was foreign to its na- 
 ture. His contention with this too Jewish 
 disposition then drove him also constandy 
 to conceive the contrast between the Old 
 and the New Testament more and more 
 sharply, and in many things to suppose 
 unjustly that Christianity had been adul- 
 terated by Judaism. This enmity of his 
 towards the Old Testament, and many of 
 his opinions connected with it, were, pro- 
 bably, the cause of his being excommu- 
 nicated at Sinopc. On this he travelled 
 to Rome, witli a view of seeking whether 
 he could not, in the Church of the me- 
 tropolis of the world, discover friends to 
 his opinions, which, he was fully per- 
 suaded, were the principles of genuine 
 Christianity ; and the numl)cr of anti- 
 Jewish feelings then prevailing in the 
 Roman Church* migiit give him hopes of 
 success. If the account of Epiphanius 
 is to be relied on, JMarcion must have 
 inquired of the Roman clergy hov/ tlicy 
 explained the passage in iMatt. ix. 17, in 
 order to elicit from their own mouth the 
 avowal dial the new wine of Christianity 
 cannot be poured into the old botdes 
 of Judaism widiout destroying them. 
 But in Rome also his Dualism in the 
 
 See in the history of the Cultus, p. 300. 
 2b2 
 
294 
 
 MARCION AT ROME. 
 
 doctrine of the revelation of God could 
 meet with notliing but contradiction, be- 
 cause the acknowledgment of the one 
 same God and of the one same Revela- 
 tion in the Old and in the New Testa- 
 ment was a portion of the Catholic doc- 
 trine of the Church. Rejected here also 
 by the Church, he was driven into form- 
 ing his anti-Church dispositions into a 
 firm determinate system, and founding an 
 independent community. Up to this time 
 his system had been only founded on 
 practical considerations : the conviction 
 that Christianity had appeared in human 
 nature as something wholly new, unex- 
 pected, and unforeseen ; that it had com- 
 municated to human nature a Divine life, 
 to which there had hitherto been nothing 
 akin in man; that the God, who appeared 
 in Christ, had never before revealed him- 
 self, either by nature, by reason, or by the 
 Old Testament, and that nothing bore 
 witness to him, nothing was his work but 
 Christianity; — this was the conviction 
 from which Marcion set out. (Ft may be 
 a question, whether he had at that lime 
 carried out his system farther than this.) 
 But these persuasions, proceeding from 
 his inward Christian life, must have led 
 a thinking man to many inquiries which 
 he could not answer. A Gnostic system 
 would be able to fill up these gaps in his 
 doctrinal views : he might there learn to 
 acknowledge a Demiurgos, different from 
 the perfect God, as the God of nature and 
 of the Old Testament; and a contempt 
 lor nature, and a hatred towards matter, 
 as the source of evil, would correspond 
 to his ascetic dispositions. The Syrimi 
 Gnosis, which, as we have remarked, 
 maintained these points very definitely, 
 would naturally suit him exactly. And 
 thus it happened that he joined himself 
 to one Cerdo, a teacher of this Gnosis, 
 who came from Antiochia, and he bor- 
 rowed from him the principles needed 
 for the completion of his dogmatical 
 t;yst.eixi. 
 
 The very nature of Marcion's opinions 
 necessarily implied that he would labour 
 for the propagation of his princii)les Avith 
 more zeal and activity than other Gnos- 
 tics ; for, while others believed that they 
 could impart their higlier knowledge only 
 to a small portion of Christian.*, to the 
 spiritual, Marcion, on the contrary, was 
 persuaded that his was no other than the 
 original Cliristian doctrine, which ought 
 to belong to all mankind ; and he would, 
 therefore, feel himself impelled to com- 
 municate to 'all Christians the light of 
 
 truth which had been imparted to him. 
 He, therefore, made several voyages ; he 
 spent his life in many struggles both with 
 Heathens and with Christians ; to be hated 
 and to suffer he considered as the destina- 
 tion of Christians. " My fellows in being 
 hated, my fellow-sufferers," ((ry/*/*i£rot;jixE>ot 
 KCii ffvyrct\a.iiTu^oi,) was liis usual address 
 to his disciples.* Perhaps, he was at 
 Rome, when Polycarp, the aged bishop of 
 Smyrna, visited Anicetus, bishop ofRome.f 
 Marcion, who, in his youth, apparently 
 had lived on terms of friendly inter- 
 course with the former, and saw him 
 again now after a long lapse of years, 
 went up to him and addressed him thus, 
 " Dost thou remember me, Polycarp .'" 
 But this old man, otherwise so fidl of 
 charity, refused to receive none but the 
 enemies of the Gospel into his kindly 
 affections ; and such Marcion appeared to 
 him, for he was unable to recognise in 
 him the Christian character, which was 
 in fact the very foundation of his errors. 
 He answered him, therefore, " Yes ; I 
 know the first-born of Satan !" Tertul- 
 lianj relates that Marcion at length testi- 
 fied his regret at the schism which had 
 arisen in the Church ; that he had prayed 
 to be again received into the communion 
 of the Church, and that this prayer had 
 been granted, on the condition that he 
 should bring back to the Church those 
 who had been seduced away by him, a 
 condition which his too early death pre- 
 vented him from fulfilling. It must be 
 avowed that we cannot implicitly trust 
 this account, nor are we able to say 
 whether there be any foundation for it in 
 truth ; nor even in that case, what founda- 
 tion there is. Since with Marcion every 
 thing proceeded from the heart, it might 
 easily happen that while he sighed after 
 Christian communion and perceived the 
 evil consequences of schisms, he should 
 at last be softened as his age increased, 
 and should seek again to attain peace with 
 the majority of Christians. 
 
 It still remains for us to consider some- 
 what more closely the system formed by 
 an union between the practical disposi- 
 tion of Marcion, and the Gnostic princi- 
 ples of Cerdo. In its fundamental prin- 
 ciples this system harmonized with the 
 other Gnostic systems of this second 
 class, only with the distinction, that it 
 was always made pre-eminently clear, 
 that he conceived every thing jnore from 
 
 • TertuUian, c. M. iv. 36. iv. 9. 
 
 •J- See above ; t Prtescript. c. 30. 
 
JUSTICE AND HOLINESS CONTRASTED. 
 
 a practical than from a speculative point 
 of view, and that he was not so deeply- 
 interested inwliat was merely speculative. 
 He assumed three fundamental princi- 
 ples : — 
 
 1. A iA»!, which had existed from all 
 eternity. 
 
 2. The perfect^ almighty , holy God; 
 the God who is Eternal Love, the Good, 
 «7«99j, who alone is to he called God 
 in any proper sense ; who, in virtue of 
 his holy essence, cannot come into any 
 contact whatever with matter ; who forms 
 only through communication of himself 
 a lite akin to himself, and does not act on 
 that which is without. 
 
 3. The Deminrgos, a subordinate Be- 
 ing, of limited power, standing between 
 good and evil, who is named a God only 
 in an improper sense (as the name of God 
 is transferred also to other beings, Ps. 
 Ixii.,)* who is in avowed enmity with 
 matter, and endeavours to bring it into 
 subjection to himself, and to form it, but 
 is never able wholly to subdue its oppo- 
 sition.! The ungodly Being of matter, 
 ■which resists all fashioning and forming, 
 is the source of all evil; and this ungodly 
 Being, concentrated in that power of blind 
 impulse which is associated with matter, 
 is Satan. The distinction he draws be- 
 tween true moral perfection, which con- 
 sists in holiness and love, whose essence 
 it is only to impart itself, only to bless, to 
 make happy, to redeem — and bare right- 
 eousness, justice, or uprightness, which 
 weighs every one according to merit — 
 rewards and punishes, recompenses good 
 with good, and evil with evil, and which 
 brings forth only outward propriety of 
 conduct, — this was the fundamental prac- 
 tical notion, on which all Marcion's other 
 notions rested. Whilst some;}; formed to 
 themselves assuredly too gross anthropo- 
 patliical representations of tlie retributive 
 justice of God, which could not well be 
 reconciled with the idea of a God, who is 
 Love. JMarcion, in combating these re- 
 presentations, (as he was generally, from 
 his impetuous and rugged nature, inclined, 
 in controversy, to carry matters to the 
 utmost extremity,) made out an absolute 
 contradiction between justice and holi- 
 ness, so that it was impossible, in his 
 opinion, that both attributes should exist 
 side by side in the same being. It must 
 
 • 01cm, Strom, lib. iii. p. 425. Tertull, c. M. 
 lib. i.e. 7—15. 
 
 f Ephr. Svr. Oral. 14, p. 463, D. 
 i See Part I. 
 
 295 
 
 be confessed, that while he opposed jtis- 
 fice to holiness^ and under the former 
 name collected together all the marks 
 which he believed that he could find in 
 the Old Testament (when interpreted and 
 considered in his own prejudiced views,) 
 as characteristic of the Demiurgos, he 
 made to himself a conception of justice, 
 which was by no means consistent or 
 tenable ; intimate consistency, with him, 
 always depended more on the heart than 
 on abstract conceptions. 
 
 As far as our present means of informa- 
 tion extend, the mode in which Marcion 
 considered the relation of the Demiurgos 
 to the perfect God, in reference to the ori- 
 gin of the latter, appears very indefinite. 
 As we find elsewhere, among the Gnos- 
 tics, nothing but Dualistic systems, and 
 none in which three principles, wholly 
 independent on each other as to their 
 origin., were acknowledged, it seems most 
 natural to look on the matter in the fol- 
 lowing light, viz : that Marcion also de- 
 duced the origin of the imperfect Demi- 
 urgos, according to a certain line of de- 
 velopment, from the perfect God — and 
 certainly it is the notion which comes 
 most readily into the human mind, to 
 deduce that which is imperfect from that 
 which is perfect. There is nothing to 
 contradict this supposition ; for, even if 
 we grant that no passage is found in an- 
 cient authors, from which it can strictly be 
 proved that Marcion derived the origin of 
 the Demiurgos from the Supreme God,* 
 yet, at any rate, there is no passage, in 
 any writer worthy of credit, on such a 
 point, from which the contrary can be 
 proved. We can only say, that the in- 
 definiteness in the accounts of ancient 
 writers arises from the circumstance that 
 Marcion, interested only in the practical 
 view of tliese subjects, has not declared 
 himself with sufficient definiteness, in a 
 speculative point of view, on the relation 
 of the Demiurgos to the Supreme God. 
 
 The point, then, which Marcion deemed 
 of practical importance, was to maintain 
 the doctrine of a wholly new creation, 
 by means of Christianity, and to cut in 
 sunder that thread, by wliich Christianity 
 might be connected with the world, as it 
 was in its earlier condition. The Demi- 
 urgos, therefore, of Marcion, did not act 
 in obedience to more lofty ideas, to whifli 
 he was subservient, .as an instrument, 
 
 * And yet one of the Fathers, RhoJon aji. 
 Euseb. V. 13, says that Marcion acknowledged 
 only Suo dpx*^' 
 
296 
 
 although unconsciously, or even against 
 his own will, bat he was an entirely in- 
 dependent, self-existent, Creator of an 
 imperfect world, which corresponded to 
 his own limited nature. On this account 
 Marcion did not assume, with the other 
 Gnostics, that to man, as the image of the 
 Demiurgos, a still higher principle of life 
 was imparted by the Supreme God ; but 
 he recognised in the whole nature of man, 
 as a work of the Demiurgos, only such 
 elements as could proceed from such a 
 Creator. The Demiurgos created man, 
 as the highest work of his creation, after 
 his own image, to represent and to reveal 
 it. The body of man he formed out of 
 matter, whence its evil desires ; to this 
 body he imparted, out of his being, a soul 
 akin to himself. He gave him a law, in 
 order to prove his obedience, and to re- 
 Avard or to punish him according to his 
 desert. But the limited Demiurgos could 
 never have imparted to man a Divine 
 principle of life, capable of triumphing 
 over evil. Man yielded to the temptations 
 of sensual pleasure, and thereby was sub- 
 jected, with his whole race, to the do- 
 minion of matter, and the evil spirits, 
 Avhich were its offspring. Out of the 
 whole race of degraded man, the Demi- 
 urgos chose only one people for his own 
 especial guidance. He revealed himself 
 peculiarly to this people, the Jews, and 
 gave them a religious code, consisting — 
 as it corresponded to his own nature and 
 character — on the one hand of a ceremo- 
 nial religion, which busied itself only in 
 externals, and on the other of a positive 
 (literally, commanding,) imperfect mo- 
 rality, without an inward Divine life, 
 without any power to produce a true in- 
 ward sanctification, without the spirit of 
 love. He rewarded those who faithfully 
 observed this law, with a happy condi- 
 tion after death, adapted to their limited 
 nature, in company with their pious fore- 
 fathers.* 
 
 The Demiurgos was not powerful enough 
 to make his people the ruling nation, and 
 to extend his dominion over the whole 
 earth : but he promised to those who 
 were devoted to him, a Redeemer, a Mes- 
 siah, through whom he would at last ob- 
 tain this object in a contention with the 
 hostile powers of the t-Xjj, and through 
 \fhom he would gather together the scat- 
 tered Jews, exercise a severe judgment 
 
 CHRISTOLOGY REDEMPTION. 
 
 * Apud inferos in sinu Abrahami. Tertull. c. 
 M. lib. iii. c. 24. Clom. Strom, lib. v. f. 546. 
 [Sylb. 233. Potter, 645. Klotz, vol. iii. p. 4.] 
 
 over the heathen and sinners, and lead 
 his people to an undisturbed enjoyment 
 of all earthly happiness, in a kingdom that 
 should rule over the whole earth. But 
 the perfect God, whose nature is compas- 
 sion and love, could not allow this severe 
 sentence, upon men who were overcome 
 by their own weakness, to take effect. It 
 is consistent with his character not to look 
 to merit, like the Demiurgos, but out of 
 free love to take care of those who are 
 altogether alien to him, of the lost ; and 
 not to begin with proposing a law, on the 
 observance or nonobservance of which 
 the fate of man should depend, but to re- 
 veal and impart himself, as the source of 
 all holiness and blessedness, to those who 
 are but willing to receive him. The ap- 
 pearance of Christ was the self-revelation* 
 of the Supreme God hitherto wholly hid- 
 den from this lower creation. Perhaps, 
 before Marcion became a Gnostic, he had, 
 in his own country, embraced that form 
 of the so-called Patripassianism'\ which 
 was current in Asia Minor, which main- 
 tained that the same Divine subject was 
 betokened by different names only as 
 spoken of under different relations ; as 
 the Father, when spoken of as hidden, — 
 as the Son, or the Logos, when self-re- 
 vealing; and that it was only this self- 
 revealing God who had united himself 
 with a human body. At all events this 
 view was the most suited to the system 
 and the mind of Marcion. It was a wel- 
 come thing to him, to remove the distinc- 
 tion which the Church doctrine acknow- 
 ledged between Christ and the Supreme 
 Being ; he was thoroughly imbued with 
 the conviction, that Christ and Chris- 
 tianity are nothing but a communication 
 of the Supreme God himself to man in his 
 limited condition. (It is well to remark, 
 generally, that among the Palripassians 
 the practical view of Christianity was es- 
 pecially the predominant one.) As now 
 Marcion, in tlie character of a Patripas- 
 sian, would admit of no perfect human 
 personality in Christ, it was the more easy 
 for Docetism to insinuate itself into his 
 views. This Docetism was not only 
 founded in his view of matter, but it was 
 thoroughly suited to the whole nature and 
 spirit of his dogmatic views in every re- 
 spect. Christianity, according to him, 
 was to appear as a fragmentary, thing. 
 
 * Tertullian, c. M. lib. i. c. 11. 
 
 f Of which we shall speak, more at large in our 
 section relative to the formation of the Church 
 doctrines. 
 
DOCETISM. — THE PASSION. 
 
 entirely witliout preparations for it, and 
 not to be attached to any thing else ; as 
 Tertuilian excellently said, with Marcion 
 every thing is to be suddcii. His gospel, 
 therefore, began with the journey of 
 Christ to Capernaum in the fifteenth year 
 of tlie reign of 1'iberius ; and his sudden 
 appearance as a teacher.* 
 
 According also to the theory of Mar- 
 cion, Jesus was not the Messiah promised 
 by the Demiurgos through the prophets, 
 as many of the tokens of the Messiah 
 contained in them are wanting in him 5 
 and, on the contrary, tliat which is pecu- 
 liar in his character, and in his operations, 
 is by no means to be found among tlie 
 Messianic traits delivered to us in the 
 prophets. Marcion endeavoured to go 
 through with the contrast between Christ, 
 as tlie history of the Gospel represents 
 him, and the Christ of the Old Testa- 
 ment : even in this we see how deeply the 
 image of Christ had stamped itself upon 
 his warm heart; but even that very cir- 
 cumstance rendered him unjust, by lead- 
 ing him to expect that the foretype, 
 which was given to the prophetic view 
 under a veil, which was to be for a time, 
 should fully equal the reality that ap- 
 peared. It was then to be considered 
 only as an accommodation^ when Jesus 
 called himself the Messiah, in order to 
 find a point by which the Jews might 
 unite themselves to him ; to win their 
 confidence through a form which was 
 familiar to them, and then to insinuate 
 the higher things into this form.f It was 
 natural enough that Christ, who pre- 
 supposed only a sense of the needful- 
 ness of that which had hitherto been 
 wanting to man, a feeling of the need 
 in Avhich man stands of help and re- 
 demption, and recjuired only an accept- 
 ance, in childlike faith, of the divine 
 source of life wliich he communicated to 
 man; it was natural, according to these 
 views, that he should find no acceptance 
 with the self-righteous servants of the 
 Demiurgos, self-contented in their own 
 limited nature, and should find a more 
 ready entrance into the hearts of the hea- 
 then, who had abandoned themselves to 
 the feeling of their misery. The Demi- 
 urgos would of course necessarily attack 
 him, as one that wished to destroy his 
 kingdom, under the pretence of being the 
 Messiah promised by him. He wished to 
 
 • Tcrtull. iv. 17. 
 
 •f- Ut per solonnc apud eos et familiare nomen 
 irrcperet in Judaeorum fidem, c. iii. 15. 
 
 38 
 
 297 
 
 bring about his death through the Jews, 
 who were devoted to him, [i. e. the Devil- 
 tirgos^ Tr.] but he could etl'ect nothing 
 against the surpassing power of the Su- 
 preme God. The passion of Christ would 
 serve only for the fulfilment of his [i. e. 
 Marcioii'^s, Tr.j benevolent designs, in 
 respect to human nature: the heart of 
 Marcion must have been interested in a 
 love, that suflered, and obtained the vic- 
 tory through suflering; in him, whom 
 alone he acknowledged as our apostle, he 
 found a great deal about the sufferings of 
 Christ for human nature, — and yet this 
 did not well consist with his Docetism. 
 Marcion appropriated to himself the doc- 
 trine which already existed in the tradition 
 of the Church about the descent of Christ 
 into the world below ;* but one is inclined 
 to inquire whether he can have taken a 
 doctrine on the mere authority of the tra- 
 dition of the Church ; and it will surely 
 prove to be the case, that he has been 
 willing to overlook that which would not 
 otherwise be satisfactory to him in this 
 authority, for the sake of its value in a 
 dogmatical point of view, because its doc- 
 trine suited so \yell with his whole sys- 
 tem. This doctrine is, indeed, distinctly 
 proclaimed in the first epistle of St. Peter; 
 but with the ultra-Pauline Marcion, St. 
 Peter was no genuine apostle. Still, he 
 might think, perhaps, that he found this 
 doctrine in an epistle of St. Paul himself, 
 namely, in Ephes. iv. 9. Other Gnostics 
 gave it a diflijrent application, because 
 with them this earth itself was tlie lower 
 world [unterwelt, under-world] into which 
 Christ descended, in order to set free the 
 captives. Marcion understood the ex- 
 pression, lower world, in the sense given 
 to it by the Church doctrine, namely, the 
 general abode of departed spirits. Only 
 he did not receive the common opinion, 
 that Christ descended, in order to place 
 the saints of the Old Testament in con- 
 nection with himself. These were, like 
 the Jews on earth, incapal)le of enjoying 
 the blessings of a redeeming, eternal love, 
 in consequence of their self-righteous- 
 ness, and tlie enjoyment of a happiness 
 which satisiied their limited nature. But 
 Marcion, the friend of tlie heathen, could 
 never have adopted the notion, that so 
 many heathens who had died previously 
 should be given up to the power of the 
 Demiurgos, and be excluded from the 
 benefits of redemption; Christ, therefore, 
 descended below, in order to preach the 
 
 • The Descensus Christi ad inferos. 
 
298 
 
 Gospel to the heathen, who were dead, 
 and to bless them.* 
 
 It would seem, although it cannot be 
 decided upon with absolute certainty, that 
 Marcion taught that the Messianic pro- 
 phecies of the Old Testament would still 
 be fulfilled with reference to the believers 
 in the Demiurgos. The Messiah pro- 
 mised by the Demiurgos was to appear, 
 and would execute a severe penal sen- 
 tence against those who were not freed 
 from his power by faith in the higher 
 Christ, would raise up the dead saints of 
 the Old Testament, and unite all in a 
 millennial reign of earthly happiness. 
 The eternal heavenly kingdom^ to which 
 Christians belonged, would then form the 
 proper contrast to the transitory earthly 
 kingdom. The souls of the Christians 
 would lay aside their gross bodies, as the 
 chicken raises itself out of the egg, as the 
 kernel throws away the shell, or leaves 
 the outer covering in the earth, and raises 
 itself up free into the light of day ; as the 
 ripe fruit falls away from the stalk.f 
 
 A doctrinal system like that of Mar- 
 cion, in which the contrast between the 
 Law and the Gospel was thus declared, 
 could be followed only by a holy, moral 
 system; for he made out the difference 
 between the two to consist in this, that 
 the first (the law,) could communicate to 
 man no true inward sanctification, no 
 power for victory over evil ; but the 
 second (the Gospel,) brought man, through 
 faith, into connection with a divine source 
 of life; which connection would neces- 
 sarily reveal itself through the conquest 
 of evil, and through the sanctification of 
 the life. Even the most zealous oppo- 
 nents of Marcion, who were glad to rake 
 together all the evil they could possibly 
 accuse him of, and who did not recognise 
 the essential difference between tlie sys- 
 tem of Marcion and all other Gnostic 
 systems, could not deny that the Mar- 
 cionites were entirely distinguished by 
 their conduct from those Gnostic antino- 
 mians, who preached up a life of lawless- 
 ness after man's own fancies •, tliey could 
 not deny, for instance, that they (the 
 Marcionites,) were on a par with the 
 strictest Christians in their abhorrence 
 of the heathen theatres and public plea- 
 sures.;}; While many Gnostics, through 
 their doctrine, that an accommodation to 
 
 MARCION S MORAL DOCTRINES. 
 
 • See IreniBUs. i. c. 27, § 2, c. i. 24. 
 \ Tertullian, iii. 3, 4, & 24 ; iv. 29 ; iii. 29. 
 Eph. Svr. Orat. .52, 6, p. 5.'Jl-2. 
 \ TertuU. c. M. i. 28 
 
 the predominant errors of the times ia 
 allowable, or through the principle that 
 outward things are a matter of no con- 
 sequence, made it a very easy thing to 
 escape the duty of martyrdom ; the Mar- 
 cionites, on the contrary, certainly be- 
 lieved themselves bound to give their wit- 
 ness to Christianity,* which was deeply 
 engrafted in their hearts. But how all 
 that belongs to our nature is sanctified 
 and ennobled by Christianity, was a truth 
 which Marcion could not acknowledge, 
 because he did not recognise the God in 
 Christ as the God of Nature. In this 
 point of view, the teachers of the Church 
 might justly make this reproach against 
 him, that his Dualism, in union with 
 Christianity, which always pursues the 
 view of an ennoblement of nature through 
 a divine principle of life, is practically 
 illogical ; as, for example, in the cele- 
 bration of the Sacraments. The ascetic 
 turn which Marcion had, even when he 
 was a member of the Catholic Church, 
 and in which, as we have before observed, 
 his system had found a natural point to 
 engraft itself upon, was now again still 
 more furthered and strengthened by his 
 more fully formed views of nature, and 
 of the creation of the Demiurgos. He 
 reckoned a mode of life, such as was led 
 in the Catholic Church only by certain 
 classes of ascetics, to be an essential part 
 of Christianity : Christians were, even 
 here below, to lead a heavenly life, en- 
 tirely freed from all defilement through 
 matter; he who was incapable of leading 
 such a life, must remain in the class of 
 Catechumens, and could not yet be ad- 
 mitted to Baptism-t 
 
 Whether Marcion recognised only St. 
 Paul as a genuine apostle., and cnndemned, 
 after the fashioiiof ultra-Paulitcs, all the 
 rest of the apostles, as Judaizing adul- 
 terators of Christianity ; or whether he 
 only declared the writings that were pub- 
 lished under their names to he spurious 
 documents, counterfeited hy Judaizing 
 Christians, cannot be decided with cer- 
 tainty from the unsatisfiictory natin-e of 
 the existing accounts ; but the first is the 
 most probable. This supposition suits 
 best with the character of the abrupt and 
 
 * See, for example, Euscb-iv. 15; vii. 12. De 
 Martyr. Paltestinre, c. 10. 
 
 f Tertull. c. M. lib. iv. c. 34. Quomodo nup- 
 tias dirimis ? nee conjungens marem et foniinam, 
 ncc alibi conjunctos ad sacramentum baptisinatis 
 et eucharistia) ad mittens, nisi inter se conjuraveriat 
 ad versus fructum nuptiarum,. 
 
MARCIONITE SECTS — CHARACTER OF APELLES. 299 
 
 violent Marcion, who was more ready to 
 make points of contrast than to hiok for 
 means of accommodation. It is certain 
 that he acknowledged as the genuine 
 sources of Christian knowledge nothing 
 
 piignant to the whole character of the 
 Alarcionitish system ; for, according to 
 the ideas of Marcion, until the appear- 
 ance of Christ, nollimg whatever that 
 was akin to the Supreme God could have 
 
 I the Demiurgos and of the Psychici ; on 
 the contrary, Lucanus the 3Iarcionite de- 
 
 hut the epistles of St. Paul, and an original ] been in existence in tliis world. While 
 Gospel, which, by mistaking a passage, [Marcion would not make any further con- 
 he supposed to have been cited by St. j elusions relative to tlie ultimate fate of 
 Paul. But as he set out from the settled - - ■ . , . ^ , . . 
 
 opinion, that these documents were no [ ' 
 longer found in their original condition, I termined that all w-hicli is Psychical, is 
 but had been adulterated by the Judaizers, perishable, and that nothing but the imv- 
 whose form seems to have haunted him j f^anxov, which has become participative 
 like a spectre, he allowed himself to use j of the divine nature, is immortal.* 
 criticism ad lihitum^ in order to restore Apelles had for a season withdrawn 
 them to their original form. His pre- 1 himself from the predominant practical 
 tended original Gospel, used (as he fan- turn of Marcion, and had indulged in 
 cied,) by St. Paul, had arisen from a mu- many speculations, entirely foreign to the 
 tilation of the Gospel of St. Luke.* Cer- j original Marcionite system ; but at length 
 tainly his criticism was by no means the original practical disposition broke 
 logical-, for much remained, which no- ! forth again, and became prominent in him 
 thing but a forced system of exegesis, j in a remarkable manner. TertuUianf gives 
 through ignorance of right hermeneutic an unfavorable account of the morals of 
 principles, could possibly bring into har- this man; but a teacher of the Catholic 
 '- -' ' ■ Church, at the beginning of the third 
 
 century, named Rhodon, whose testi- 
 mony is unsuspicious as being that of an 
 
 mony with the system of Marcion. 
 
 Marcionite Sects. 
 
 While among other Gnostics the caprice 
 and the multifariousness of their specula- 
 
 enemy, defends him against this reproach, 
 
 ^ _^^^ ^ _^ ^ for he represents him as a man generally 
 
 tions and" fi7ti^nrcaused""thriaterdisd- respected on account of his conduct.^ 
 pies, in many respects, to depart from the I Probably there was no other origm to 
 doctrines of their Master; on the con- these accusations, than tjie entirely^ mno^ 
 trary, ia the system of Marcion, the pre 
 
 cent intercourse of Apelles with a female 
 
 dominance of a practical turn, and the phdosopher, named Philumcne, as people 
 meagreness of the speculative part in were always ready to lay every thmg that 
 comparison of the other Gnostic systems, ' is evil to the charge of a person who has 
 were the cause of the changes which his once been branded as a heretic. Ph.lu- 
 disciples, among whom a practical dispo- ] mene can only be reproached with havmg 
 sition was not so predominant as with forgotten her calling as a woman, and 
 him, made in his doctrines. Many ap- having, in consequence, fallen into a sort 
 propriated to themselves the elements of "f ^^reamy enthusiasm, and Apelles, with 
 other Gnostic systems, which did not suit | having encouraged her in this, an( look- 
 that of Marcion, in order to fill up tlie •"? o" her fantastic essays, which pro- 
 gaps which they believed they found in j needed from an unhealtiiy condition, as 
 in it. ?^Iany,like the Marcionite Marcus,! I rev<ilations, which he took the trouble to 
 received the doctrines of the Syrian i >nterpret.§ But the notice which 1 ertul- 
 Gnosis, relative to the creation of nian ;J \ han gives us is of considerable use, viz : 
 namely, that the Supreme God had com- j that his long sojourn at Alexandria su- 
 municated to man something of his own perinduced a change in his originally 
 Divine Life (the ^►at.^a,) but that m^n .^t'^rcionilish views; for all which we 
 hadlostitbysin,— a view which wasre-;ean deduce from the scattered accounts 
 : ^in TertuUian, Origen, Epiplianius, and in 
 
 • An elaborate discussion of Marcion's Canon \ the treatise of Ambrose de Paradiso, in- 
 of the New Testament would be out of place here, dicates the remodeling of his system 
 but on this subject see more in the learned and throuirh the inlluence of the Alexandrian 
 acute investigations of my friends Hahn and 
 Olshausen, and in my Genetic Development of 
 the Gnostic systems. 
 
 -(■ In the Dialog, de Recta Fide. See the 0pp. 
 Origen. T. i. 
 
 t See p. 280. the account of the Ophites, and 
 Saturninus, p. 284. 
 
 * See Tcrtullian de Resurrect. Cam. c. 2. 
 Orig. c. Cels. lib. iii. c. 27. 
 
 I Prescript. Hffiret. c. 30 
 
 \ Euseb. V. 13. 
 
 § His book of <f avfaara;, which is no longer 
 extant. 
 
300 
 
 APELLES AND PHODON GNOSTIC WORSHIP. 
 
 Gnosis. And hence it arises, that he set 
 the visible and the invisible order of the 
 world, the Deniiurgos and the Supreme 
 God, and the Old and New Testa- 
 ments, in more connection with each 
 other than the system of Marcion per- 
 mitted. While he set out from the prin- 
 ciple, that the Old Testament comes from 
 different origins, — partly from the inspira- 
 tion of the Soter, partly from tliat of the 
 Demiurgos, and partly from that of the 
 evil sj)irit, who has every where trou- 
 bled and defiled the Revelations of the 
 Divine,* — he was desirous of culling out 
 in all cases that which is good. J use all 
 the writings of the Old Testament, he 
 says, while J gather together that wliich 
 is useful.| lie appealed to that declara- 
 tion, so often quoted by the ancients, and 
 which is, perhaps, attributed to our Sa- 
 viour, in the EvayyiXl'^v y.a.^^ "EjS^atoy?, 
 
 " Be ye trusty money-changers, who are 
 able, universally, to distinguish between 
 the genuine and tlie counterfeit gold, the 
 true and the false." (Taea-St (Joxif^ot r^xvi- 
 ^trat.) In age, Apelles, finding no satis- 
 lactory conclusion in his speculations 
 upon the incomprehensible, took refuge 
 in the faith which obeys an inward ne- 
 cessity without being able to solve every 
 difficulty to itself, (difficulties which, in 
 his case, met him even in that which he 
 could not choose but to recognise ;) he 
 could do no other, he said; he felt him- 
 self obliged to believe in one eternal God, 
 as the original cause of all existence, but 
 he could not scientifically })rove how all 
 existence was necessarily to be traced 
 back to the one original principle. The 
 Church-teacher, Rhodon, to whom he 
 made these communications in confi- 
 dence, laughed at him as one who pre- 
 tended to be a teacher, but only believed 
 what he taught, and acknowledged that he 
 could not prove it; but one is inclined to 
 ask, whether the laugher in this case 
 was wiser than the man whom he laughed 
 at, and whether Rhodon himself, in the 
 strict sense of the word, could prove 
 that which Apelles avowed that he only 
 believed. Apelles appeared to have no 
 more taste for controversy on these 
 .sul)jects. "•Every one," he said, "may 
 keep to his own faith; for every one 
 who places his confidence on him that 
 was crucified, will come to the bliss of 
 
 * In a work whicli he called Conclusions, 
 (^'S.VKMyiTfAci,) he endeavoured to indicate the 
 contradictions to be found in the Old Testament. 
 
 f Xgai uTTo 7ra.7iM: ypu<pK, uvxf^iycev rx ^>ii7iju:t. 
 Epiphan. Hteres. 44. § 3. 
 
 heaven, provided only he shows his faith 
 by good works." 
 
 ADDITIONAL REMARKS. 
 
 On the Cidtus of the Gnostics. 
 
 We have hitherto considered the Gnos- 
 tic sects only in reference to their faith 
 and moral systems ; it will be instructive, 
 however, just cursorily to compare their 
 diflferent dispositions in regard to their 
 modes of worship, (their CuUiis.) Even 
 here also we find the differences, which 
 were often repeated in after times. Many 
 Gnostics — as, for example, Ptolemseus — 
 in virtue of their more inward Christianity 
 and their predominantly intellectual cha- 
 racter, were able to conceive the relation 
 of all exterior observances of religion to 
 its real essence, more justly than other 
 Church-teachers, who could not separate 
 the outward from the inward^ in religion, 
 with such clearness of conviction and 
 view. There were, besides, some, who, 
 like the Jewish religious idealists* at Alex- 
 andria, out of their theosophic idealism re- 
 jected all exterior worship, as only fit for 
 the Psychici, who are still imprisoned in 
 the bonds of their senses, and are unable 
 to raise themselves up to the pure spiritual 
 view [anschauung ;] and these persons 
 would allow nothing to be availing but a 
 religion of the inward spiritual view 
 [Geistesanschauung,] raised above all that 
 is outward and sensuous. These persons 
 would say, that man cannot represent the 
 overwhelming and divine mysteries by 
 sensuous and transitory things, and that 
 real redemption consists only in know- 
 ledge.| But the same theosophic dispo- 
 sition might also bring with it a symbolic 
 Cullus^ full of mystic pomp, as we see 
 in the case of the Marcosians^, from 
 whom Irenccus traces those idealists, who 
 threw aside all outward religious observ- 
 ances. In accordance with the distinc- 
 tion between a psychical and pneumatical 
 Christianity, they made a distinction also 
 of a twofold baptism. 
 
 * See Part I. p. 34. 
 
 f Iren. 1. c. 24. § 4. Theodoret. Hseret. fab. 
 i. c. 10. If the C«/a7is, asrainst whom Tertullian 
 writes in his book De Bnpiismo, were identical with 
 the Gnostic Cainites, with whom they arc some- 
 times confounded, then we must place these latter 
 in the same class, which well suits their whole 
 character ; bat the grounds on which those Caians 
 determined against the necessity of the external 
 rite of baptism, do not look like the wild dreamy 
 s[)iritof the Cainites; and besides, there is nothinof 
 peculiarly Gnostic in them, [namely, the Caians.] 
 
 ^ Followers of Mark. 
 
BAPTISMAL RITES. EXTREME UNCTIOX. 
 
 1. The baptism into Jesus, the Mes- 
 Fiah of the Psychici, through wliich the 
 believing Psychici obtained remission of 
 their sins, and the liope of an eternal life 
 in the kingdom of the Demiurgos. 
 
 2. The pneumatical baptism, a baptism 
 into the heavenly Christ who was united 
 with Jesus, through whom spiritual na- 
 tures attixin to a self-consciousness, and to 
 perfection, and enter into communion with 
 the Pleroma. Their ceremonies, and the 
 formula? they used in baptism, were pro- 
 bably diflerent, according as a person ob- 
 tained i\\e first or the second baptism, and 
 was received into the class of Psychici 
 or PncumaticL The latter was apparently 
 accompanied with more pomp than the 
 other. According to the Gnostic idea, 
 (see above,) viz., that the baptized and 
 redeemed pneumatical nature entered into 
 a spiritual marriage (a syzygy) with its 
 other half in the world of spirits, the 
 angel which makes one whole with it ; — 
 according to this idea they celebrated 
 baptism as a marriage feast, and adorned 
 the chamber where it was to take place 
 as a marriage chamber. One of the for- 
 mula} used in the baptism of a Pneuma- 
 ticus, was this : [You are baptized] " Into 
 the name which is hidden from all the 
 Divinities and Powers (of the Demi- 
 urgos,) the name of Truth,* which Jesus 
 of Nazareth hath drawn up into the Light- 
 Zones of Christ, the living Christ through 
 the Holy Spirit, for the angelic redemp- 
 tion,! — that name through which all at- 
 tains its perfection." The baptized per- 
 son then said, " I am confirmed and 
 redeemed ^^ I am redeemed in my soul 
 from tliis world, and from all which pro- 
 ceeds from it, through the name of Je- 
 hovali, who has redeemed the soul of 
 Jesus,§ tlirough the living Christ." Then 
 the assembled throng spoke thus: "Peace 
 (or health) to all, over whom this name 
 rests." Then also they imparted to the 
 baptized the consecration to the Christian 
 priestliood, which was used also in the 
 Church, by means of anointing; but in 
 this case it was performed with costly 
 
 * The lo^dita., the self-revelation of the Bythos. 
 
 ■j- E(,- KuT^axriv uyyiKiniiv. For the redemption 
 of that, of which this spiritual nature, as well as 
 the angel which belonged to it, must become a 
 partaker, in order that both together might become 
 capable of entering into the Pleroma, which was 
 only possible to them in their mutual union, and 
 not in their state of separation. 
 
 :t: 'Ej-TK^iy/uui nxt Kv.uTfa>fj^3.t. See above, about 
 florus. 
 
 § I think, that in that formula we must read 
 Tsu 'hv'.v, instead of ai/Tw. 
 
 301 
 
 ointment (balsam,) for the widely extend- 
 ing perfume of this was to be a symbol 
 of the overpowering delight of the Plc- 
 rmna, whicli the redeemed were destined 
 to enjoy. Among these Mnrcosians we 
 lind, at first, the use of extreme unction; 
 they anointed the dying man with that 
 ointment mixed with water, and used with 
 it formultc, to tlie puqport that the souls 
 of the departed must be able to raise 
 themselves up free from the Demiurgos 
 and all his powers, to their mother, the 
 Sophia* The Ophites, also, had these 
 same forms of adjuration for the departed. 
 And that mystical table of the same sect, 
 which contains a symbolical representa- 
 tion of their system (their Siay^ccix-^a.,) is 
 well known. 
 
 As Marcion in his whole character and 
 spirit was essentially different from the 
 rest of the Gnostics, so also did he differ 
 from them in respect to his principles 
 about the ordinances of worship. By 
 his simple and practical turn of mind, 
 he was far removed from that mysticism 
 that delighted in outward pomp; but then 
 he was far removed, also, from that proud 
 contemplative idealism. His endeavour 
 was here also to bring back the original 
 Christian simplicity of the service of God ; 
 and he combated many new ordinances, 
 as corruptions of that original simplicity .| 
 And thus, with respect to the practice 
 which was then about in its commence- 
 ment, of dividing divine service into two 
 parts,!; the one, which the Catechumens 
 were to stay out, and the other, at the 
 commencement of which they were to 
 be dismissed, he appears to have con- 
 tended against it, as an innovation foreign 
 to the spirit of Christianity. He said, 
 Just as iit any other good thing, let the 
 mature Christians sufler those who are 
 yet under instruction, such as the Cate- 
 
 * Iren. I. 21. Exorcism in Baptiam also, was 
 well suited to the Gnostic theory of the indwelling 
 of manifold Trvwy.^Ta. C>Jitu. [si)irits of a gross and 
 sensuous nature, derived from their connection 
 with matter. — H. .1. K.,] till the redemption [of 
 the individual.] Exorcism (wfa-g 'i^:g>ai^'./uiv(,v) 
 makes its appearance at first, even earher than in 
 the North African Church, (see above,) in the 
 Diadascal. Anatol. p. 800, col. iv. D. But here it 
 may be quoted as being a custom of the .Alexan- 
 drian Church in general, and not as a custom pecu- 
 liarly Gnostic. 
 
 f Apparently, Tertullian had the Marcionilcs 
 especially in his view, when he says of the here- 
 tics, Praiscript. c. 41, " Simplici/atern volunt esse 
 prostrationem discipline, cujus penes nos curam 
 Icnocinixiin vocant." 
 
 t Afterwards called the Missa Catechume- 
 norum, and the Missa Fidelium 
 
 2C 
 
302 
 
 MANICHEES. ACTS OP ARCHELAUS. 
 
 chumens, to take part in prayer also : they 
 must not reserve any thing Irom ihem on 
 this acconnt; nor exclude them on it 
 from participation in the prayers of the 
 Church.* 
 
 We must, however, limit the praise 
 which has been bestowed upon Marcion, 
 if he was really the original author of the 
 superstitious custc^i, founded on a mis- 
 understanding of the passage in Scripture, 
 1 Cor. XV. 29, namely tlie custom of be- 
 stowing baptism on a living person, which 
 was to be availing to a Catechumen who 
 liad died without baptism; but it is alto- 
 gether without foundation, that the intro- 
 duction of such a mistaken baptism has 
 been laid to the charge of Marcion, to 
 wliose simple evangelical spirit such 
 superstition was entirely unsuited. If 
 such a superstition prevailed afterwards 
 among the Marcionites, who had spread 
 themselves among the country people of 
 Syria, in the fifth century, we can only 
 say that it is not fair to charge the foun- 
 der of the sect with that which is found 
 among men, who are certainly very unlike 
 him.j 
 
 II. Manes X and the Manichees. 
 
 The power of the simple Gospel had 
 bv degrees triumphed over Gnosticism, 
 although the remains of Gnostic sects main- 
 tained themselves in the East down to 
 later centuries. Gnosticism had produced 
 the effects it was calculated to produce ; 
 
 * Marcion, according to .Terome, Comment, in 
 Ep. ad Galat., appealed to Galat. vi. 6, while with a 
 thorough disregard of the context in that passage, 
 he understands nwaivm in an intransitive sense, and 
 translates the verse : " Let the Catechumen par- 
 take of all that is good, together with his instruc- 
 tor." Hence, the notion of the Gnostics was also 
 present to the mind of TertuUian, when he re- 
 proached the heretics, I. c. in this manner: "Im- 
 primis quis catcchumenus, quis fidelis incertum 
 est. Pariter adeunt (ecclesiam,) pariter audiunt, 
 pariter orant." 
 
 f TertuUian, De Resurr. Carnis, c. 48, & Adv. 
 Marcion. lib. v. c. 10, by no means speaks as if, 
 in his time, such a ba[)tism, which violates the 
 passage on which it is founded, had been actually 
 in use in any place; only he supposes the possi- 
 bility that such a custom may have existed in the 
 time of the apostle, who may have alluded to that; 
 and ill the latter passage he considers another ex- 
 planation of 1 Cor. XV. 29, to be more probable. 
 But what Chrysostom remarks upon this passage 
 can only be applied to many ignorant Marcionites 
 of his time, and not, by any means, to Marcion 
 himself, and the older Gnostics. 
 
 :|: [Neander constantly uses the name Mani, but 
 as I believe Manes is the form usually adopted in 
 English, I have changed it. — H. J. R.] 
 
 it had, by the struggle that took place, 
 awakened the powers of the soul, and 
 by the contrast it offered, it had brought the 
 meaning of the chief doctrines of Chris- 
 tianity into a clearer consciousness and 
 acknowledgment.* But in the third cen- 
 tury a new and remarkable phenomenon, 
 thoroughly akin to Gnosticism, arose out 
 of the intermixture of oriental theosophy 
 with Christianity, namely, Manicheeism. 
 No essential difference is to be found be- 
 tween this system and those of the 
 Gnostics, especially of the second class, 
 except that here the Christian element 
 was far more crushed by the intermixture 
 of strange materials than in most of the 
 Gnostic systems, and Christianity was 
 properly used only as a symbolical cover- 
 ing for ideas foreign to it, so that one 
 might often throw away the Christian 
 terms which are used, and find notions, 
 which, in their application here, appear 
 to resemble a mixture of Parsic, Brah- 
 minical, and Buddhist religious doctrines, 
 more than Christianity. And further, the 
 oriental element is not at all mixed, as it 
 is in the Gnostic systems, with Jewish 
 theology and Platonic philosophy. The 
 comparison of the Manichean system 
 with the Basilidian, the Saturninian, and 
 the Ophitic, and with the religious sys- 
 tem of the Zabians, hardly allows us to 
 escape recognising one common source 
 for all. 
 
 As far as relates to the history of 
 Manes, the founder of this sect, we 
 have two kinds of sources of information, 
 which coincide with each other only in b 
 very few circumstances, and in all besides 
 are entirely different; these are the Greek 
 and the Oriental sources. The accounts 
 of Cyril of Jerusalem, of Epiphanius, 
 and of the ecclesiastical historians of the 
 fourth and fifth centuries, point our at- 
 tention to one commom source.| This 
 source is the Acts of a disputation .said to 
 have been held with Manes by Archelaus, 
 bishop of Cascar.j But these Acts are 
 preserved to us in at least a very un- 
 satisfactory form, as they have descended 
 to us, with tlie exception of some frag- 
 
 * See Section v. on the development of the 
 Church doctrine. 
 
 ■j- Eusebius, who wrote before this document 
 was promulgated, was unable to relate any thing 
 of the personal history of Manes. 
 
 ^ Kaskar ; if the name be not a corruption. It 
 may, perhaps, (although on the evidence of a very 
 uncertain conjecture,) be a corruption for Charran 
 in Mesopotamia (nnO 
 
SCYTHIANUS BUDDHA. 
 
 303 
 
 merits in Greek, only in the Latin trans- 
 lation from a Greek writing, which per- 
 haps, itself is only an unfaithful transla- 
 tion, from a Syriac original.* These Acts 
 plainly contain a narration, which hangs 
 together ill enougli, and bears a tolerably 
 fabulous appearance. Even supposing 
 there is some truth as a foundation for 
 these Acts, which may well be as there 
 is much in the mode of bringing forward 
 the doctrines which bears marks of truth, 
 and is confirmed by a comparison with 
 other representations, yet still the Greek 
 writer appears to have mixed with it 
 much that is false, from ignorance of 
 oriental languages and customs, by inter- 
 mingling and confusion of different nar- 
 rations, and by exaggeration and a de- 
 ficiency in critical qualifications.! We 
 are well aware how difficult it was to a 
 Greek to place himself in the condition 
 of a people totally foreign to his own na- 
 tion, and to conceive it altogether justly. 
 In some points, even from the scanty 
 means which we have for the unravelling 
 of this historical enigma, we are enabled 
 to detect traces of the mistakes which 
 have formed the foundation of these ac- 
 counts. The first origin of the Mani- 
 chean doctrines is derived from a Sara- 
 cenic merchant, called Scythianus, who is 
 represented, during long travels in Asia, 
 Egypt, and Greece, to have acquired great 
 riches, and procured himself an intimate 
 acquaintance both with Oriental and 
 Grecian philosophy. This Scythianus is 
 represented to have lived near the apos- 
 tolic age; but this, even according to this 
 narrative itself, appears to be an ana- 
 chronism, for jllanes himself is not made 
 to live till some generations after that age. 
 Still, in this Scythianus we recognise 
 an historical personage really connected 
 
 * Jerome, De Vir. Illustr. 72, informs us that 
 these Acts were originally written in Syriac ; but 
 among the Orientals, the first Father to whom 
 these Acts were known is Severus, bishop of As- 
 inonina, in Egypt, who wrote about the year 
 A. D. 978. See Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch. Alex- 
 andr p. 40. His relation of the matter diflers in 
 many respects from the edition of these Acts 
 which has descended to us, and it is far simpler, 
 which seems to indicate that the Acts of which lie 
 madt' use, were not ours, but another document 
 akin to it, and that, perhaps, which furnished the 
 foundation of ours. Heraclian, bishop of Chal- 
 cedon, in Photius cod. 9.5, says that a person 
 named Hegcmonius drew up these Greek Acts. 
 
 ■{■ Beausobrehas properly discarded the Western 
 accounts, which he was well persuaded were un- 
 tenable, and confined himself wholly to the Ori- 
 ental. There is nothing striking in what Mos- 
 heim has advanced against bim in this matter. 
 
 with Manes; we find letters of I\Ianes ad- 
 dressed to a man of this name, who was 
 also probably an oriental Theosophist.* 
 The heir and disciple of this Scythianus 
 appears to have been one Terebinth, who 
 was afterwards called Buddas. The name 
 Buddasf reminds us of the old system of 
 religion, opposed to Braliminism, which 
 took its origin from Eastern India, which 
 is still prevalent in Ceylon, Thibet and 
 the Birman Empire, and has extended its 
 influence even to the tribes of Tartary. 
 Tiie relation of the miraculous birth of 
 Buddas reminds us of the similar ac- 
 counts given of the birth of the Indian 
 Buddha. The pantheistic portion of 
 Manicheeism may be compared, in many 
 respects, with the patitJieislic parts of the 
 old Buddhaism. I\Ianes is represented, in 
 fact, to have travelled to the East Indies 
 and China, and many of the later Mani- 
 checs appeal to the circuinstance that 
 Manes, Buddhas, Zoroaster, Christ, and 
 the Sun (the higher spirit which animated 
 the Sun,) are the same ; that is to say, all 
 these founders of a religion are only dif- 
 ferent Incarnations of the Sun,;i; and there- 
 fore, there is, in these different systems, 
 only one religion under different forms. 
 
 In the Oriental accounts there is far 
 more internal connection ; but these are 
 found in writers very much later than the 
 Greek documents. Tlie Orientals have, 
 however, without doubt, made use of 
 earlier documents, and in their use of 
 them they were not exposed to the same 
 causes of error, as those which led the 
 Greeks astray.§ 
 
 * See Fabricii Biblioth. Grnec. vol. vii. .316. 
 
 f It has been justly remarked, that the Greek 
 T^f.iS/vSsf, is perhaps, only a translation of the 
 Chaldce X^iOll by which the Hebrew IlSt;^ 
 is rendered in the Targum, and which the Alex 
 andrian translators render by Ti^i/ii\6o:. And 
 besides. Terebinth, or Buddas, like Scythianus, 
 may have been an historical person, to whom 
 much that belongs to the Indian Buddha may 
 have been transferred. 
 
 I The later offsets of the Manichees, when 
 they entered into the Catholic Church, were ob- 
 liged to condemn the doctrines before maintained 
 by them : TiV Z^ptSiv x.:u B'.uJsv ku.i toy X^imt 
 K-u Tct M-xvi^ii'.v iv^ n-JJ Tcv ctiiTcv I'lvui. See 
 Jacob. ToUii Insignia Italic. Trajcct. 1696. 
 p. 1.34. 
 
 § The Oriental accounts are to be found in 
 Herbelot, Bibliotheque Oricnta!e,sub v. Mani ; in 
 the History of the Sassanidx-, by the I'ersian his- 
 torian, Mirkhond, ap. Silvcstre de Sacy, Me 
 moires sur diverses Antiquittis de la Perse : Paris, 
 1793; in Abulpliaragc, and Pocock, Specimen 
 Histor. Arab. 
 
304 
 
 PARSISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 In order properly to appreciate the 
 phenomenon presented by the appearance 
 of a man like Manes, we must compare 
 together the circumstances and the rela- 
 tions under which he was formed. Manes 
 was born a Persian, but we are led to in- 
 quire whether this geographical term is 
 to be used in its strictest limits, or 
 whether we are only to understand by it 
 some one province of the great Persian 
 empire. Tiie latter view is supported by 
 the circumstance that Manes composed 
 his ivrithigs in the Syriac language, from 
 which we might be led to conclude that 
 he derived his origin from one of those 
 provinces of the Persian empire, where 
 Syriac was the language of the country. 
 
 ception and connection in each, so tliat 
 from the very first he had only formed 
 a peculiar religious system for himself by 
 an amalgamation of the Persian and the 
 Christian. It is easy to explain, in any 
 case, how a man brought up in tlie Per- 
 sian religion believed that he could ob- 
 serve a striking connection between the 
 ideas of a kingdom of Orniuzd and Ahri- 
 man, and those of a kingdom of Light 
 and Darkness, of God and Satan ; be- 
 tween the Persian doctrine which allows 
 man to struggle for the kingdom of Or- 
 muzd against the kingdom of Ahriman, 
 and the Christian doctrine, which would 
 make man struggle in the service of 
 Christ against the kingdom of Satan. In 
 
 But this argument is not entirely demon- the Persian religion, tlie centre point of 
 strative ; for without this supposition it all was the idea of redemption out of the 
 may well be conceived, from the intimate kingdom of Ahriman, and the final tri- 
 
 connection between the Persian Christians 
 and the Syrian Church, the Syrian lan- 
 guage miglit already by that time have 
 become the language of theological books 
 among the Persian religious teachers, and 
 that Manes also might, in consequence, 
 have been induced to make use of it, 
 although it was not his mother tongue, 
 more especially as he might thereby hope 
 to further a more general reception of his 
 doctrines in other districts. If these ac- 
 counts, indeed, are to be relied on. Manes 
 was born in a family of the class of Magi, 
 (the priests of the Persian religion,) was 
 converted to Christianity in the days of 
 manhood, and became the presbyter of a 
 Christian congregation at Ehvaz, or 
 Ahvaz, the chief town of the Persian pro- 
 vince Huzitis. At all events, it is most 
 probable that Manes was brought up in 
 the religion of Zoroaster, and afterwards 
 embraced Christianity. 
 
 We do not know enough of the pro- 
 gress of his life to be able to decide 
 whether he was at first fairly and tho- 
 roughly converted from the religion of 
 his fathers to Christianity, but that after- 
 wards being repulsed by the form in 
 M'hich the latter appeared to him in the 
 doctrines of the Church, he freshened up 
 the fundamental ideas of his earlier reli- 
 gious habits of thought again in his soul, 
 and then believed tliat the true light 
 could not be given to Christianity till it 
 
 was united with them; or 
 
 whether from the very first he had been 
 attracted by the analogy of Christianity to 
 many Persian notions, without remarking 
 the essential difference between similar 
 ideas in Christianity and in tlic Persian 
 religion according to their peculiar con- 
 
 umph of the kingdom of Ormnzd. In 
 Christianity he found the tidings of a 
 triumphant appearance of Ormuzd him- 
 self upon the earth, through which the 
 complete triumph of the kingdom of 
 Light, and the complete destruction of the 
 kingdom of Darkness were prepared. 
 
 Exacdy at the time in which Manes 
 appeared, after the Persians had freed 
 tliemselves from the Parthian dominion, 
 and re-established their old kingdom 
 under the dynasty of the Sassanida?, the 
 endeavour was again awakened among 
 tliem to purify the old religion of Zoro- 
 aster from the foreign admixtures which 
 had made their Avay into it during a 
 foreign rule, and to restore it again to its 
 original purity and glory. But contests 
 had now arisen as to what the pure doc- 
 trine of Zoroaster was, especially on 
 those points on which the Zend books 
 contained only hints, (e. g. on the rela- 
 tion of the good and the evil principle to 
 each other.) Councils were held, in order 
 to decide the disputes, at which pretended 
 prophets appeared, who professed to de- 
 cide every thing according to Divine illu- 
 mination.* The religion of Zoroaster, 
 thus refreshed with new power, and set- 
 ting itself up in hostility to all foreign 
 religions, wliich liad hitherto been tole- 
 rated, now also entered on a contest with 
 Christianity, which under the Parthian 
 domination had been able to propagate 
 itself vvithout obstruction. Under such 
 circumstances, it was easy for a man of 
 an ardent and bold spirit, like Manes, to 
 
 * See Hyde, Hist. Relig. vet. Pers. p. 276; 
 Memoires sur diverses Antiquites dc la Perse, 
 par S. de Sacy, p. 42. 
 
• MANES THE PARACLETE. 
 
 30c 
 
 indulge the thought of establishing the 
 identity of Chrislianity, purified, as he 
 wowld think, from all extraneous matter, 
 with the pure doctrine of Zoroaster, and 
 by tliis means to be the first to make 
 clear the proper meaning of the Christian 
 doctrine, and at tlie same time to furdier 
 the extension of Christianity in the Per- 
 sian empire ; he wished to be looked 
 upon as the Ref<irmer, both of Chris- 
 tianity and Parsism, called and enlightened 
 by God. Christianity appeared to Manes 
 to be far more akin to the doctrine of 
 Zoroaster than to Judaism. He derived 
 the adulteration of the doctrine of Christ 
 from the mixture of Christianity with 
 Judaism, which was entirely foreign to 
 its nature. He was shut out from the 
 communion of the Christian Church, and 
 turned himself now to Christians and be- 
 lievers in the religion of Zoroaster, with 
 the desire that they should recognise him 
 as an inspired (Zi/. enlightened.) reformer 
 of religion. He maintained, like Maho- 
 met in later times, that he was the Para- 
 clete* promised by Christ, and under this 
 name he by no means understood the 
 Holy Ghost, but a human person ; an in- 
 spired teacher promised by Clirist, who 
 should carry on' further the religion re- 
 vealed by Christ in his Spirit (i. e. the 
 Spirit of Christ,) should purify it from 
 the mixture made in it by Ahriman, es- 
 pecially from those corruptions which 
 proceeded from its amalgamation with 
 Judaism, and should make known those 
 truths wjiicli mankind in earlier times 
 had not been in a condition to understiiud. 
 Through him Christianity was to be set 
 free from all connection with Judaism 
 which had proceeded from Ahriman; and 
 that which the evil spirit, in order to 
 adulterate Divine truth, had intermingled 
 v/ith the New Testament, which by no 
 means contained the uncorrupted doctrine 
 of Christ, was to be separated from it. 
 Through him that perfcrj knowledge was 
 to be given, of which St. Paul had spoken 
 as of something reserved against a future 
 season, (1 Cor. xiii. lO.jt T'lus Manes 
 might name tlie promised Paraclete and 
 the apostle of Christ at tlie same time, as 
 he began the letter in which he wished 
 to develope the fundamental doctrines of 
 his religion (the Epistola Fundamenli, so 
 
 • See Mirkhoiul ap. Sacy, p. 294. Tit. Bost. 
 f. Manich. lib. iii. in Canisii Lection, antiq. cd. 
 Basnage, and Bibl. Patr. Galiand, t. v. p. 326. 
 
 -j- See the Acta cum Felice ManichiEO, lib. i. 9. 
 opp. Augustin. t viii. 
 
 39 
 
 celebrated among the Manichees), with 
 these words : — Manes, chosen to be an 
 aposde of Jesus Christ, through the 
 choice of God the Father. These are the 
 words of salvation out of the living anu 
 eternal source."* 
 
 It was in the latter part of the reign of 
 tlie Persian king Shapur I. (Sapores,) 
 about the year "^70, that he first came 
 forward with these pretensions. With 
 an ardent and profound spirit, and with a 
 lively imagination, he united varied know- 
 ledge and talents for the pursuits of art 
 and science, which he used for the pro- 
 pagation of his doctrines. He is repre- 
 sented as having been distinguished 
 among his contemporaries and country- 
 men as a mathematician and astronomer ;f 
 the fame of his skill, in painting was long 
 remembered in Persia. At fh-st he suc- 
 ceeded in obtaining the ftwour of that 
 prince ; but when his doctrines which, in 
 the opinion of the magi, were heretical, 
 became known, he was obliged to seek. 
 safety from persecution, by flight. He 
 now made long journeys to the East In- 
 dies, as far as China, and probably used 
 these journeys towards the enriching of 
 his religious eclecticism. He remained 
 for a time in the province of Turkistan, 
 and prepared there a series of beautiful 
 pictures, vvh4ch contained a symbolical 
 representation of his doctrine, — the book 
 which was named by the Persians Erten- 
 ki-Mani. It may. probably, have hap- 
 pened that he withdrew into solitude in 
 order to receive the revelations of God, 
 as he declared that he devised these 
 images (which represented his concep- 
 tions) amidst calm reflection in a cavern, 
 and maintained that he received them 
 in his mind;}; from heaven. Whether it 
 be true, as the Orientals relate, that in 
 order to deceive the credulous populace, 
 he gave out that he raised himself in the 
 body up to heaven, and thence brought 
 down those emblems with him,§ we must 
 
 * Augustin. c. EpLstol. Fundamenli, c. 5. 
 
 •j- It must, however, be acknowlegcd that they 
 pos.sessed no great knowledge in these subjects. 
 It is in the highest degree probable that much in 
 his system, even if we cast away tlie mythical 
 dress in which it is enveloped, was closely con- 
 nected with an imperfect knowledge of these 
 sciences. 
 
 t [In seinem Sinnc . . This may be explainetl, 
 as meaning impressions on ike scnsurium. I 
 have used the word mind, taken in a lax sense — 
 H. J. R.] 
 
 § He must secretly have caused himself to be 
 supplied with provisions in the cavern, where he 
 remained, according to some, /our years, according 
 to others, one year. 
 
 2c2 
 
306 
 
 at least leave undecided. After the death 
 of Sapor, in the year 272, he returned to 
 Persia, and found a good reception for 
 himself and his pictures at the hands of 
 his successor, Hormuz (Hormisdes.) This 
 prince assigned him as a secure residence, 
 a castle called Deskereth, at Khuzistan, 
 in Susiana. But after this prince had 
 reigned two years not quite complete, 
 Behrarn succeeded him (Baranes.) This 
 prince showed himself favourable to him 
 at first, but perhaps, only out of dissimu- 
 lation, in order to give him and his ad- 
 herents a feeling of security. He caused 
 a disputation to be held between him and 
 the magi, of which the result was that 
 Manes was declared a heretic. As he 
 would not retract, he was* flayed alive in 
 the year 277,t and his skin stuffed and 
 hung up before the gates of the town 
 Djondischapur, in order to intimidate his 
 followers. 
 
 The main point of dispute among the 
 Persian theologians which was treated of 
 at the restoration of the original religion 
 by the founders of the dynasty of the Sas- 
 sanidai, was one which is most obscurely 
 expressed in the documents of the Zoro- 
 astrian creed, (the Zend-avesta,) namely, 
 the inquiry, whether we are to believe in 
 an absolute Dualism, and consider Or- 
 muzd and Ahriman as two •self-existing 
 beings from all eternity opposed to each 
 other, or whether om original being is to 
 be supposed,;}; from whom Ormuzd and 
 Ahriman received their existence, and 
 that Ahriman is an originally-good being, 
 but a fallen one. The former doctrine 
 was that of the Magusaic sect,§ among 
 the Persians, which Manes joined \ for it 
 was his object to represent the opposition 
 of light and darkness as absolute and ir- 
 reconcilable, although either consciously 
 or unconsciously, a pantheism, which was 
 enveloped in a mystical dress, might be at 
 the bottom of this Dualism, in which the 
 idea of evil was conceived more in a 
 physical than in an ethical light.|| He 
 imagined, therefore, two principles abso- 
 lutely opposed to each other, together 
 with their creations of an opposite cha- 
 racter also : on the one hand, God, the 
 
 DUALISM OF MANES — PARSI3M. 
 
 * A cruel mode of putting criminals to death, 
 common in the East. 
 
 I The ehronology is, it must be confessed, very 
 uncertain here. 
 
 \ Zcrvan Akarcne, the time that has neither be- 
 ginning nor end, answering to the a.\m Bi;9oc. 
 § Schahristan. ap, Hyde, p. 20.5. 
 
 II See p. 238, the hitroduction to the History of 
 the Gnostic Sects. 
 
 original good, from whom nothing but 
 good can proceed, from whom every idea 
 of destroying, of punishing, and of cor- 
 ruption is far removed, the original Light, 
 from which pure light flows ; .... on 
 the other hand, the original evil, which 
 can only destroy and undo, and whose 
 very being is wild confusion that fights 
 against itself, — matter, darkness, from 
 which powers strictly corresponding to 
 itself proceed, a world full of smoke and 
 vapour, and at the same time full of fire, 
 which only burns and cannot give light.* 
 These two kingdoms originally existed 
 entirely separate from each other. The 
 Supreme God, the King of the kingdom 
 of Light, existed as the original source of 
 the world of emanations akin to himself, 
 and those iCons, the channels through 
 which light was propagated from the 
 original source of light, were most closely 
 connected with him ; and to these, as 
 representatives of the Supreme God, his 
 very name was transferred, which were 
 thence called Divinities, without pre- 
 judice to the honour due only to the first 
 of Beings.! In the epistle in which 
 Manes brought forward the fundamental 
 doctrines of his religion.jJ; he thus por- 
 trays this Supreme God at the head of his 
 kingdom of Light :§ 
 
 "Over the kingdom of Light ruled God 
 the Father, eternal in his holy nature, 
 (geschlcchle^ lit. generalion^ or race^ or 
 kind^ species^ genus,) glorious in his 
 power, the TRUE, by the very nature of 
 his being, always holy in his own eter- 
 nal existence, who carries within himself 
 w'isdom and the consciousness of his life, 
 with which he comprehends the twelve 
 members of his Light, that is to say, the 
 overflowing riches of his own kingdom. 
 In every one of these members there are 
 hidden thousands of innumerable and im- 
 measurable treasures. But the Fatlier 
 himself, who is splendid in his glory and 
 incomprehensible in his greatness, has 
 connected with him holy and glorious 
 ^ons, whose number and greatness can- 
 not be reckoned, with whom this holv 
 
 * The emblems under which Manes represented 
 the kingdom of evil bear the most striking resem- 
 blance to those which we meet with in the reli- 
 gious system of the Sabians. Tt was said, and 
 not badly, by Alexander of Lycopolis, in his trea- 
 tise, TTgcc Ta.c Muvix'J-icu iTc^ac, c. ii., that Manes, 
 under the word Cm, understood tuv iv iKxa-rci toiv 
 
 OVTft'V uTiKTOV KlViia-lV. 
 
 f As the Amschaspands Ized, of the Religion 
 of the Parsees. 
 
 i The Epistola Fundamenti. 
 
 § Augustin, contra Epist. Fundamenti, c. 13. 
 
DOMINION OF LIGHT — THE MOTHER OF LIGHT. 
 
 307 
 
 all-glorious Father lives, for in his lofty 
 kingdom none dwells subject either to 
 want or to weakness. His resplendent 
 kingdoms, however, are founded on the 
 blessed earth of light in such a manner, 
 that they can neither be rendered weak, 
 nor shaken at all."* The powers of 
 darkness fell together in wild confusion, 
 until in their blind career of strife they 
 came so close to the kingdom of liglit, 
 that at length a gleam out of this king- 
 dom, which had hitherto been entirely 
 unknown to them, streamed upon them. 
 They now left off their contention against 
 one another, and, involuntarily attract-ed 
 by the shining of the Light, they united 
 together to force their way into the king- 
 dom of Light, and to appropriate to them- 
 selves some portion of this light.f It ap- 
 pears here somewhat inconsistent in 
 Manes, who ascribes an impurturbable 
 firmness to the kingdom of Light, to say, 
 " But when the Father of the most blessed 
 Light saw a great devastation arise from 
 the darkness, and threaten his holy iEons, 
 had he not sent a special Divine powerj 
 to conquer and annihilate the race of 
 darkness at once, in order that after its 
 annihilation peace might be the portion 
 of the dwellers in the light."§ Simplicius 
 and Euodius have reproached him here 
 with a contradiction to himself; but this 
 accusation relates rather to the mythical 
 or symbolical mode of representation^ than 
 to the train of thought which it en- 
 velopes. The fundamental notion of 
 Manes, as of the Gnostics, was this, that 
 the blind power of nature which opposed 
 the Divine Being, being tamed and con- 
 quered by mixture with it, would be ren- 
 dered utterly powerless. 
 
 • This earth of light Manes did not conceive as 
 any thing distinct from tbe original Supreme 
 Being, but all was only a dilTwent modification of 
 the one Divine Being of Light. 
 
 -j- We recognise the idea which is the founda- 
 tion of this, namely, that Evil is at enmity with 
 itself, and unites only when it engages in a con- 
 test with Good, which is the aUractive power with 
 which Good acU upon Evil itself; a thing which 
 cerUiinly is a contradiction to the Dualistic dogma 
 of an Absolute Evil. 
 
 i Aliquod nimium ac pr.-eclarum ct virtute potens 
 numen. In the system of Zoroaster also the Am- 
 schaspands is represented as an armed champion 
 for the kingdom of light. 
 
 § The Epistola Fundamenti in theBookrfe^rfe 
 contra Manichxos, c. 11, which, perhaps, pro- 
 ceeded from the pen of Euodius, bishop of Uzala, 
 in Numidia. (This is to be found in the Appendix 
 lo the viiith tome of the Benedictine edition of 
 Augustine.) 
 
 The King of the kingdom of Light 
 caused the iEon, the Mother of Life* to 
 emanate from him to protect its borders. 
 The very name of this Genius shows that 
 it represents " the supreme soul of the 
 loorld,'''' that the Divine light giving up 
 the unity of the kingdom of light, was 
 now to divide itself into a multitude, and 
 develope itself in the struggle against the 
 ungodly into separate beings, each with a 
 pecul iar existence. The Mother of Light, 
 like the uvui (ro^»« of the Valentinian sys- 
 tem, may not have been afft;cted as yet 
 by the kingdom of darkness .... and 
 herein would also lie tlie difference be- 
 tween the higher soul of the world, be- 
 longing to the kingdom of light, and a 
 re/lection of it, which had mingled itself 
 with the kingdom of darkness.f This 
 Mother of Light produced the First-man 
 (original-man,) in order to set him in 
 opposition to the kingdom of darkness 
 . , . . and here is the idea of the dig- 
 nity of human nature, which we ob- 
 served among the Gnostics.J The First 
 man sets out upon the contest Avith the 
 live pure elements, fire, light, air, water, 
 and earth. § We here also recognise the 
 character of Parsism, the veneration of 
 an originally pure nature, which was 
 troubled only by being intermixed with 
 Ahriman ; and according to the Parsic 
 doctrines, a life streaming forth from the 
 kingdom of light is acknowledged among 
 the original elements, and they are called 
 forth through its fruitful and enlivenmg 
 power, as fellow-champions against the 
 destroying influence of Ahriman. 
 
 But that First Man was conquered in 
 the contest, and became in danger of fall- 
 ing into the kingdom of Ahriman ; he 
 prays to the King of the kingdom of 
 
 -j- Simplicius in Epictet. p. 187. ed. Salmas. 
 gives an excellent portraiture of the Manichajan 
 doctrine in this respect ; olrt to vga>T;v uytBov 
 
 <Ji-/Jt- sti/TU (T-JVOVTi., Tm /MITifX T))C ('oBXf, KJU TOY 
 
 Jx/uKuey-'V (the ^av ttvuiuu.) nai tow; ix.u stufvat. 
 
 i The xga»Ti? 6vBe^u>r<,( of Manes is to be com- 
 pared with "the ;rgai/ avWvTif of the Valentinians, 
 the Adam Kadmon, and especially the Cajomorts 
 of the Zend-avcsta, about whom there are many 
 points of resemblance. It is most highly probable 
 that Manes received this Parsic idea into his 
 system. 
 
 § According to the notion of Manes, every 
 thing which exists in the kingdom of Light has 
 its counterpart in the kingdom of Darkness. The 
 dark earth stands opposed to the earth of li^ht, 
 and the five elements of darkness are opposed to 
 the five pure elements. 
 
308 
 
 THE SOUL OF THE WORLD. YX»). 
 
 Light, who causes tlie Living Spirit to 
 emanate in order to assist him.* This 
 lifts him lip again into the kingdom of 
 Light ; but the powers of darkness had 
 already succeeded in destroying a portion 
 of the armour of the First Man, and 
 swallowing up a portion of his existence 
 as a being of light ; and thus we arrive 
 at the notion of the Soul of the World 
 mixed with matter.! Here we find also 
 an affinity with the Gnostic notions, ac- 
 cording to which the xcctu cotpia. was 
 saved out of the kingdom of Hyle by 
 means of the Soter sent to her assistance ; 
 but still it was, nevertheless, a seed of the 
 Divine Life, falleii down into the matter, 
 which (i. e. the seed,) must be purified 
 and developed.;!; This must necessarily 
 happen ; through the magical power of 
 the Divine Life, of the Light of the Soul, 
 the wild stormy kingdom of darkness is 
 to become involuntarily softened, and at 
 last rendered powerless. The taming of 
 that stormy, blind power of Nature is 
 just the very object of the formation of 
 the world. Manes is said to have at- 
 tempted to make his doctrine intelligible 
 by the following parable : A good shep- 
 herd sees a lion fall upon liis flock, he 
 digs a pit, and throws a he-goat into it ; 
 the lion runs up eagerly in order to de- 
 vour the goat; but he falls into the pit 
 and cannot get out of it again. The 
 shepherd, however, succeeds in drawing 
 up the goat again, while he leaves the 
 lioli shut up in the pit, and thereby ren- 
 ders him harmless to his flock ;§ — just as 
 the kingdom of Darkness becomes harm- 
 less, and the souls swallowed up by it 
 are at last saved, and brought back again 
 to their kindred liabitution. But now 
 after tlie Living Spirit had raised man 
 again to the kingdom of Light, he began 
 preparations for the process of purifying 
 the soul (hat is intermingled with the king- 
 dom of Darkness^ and this is the cause 
 of the whole creation of the world, and 
 the object of all the whole course of the 
 world. II That portion of the soul which 
 
 had not been affected by connection with 
 matter, or with the Being of Darkness, 
 he raised up above the earth, so that 
 it should have its place in the sun and 
 in the moon, and thence should spread 
 forth its influence, in order to free the 
 souls which were akin to it, and which 
 v.'ere held captive by the kingdom of 
 Darkness, and spread abroad over all 
 nature, through the purifying process of 
 the development of the vegetative and 
 animal life, and thus to attract them to 
 itself again. 
 
 Manes also, in a manner similar to the 
 Parsic conception of the universe, beheld 
 the same struggle between Ormuzd and 
 Ahriman, and the same process of purifi- 
 cation in tlie physical as well as in the 
 moral world, hi contradiction to the 
 spirit of Christianity, he mixed the phy- 
 sical with the religious and ethic, founded 
 doctrines of belief and morals on specula- 
 tive cosmogonies, and a natural philoso- 
 phy, which being deduced more from in- 
 ward conceptions than from experimental 
 knowledge, must often have been imintel- 
 ligible. Such a mixture was alike pre- 
 judicial to religion, which became flooded 
 by a multitude of things wholly foreign 
 to it and to knowledge, which thus is 
 compelled to lose that soberness of un- 
 derstanding which is necessary to her.* 
 Just as in the Parsic system of religion, 
 in the struggle between Ormuzd and 
 Ahriman in the physical and the spiritual 
 world, the sun and the moon perform an 
 important part in the conduct of the gen- 
 eral system of development and purifica- 
 
 * The ifajv TrnvfAtt in the Gnostic Acta Thomtc, ' 
 which contain much that resembles Manicheeism. 
 
 ■j" The. ■\u^)f aTrrtvrm. 
 
 i, Titus of Bostra, lib. i. c. Manich. c. 12, thus 
 excellently portrays the Manichccan doctrine: 
 
 § Disputat. cum Archelao, c. 2.5. This parable 
 bears altogether the stamp of genuineness, at least 
 it is in the spirit of Manicheeism. 
 
 II Just as in the Valentinian scheme, the Soter 
 operates after he has first raised the Sophia. 
 
 * How little Manicheeism understood the in- 
 terests of religion and the nature of Christianity ; 
 how little it understood the one thing needful for 
 man, is shown by the remarkable words in which 
 Felix, the Manichee, endeavoured to prove that 
 Manes was the reformer of religion (the Paraclete,) 
 promised by Christ/ " Et quia venit Manichseus 
 et per suam predicationem docuit nos initlum, 
 medium et finem ; docuit nos de fabrica mundi, 
 quare facta est et undo facta est, et qui fecerunt ; 
 docuit nos quare dies et quare nox ; docuit nos de 
 cursu solis et luna; ; quia hoc in Paulo nee in 
 cajterorum apostolorum Scripturis, hoc credimus, 
 quia (dass, that) ipse est Paracletus." Augustin. 
 Acta. c. Felice Manicha;o, lib. i. c. 9. In Alex- 
 ander of Lycopolis, in Egypt, the opponent of 
 Manicheeism in the beginning of the fourth cen- 
 tury, we find the opposite error to this of a dilution 
 of Christianity, which, mistaking its peculiar and 
 css^ntial features, refers it only to certain general 
 religious and moral truths, torn away from that 
 with which they are connected in Christianity. 
 With him the chief matter of Christianity is the 
 doctrine of an eternal God, as Creator, and good 
 morality for the people. See the beginning of 
 his treatise against the Manichees. 
 
CHRIST CRUCIFIED EVERY WHERE. 
 
 309 
 
 tion, so also was it in the system of 
 Manes. Almost what the Zoroastric sys- 
 tem taught of Mithras as the Genius (Ized,) 
 of tlie Sun, was attributed by Manes to 
 liis Christ, the pure soul, whose opera- 
 tions proceeded from out of the sun and 
 the moon. As he derived this soul from 
 the original matu he made this the expla- 
 nation of the Bible-name, the Son of Man^ 
 (yiof uvb^uTTov.,) and as he distinguished 
 the pure, free soul, whose throne is in 
 the sun, from the soul which is akin to it, 
 and extended throughout all nature, but 
 defiled and imprisoned by its mixture with 
 matter ; he also made a distinction be- 
 tween a Son of Man elevated above all 
 connection with matter, and subject to 
 no suflering, and a Son of Man crucified, 
 as it were, in matter, and subject to suf- 
 fering.* Where the seed sown burst 
 forth out of the dark bosom of the earth, 
 and developed itself into plants, blossoms, 
 and fruit, there jManes saw the victorious ' 
 development of the principle of Light free- , 
 ing itself by degrees from the fetters of 
 matter ; and he saw here that the living 
 soul, as it were, which is kept bound 
 in the limbs of the Princes of Darkness, 
 being released from them, soars up aloft 
 in freedom, and mingles in the pure at- 
 mosphere, '\ where tlie souls, which are 
 perfectly purified, ascend the Ships of 
 Light (of the sun and of the moon,) 
 which are prepared to conduct them to 
 their native place. But that which bears 
 upon it multifarious stains is by degrees 
 and in small quantities distilled from 
 themlj; by the power of heat, and mingles 
 itself with all trees, plants, and vegetables. 
 These were samples of his mystical 
 philosophy of nature, which were brought 
 forward sometimes in singular myths, 
 which, although occasionally indecent, 
 were nothing very remarkable to the 
 imagination of Oriental people, and some- 
 times under the covering of Christian ex- 
 pressions. Thus the Manichees could 
 speak of a suffering Son of Man who 
 hangs on every tree, of a Christ crucified 
 in every soul and in the whole world, 
 and they could explain the symbols of 
 the suffering Son of Man in the Last Sup- 
 
 * The vim M^fomu i/nTra-Sn; and the ulo; avSporct/ 
 
 ■\ The pure holy air, which is exactly in accor- 
 dance with the Parsic Worship of Pvature, and 
 a common term in the Zend-avesta. 
 
 t [I have some doubt as to the construction of 
 the original sentence. But I conceive the 'ihnen,' 
 'from them,'' to refer to the purified souls, — that 
 these stains are separated from them. — H. J. R.] 
 
 per according to their own sense. Just 
 as well, also, or rather with greater justice 
 — for this intermixture of religion with 
 the knowledge of nature was more hea- 
 then tlum Christian — the Manichees might 
 use heathen myths as a covering for their 
 ideas; and thus the boy, Dionysos, torn 
 to pieces by the Titans, as celebrated in 
 the Bacchic mysteries, is nothing but the 
 soul swallowed up by the powers of dark- 
 ness, the Divine life divided into pieces 
 by matter.* 
 
 The Powers of Darkness were now 
 threatened by the danger, that by means 
 of the operation of the Spirit of the Sun 
 upon the purifying process of Nature, all 
 the Light and Life kept prisoners in their 
 members would be by degrees withdrawn 
 from them, namely, the soul which had 
 been seized upon by them, which struggles 
 after a release, and which is always at- 
 tracted by the kindred spirit of the Sun, 
 constantly frees itself more and more and 
 flees away, so that at last the kingdom of 
 
 * See Alexand. Lycopol. c. 6. The followinir 
 are a few peculiarly characteristic Manicheean 
 passages, as proofs of the expose given above. In 
 the Thesaurus of Manes the following passage 
 occurs : " Viva anima, qus carundem (adversarum 
 potestatum) rnembris tenebatur, hac occasione 
 lunata evadit, et suo purissimo aeri miscetur: ubi 
 penitus abluts anim® adscendunt ad lucidas naves, 
 qua; sibi ad evectionem atque ad suae patrise trans- 
 fretationem sunt prfeparatse. Id vero quod adhuc 
 adversi generis maculas portat, per sstum atque 
 calores particulatim descendit atque arboribus, 
 cffiterisque plantationibus ac satis omnibus misce- 
 tur." Euodius de Fide, c. 14. From the Letter 
 of Manes to the maiden Menoch, we have this 
 passage : " agnoscendo ex quo genere animarum 
 emanaveris, quod est confusum omnibus corpori- 
 j bus, et saporibus et speciebus variis cohaeret." 
 i Augustin. opus imperfectum contra Julian, hb. iii. 
 1 § 172. There is also a passage of Faustus, the 
 j Manichee, who Uved in the first half of the fifth 
 ' century, in which the Holy Ghost is represented 
 as the enhvening and sanctifying power of God, 
 working through the air towards the purifying 
 1 process of ISature; and the doctrine of the birth 
 of Christ from the Virgin (which the Manichees, 
 being Doceta;, cannot agree to in its proper sense,) 
 j is represented as a symbol of the birth of that 
 I patibilis Jesus from the virgin bosom of the earth 
 through the operation of the power of the Holy 
 Ghost: "Spiritus sancti, qui est inajcstas tcrtia, 
 I aeris hunc omnem ambitum sedem fatemur ac 
 ^ diversorium, cujus ex viribus ac spiritali profusione 
 terram quoque concipientem gignere patibileni 
 Jesum, qui est vita ac salus hominum, omni sus- 
 pensus ex ligno. Quapropler et nobis circa uni- 
 vcrsam (i.e. all productions of Nature, considered 
 as revelations of the same Divine principle of lift, 
 suflering under the imprisonment of matter, reve- 
 lations of the same Jesus Patibilis,) et vobis simi- 
 liter erga panem et calicem par rcligio est." Au- 
 gust, c. Faust, c. XX. 
 
310 
 
 MAN A MICROCOSM. 
 
 Darkness, robbed of all its stolen Light, 
 should be wholly abandoned to its own 
 inward hatefiilness and to its death. 
 What then was to be done ? A Being 
 was to be produced, into which the Soul 
 of Nature, that struggles to free itself, 
 should be driven and fast bound, in which 
 all the scattered Light and Life of Na- 
 ture, all which the Powers of Darkness 
 kept imprisoned in their members, and 
 which was constantly more and more en- 
 ticed away from them by the power of 
 the Sun, is concentrated ; this is The 
 Man, the image of the Original Man, and 
 therefore, already destined tlirough his 
 form to rule over nature.* The matter 
 stands thus. The Lofty Light-Form of 
 the original Man (which was also appa- 
 rently peculiar to the Son of Man dwell- 
 ing in the Sun)! sends down light from 
 the Sun into the kingdom of Darkness, 
 or the Material World ; the Powers of 
 Darkness are seized with desire after the 
 Light-Form, but with confusion also. 
 Their Prince now speaks to them: "What 
 think ye that great Light to be which 
 rises up yonder ? Behold ! how it shakes 
 the pole, how it strikes to earth many of 
 our Powers ! Therefore, is it fitting, that 
 ye should rather bestow on me whatso- 
 ever ye have of Light in your powers ; and 
 then I will make an image of that Great 
 One, which appears full of glory, through 
 which we may rule, and may hereafter 
 free ourselves from our abode in Dark- 
 ness." Thus human nature is the image, 
 in this dark world, of higher existence, 
 through which the higher (every thing of 
 a higher nature) may be attracted hither 
 and held fast. Afier they had heard this, 
 and had consulted together for a long 
 time, they thought it best to fulfil his de- 
 sire, for they did not believe that this 
 Light could long maintain itself among 
 ihcm^X and therefore, they considered it 
 best to offer it to their Prince, because 
 they did not doubt that by this means 
 they should obtain the predominance. 
 The Powers of Darkness now paired 
 themselves, and begat chihlren, in whom 
 their common natures and powers were 
 again represented, and in whom every 
 thing which tliey had of the essence of 
 Light and Darkness in them reproduced 
 itself All these children of theirs the 
 Prince of Darkness devours, and by this 
 
 means concentrates in himself all the 
 Light-Existence which was spread abroad 
 among the individual Powers of Dark- 
 ness, and he produced Man, in whom all 
 the powers of the kingdoms of Darkness 
 and of Light, which had here inter- 
 mingled with each other, assembled to- 
 gether. Hence Man is considered as a 
 microcosm, — a reflection of the whole 
 world of Light and of Darkness, a mirror 
 of all the Powers of the Heaven and of 
 the Earth.* 
 
 * Compare the parallel doctrines of the Ophites. 
 -\ Alcxand. Lycopoiit.c.4, ducvi Si h KKm laf^a-- 
 6a; TctituTnv, CM io-'ri ro tcu &v(i^a>7rcu tiJo;. 
 ^ This K the most important matter. 
 
 * Manes, Ep. Fundamenti ; Augustin. de Na- 
 tura Boni, c. 46. Construebantur et contine- 
 bantur omnium imagines, coelestium ac terrcnarum 
 virtutum : ut pleni videlicet orbis, id quod forma- 
 batur, similitudinem obtineret. We must not 
 here suppress the fact, that in respect to the main 
 matter of the formation of man a so/newhai dif- 
 ferent construction of the Manicheean system is 
 possible ; which Mosheim, with his peculiar acute- 
 ness, has thoroughly worked out, and for which 
 certainly something of weight may be advanced. 
 Unfortunately, the gaps which have been left in 
 the extant fragments of Manes, which are the 
 most secure foundation for any account of his 
 system, are loo great to allow us to decide the 
 inquiry by his own words. We have followed 
 that mode of construction by which man was 
 supposed to be created later than the rest of Na- 
 ture, in order to keep fast in Nature the soul 
 whose tendency was to escape. The last quoted 
 words of Manes appear to support this represen- 
 tation. So also does the Disputat. Archelai, ^ 7, 
 as well as the words of Alexander of Lycopolis, 
 about the form of man shedding down light from 
 the sun. It would then be the same Spirit of the 
 Sun, who. after the lirst separation of Light from 
 Darkness, operating upon the purifying process of 
 Nature, had put the Powers of Darkness (who 
 feared to be therel)y robbed of all their spiritual 
 being which constantly escaped from them) into 
 confusion, and which afterwards appeared in 
 Christ as the Redeemer. To this the passage of 
 Alexand. Lycop. appears to point, c. 4, t;v Sh 
 XwtTTCv siva/ v'.vv, oh J« h-ju a.<ptK'^uivcv Trcn, (then, 
 when the Powers of Darkness endeavoured, by the 
 formation of man, to retain the soul which threat- 
 ened to escape from them, and thus to frustrate 
 the work of the Spirit of the Sun,) wxt-o-Tcv t; t« 
 SvvJfAiui; rai/rx;, w^ic rev &i'-v Kiwuv^ti mi Stt to 
 TiXi-jToitcv, &c. The fragments also of a Manichee 
 in the preface to the Third Division of 'J'itus of 
 Bostra, may be conveniently explained in the 
 same manner. 
 
 But we might also, with Mosheim, set the for- 
 mation of Man in the system of Manes befu7-e the 
 ivltole creation of the world. The Powers of 
 Darkness were disturbed at the appearance of the 
 <J&)V TTvwuu.. which threatened to tear away from 
 them all the souls they had seized upon. Hence 
 they now united themselves in order to form Man, 
 after the image of that original Man, wlioni they 
 saw shining from afar (this was that 'ille niagnus 
 qui gloriosus apparuit,') in order that they might 
 through him enchant and hold fast tlic souls 
 which the Living Spirit threatened to rob tliem of. 
 I It was, then, after the intention of the Living 
 
ALLEGORICAL MEANING OF PARADISE. 
 
 311 
 
 That which is here described, is re- 
 pealed conslanthj in the course of JS'ature, 
 when at the birth of a man, the wild 
 poioers of Matter, the Powers of Dark- 
 ness, pairing themselves together, produce 
 a human JVature, in which they mingle 
 together whatsoever they have botJi of the 
 higher and of the lower Life, and in 
 ivhich they endeavour to fetter the Soul 
 of JWUure, which, while it struggles after 
 freedom, is held prisoner by them* 
 
 Also, according to the Manicheean 
 scheme, the Powers of Darkness are in- 
 voluntarily subservient to a higher law, 
 and by their machinations against the 
 kingdom of Light, prepare destruction 
 for themselves The Light, (lit. Liglit 
 Nature, or particles partaking of the es- 
 sential attributes of Light) or the Soul, 
 concentrated in man's nature, thereby 
 only arrives the sooner at a conscious- 
 ness of itself, and at the development of 
 its own peculiar nature. As the common 
 Soul of the World endeavours to subject 
 to itself all existing Matter, i. e. the great j world.f" But an angel of Light, or rather 
 
 was, therefore, endued with pre-eminent 
 powers. But yet, in consequence of its 
 double descent, the Nature of the First 
 Man consisted of two opposite parts ; the 
 one a soul akin to the kingdom of Light, 
 already in possession of the fulness of its 
 power, and the other a body akin to the 
 kingdom of Darkness, together with a 
 blind matter-born capability of desire, 
 which it derived from the same kingdom.* 
 Under these circumstances, all depend- 
 ed, with the Powers of Darkness, on their 
 being able to oppress the Light-Nature 
 which had been superinduced on -man, 
 and to retain it in a condition of uncon- 
 sciousness. Tliey invited man to eat of 
 all the trees of Paradise, that is, to enjoy 
 all earthly desires, while they only wished 
 to restrain him from eating of the tree of 
 the knowledge of Good and Evil, that is, 
 from attaining to a consciousness of the 
 opposition between Light and Darkness, 
 or between the Divine and the Ungodly 
 in his own nature, and in the whole 
 
 Body of the World, so must this Soul, 
 derived as it is from the same origin as 
 that, govern this miniature material world. 
 "The first soul," says Manes,t " which 
 flowed forth from the God of Light, re- 
 ceived this form of the body, in order 
 that it might govern the body by its 
 restraints, {lit. bridle.") The soul of the 
 First Man,j; as standing nearer to tlie 
 Original Source of the kingdom of Light, 
 
 Spirit, to free at once the imprisoned souls, had 
 been frustrated by these machinations, that he for 
 the first time thought of the creation of the world, 
 in order to effect by dcgreai, what he had been 
 prevented from accomplishing at once. The 
 words of Alexander of Lycopolis, who, however, 
 did not find himself quite at home in the train of 
 thought belonging to the Manicheean system, ap- 
 pear to support this view, when he accuses the 
 Manicheean system of inconsistency, (Inconse- 
 queiiz :) c. 23, h iWite ii Tuy tixiva (rcu ufS/Kn^ot/) 
 taigaa-Sa; Krycuyiv, oc iytJiTo kxt u-jtcu; dTro m; tt^o; 
 mv Ckhv ^iTTsgcv inKfiTUD^, for, according to these 
 words, (if Alexander has understood Manes pro- 
 perly, or the Manichce whose works he read, has 
 properly represented the doctrines of his master,) 
 Manes must have imagined the separation of the 
 soul unaffected by Matter, or of the Spirit of the 
 Sun, to have taken place before the rest and after 
 the formation of man. 
 
 * The words of Manes, 1. c, are these, "sicuti 
 etiam nunc fieri videmus, corporum formatricem 
 naturain mali inde vires sumentem figurare." 
 These words seem important as a hint, which in- 
 dicates the symbolical meaning of the whole nar- 
 ration. 
 
 -j- In the letter quoted above. 
 
 ^ " Quasi de primae facta floro substantia;," 
 says Manes, 1. c. 
 
 the Spirit of the Sun himself, persuaded 
 man to transgress the commandment, 
 that is, he led him to that consciousness 
 which the Powers of Darkness wished to 
 withhold from him, and thereby secured 
 him the victory over them. This is the 
 truth, which is the foundation of that nar- 
 rative of Genesis, only we must change 
 the persons engaged in the transaction, 
 and instead of God we must put the Prince 
 of Darkness, and instead of the Serpent 
 we must put the Spirit of the Sun.\ 
 
 As now the kingdom of Light had 
 triumphed over the Powers of Darkness, 
 the latter made use of a new means, in 
 order to take prisoner the Light-Nature, 
 which had now attained to self-conscious- 
 
 • The •[yx." <»>^5>5c. 
 
 •|- SeeDisputat. Archelai, c. 10. 
 
 % This would be the explanation of the doc- 
 trine of Manes, if the representation given by the 
 .Manichee in Titus of Bostra, (at the end of the 
 preface to Section III.,) be the original one ; 
 and it may be said that it suits the Manicheean sys- 
 tem extremely well, and dovetails in with the ac- 
 count given of it in the Disputation of Archelaus. 
 It may, perhaps, surprise us, that Manes, who was 
 brought up in the Parsic religion, should have 
 made tlie serpent, which among the Parsees is the 
 symbol of Ahriman, into the symbol of the Good 
 Spirit; but according to the view given above this 
 consideration forms no difficulty. As he saw in 
 the religious documents of the Jews so many cor- 
 ruptions derived from the Spirit of Darkness, he 
 saw his corruptions and falsifying influence ex- 
 erted also in a wilful corruption of this narrative, 
 by changing the places of those engaged in the 
 transaction. 
 
312 
 
 DESTINATIOX OF MAN. 
 
 ness, and to detach it from its connection 
 with its original Source. They seduced 
 the First Man, by means of the Eva be- 
 stowed upon him as a companion, into 
 giving himself up to fleshly desires, and 
 thereby, becoming untrue to his nature 
 as a Being of Light, to make himself the 
 servant of a foreign domination.* The 
 consequence which flowed thence was, 
 that the Soul, which by its original power 
 ought to raise itself into the kingdom of 
 Light, divided itself by propagation, and 
 became enclosed anew in material bodies, 
 so that the Powers of Darkness could for- 
 ever repeat what they had done at the 
 production of the First Man. 
 
 Every man also has now the same des- 
 tination as the first, namely, to rule by 
 means of the power of the Spirit over 
 matter. Every one consists of the same 
 two parts, of which the nature of the first 
 man consisted, and therefore, all depends 
 upon this, that man remembering his 
 origin, should know how to separate these 
 two parts properly from each other. He 
 who thinks that he has received his sen- 
 suous nature, (sinnlichkeit,) together with 
 its appetites, from God, — lie who does 
 not know from tlie very first origin of 
 human nature, that it (viz. this sinnlich- 
 keit, or his corporeal and sensuous en- 
 dowments,) proceeds from the kingdom 
 of Darkness, Avill easily allow himself to 
 be seduced into serving his senses, and 
 thereby lose his higher Light-Nature, and 
 become unfaithful to the kingdom of 
 Light. Therefore, does Manes say in his 
 Letter of Principles, (Epistola Funda- 
 menti,) " ff it had been given to man to 
 know clearly the whole condition of 
 Adam's and Eve's origin, they would 
 never have been subjected to decay and 
 death." And hence, also, he writes to j 
 the virgin Menoch| thus : " May our 
 God himself enlighten thy soul, and reveal 
 to thee thy righteousness, because thou 
 art the fruit of a godly stem.J Thou also 
 
 * As we have no accounts of the arrangement 
 of these events in the Manicheean system as to the 
 time of their occurrence, we may also place their 
 relations to each other in a different manner. It 
 may be supposed that Adam first allowed himself 
 to be seduced into sin, but afterwards being 
 brought by the influence nf the 8un-Spirit to a 
 consciousness of the opposition between the flesh 
 and the Spirit, and Light and Darkness, that he 
 began a more holy life. See Augustin. de Mori- 
 bus Manichfeorum, lib. ii. 19. 
 
 f Augustin. op. imperfect, c. Julian, lib. iii. 
 § 172. 
 
 i The Revelation consists in man's being 
 Drought to a consciousness of his Light-Nature. I 
 
 hast become Light, by recognising what 
 thou wast before, and from what race of 
 Souls thou art sprung, which being inter- 
 mingled with all bodies is connected with 
 various forms ; for as souls are engen- 
 dered by souls, so is the form of the body 
 composed of the nature of the body. 
 That also, which is born of the flesh is 
 flesh, and that which is born of the .spirit 
 is spirit. But know that the spirit is the 
 soul, soul of soul, flesh of flesh."* lie 
 then appealed to the custom of infant 
 bcqjfmn, loMch roas even then prevalenf. in 
 the Parsic Church, as a proof that Chris- 
 tians themselves, by their mode of pro- 
 ceeding, took for granted such an original 
 defilement of man's nature. " I inquire," 
 he says, in the Letter| we have quoted, 
 " whether all evil is actual evil } Where- 
 fore, then, does any one receive purifica- 
 tion by means of water, before he has 
 done any evil, as he cannot possibly liave 
 been obnoxious to evil i7i Jiis own ]}crson ? 
 But inasmuch as he has been the subject 
 of no evil, and yet must be purified, they 
 point out ipso facto, a descent from an 
 evil race ; even they themselves, whose 
 fancy will not allow them to understand 
 what they say, nor what they assume." 
 
 The particle of Light (UtcraUy, the 
 Light-Nature,) which from its removal 
 from the source of that concentrated Ex- 
 istence-of-Light (literally, Light-Being) in 
 the person of Adam, from which all souls 
 emanated, was constantly becoming more 
 and more defiled through its continued 
 connection with matter, — so that it now 
 remained no longer in possession of the 
 original power which it had, Avhen it first 
 flowed forth fresh from the original source 
 of the kingdom of Light. The Law, 
 however, presupposes the original power 
 of the Light-Nature, to be still in exist- 
 ence, in order that it (the Law) may be 
 put in practice. " The Law is holy, " 
 says Manes, " but it is holy for holy souls, 
 the commandment is upright and good, 
 bnt for upright and good souls?''X He 
 says in another passage,^ "If we do good, 
 it is, not the work of the flesh, for the 
 works of the flesh are manifest, (Gal. v. 19 ;) 
 or if we do evil, then it is not the work 
 of the soul, for the fruit of the Spirit is 
 
 • According to the Light-Emanation System 
 adopted by Manes, he could not make any diller- 
 ence between the Spirit of God and the spirit of 
 man, between spirit and soul. 
 
 \ Augustin. op. c. Julian, imperfect, lib. iii. 
 § 187. 
 
 + L. c. c. Julian, iii. 186. § L. c. 177. 
 
INCARNATION OF CHRIST — THE SUN-SPIRIT. 
 
 peace, joy. And the apostle exclaims, | 
 in the epistle to the Romans, "The good 
 Avhich I would, 1 do not, but the evil 
 ■which I would ifbt, that I do." Ye per- } 
 ceive, therefore, the voice of the con tend- 
 ing soul, which defends its i'reedoni against 
 lust, for it was distressed, because Sin, 
 that is, Satan, had worked all lust in it. 
 The reverence for the Law discovers all 
 its evil, because the Law blames all its 
 practices, which the flesli admires and es- ; 
 teems ; for all bitterness in the renuncia- 
 tion of lust is sweet for the soul, which 
 is nourished thereby and thereby attains 
 to strength. -At last the Soul of him who I 
 withdraws himself from every gratifica- 
 tion of lust, is awake, it becomes mature, ' 
 and increases ; but the gratification of lust 
 is usually the means of loss to tlie soul.* 
 And now, in order at last to free the souls 
 which are «ikin to him from the power of 
 Darkness, to animate them anew, to give 
 tliem a perfect victory over it, and to 
 attract them to himself, the same spirit 
 of die Siin, who has hitherto conducted 
 the whole process of purification for 
 Nature and for the spiritual world (which 
 two, according to the principles of Manes 
 here laid down, make up only one 
 whole) must reveal himself in human 
 nature."!" 
 
 But between Light and Darkness no 
 communion is possible. " The Light ' 
 shines in Darkness, " said IVIanes, using 
 the words of St. John, after his oxi'ti inter- 
 pretation^ "• but the Darkness cannot com- 
 prehend it." The Son cf the Original 
 Light, the Spirit of the Sun, could not 
 ally himself with any material body ; he 
 could only envelope himself in a phantomic 
 form, perceptible by the senses, in order 
 that he might be perceived by man as a \ 
 creature of sense. " While the Supreme 
 Light,'' ]\Ianes writes,;]; "put himself on 
 a footing with his own people as to his 
 nature, he assumed a body among mate- 
 rial bodies, although he himself is every 
 thing, and only one whole nature. " By 1 
 an arbitrary mode of interpretation, he } 
 appealed for a proof of his Docetism, to 
 the circumstance, that Christ once, (John 
 
 * On the Incarnations of the Sun in the old ( 
 Oricntiil religions, see Kreuzer's Symbolik, (New , 
 edition, 2J Part, .53, 207.) It was quite consistent, ] 
 according to the Manicheean System, for the Mani- 
 chees to say, (ap. Alexander of LycopoUs, c. 24,) 
 that Christ, as the i-juc was t^ ovto. tt^vta. So ■ 
 also in the Acts of Thomas, p. 10, xi/^/s, o h Trcitrn 
 iiV K'JJ Siip^'jUii/ci; hi-TTxyTOiV Kit iyniiuivo; ttao-i tuc 
 iQU; <rwx.:u Slit rx; irsLVTuv hiQUU.; <p*vi^'.ufxivrj;. 
 
 j In the Letter to one Adas or Addas. FabricU 
 Biblioth, Grseca, ed. nov. vol. vii. p. 316. 
 40 
 
 313 
 
 viii. 59,) when the Jews Avished to stone 
 him, escaped through the midst of them 
 Avithout their being able to lay hold on 
 him, and also that Christ at his transfigura- 
 tion appeared to his disciples in his true 
 Light-Form* He assmned improperly the 
 name Christ or I\Iessias, in accommodat- 
 ing himself to the notions of the Jews."]" 
 The Prince of Darkness endeavoured to 
 effect the crucifixion of Jesus, because he 
 did not know him as the being elevated 
 above all suflering; and this crucifixion 
 was, of course, noUiing but an apparent 
 one. This appearance represented the 
 crucifixion of the Soul overwhelmed with 
 matter, which the Spirit of the Sun desir- 
 ed to elevate to himself. As the cruci- 
 fixion of that soul which was spread over 
 all matter only served to facilitate the an- 
 nihilation of the Kingdom of Darkness, 
 so also still more did that apparent cruci- 
 fixion of the Supreme Soul. Therefore, 
 Manes said, " The adversary, who hopqd 
 that he had crucified the Saviour, the 
 Father of the righteous, was crucified 
 himself; that which happened, and that 
 which seemed to happen in this case, 
 were two different things.";j; The Mani- 
 cheean view, which made the doctrine of 
 Christ crucified merely symbolical, is 
 clearly displayed in an apocryphal writing 
 ahout the travels of the aposlles.\\ While 
 John is in anxiety during the passion of 
 Christ, the latter appears to him and tells 
 him, that all this happens only for the 
 lower multitude in Jerusalen.§ The hu- 
 man person of Christ now disappears, and 
 instead of him there appears a cross of 
 pure light, surrounded by various other 
 i'orms, which, nevertheless, represented 
 only one form and one image, (as a sym- 
 bol of the various forms under which the 
 one Soul appears.) From above the cross 
 there proceeded a divine and cheering 
 voice, which said to him, "The Cross of 
 Light will, for your sake, be called, some- 
 times the Logos, sometimes Christ, some- 
 
 • See the Fragment from the Epistles of Manes, 
 I.e. 
 
 • f il Ttm XgiiTTou TTfinyt^Kt cvouct iirri Kxret Xi"''' 
 rtiicY. 1. c. 
 
 t From the Epistola Fundamenti, Euod. de 
 fid. C. 28. ThV iwu-jxti T«v Saav tvng^iirSaw evs^Tau^ay- 
 fla/ T« Im. Alex. Lycopolit. c. 4. Christus"" in 
 omni muiido ct omni anima crucifixus. Secundin. 
 Ep. ad Augustin. The words of Faustus tho 
 Manichce are these : Augustin. c. Faustum, lib. 
 xxxii. Crucis ejus myslica fixio, qua nostra; 
 anima; passionis monstrantur vulncra. 
 
 II 5T£5<ccf6< dTTis-TdXai'. Concil. Nic. II. actio v. ed. 
 Mansi, t. xiii. p. 167. 
 
 2D 
 
THE FINAL FATE OF EVIL. 
 
 314 
 
 times the Door, sometimes the Way, 
 sometimes Jesus, sometimes the Father, 
 sometimes tlie Spirit, sometimes Life, 
 sometimes the Truth, sometimes Faith, 
 and sometimes Grace." 
 
 As Manes joined those among the Par- 
 sees who maintained an absolute dualism, 
 he did not propose as the object of the 
 whole course of the world a reconcilia- 
 tion between the good and the evil prin- 
 ciple, which would not have suited his 
 theory, but an entire separation of Light 
 from Darkness, and an ulter annihilation i 
 of the power of the latter. After matter | 
 had been deprived of all Light and Life, ' 
 which did not belong to her, she was to 
 be burnt up into a dead mass.* All souls ! 
 might become partakers of redemption in 
 virtue of their Light-Nature ; but if they 
 voluntarily gave themselves up to the | 
 service of evil or of Darkness, by way j 
 of punishment, after the general separation ! 
 of the two kingdoms, they were to be 
 driven into the dead mass of matter, and 
 set to keep watch over it. Manes in his 
 Epistola Fundamentl expressed himself 
 thus on this point: those souls which 
 have allowed themselves to be seduced 
 from their original Light-Nature through 
 love of. the World, and have become 
 enemies of the Holy Light, that is, which 
 have armed themselves openly for the 
 destruction of the Holy Element, which 
 serve the fiery Spirit, and have oppressed 
 by hostile persecution the Holy Churchy 
 and the elect to be found in it,;]; that is, 
 the observers of the commandments of 
 heaven — tiiese souls will be detained far 
 from the blessedness and the glory of the 
 Holy Earth. And because they have 
 suffered themselves to be conquered by 
 evil, they will remain in company with 
 this family of evil, so that that Earth of 
 peace and those regions of immortality 
 are closed against them. That will hap- 
 pen to them for this reason, that, because 
 they gave themselves up to evil works, 
 they became estranged from the Life and 
 Freedom of the Holy Light. Thus, tliey 
 cannot be received into tliat kingdom of 
 peace, but are chained down into that 
 terrible mass (of matter left to itself, or 
 Darkness,) for which a guard is neces- 
 sary. These Souls will thus remain en- 
 tangled among those things, which they 
 
 • Tit. Bostr. !. c. 30. Alex. Lycopol. c. 5. 
 
 ■J- That is, the Manichcean sect. 
 
 I A persecution of the Brahmins of the Mani- 
 chces, or the Electi, which was a special crime; 
 all this was in full accordance with the oriental 
 ideas of the priesthood. 
 
 have loved, for they did not separate 
 themselves from them, while they had the 
 opportunity.* 
 
 In regard to the Maiflcheean view of 
 the sources of knowledge of religion, the 
 revelations of the Paraclete or Manes^ 
 were the highest, the only infallible 
 sources, by which all others must be 
 judged. They set out from the principle 
 that the doctrines of Manes include the ab- 
 solute truths, which are evident to our rea- 
 son ; whatever does not accord with them, 
 is contrary to reason, and false, wherever 
 it may be found. But they now accepted 
 also the writings of the New Testament 
 in part; but, while they judged of them 
 according to the paramount principle 
 stated above, they allowed themselves a 
 very arbitrary line of criticism in respect 
 to their dogmatical and ethical use.t 
 Partly, they maintained that the original 
 documents of religion had been adul- 
 terated by various interpolations of the 
 Prince of Darkness,;]; (the tares amidst the 
 good wheat;) partly, Jesus and the apos- 
 tles were supposed to accommodate them- 
 selves to the opinions prevalent among 
 the Jews, in order, gradually, to render 
 men capable of receiving truth in its 
 purity ; and partly, the apostles them- 
 selves were supposed on their first en- 
 trance upon the office of teachers, to have 
 been under the influence of many Jewish 
 errors. Thence they gathered that it was 
 only by the instruction of the Paraclete, 
 that men could learn to separate the true 
 from the false in the New Testament. 
 Faustus, the Manichee, thus brings for- 
 ward the principles of Manicheeism in 
 this respect :§ ••' We only receive that 
 part of the New Testament, which was 
 spoken to the honour of the Son of Glory, 
 either by himself or by the apostles, and 
 even then, only that which was spoken 
 when they were already perfect or be- 
 lievers. We will take no account of the 
 rest, neither what was spoken by the 
 apostles in simplicity and ignorance, 
 while they were as yet unacquainted with 
 the truth, nor of that which was attri- 
 buted to them with evil intentions by their 
 enemies, nor of that which was impru- 
 dently maintained by their writers,|| and 
 
 * De Fide. c. 4, 
 
 -j- Titus of Bostra says this of them in the very 
 heginning of his third book. 
 
 :t; See above, the similar principles used in the 
 Clementine in regard to the Old Testament. 
 
 § Ap. Augustin, lib. 32. 
 
 II Namely the Evangelists, who were not 
 apostles. 
 
SOCIETY — AUDITORES — ELECTI. 
 
 315 
 
 handed down to their successors. I think, 
 however, that HE was born of a woman 
 in sin, was circumcised as a Jew, that he 
 sacrificed as an Heathen, that he was bap- 
 tized in an inferior manner, and was car- 
 ried about the wiUierness by the Devil, 
 and exposed to the most painful trials." 
 The same Manichees who were content 
 that their reason should be fettered by all 
 the decisions of Manes as divine revela- 
 tions, were zealous for the rights of 
 reason, and wished to be looked upon as 
 the only reasonable men, when they em- 
 ployed themselves in separating what is 
 conformable to reason in the New Tes- 
 tament from that which contradicts it. 
 Faustus, the Manichee, speaks to one, who 
 believes without critical discrimination 
 in all which is contained in the New Tes- 
 tament, " Tkou. that bclievest all blindly ; 
 ihou^ that dost ba7iish reason, the gift of na- 
 ture, out of mankind ; thou, that makest it 
 a scruple to thyself to judge betioeen truth 
 and falsehood ! and thou., that art not less 
 afraid to separate good from its contrary, 
 than children are afraid of ghosts .'"* 
 
 The Manichees had a composition of 
 their religious society, entirely peculiar to 
 themselves, in which the character of 
 Oriental Mysticism may be recognised. 
 Manes separated himself wholly, as it 
 follows from what is said above, from the 
 greater number of the Gnostic founders 
 of sects, as these latter wished to change 
 nothing in the existing Christian Church, 
 but only to introduce a secret doctrine of 
 the 7r»£V/x«TiKo» to run parallel with the 
 Church belief of the ■4/f;i/iKoj. Manes, on 
 the contrary, wished to be looked upon as 
 a Reformer of the whole Church, sent from 
 God, and endued with divine authority ; 
 he wished to give a new form to the 
 Church, which he thought entirely dislo- 
 cated by the intermixture of Judaism and 
 Christianity ;t there was to be only 07ic 
 true Christian Church, which was to be 
 moulded after the doctrines and principles 
 of Manes. In this, only two orders were 
 to exist, according to the distinction be- 
 tween an exoteric and an esoteric doctrine, 
 which was a fundamental feature of the 
 Oriental systems of religion. The audi- 
 tores were to form the great mass of the 
 exoterics ; the writings of Manes were 
 read to these, and the doctrines laid before 
 them in their symbolical and mystical 
 
 * Au^stin. c. Faust, lib. xviii. and also lib. xi. 
 
 f Hence he called other Christians, not Chris- 
 tians, but Galileans. Fabric. Bibl. Gr. vol. vii. 
 p. 316. 
 
 clothing, but they received no explanation 
 as to their interior and hidden meaning.* 
 We can easily imagine how the expecta- 
 tion of the auditores was put to the 
 stretch, when they heard these enigmatical 
 and mysterious high-sounding things laid 
 before them, and, as it often happens, 
 hoped that they should find lofty v/isdom 
 in what was enigmatical and unintelli- 
 gible ! The esoterics were the Elecli, or 
 Perfecti,-\ the Caste of Priests, — the 
 Brahmins of the Manichees.l They were 
 to lead, in celibacy, a strictly ascetic and 
 wholly contemplative life ; tl*ey were to 
 refrain from all strong liquors, and from 
 all animal food ; they were to be distin- 
 guished by a holy innocence, which in- 
 jures no living creature, and a religious 
 veneration for the Divine Life which is 
 spread abroad throughout all nature ; and, 
 hence, they were not only neither to kill 
 nor wound any animal, but not even to 
 pull any vegetable, nor to pluck any fruit 
 or flower. They were to be provided 
 with all that was needful for their subsist- 
 ence by the auditores, by whom they 
 were to be honoured as beings of a su- 
 perior kind. From this caste of priests 
 the leaders of the whole religious society 
 were chosen. As Manes wished to be 
 looked upon as the Paraclete, promised 
 by Christ, he chose twelve apostles also 
 after the example of Christ, j^nd this 
 arrangement was to be constantly main- 
 tained, that twelve such persons, under 
 the name of Magistri, should lead the 
 whole sect. Above these twelve stood a 
 thirteenth, who, as the head of the whole 
 sect, represented Manes. Under these 
 stood seventy-two bishops, who were to 
 answer to the seventy or seventy-two§ 
 disciples of Jesus, and then below these, 
 presbyters and deacons, and lastly, roving 
 missionaries of the faith. || 
 
 There is considerable obscurity abotit 
 the question, what the Manichees held as 
 to the celebration of the sacraments. This 
 arises from the circumstance, that natu- 
 rally enough, no aulhentic account could 
 be known of that which took place in the 
 assemblies of the Electin which were held 
 
 * It certainly follows from this, that the writings 
 of Manes must contain a certain interior meaning, 
 understood only by the ekcli. 
 
 f TtAWi/, according to 'J'iieodoret, an appellation 
 which re-appeared again among the Gnostic 
 Manicheean sects of the middle ages. 
 
 ^ Faustus, as quoted by Augustine, calls them 
 the " Sacerdotale Genus." 
 
 § According to the well known varia lectio. 
 
 i Augustin. de Hteres c. 46. 
 
MQ 
 
 SACRAMENTS. — BAPTISM. — FESTIVALS. 
 
 very secretly ; and as the auditores might 
 be supposed to answer to the catechu- 
 mens, and the Electi to the Fldeles of the 
 general Church, it may at once be ima- 
 gined that the sacrament could only be 
 celebrated among the Electi. The belief, 
 that we are justified, in consequence of 
 the inference, which has been quoted, as 
 made by Manes from the prevailing cus- 
 tom of infant baptism, in supposing that 
 infant baptism prevailed among the Mani- 
 chees, is unsound, as Mosheim has 
 already shown ; in that passage. Manes 
 intended to*controvert his adversaries out 
 of their own conduct in respect to princi- 
 ples, which that conduct necessarily pre- 
 supposed, without intending to convey 
 any approbation of that conduct. And 
 besides, the use of baptism might appear 
 to the Manichees, according to their own 
 theory of the pure and holy Elements, as 
 a suitable ceremony for initiation into the 
 interior of the sect, or for reception into 
 the number of the electi. And yet it may 
 also be thought that they were not favour- 
 able to this symbol, as being a Jewish 
 one, which came from John the Baptist ; 
 perhaps, from the very beginning no other 
 Ivind of initiation was practised among 
 them, than that which we find afterwards 
 among the offsets of the Manichees in the 
 middle ages ; and perhaps, the use of bap- 
 tism had only proceeded in certain parts of 
 the sect from an adherence to the prevailing 
 custom of the Church.* The celebration 
 
 * From the words of Felix the Manichee, lib. 
 i. c. 19, ut quid baptizati sumusl we cannot prove 
 that the Manichees considered baptism as a neces- 
 sary initiatory ceremony, for here also the Mani- 
 chee is rather using an argumentum ad homi- 
 ncm, and he may have received baptism before his 
 oonversioii to Manicheeism. From the passages 
 in the Commonitorium, quo modo sit agendum 
 cum Manichffiis (to be found in the Appendix to 
 the 8th. vol. of the Benedictine edition of St Au- 
 gustine,) where a distinction is made between 
 those Manichees, who had been received, at their 
 conversion to the Catholic Church among the 
 Caiechumens, and those who were received, as 
 being already baptized, into the number of the 
 Pcenifentes, it is also entirely impossible to draw 
 the conclusion, that baptism was in use among the 
 Manichees ; and still less does it follow, because ! 
 such a distinction is made between baptized and un- 
 baptized among the electi themselves, who trans- 
 gressed, that baptism was voluntarily received only 
 hy a. certain part 0? the electi; for here also the au- 
 thor may be speaking only of such persons as had 
 received baptism in the ('atholic (Jhurch before 
 their conversion to the Manichecan sect. The 
 passage in Augustin. de Moribus Ecclesiaj Ca- 
 tholiciE, c. S.'j, where he makes the Manichees 
 offer it as a reproach to (Jatholic Christians, that 
 even fideles et jam baptizati lived in marriage and 
 
 of the sacrament of the Lord^s Supper 
 might be perfectly well interpreted accord- 
 ing to the mystical natural philosophy* of 
 the Manichees. Augustine, as one of the 
 auditores among the Manichees, had 
 heard that the electi celebrated the Lord's 
 Supper; but he knew nothing of the 
 mode in which it was done.| It is only 
 certain, that the electi could drink no 
 wine, but whether they used water, like 
 the Encratites, the so-called i/o'^oTra^aa-ra- 
 Tai, or what other measures they took, 
 we have no means of determining. The 
 sign of recognition among the Manichees 
 was the giving of the right hand to each 
 other when they met, as a symbol of 
 their common redemption from tlie king- 
 dom of Darkness through the freeing 
 power of the Spirit of the Sun ; while 
 that was repeated in them, which had 
 taken place in their Heavenly Father the 
 Original Man, when he was in danger of 
 sinking down into the kingdom of Dark- 
 ness, and was again lifted up through the 
 right hand of the Living Spirit.;}; 
 
 In regard to i[\e festivals of the Mani- 
 chees^ we may observe that they celebrated 
 Sunday, not as commemorating the re- 
 surrection of Christ, which did not suit 
 their Docetism, but as the day conse- 
 crated to the Sun,|| who was in fact their 
 Christ. In contradiction to the prevailing 
 usage of the Church, they fasted on this 
 day. The festivals in honour of Christ, 
 of course, did not suit the Docetism of 
 the Manichees. While, indeed, according 
 to the account of Augustine, they some- 
 times celebrated the festival of Easter in 
 accordance with the prevailing usage of 
 the Church, yet the lukewarmness with 
 which this celebration took place, ma}'' 
 
 in the various relations of family life, and 
 and administered earthly property, by no means 
 proves that among the electi there was a class of 
 persons, who, having voluntarily submitted to 
 baptism, were the only persons who, through an in- 
 violable engagement were bound to a strict ascetic 
 life; for the iniELKs and the baptizati, two 
 exactly equivalent expressions, here have a gene- 
 ral correspondence with the electi of the Mani- 
 chees. Mosheim's distinction, therefore, between 
 baptized and unbaptized electi, however natural it 
 may appear when abstractedly considered, seems 
 altogether arbitrary. 
 
 * In accordance with the notion that the fruits 
 of nature represented the Son of Man crucified in 
 nature. 
 
 •j- Augustin. contra Fortunatum, lib. i, in the 
 addendum. 
 
 + Disputat. Archelai, c. 7. 
 
 II Besides many other passages, see Augustin. 
 c. Faiistum, lib. xviii. c. .5, " Vos in die, quern 
 dicunt solis, solem colitis." 
 
PERSECUTION OF THE MANICHEES. 
 
 317 
 
 be explained from the circumstance that 
 they could not be touched by any of 
 those feelings, which gave so much holi- 
 ness to this festival in the eyes of other 
 Christians. On this account they cele- 
 brated the more solemnly the martyrdom 
 of their founder, Manes, which took place 
 in the month of March. It was called 
 Bi7n*a, (suggestus, Cathedra,) the festival 
 of the Chair of the Teacher, the festival 
 dedicated to the memory of the teacher 
 illuminated by God. A teacher's chair 
 gaily ornamented and enveloped in costly 
 cloths, was placed in the room where 
 their assemblies were held, and five steps, 
 apparently as a symbol of the five pure 
 Elements, led the way to this chair. All 
 the Manichees testified their reverence 
 for this chair, by falling down before it 
 to the earth, after the Oriental fashion.* 
 
 As far as the moral character of- the 
 Manicheean sect is concerned, since it is 
 necessary on this point accurately to dis- 
 tinguish between the different periods in 
 the history of a sect, we have too scanty 
 notices of the first adherents to it, to 
 allow us to pronounce any definite 
 opinion on the point. Thus much only 
 may be asserted, that Manes intended to 
 maintain a severity of morals in his doc- 
 trine ; but it must be acknowledged, that 
 the mystical language in which it was 
 conveyed, which was occasionally in- 
 decent, might introduce among unedu- 
 cated and unrefined men the intermixture 
 of a sensuous extravagance, likely to 
 prove dangerous to purity of morals. 
 
 Almost immediately that the Manichees I 
 began to spread in the Roman empire, a i 
 violent persecution broke out against them. 
 They were peculiarly obnoxious to the 
 Roman government as a sect, which drew 
 its origin from the Persian empire, then 
 at war with the Roman, and which was 
 connected with the religion of the Parsees. 
 
 The Emperor Diocletian (A. D. 296,) is- 
 sued a law (whicli has been quoted, sec 
 p. 84,) against tliis sect, by which the 
 leaders of it were condemned to be burnt, 
 and their other associates, if they were 
 of an ordinary rank of life, were to be 
 beheaded and suffer a forfeiture of their 
 estates.* 
 
 • Augustin. contra Epist. Fundamenti, c. 8, c. 
 Faustum, lib. xviii. c. 5 
 
 • In regard to the train of tliought and the 
 language, in which the edict is composed, it con- 
 tains all the internal marks of genuineness. It is 
 difficult to conjecture by whom and with what in- 
 tention such an edict could have been invented in 
 this form. A Christian, who might have been 
 inclined to palm such an edict upon the world, in 
 order to drive the emperors to a persecution of the 
 Manicheean sect, would not exactly have chosen 
 Diocletian, and still less have attributed such lan- 
 guage to him. Although the later Christians, in 
 their notions of a dominant religion, transmitted 
 traditionally to them through the Fathers, had 
 much that was analogous to the thoughts of the 
 Heathen, yet a Christian would never have ex- 
 pressed himself altogether in this fashion. 
 
 Why should not the Manicheean sect already 
 have been able by that time to extend itself to- 
 wards Proconsular Africa; for the Gnostics had 
 been preparing the way there, the Manichees cer- 
 tainly were at an early period spread abroad in 
 these districts, and the chronological data relative 
 to the first history of this sect arc so uncertain ? It is 
 said in the law, " si qui sane etiam honorati aut cu- 
 juslibet dignitatis vel majoris persona} ad banc sec- 
 tam se transtulerunt," but it does not necessarily 
 follow from this, that the emperor had any certain 
 account of the propagation of this sect among the 
 first classes, and it would not be surprising in the 
 then attachment of persons of distinction, (who arc 
 always glad enough, besides, to have something 
 that implies distinction in religion,) to Theurgical 
 studies, and to endeavours after sublime determi- 
 nation relative to the World of Spirits, if a mys- 
 terious religion of this kind, with such lofty pre- 
 tensions, found a ready acceptance with them. 
 Besides the argumentum e silcntio, in historical 
 criticism, is very uncertain ; if no particular cir- 
 cumstances conspire to give it greater weight, and 
 the fact that the ancient Fathers of the Church did 
 not quote a decree of Diocletian against the Mani- 
 chees, easily admits of a satisfactory explanation. 
 And yet this decree is quoted as early as Hilarius, 
 who wrote a commentary on the epistles of St. 
 Paul, fai the comment on 2 Tim. iii. 7. 
 2d2 
 
THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
 
 TO THE THIRD PART.* 
 
 I HERE publish the conclusion of the first volume of my History of the Church. I 
 must at the same time acknowledge in some degree the justice of the remark made by 
 excellent men, viz. that the representation of the Apostolic period ought properly to 
 have preceded the whole of the work. There were, however, many reasons which 
 were certainly more of a subjective than an objective character, which induced me still 
 to delay the history of this period. At the same time, after I had once followed this 
 plan, I found also, upon close consideration, that it might prove convenient to attach 
 this representation [of the Apostolic period] as an appendage to the completion of the 
 whole ; and therefore, I have thought it best to complete this volume, according to the 
 plan on which I had begun, and according to the decision I had previously announced, 
 to reserve the representation of the Apostolic period for a separate treatise.f The more 
 I believe myself to have come to this undertaking by an mward calling [durch einen 
 innern Beruf,] the more full of importance the idea of it appears, as it forms itself out 
 of the whole of my life and study, the more I acknowledge on that account how much 
 the realization falls below the ideal conception, by so much the more -(velcome will it 
 be to me, if other unprejudiced friends of truth, who are men of sound knowledge, will 
 point out to me any deficiencies in it as a whole, or in its several parts ; and certainly, 
 as far as I can do it without prejudice to the fundamental views maintained throughout 
 the' whole work, I shall use such remarks, in order to bring the work in a future edition 
 nearer to its proper object. And, in this feeling, I must first express at once my most 
 hearty thanks to the excellent man, who, with an unprejudiced love of truth, with an 
 earnestness of mind, and with profound knowledge, and in a friendly spirit, wrote a 
 notice upon the work in the Literatur-Zeitung of Halle, for March, 1827, (p. 60 — 62.) 
 As I do not agree in my doctrinal opinions with the critic, and as he has himself 
 brought forward this difference in our dogmatical views, I must on that account the 
 more prize and acknowledge Avith gratitude the calm love of justice, and the kind- 
 hearted moderation of the writer ; and I do this the more also, because it is so rare 
 amidst the party passions of our present theological and ecclesiastical criticism, to find 
 this spirit of genuine toleration, which, in the decision of one's own opinions, is ready 
 to acknowledge the rights of another, and is mindful of the necessity ^xSejuv iv ayt?r>i. 
 And yet I might find fault with the author, for having accused me of an inclination to 
 a pietistic character, if he had used the name pietism in as indistinct a manner, as is 
 usual among certain parties at present, and as has been the case always in the applica- 
 tion of those names, by which the predominant spirit of the times stamps the character 
 of heresy on all which is opposed to its own views. But as the author expressly states 
 
 * This part contains Section V. 
 
 + This has since been publislied, and is now announced as in the course of translation by Mr. 
 Hamilton. 
 
 319 
 
CCCXX PREFACE TO THE THIRD PART. 
 
 what he understands by it, and as I really acknowledge as my dogmatical persuasion 
 what he designates by this name, viz. "the view of Christianity, as healing the cor- 
 ruption implanted in human nature, and as destined to represent the Divine in the form 
 of a servant, with which [view] the supra-naturalistic principle is connected, that it 
 communicates a knowledge [Erkenntniss] which lies beyond the range of human 
 nature." As, I say, I acknowledge this as my belief, I can find no fault with the 
 reviewer, either on the ground of injustice or unfairness. Only I might contend with 
 him about the use of the name pietism, according to a just development of its meaning 
 both etymologically and historically ; but this would not be the proper place for it. I 
 will make, besides, only the following remark, that when we speak here of a knowledge 
 lying beyond the reason of man, I mean thereby such a knowledge as is necessary for 
 the curing of that corruption which lies in human nature, and not the revelation of a 
 speculative dogmatical system ; and yet my belief in regard to this, [viz, the revelation 
 of a speculative system,] may be recognised in the third part, which I now publish, as 
 far as it can be done in such a historical representation as this. I will only add that 
 what the critic represents as the object of Christianity, "that man should attain to a 
 free moral change of mind, and to a childlike reliance on a God of love," according to 
 my doctrinal belief, is by no means in contradiction to those principles, which appear 
 to the critic to denote an inclination to a pietistic character of mind ; but are far rather 
 founded upon it. Where certain differences in philosophical or dogmatical views 
 exist, misunderstandings are hardly to be avoided, even where there is the most candid 
 love of truth and the most perfect good will, and I think, without meaning to impugn 
 in any way the reviewer's love of truth, that still some of these mistakes have crept 
 into this review, which is a sound one, when considered from the position which its 
 author takes. When, for example, the reviewer opposes to my statement of the heathen 
 religions, the Hellenic jta^ov aaj/aflo)-, and thinks, that, reversing my sentence, men might 
 deny to Christianity the idea of Beauty [the Beautiful,] Avith the same justice that I 
 deny to Heathenism the idea of Holiness, I must reply, that when I say that in the 
 religions of antiquity the idea of the Beautiful, and not the idea of Holiness, was the 
 animating principle (as every one must acknowledge who sees in antiquity the position 
 of the development of religion in an aesthetical direction,) it by no means follows that 
 the idea of Holiness was mltogether wanting; which I freely confess can never be the 
 case, where the Qod-consciousness implanted in man beams through the surrounding 
 corruption, and therefore, any one might justly say, conversely, [literally reversing the 
 proposition,] that the animating principle of Christianity is the idea of Holiness, not 
 that of the Beautiful, from which it by no means follows that the idea of the Beautiful 
 is altogether wanting ; only with this difference, that Christianity does not stand in 
 opposition to the one-sided heathenism, as itself a one-sided modification of religious 
 materials ; but that it is the highest element, which receives into itself all inferior 
 elements for the fashioning of man, and is destined to set forth the harmony in human 
 nature from the highest position, so that here also the Beautiful, which in heathenism 
 appeared oftentimes at variance with Holiness, must become ennobled into a form under 
 which Holiness is revealed. When, further, the critic accuses me of maintaining that 
 myths are sysonymous with lies, I must beg leave to observe that in the passages 
 alluded to by the reviewer, (i. p. 6 — 9,) I have represented, not my own view of the 
 origin and existence of the heathen religion, but the view of the old legislators and 
 statesmen, who were accustomed to consider religion only in the light of a handmaid 
 of the state. To suppose an absolute lie, which — existing as a lie — could maintain a 
 dominion over the hearts of men throughout centuries, is truly something unintelligible. 
 There exists as the foundation of all religious phenomena, somewhat of that revelation 
 which beams through and reveals the undeniable connection of the human spirit with 
 the God in whom we live and move and have our being. But the lie which exists at 
 first unconsciously, or the error, engrafts itself upon the Original and the Divine. 
 Universally there is, in the lie, which exists involuntarily, a misunderstanding and a 
 
PREFACE TO THE THIRD PART. CCCXxi 
 
 falsification of what is true, and I think that I have spoken plainly on this point in p. 12, 
 and in other passages. I am from my very heart an enemy to the harsh one-sided 
 mode of considering history, so unsuited to the spirit of the Gospel, so as to see in all 
 that is antichristian, exclusive of Judaism, nothing but the works of Satan, and so as 
 not to trace throughout the whole history of human nature, as through every individual 
 human life, the progress onward from father to son — and I hold this mode to be as 
 unchristian as it is unintelligible. 
 
 It would carry me too far to offer explanations on other points, and I must reserve this 
 in individual cases for any future new editions, where I shall with pleasure make use 
 of all the observations of this excellent man, whether they suggest corrections, or by 
 being opposed to my views, they excite me to further inquiry. 
 
 From my heart I coincide Avith the declaration of the reviewer against those " who 
 seek (o banish the life-giving spirit by formula;, and to deaden the force of faith by a 
 new-stamped orthodoxy." Certainly, as the consideration of Christianity, human 
 nature and history teaches us, formulas and symbolical books cannot bring into the 
 hearts of men vital Christianity, from which alone the cure of man's nature can pro- 
 ceed — but they far rather introduce in its stead a dead, delusive and limiting substitute. 
 It is only where truth wins the heart and spirit of man through her own inward power, 
 utterly unsupported by outward means, that the power of faith, and the true right faith, 
 can be estabhshed. As far as regards the anxiety expressed by the reviewer, (for which 
 I heartily thank him,) lest I should be determined by outAvard circumstances to spare 
 space to the injury of the work, the excellent arrangements made by our esteemed 
 friend, the publisher, have put me in a condition to meet the wishes expressed, and at 
 the same time a cheaper edition, with smaller type, will lighten the expense of the 
 work to those who are in indifferent circumstances. 
 
 As far as the judgment of those is concerned, who recognise nothing which does not 
 coma under a certain definite form, adapted to their own particular school, and who 
 arrange d priori first a dogmatical system, and then an interpretation and a history, 
 after the formulae of certain schools, which must suit every thing, and Avhich can only 
 impede freedom of thought, studies and life ; I can do nothing but despise the judg- 
 ments that proceed from such a quarter, whether expressed or implied in silence ; — and, 
 indeed, all this arrogant and pretended knowledge of certain parties of our times is my 
 detestation. I willingly stand on the position of a general history ; and may God 
 preserve me from such a plan as can be deduced from a few miserable formuhr, without 
 study and without life ! a true pest both for the spirit and the heart ! It would be well 
 if we would learn from general history, that there is nothing new under the sun. and 
 if we would hear how John of Salisbury characterizes this disposition in the twelfth 
 century : 
 
 " Itaque recentes magistri e scholis et pulli volucrum e nidis sicut pari tempore 
 morabantur, sic pariter avolabant. Sed quid docebant novi doctoces etqui plus somni- 
 orum quam vigiliarum in scrutinio philosophic consumpserant? Numquid rude aliquid 
 aut incultum, numquid aliquid vetustum aut obsoletum? Ecce nova fiehant omnia, 
 innovabatur grammatica, immutabatur dialectica, contemnebatur rhetorica, et novas 
 totius quadrivii vias, evacuatis priorum regulis, de ipsis philosophia; adytis proferebant. 
 Solam rationem loquebantur, argumentum sonabat in ore omnium et asinum nominare 
 vel hominem aut aliquid operum naturae aut ineptum nimis aut rude, et a philosopho 
 alineum." 
 
 Let this work, therefore, be dedicated to all those Avho, with an humble heart, and in 
 freedom from the service of man, seek the truth which is with God alone, and comes 
 from God. 
 
 Deo soli gloria, omnia hominum idola pereant ! 
 
 A. Neander. 
 Berlin, 1827. 
 
 41 
 
323 
 
 SECTION Y. 
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE FORMATION AND DEVELOPjMENT OF CHRISTIAINITy AS 
 
 A SYSTEM OF DOCTRl\ES IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, WHICH FORMED 
 
 ITSELF IN OPPOSITION TO THE SECTS. 
 
 (1) The genetic development of Church Theolos^y in general, and the characteristic of tlve 
 individual religions and dognwtical dispositions which have peculiarly injluenced it. 
 
 Life in religion, as elsewhere, precedes 
 understaiitling, and this latter forms itself 
 out of the iornier. Christianity had at 
 first taken root in the inward life, and 
 had liere become the ruling principle ; 
 but then the full import of tlie doctrines 
 of that faith, into which man had been at 
 first led through a new life within, and the 
 power of which he had first experienced 
 in his spiritual life, was necessarily to be 
 brought out into a full and clear con- 
 sciousness, by means of a form of thought 
 corresponding to this inward life, and ex- 
 press^ed in definite ideas, with constantly 
 increasing clearness and distinctness. As 
 we have before observed, this end was 
 peculiarly furthered by the struggle against 
 those tendencies of the religious spirit, 
 which, although they were in some de- 
 gree touched by the influence of Chris- 
 tianity, yet constantly adulterated real 
 Christianity on one side or the other ; 
 and which, therefore, by means of their 
 opposition, still more called forth the en- 
 deavour to set this (i. e. pure Christianity,) 
 in a clear light, and to hold it steady. 
 
 The opposition against Judaism and 
 rieatlienism, from the very nature of 
 things, could influence only the most 
 general development of Christian know- 
 ledge ; but the opposition against those 
 Judaizing, Orientalizing, and Ilellenizing 
 tendencies, which laid hold even of the 
 inward life of tlie Church, and threatened 
 to corrupt it, had this efi'ect, that tlie im- 
 port of the peculiarly Christian doctrines 
 was unfolded and brought befcire the 
 mind of man with more clear and distinct 
 consciousness. But yet, as Christianity 
 was constantly limiting its propagation 
 more and more to the territory of hea- 
 thenism, and passing out nf the circle of 
 Judaism, the connection of the Catliolic 
 Church, as it formed itself Avith Judaism, 
 must liave become less and less, while its 
 connection with Gnosticism, the more 
 Christianity was spread among the edu- 
 cated heathens, to whose views the more 
 
 j free Gnostic conception of it would be 
 ' most consonant, would become constantly 
 ': more predominant, and of itself, the influ- 
 i ence of the deep and comprehensive 
 j Gnosticism, would be more important, 
 I more prolific, and more lasting, than 
 ; that of the meagre and dry Judaism. No 
 I phenomenon of this age had so general 
 ! an influence on the development of the 
 j Christian Faith and Theology, as Gnos- 
 I ticism had, by means of the opposition 
 which it excited. 
 
 As far as regards this influence in 
 general, without reference, however, to 
 the most important doctrines, (of which 
 we shall hereafter speak more at large,) 
 men were necessarily induced, through 
 their opposition to the Gnostics, to give 
 an account to themselves of the sources 
 from which a knowledge of the Christian 
 faith was to be obtained, for tlie Gnostics 
 denied the authenticity, or at least the 
 sulhciency of the documents, M-hich alone 
 liad hitlierto been silently received in the 
 Catholic Church, namely, the received 
 body of Scripture, as well as of the tradi- 
 tions of the Church, and in opposition to 
 these they set up a different source of 
 knowledge in a pretended secret doctrine, 
 transmitted down from Christ and his 
 apostles, or from a chosen number among 
 the apostles. And since, besides, the 
 Gnostics, by means of a capricious and 
 allegorizing mode of interpretation, or by 
 a literal one, which was just as capricious, 
 and which did not regard the context in 
 ascertaining the sense of words, and 
 which set at nought all laws of thought 
 and speech, made it easy for themselves 
 by these means to introduce all their un- 
 biblical meanings into the Holy Scrip- 
 tures, and to deceive the unwary who 
 iieani tfiem adduce so many passages of 
 Holy Writ; so their adversaries were 
 j obliged to oppose this capricious mode 
 of interpretation, by establishing the ob- 
 1 jective grounds of a logical and gramnia- 
 1 tical interpretation, and thus the first seeds 
 
324 
 
 POSSIBILITV OF UNION. 
 
 of a biblical hermeneutic proceeded from 
 these controversies. When the Gnostics 
 transferred to the Christian religion that 
 contrast between a religion of the people 
 and a religion of the initiated,* wliich had 
 been removed by Christianity, and which 
 was contrary to its very nature, the oppo- 
 sition to this error was the first cause 
 that an essential religious faitli, independ- 
 ent of philosophy, and not interwoven 
 into any mythology, but clear in itself 
 and self-sufficient, was brought before the 
 light as the foundation of a higher life for 
 all mankind, and more distincdy defined. 
 While the Gnostics were here applying 
 the position of tlie earlier religions to 
 Christianity, their opponents were obliged 
 on that very account to bnng the peculiar 
 religious position of the latter more 
 clearly before their own minds. 
 
 And yet, while on the one side an op- 
 position to Gnosticism would naturally 
 arise here, yet on the other, this struggle, 
 which Vv'as right in itself, and quite in 
 union with tlie spirit of Christianity, 
 would present a point on which Gnosis 
 might engraft itself This was a struggle 
 after a deeper knowledge of the inward 
 connection of the doctrines of the Chris- 
 tian faith, a struggle to proceed forth 
 from the position which Christianity 
 takes up and thence attain to a mode of 
 viewing liuman and divine things, which 
 should form one systematic whole. — 
 Gnosis of itself was not necessarily false, 
 but that false pride of Gnosis was so, 
 which, instead of going forth from the 
 foundation of faith, and unfolding thus 
 the import and the connection of that 
 Aviiich had been acquired in a lively 
 manner through faith, thought to be able 
 to raise itself above a life in faith ; and 
 considering this life in faith as valid only 
 for a subordinate position, tliought that it 
 could bestow something of a higher kind. 
 Abrupt contradiction can never persuade 
 the erring, and never efiectually stem the 
 progress of any false views which happen 
 to exist in any particular age. Abrupt 
 contradiction, which condemns the true 
 together with the false, is more likely to 
 provoke more fiercely an erroneous oppo- 
 sition party which is conscioiis of having 
 some grounds founded in truth ; and 
 therefore, such a contradiction furthers the 
 propagation of these errors, inasmuch as 
 it lends them an appearance of justice, aiul 
 a point on wliich to attach themselves in 
 the real wants of human nature : and this 
 
 [ Literally, " the perfect." H. J. R.] 
 
 was also shown then in the prnna^ation 
 
 of the Gnostic sects. 'I'he best means of 
 
 successfully combating errors, which arise 
 
 from a fundamental disposition of human 
 
 nature which has only been led astray, 
 
 I is always to recognise this disposition 
 
 j with its just rights, and to satisfy its 
 
 demands in the mode that nature dictates. 
 
 j This would have happened in regard to 
 
 I the Gnostics, if men, while they main- 
 
 1 tained the dignity and the independence 
 
 ! of faith, had yet aduiowledged tlie just 
 
 ' and right feeling on which that struggle 
 
 after a Gnosis was founded, and if they 
 
 had endeavoured to set forth such a 
 
 Gnosis as proceeded from faith, and was 
 
 only the natural production of faith in 
 
 I human reason enlightened by that faith. 
 
 I Thus the germ of a Christian Dogmatic 
 
 (system of doctrines) systematically hang- 
 
 I ing together, and of a Christian philoso- 
 
 , phy, would be formed ; and these two, 
 
 like many other dissimilar elements of 
 
 the new spiritual world of Christianity, 
 
 I which was first conceived in its chaotic 
 
 ! stage of development, might by and by 
 
 be separated from each other. 
 
 The establishment of a faith indepen- 
 dent of speculation, of the practical nature 
 and the practical tendency of Christianity, 
 on one liand, and on the other, the deve- 
 lopment of a Gnosis built on the founda- 
 tion of faith, these were the two corner- 
 stones from which the formation of the 
 Churchly theology proceeded, and here 
 its two proper chief divisions may be 
 recognised. Here also the progress of 
 the development of human nature brought 
 this consequence wiUi it, that these two 
 dispositions did not immediately work, 
 together harmoniously, and did not im- 
 mediately fall into the just and natural 
 relations whicli ought to exist between 
 them, but that by mutual departure from 
 die just harmonious mean, and by a partial 
 love of dominion in both of tlieni, those 
 two tendencies of die Christian spirit, the 
 one, a predominantly realistic, the other, 
 a predominanUy idealistic turn, fell into 
 collision with each other; as well in the 
 development of the Church doctrine, as 
 in opposition to it; only with this differ- 
 ence, that here both dispositions set out 
 from the selfsame foundation of Chris- 
 tianity, and were united together by the 
 one spirit. of that Christianity. Tiius was 
 Christianity to prepare the way for its 
 own development in the midst of^ the con- 
 tradictions of human nature, which find 
 in it their reconciliation. 
 
 The first of these was originally the 
 
PRACTICAL CHRISTIAN DISPOSITION'. 
 
 prevailing tendency in the development 
 ot' Cliiirclily theology, for this theology 
 originally formed itself from a realistic 
 and practically Christian spirit, the desire 
 of defending the unchangeable ground- 
 work of the Christian faith against the 
 caprice of Gnostic speculation. We find 
 this disposition among the lirst J'alhers 
 of Asia Minor, in Polycarp of Smyrna, 
 Papias of Hierapolis in Phrygia, Melito 
 of Sardis, and in Irenajus, who was 
 formed in the school of Asia Minor, and 
 having transferred the sphere of his acti- 
 vity to Lyons and the western Church in 
 tlie latter half of his life, transplanted 
 that disposition thither also. These 
 Fathers of Asia Minor acted as pastors 
 of these Churches, in which they endea- 
 voured to maintain the pure and simple 
 apostolic doctrine, and to defend it against 
 corruption. They Avere, hence, compelled 
 to enter into controversy with the Gnostic 
 sects which were spreading around them 
 in Asia 3Iinor. A truly Christian con- 
 sciousness animated them in their struggle 
 against the idealism of Gnosticism ; but 
 yet they often opposed to it only a grossly 
 sensuous, anthropomorphic, anthropopa- 
 thical apprehension of spiritual matters, 
 v/hich arose from a deficient and ignorant 
 cast of mind, not sufficiently penetrated 
 and illuminated by the Spirit of Chris- 
 tianity. Although there were among them 
 men of a variety of isolated literary 
 acquirements, yet they were deficient in 
 tlie essentials of a learned and systematic 
 training of the mind. We further find 
 this disposition in the Western or Romish 
 Cliurch, under which we reckon all those 
 countries in which the Latin language 
 prevailed. Although the peculiar cha- 
 racter of the Romish people received a 
 difierent modification under the influence 
 of difierent climates, and according to the 
 nature of the original inhabitants on 
 which it was engrafted,* as, for instance, 
 among the Carthaginian people in the hot 
 part of Africa; yet we may look upon 
 ihe peculiar character of the Romans as 
 the generally prevailing character here, 
 and in the infiuence it had upon the con- 
 ception of Christian doctrine, we cannot 
 but recognise the prevailing realism of 
 the less variable Romish spirit, which 
 stifiy holds fast what it has once received. 
 VVe may consider Irenajus as a repre- 
 
 325 
 
 I sentative of that first practical Christian 
 disposition which opposed itself toGnos- 
 I ticism. He is distinguished as a partaker 
 ' in all the ecclesiastical events of his days, 
 and, as a dogmatic writer, by his sobriety 
 and his moderation in holding fast the 
 \ essential foundations of the Christian 
 I faith, as well as by maintaining what is 
 ' practically important in his treatment of 
 all individual Christian doctrines. In his 
 I chief work against the Gnostics, he says 
 I of the one unchangeable essential funda- 
 j mental doctrine of Christianity, to which 
 ' the agreement of all Churches gives wit- 
 1 ness, and which every luiprejudiced per- 
 I son could himself adduce from Scripture,* 
 I " Although scattered over the whole 
 world, the Church as carefully maintains 
 j this faith as if it inhabited only one 
 house. It believes these things as if it 
 had one soul and the same heart, and it 
 preaches! them as harmoniously as if it 
 
 liad only one mouth As the Sun, 
 
 the creature of God, is one and the same 
 over all the world, so also the preaching 
 of the truth shines every where, and illu- 
 minates all men who are willing to come 
 to the knowledge of the truth. He 
 among the presidents of the Churches, 
 who is mighty in eloquence, can preach 
 nothing else but this (for no one is above 
 the teacher-,) nor does he that is weak 
 in preaching diminish the doctrine de- 
 livered to him ; for as the faith is one 
 and the same, he who is able to speak 
 much concerning it, can add nothing to 
 it, and he who is able to say but litde, 
 cannot diminish it."J He thus opposes 
 the speculative sopiiistry of this prin- 
 ciple :§ " Sound, II unsuspecting, pious 
 reason, that loves the truth, will with joy 
 meditate on what God has given into the 
 power of man, and subjected to our 
 knowledge, and he will advance in it, 
 rendering the learning of it easy to him- 
 self by daily exercise. Now this consists 
 of those things that fall under our own 
 eyes, and those things that are expressly 
 
 * Although we must take far less account of 
 these circumstances in the case of Christian 
 Churches in large towns, because in them fewer 
 traces of the old inhabitants remained. 
 
 * liib. i. 3. [I. c. X. § 2, Ed. Massuet. p. 49. 
 The ])revious section, which contains this universal 
 creed, is one of very great value, as it sets forth 
 one of the most ancient confessions of faith in 
 language very closely resembling the Apostles' 
 Creed.— H. .T. K.] 
 
 f [" It preaches, it teaches, and it hands down," 
 is the exact translation of the Greek phrase. — II. 
 J. R.] 
 
 t [This is evidently an allusion to the manna, 
 Exod. xvi. 18. See Massuet's note. — H. J. K.] 
 
 § Lib. ii. c. 45. [c. xxvii. Ed. .Massuet.] 
 
 II I'mvJuvj;, sicher ihres Wogcs gehcndc] 
 
 2E . 
 
326 
 
 IREN^US. — MONTANISM, 
 
 said in the Holy Scriptures openly and 
 unambiguously." ''• It is better and more 
 advantageous," says the same writer,*" to 
 be ignorant and to come near to God by 
 love, than for a man, who seems to be a 
 man of great learning and knowledge, to 
 be found blaspheming against his own 
 Master. Therefore did Paul exclaim, 
 ' knowledge pufleth up, but charity edi- 
 fieth.' Not as if he had blamed the real 
 knowledge tbat comes from God, for then 
 he would have accused Jiimself the first; 
 but because he knew that many, elated by 
 the pretence of knowledge, departed from 
 the love of God It is better, there- 
 fore, that a man should know nothing, 
 should not know the cause of any one of 
 created things, why it was created, but 
 believe in God and persevere in love of 
 him, thaaj that being puffed up by this 
 kind of knowledge, he should fall away 
 from the love that makes man living; it is 
 better to wish to know nothing else than 
 Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who was 
 crucified for us, thanj to fall into impiety 
 by subtile questions and petty cavilings 
 at words." " It is no wonder," says Ire- 
 na3us,§ " if we find many difiiculties which 
 we cannot remove, in spiritual and hea- 
 venly things, in those whicli are known 
 to us only by revelation, wlien in that 
 which lies before our feet, I mean in tliat 
 which we perceive by the senses, much 
 escapes our knowledge, and these things 
 we leave to God, who mnst be elevated 
 above every thing. But if in the things 
 of the creation, something is within the 
 reach of our knowledge, and other things 
 are reserved for the knowledge of God, 
 how can we think it a difficulty, that out 
 of those things that are sought in the 
 Holy Scripture, the whole of which is 
 spiritual, we should be able to unravel 
 some by the grace of God, while others 
 are still reserved to the knowledge of 
 God, and that too, not only in the present 
 world, but in that which is to come ; in 
 order that God may always teach, and 
 man may always learn from God." 
 "They complain," says Iren;cus of the 
 Gnostics, " of the ignorance of ihe holy 
 presbyters,|i because they do not consider 
 
 ' Lib. ii. c. 4,'i. [c. 26, Ed. Mas.suct, p. 1.54.] 
 f This part has unfortunately only come down 
 
 to us in a Latin triinslation, where the translator 
 
 has evidently rendered « by aut instead of quam. 
 
 Neander has very j)ropcrly translated it as if it 
 
 were quam. — H. J. K.] 
 i See last note. 
 
 § Lib. ii. c. 47. [c. 28, Ed. Massuet, p. 1.56.] 
 1 Irenaeus uses tiie word "holy" here in the 
 
 of how much greater value a pious com- 
 mon man is, t!ian a blaspheming and im- 
 pudent sophist."* 
 
 ! We may consider Montaaism as one of 
 I the forms of error which this anti-Gnos- 
 , tic religious realism assumed, because, 
 j where it was carried to the extreme, it 
 j opposed the predominance of extravagant 
 speculation, by the predominance of extra- 
 vagant feelings. It was a system, which, 
 while it professed to have a source of illu- 
 mination besides the Holy Scripture, and 
 j the reason, as 'enlightened by those Scrip- 
 I tures, became, in a different way, a prey to 
 I the self-deceptions of a caprice whicli 
 I confused what belongs to man with what 
 belongs to God. 
 
 [ With regard to Montanus himself, from 
 whom it arose, we have, alas, too slender 
 documents to allow us satisfactorily to 
 explain psychologically the course of his 
 religious development, and the origin of 
 his peculiar religious opinions. But the 
 personal history of this man cannot be 
 here of the same importance, as the 
 scandal which he brought upon a habit 
 of mind then prevalent, in consequence 
 of the effects which it produced. The 
 idea proclaimed by Montanus was no 
 new idea ; it was one, which had in many 
 persons arisen from a one-sided turn of 
 mind in regard to Christianity, and had 
 become to them the centre point of their 
 inward life, without their being aAvare of 
 it. It was only by means of Montanus 
 that this idea became the centre of a 
 compact and separate set of opinions, 
 I and the point of union for a Church 
 party which formed itself upon that set 
 I of opinions. What had probably been 
 j brought forward by Montanus only in a 
 fragmentary manner in the language of 
 feeling, was conceived by the spirit of a 
 Tertullian with a more clear conscious- 
 ness, and was worked up into a systematic 
 whole. We must, therefore, in order to 
 characterize the opinions of Montanus, 
 use also the writings of Tertullian, 
 although we should not be justified in at- 
 tributing to the less formed and cultivated 
 mind of Montanus all the thougliis ex- 
 pressed by one like Tertullian, whose 
 more advanced development of mind 
 renders his views more definite and of 
 more importance. 
 
 sense in which the New Testament applies it to 
 all true Christians, 
 
 * Lib. V. c. 20. [Neander has translated 
 " Idiota" by Idiot, which may answer in (unman, 
 but would lead to a wrong notion in English. — H. 
 J. K.] 
 
CHARACTER OF MONTANIS.M. 
 
 527 
 
 The one side of Christianity, the idea ' 
 of a communication of a Divine life to { 
 liuman nature as a means of reforming it ; 1 
 the idea of a new Divine creation, which ^ 
 shouUl reform every tiling, and of an over- \ 
 powering dominion of the Divinity in | 
 man's nature ; this idea, which forms a 
 keynote to Christianity, was predomi- ] 
 nant in Montanism, and made its centre 
 point ; but the other side of Christianity, 
 the idea of the harmonious amalgamation 
 of the Divine and the human* in man's 
 nature when renewed by tlic Divine prin- 
 ciple of life, tlie idea of the free and in- ' 
 dependent development of the ennobled 
 faculties of man's nature as a necessary \ 
 consequence of this amalgamation, this \ 
 idea and the other keynote of Chris- ' 
 tianity which flows from it, were thrown 
 into the back ground. In this system 
 (.Montanism) the influence of the Divine 
 power appears as a magical i)ower, taking 
 an irresistible hold on man, and over- 
 whelming all his human qualities; while 
 that which is human appears to be only 
 a blind instrument involuntarily borne on. 
 Montanism, when carried to the extreme, 
 would necessarily lead men to set Chris- 
 tianity in hostile array against all know- 
 ledge and art, as if either were an adul- 
 teration of that which is Divine by man's 
 intermingling his own activity with it. 
 
 Montanus was a new convert in a vil- 
 lage of Mysia, called Ardaban (Ardabau) t 
 on the confines of Phrygia. What hap- | 
 pens to individual men, happened here , 
 with provinces in a body, that their way • 
 of conceiving Christianity bears the stamp | 
 of their previous national peculiarities, just 
 as with individual peculiarities, whether ' 
 it be that these subordinate themselves | 
 to the spirit of Christianity and rise up [ 
 again in it in an ennobled form, or! 
 whether they mingle themselves in a dis- 
 turbing manner with the energies of 
 Christianity, and that the former iniqui- 
 ties break out again, only covered with a 
 Christian garb. Of the latter process 
 many traces are to be found in regard to 
 the Phrygian national peculiarities. In | 
 the old national religion of the Phrygians 
 we recognise the character of this moun- 
 tain people, inclined to fanaticism and su- 
 perstition, and easily induced to believe 
 in magic and enchantment, nor can we 
 wonder if in the ecstasies and somnam- j 
 bulism of the 3Iontanists we find again the 
 Phrygian spirit, which showed itself in 
 
 * [Durchdringung. Literally penetration — in- 
 terpenetration. — H, J. R.j 
 
 the ecstasies of the priests of Cybele and 
 Bacchus. 
 
 As many in the first ardent zeal of con- 
 version gave up all their earthly goods, 
 and devoted themselves to a strict ascetic 
 life, such an ascetic zeal also seized 
 Montanus as a new convert. We must 
 remember, that he was living in a coun- 
 try, where there was a widely extended 
 expectation, that the Church, on the scene 
 of its sufferings, and on earth itself before 
 the end of all earthly things, would enjoy 
 a thousand years of triumphant empire — 
 the expectation of a final reign of Christ 
 upon the earth for a diousand years 
 (chiliasm as it was called) — and where 
 many images of an enthusiastic imagina- 
 tion about the nature of this expected 
 kingdom, were then current.* The time 
 at which he lived — either during those 
 calamitous natural events of which we 
 have spoken above, (see p. 60,) and the 
 persecutions of the Christians which fol- 
 lowed upon them, or during the bloody 
 persecutions of Marcus Aurelius,"f was al- 
 together calculated peculiarly to promote 
 such an excitement of feeling, and such a 
 turn of the imagination. There was just 
 at that season a violent contest in Asia 
 Minor, between the speculative Gnostics, 
 
 * Papias of Hierapolis, having lived in Phrygia, 
 had already heen active there, and many passages 
 of the Pseudo-Sibylline point to Phrygia also. 
 There are certainly no grounds for .supposing, 
 with Longuerue and Blondel, that these passages 
 came from Montanus or the Montanists, for there 
 are no ideas whatever peculiar to Montanism in 
 those Pseudo-Sibylline oracles. We should rather 
 here recognise that selfsame peculiar Phrygian 
 spirit, which is also reflected in Montanism. If 
 Mount Ararat be supposed transplanted to Phry- 
 gia, wc should recognise here the same prejudice 
 among the Phrygians in favour of their native 
 land, for which they claimed the credit of beirtg 
 the oldest country on earth, as when Montanus 
 makes the village Pepnza in Phrygia the seat 
 of the Millenarian empire. 
 
 j- We are without sufficient and trustworthy 
 data, to determine with precision, any thing cer- 
 tain with regard to the time, in which Montanus 
 first appeared ; but from the very nature of the 
 thing, the beginning of a matter like this is always 
 ditiicult to be determined. Eusebius, in his 
 Chronicon, places the first appearance of Mon- 
 tanus in tlte year 171. But if we suppose 
 that the Roman T3ishop, wiiom Praxeas induced 
 to excommunicate Montanus, was not Victor, but 
 Ekuf/icros, (for which opinion I have slated the 
 reason.s in my work on Tertullian, p. 486,) it 
 would follow, that .Montanus had appeared in the 
 time of the Roman Bishop Anicetus, who died in 
 the yearlGl. Apollonius (ap. Euseb. v. 18,) and 
 Epiphanius, who place the appearance of Mon- 
 tanus in the year 157, are both in favour of the 
 earlier date. 
 
328 
 
 and the defenders of the old simple doc- 
 trines, and men were speaking much of 
 impending corruptions of Christianity. 
 All this might work upon the mind of the 
 newly converted Phrygian, inclined as he 
 was to fantastic excitement of the feelings. 
 The transition was then just taking place 
 from the time of the first preternatural 
 influences of the Divine Spirit on tlie na- 
 ture of man, to the season in which the 
 new Divine principle of life was to be de- 
 veloped by the natural channels and in a 
 quiet harmonious manner, in man's na- [ 
 ture sanctified by that very principle of 
 life as an instrument affecting it-, and it | 
 was natural that this transition should be I 
 accompanied by many disturbing circum- | 
 stances, and that a disposition should \ 
 arise, which, opposing the development 
 of Christianity in man's nature in a man- 
 ner consonant to its usual course, should 
 wish to keep that first season of the ap- 
 pearance of Christianity as an abiding 
 condition of things, and then to the gen- 
 nine working of the Divine Spirit there 
 would be joined an overheated excite- 
 ment of the mind, which imitated that 
 working, but was in fact a violent excite- 
 ment of the imagination. All this must 
 be taken into the account in order to 
 explain the rise of a character like 
 Montanus. 
 
 We do not desire to deny, that Mon- 
 tanus had experienced something of the 
 more spiritual (literally, higher) life of 
 Christianity ; that mixture of truth and 
 error could liardly have existed without 
 this in the soul of Montanus, but in indi- 
 viduals as well as in whole masses the 
 old proverb is sure to be found true ; 
 ' where God builds himself a temple, the 
 Devil builds himself a chapel near it." 
 The old Phrijgian nature crept in unper- 
 ceived so as to trouble the pure Christian 
 feelings, and Montanus took for an in- 
 spiration of the Spirit, what really was 
 from the flesh : while no one of sound 
 judgment with a Christian care for his 
 soul warned him against the mixture of 
 light and darkness, and brought him back 
 to sobriety ; or, perhaps, if they did, the 
 admiration of the multitude, who rever- 
 enced him as a Prophet, made a greater 
 impression upon him ; and tlius appa- 
 rently the most dangerous source of all 
 self-deception and all enthusiasm, vanillic 
 was added to these disadvantages. He 
 used to fall into a kind of transport, 
 during which, widiout consciousness, but 
 as the passive instrument, as he thought, 
 of a higher power, he announced new I 
 
 ERRORS OF MONTANUS. 
 
 persecutions in enigmatical and mystical 
 expressions ;* he exhorted Christians to 
 a more strict ascetic life, and to an un- 
 daunted confession of their faith ; lie 
 praised the blessedness of martyrdom, 
 and incited Christians to use their utmost 
 endeavours to obtain it; and during tliese 
 transports he also announced the near 
 approach of God's judicial punishment 
 of the persecutors of the Church, as well 
 as of the second coming of Christ, and 
 the establishment of the Millenarian 
 kingdom, the blessedness of which he 
 painted in attractive colours. At last he 
 desired to be looked upon as a prophet 
 sent from God for the whole Church, as 
 an eidightened reformer of the whole re- 
 ligious life of the Church — the Christian 
 Church was through him to be raised to 
 a higher degree of perfection in conduct, 
 and a highei moral doctrine was to be 
 revealed through him for the manhood of 
 the Church in its state of maturity — and 
 he referred to himself the promise of 
 Christ, that through the Holy Ghost he 
 would reveal things, which the men of 
 that time Avere unable to comprehendo 
 He also believed himself called to com- 
 municate nev/ decisions with respect to 
 doctrinal points, in order to clear up the 
 doctrinal controversies then particularly 
 common in those regions, and to preserve 
 the doctrines of the Faith against the at- 
 tacks of Heretics. 
 
 It is likely enough that Montanus did 
 not aspire to all this at once., but that his 
 views with regard to his own person and 
 calling, and his claims in regard to what 
 he was to be to the Church, were gra- 
 dually formed and extended under the 
 influence of circumstances, in conse- 
 quence of the acceptance which his pre- 
 tended oracles obtained ; but the informa- 
 tion we have is not sufficient to enable us 
 to deduce from it a genetic development of 
 the history of Montanus. Two women, 
 Prisca or Priscilla, and Maximilla, who 
 also desired to be looked upon as prophe- 
 tesses, joined themselves to Montanus-t 
 
 Montanism maintained the doctrine of 
 
 * ^ivo<pa)vi:ii is the cxpresssion of a eontcin 
 porary, ap. Euseb. v. 16. yKM^T-M. See Plutarch 
 on tlie ancient oracular responses, <le Pyth. Orac, 
 c. 24. [I find only the verb ^ivc^unsv, not the 
 word '^iK<pai-itAi applied here to Montanus, The 
 word Entziickungen, which I have translated traii:^- 
 ptn-fs, expresses any kind of ecstacy, transport, 
 or trance, the Greek phrase in Euseb. v. 16 ; tz^jx- 
 3-T««c is used here for a state of excitement,'' in 
 which a person is beside himself. See Valesius 
 in loc— H. .1. R.] 
 
 f All the doctrines which the Montanistic party 
 
SPIRIT OF MONTAMSM. 
 
 329 
 
 fl gradual advance of the. Church accord- 
 ing to a general lato of the development 
 of the kingdom of God. In the works of 
 grace, say the Montanists, as well as in 
 the works of nature, both of which 
 come from tl:e same Creator, every thin;^ 
 developcs itself according to a certain 
 gradation : from the seed first comes a 
 shrub, which gradually increases to a tree ; 
 the tree first obtains leaves, then follows 
 the bloom, and out of this comes the fruit, 
 which also attains to ripeness only by 
 degrees.. Thus also the kingdom of 
 rigliteousness developes itself by certain 
 degrees ; first came the fear of God in 
 accordance with the voice of nature wiUi- 
 out a revealed law (tlie Patriarchal Re- 
 ligion •,) then came its infancy under the 
 Law and the Prophets, then its youth 
 under the Gospel, then its development to 
 the maturity of manhood through the 
 new outpouring of the Holy Ghost, to- 
 gether with the appearance of Montanus, 
 and through the new teaching of the pro- 
 mised Paraclete.* How could the work 
 of God stand still, and not develope itself 
 progressively, when the kingdom of the 
 wicked one was always extending itself 
 in all directions, and always acquiring 
 new powers .' They maintained, there- 
 fore, a progressively advancing action of 
 the Holy Ghost in redeemed man ; the 
 progressive revelation of the Divine, op- 
 posed to the progressive revelation of the 
 Evil one. They opposed those who 
 would place arbitrary limits to the opera- 
 tion of the Holy Ghost, as if his extraor- 
 dinary operations had been confined en- 
 tirely to the time of the apostles, as it is 
 said in a jMontanistic writing,! "-lest any 
 weakness or want of faith should lead 
 us to believe that the grace of God was 
 efficacious only among the ancients, for 
 God always works what he has promised, 
 as a sign to the unbelieving, and as a 
 mercy to believers." They appealed to 
 die promise made by Christ himself, that 
 He would give to the faithful the Re- 
 brought forward, were not altogether peculiar to it ; 
 they were often only ideas which had l)ecn in ex- 
 istence for a long time, and were current in the 
 Church just at that time, and which, being car- 
 ried to the extreme by the Montanists, called forth 
 also an opposition to them. 
 
 * Tertullian de Virgg. Velandis, c. I. 
 
 j- Acta Pcrpctuaj et Felicitatis, Prjef. 
 
 [Ruinart, in his preliminary observations, en- 
 deavours to show that this is not a Montanistic 
 writing, and to explain this passage, as merely 
 comparing the then workings of God with former 
 ones, but not with those recorded in Scripture. 
 — H. J. R.l 
 
 42 
 
 velations through the Paraclete, as the 
 perfecter of his Church, through whom 
 He would reveal what men at that time 
 were unable to comprehend. They did 
 not, however, by any means, M'ish to 
 maintain, that this promise did not refer 
 to the case of the apostles, to whom all 
 odiers referred it; but merely that it did 
 not refer to the case of the apostles alone.^ 
 in whom it was not fulfilled in its whole 
 extent, and that it had reference also to 
 the new revelations Uirough the prophets, 
 who were now raised up, and that these 
 last were necessary, in order to the com- 
 pletion and advancement of the first reve- 
 lation.* They declared expressly that 
 the new prophets must distinguish them- 
 selves from false teacliers, and certify their 
 Divine calling by their agreement with 
 the doctrines preached by the apostles, 
 as they had been disseminated in all 
 Churches. The essential fundamental 
 doctrines recognised in the whole Church, 
 they recognised also as unalterable foun- 
 dations of the development of the Church ; 
 but the whole system of Christian mo- 
 rality, and the whole religious life con- 
 nected with the Church system, was to be 
 farther advanced by these new revelations ; 
 for men who were just converted from 
 heathenism, and only just emerging from 
 an entirely carnal state, were unable to 
 receive the whole demands of Christian 
 perfection. And farther also, the Chris- 
 tian doctrines which were attacked by the 
 heretics, who were now extending them- 
 selves in every direction, were to be firmly 
 established by these new revelations. 
 While these heretics, by means of arbi- 
 trary and false explanations, made the 
 Holy Scriptures, out of which tliey might 
 have been best confuted, speak their lan- 
 guage, Uiese new revelations were to offer 
 the means of opposing them with settled 
 authority. Lastly, these new revelations 
 were to communicate decisions and deter- 
 minations respecting those jnatters of 
 doctrine and practice which were dien 
 made the subject of controversy .| The 
 Montanist Tertullian, therefore, at the 
 conclusion of his treatise, concerning the 
 Resurrection, calls thus to those who de- 
 sire to draw from the well of Uiese new re- 
 velations, " yc shall not thirst after any in- 
 struction ; no inquiries shall torment you." 
 This notion of a progressive develop- 
 
 * Tertullian dc Pudicit. c. 12. 
 
 I Tertullian de Virgg. Velandis, as the admin- 
 istratio Paraclcti, quod disciplina dirigitur, quod 
 Scripture revclantur, quod intellectus rcformatur. 
 2e2 
 
330 
 
 ment of the Church led the Montanists, 
 on the one hand* to a genuine evangelical 
 opposition against a narroiv-hearted and 
 stiff Church view, ivhich clung only to 
 outward things ; a view which was unable 
 to distinguish between what is changeable 
 and what is unchangeable in the Church, 
 {churchhj life, literally,) and which looked 
 upon those of its forms, its outward 
 ordinances and usages, which might 
 properly change with time and circum- 
 stances, as grounded upon apostolical 
 tradition, and settled irrevocably for all 
 ages. The Montanists, on the contrary, 
 were better able to distinguish between 
 the changeable and the unchangeable in the 
 development of the Church, because they 
 would allow of nothing but tiie immuta- 
 hility of the dogmatic tradition ; they 
 maintained, that the arrangements and or- 
 dinances of the Church might be changed 
 and improved, according to the necessities 
 of the times, by means of the progressive 
 instruction of the Paracl€.te.\ And farther, 
 while the ecclesiastical view considered 
 the bishops as the only organs for the 
 shedding abroad of the Holy Spirit in 
 the Churcli, as the successors of the 
 apostles, and the heirs of their spiritual 
 power, Montanism, on the contrary, al- 
 though, upon the whole, it acknowledged 
 the existing order in the Church as one 
 founded by God, yet maintained that 
 there are still higher organs to conduct 
 the development of the Church than these 
 ordinary ones, namely, the extraordinary 
 organs, the prophets inspired by the Holy 
 Ghost. These alone, according to the 
 Montanislic view, were the successors of 
 the apostles in the highest sense, the 
 heirs of their perfect spiritual power. 
 TertuUian, therefore, sots the Church of 
 the S])irit, rchich reveals itself by means 
 of men enlightened by the Holy Spirit, in 
 opposition to the Church, ivhich consists 
 in its number of bishops.'^^ Thus those 
 who followed the voice of the Holy 
 Ghost, speaking through the new pro- 
 phets, as being the spiritually-minded, the 
 genuine Cliristians, were considered to 
 make up the Church ; while, on the con- 
 trary, they called the opponents of the 
 new revelations, the carnally-minded 
 (Psychici.) Montanism, therefore, which 
 made the inward fact of the operation of 
 
 • [See the counterbalancing error a page or two 
 farther on.— H. J, R.] 
 
 f Tertull. de Corona Mil. c. 3. 
 
 ■^ De Pudicit, c. 21. Ecclesia spiritus per spirit- 
 alem homineni, non ecclesia numcrus episco- 
 porum. 
 
 MONTANISTIC VIEWS. 
 
 the Holy Ghost the mark of the true 
 Church, when contrasted with Catho- 
 licism,* whose characters are too ex- 
 ternal, leads to a more spiritual conception 
 of the notion of the Church, and one 
 whose view was more directed to inward 
 things. TertuUian says,| " The Church, 
 in the peculiar and the most excellent 
 sense, is the Holy Ghost, in which the 
 Three are One, and therefore, the whole 
 union of those who agree in this belief 
 (viz. that God the Father, the Son, and 
 the Holy Ghost are one,) is named the 
 Church, after its founder and sanctitier 
 (the Holy Ghost.") 
 
 As farther, according to the Montan- 
 istic theory, prophets might be raised up 
 out of every class of Cliristians, — as the 
 j Montanists looked upon it expressly as 
 something characteristic of this last epoch 
 I of the development of the kingdom of 
 j God, that, according to the prophecies 
 I of Joel, ch. iii. [ch. ii.] then in course of 
 fulfilment,^ the gifts of the Spirit should 
 I indifferently be shed abroad over all 
 classes of Christians of both sexes, — and 
 as those requirements, with respect to 
 Christian conduct, which had till then 
 been limited to the clergy, were extended 
 < by these new revelations to all Christians 
 I as such, they were induced by these cir- 
 cumstances to bring forward the idea of 
 the " dignity of the Christian calling in 
 general, and of the dignity of the priest- 
 hood as belonging to all Christians."§ 
 
 But although, on one side, the idea of 
 the Church was conceived here in a more 
 free and spiritual manner, although Mon- 
 tanism opposed the idea of a progressive 
 development of the Church to that form- 
 bound system, which was more Jewish 
 
 * [Literally, "co7itra^ied ivith the too out- 
 ward Cathulicism." — H. J. R.] 
 
 -j- [Nam et Ecclesia proprie et principaliter ipse 
 
 est Spiritus in quo est trinitas unius divinitatis 
 
 Pater et Filius et Spiritus Sanctus. lUam Ec- 
 
 clesiam congregat, quam Dominus in tribus jwsuit. 
 
 ' Atque ita exinde ctiam numerus omnis qui in 
 
 hanc fidem conspiravcrint, Ecclesia ab auctore et 
 
 consecratore censetur. Test, de Pudicit. § xxi. 
 
 Comp. also de Baptismo, vi.; where, after men- 
 
 l tioning the Church, TertulUan adds, " quoniam 
 
 ; ubi tres, id est, Pater et Filius et Spiritus Sanctus, 
 
 ! ibi Ecclesia, quaj trium corpus est." TertuUian 
 
 ■ himself, in another passage, supplies an excellent 
 
 I antidote to the heretical notion of an appeal to any 
 
 . inward gifts being of themselves sufficient marks 
 
 of the true 'Church. His rule, though directed 
 
 again.st other heresies, applies to this notion also. 
 
 See the well known passage de Pra;script. HsreL 
 
 " Edant origines suas," &c. — H. J. R.] 
 
 i Prajfat. act. Felicit. 
 
 § As. e, g. TertuUian do Monogamia. 
 
MONTANISTIC PROPHECY. 
 
 than Evangelical, yet, on another side, 
 this idea fell even still more than the 
 Catholicism of the Church, into a confu- 
 sion between the theocratic views of the 
 Old and JS''ao Testaments ; for, according 
 to the Montanistic notions, that progres- 
 sive development was not, as the nature 
 of the Gospel would require, to proceed 
 from within outwards, by the develop- 
 ment of the self-sufficient principle of 
 Christianity in the nature of man, in virtue 
 of the Divine power indwelling in it, but 
 they (i. e. the Montanists) maintained that 
 this progressive development of the 
 Church must be promoted by new out- 
 ward additional and extraordinary com- 
 munications of God; they maintained that 
 the Church must he farther fashioned and 
 completed hij means of a completion of 
 the apostolical instruction, through pro- ' 
 phels, who would be excited and enlight- 
 ened in an extraordinary manner by the 
 Holy Ghost, and they ascribed to the de- 
 clarations of these prophets a positive 
 authority, which bound men to obey 
 them. In fact, they transferred the pro- 
 phetical government of the Old Testa- 
 ment to the Christian Church. And it is 
 worthy of observation, that by the Catho- j 
 lie Church, which afterwards in a general ' 
 way received much which it had at first 
 justly and on right evangelical principles 
 blamed in the Montanists, much of what 
 the Montanists maintained, about the re- j 
 lations of the new revelations through j 
 their prophets to the foundation of scrip- \ 
 tural tradition and scriptural doctrine, was ' 
 applied to the rehition of the doctrinal de- ! 
 crees of General Councils to both these j 
 particulars (i. e. tradition and Scripture.) j 
 The Montanistic view of this new pro- < 
 phetic gift [Prophetenthum,] and of the ■ 
 mode of the operation of the Holy Ghost ; 
 in it, was also peculiar. It was in ac- ' 
 cordance with this whole cast of thought, I 
 that the Montanists should altogether ex- j 
 elude from the true prophetic gift [Pro- 
 phetenthum] the co-operation of any 
 human faculty, endowed with self-con- 
 sciousness, and serving as a free instru- 
 ment for a Divine communication, and 
 that they should assume an operation of 
 the Holy Ghost, which entirely destroyed 
 all individual agency on the part of man ; 
 the condition of a complete ecstacy was 
 reckoned by them as an indispensable 
 mark of a true prophet. Therefore, in 
 the Montanistic oracles, it is not man 
 speaking in the name of God, but God 
 speaking through the voice of man. Tlius, 
 
 331 
 
 the Holy Ghost says through IMontanus,* 
 "Behold! man is like a lyre, and [ flutter 
 over him like the instrument which sets 
 the lyre in motion. Tlie man sleeps, but 
 I awake. See, it is the Lord vvho sets the 
 hearts of men out of themselves, and 
 gives the heart to man ;" and in another 
 oracle he says, " No angel comes, no 
 messenger, but I the Lord, God the 
 Father, am come."t This idea of in- 
 spiration was certainly nothing new in 
 the Church, it was the oldest conception 
 of the idea of inspiration which existed 
 in the theological schools of the Jews, and 
 which we find in Philo, in the legend of 
 the origin of the Septuagint version, and 
 it passed from the Jews to the Christian 
 fathers (teachers,) just as they received 
 with the Old Testament the idea of in- 
 spiration also first from the Jews. But 
 this whole view of the matter came under 
 suspicion, in consequence of the manner 
 in which the Montanists pushed their no- 
 tion of ecstatic possession (/(7. ecstasy) 
 to extremes. The controversies with 
 them introduced more accurate investiga- 
 tions, concerning the idea of Divine in- 
 spiration, and concerning the difference 
 between a genuine and a counterfeit inspi- 
 ration (or, as it was then called, an inspira- 
 tion by evil spirits.) Unhappily, none of 
 the writings, in which these controversies 
 were handled, have come down to us. 
 The Montanists might justly be accused 
 of having prized beyond their value these 
 unusual conditions of the mind during an 
 extraordinary inward excitement, in which 
 the common consciousness of man is set 
 aside, the same accusation which St. Paul 
 makes against the Corinthians, in 1 Cor. 
 xii., where he speaks against overprizing 
 the TTvev/xaTi or yXua-a-ri T^aXtiv (the speak- 
 ing in the spirit, or with tongues;) it 
 might justly be said, that these conditions 
 of mind belonged more to the economy 
 of the Old Testament, in which the in- 
 fluence of the Divine Spirit on the mind 
 was rather of a transient and a fragmentary 
 nature, than to that of the New Testa- 
 ment, in which the Divine life enters as 
 an enlivening, and leavening (///. pene- 
 trating) spirit into llie natural develop- 
 ment of man's nature; or it might be said 
 
 * Epiphan. H.-Erc*. 48. § 4. 
 
 f The definition of such an ecstacy in the 
 Montanistic spirit is to he foiinrl in Tertuilian c. 
 Marcion. IV". 22. "In spiritu homo coniHitutus, 
 prsDsertim cum gloriaiii Dei conspicit, ril cum per 
 ipsum Deus loquitur, ncccssc est e.xcidat sensu, 
 obiimbratus scilicet virtute liivina." 
 
332 
 
 MONTANISTIC MORALS. 
 
 that such conditions of mind belonged 
 pecuharly to those epochs of the Chris- 
 tian Church, in which the new life, which 
 Christianity brings with it, is for the first 
 t.im'' communicated to an entirely unpre- 
 pared (lit. rough) portion of mankind ; or 
 when a new era of the outpouring of the 
 Holy Ghost follows upon a long reign of 
 ungodliness and worldliness. But the 
 violent opponents of the Montanists* ap- 
 pear to have fallen just into the opposite 
 extreme, by condemning altogether every 
 thing, which bore the appearance of an 
 ecstacy in the Montanistic sense, and by 
 wishing to limit to one form all the ope- 
 rations of the Holy Ghost. They re- 
 jected at once the whole Montanistic idea 
 of a prophet, and on the contrary, they 
 afterwards maintained with regard to the 
 prophets of the Old Testament, that they 
 liad already possessed a clear knowledge 
 of the Christian economy predicted by 
 them.j 
 
 It appears also to have been the doc- 
 trine of the Montanists, that the season 
 of the last and richest onlpouring of the 
 Holy Ghost loould form the last age of 
 the Church, andprecede the second coming 
 of Christ, and be the fulfilment of the 
 })rophecy of Joel, ch. iii.;{; [ch. ii.] ; the 
 only doubtful point is, whether according 
 to the Montanistic doctrine, this last out- 
 pouring o-f the Holy Ghost was to be I 
 closed by the appearance of Montanus, 
 and his prophetesses, or whether other 
 prophets were to succeed after -him. | 
 Maximilla, indeed, as quoted in Epipha- ! 
 nius, says, "that no other prophetess 
 would follow after her, but that the end | 
 of the world would immediately take 
 place •," but a question arises, as to whe- 
 ther the Montanistic oracles were always 
 exactly in harmony v.'ith themselves, and 
 with one another, unless, perhaps, Monta- ] 
 nus and his two prophetesses were looked 
 upon pre-eminently as oracles for the 
 whole Church. It is besides certain from 
 the Avritings of TertuUian, as we may also 
 infer from the use made by the Monta- 
 nists of the prophetic passage quoted 
 above, that they supposed that all Chris- 
 tians would be partakers in those extraor- 
 
 dinary spiritual gifts. In the Montanistic 
 congregations, it was chietly among fe- 
 males, a circumstance easily explained, 
 that people expected to find in these pre- 
 ternatural communications, such a know- 
 ledge of Divine things, as no sound prac- 
 tical Christian feeling would ever induce 
 meiT to expect at all, or at least to look 
 for any where else than in Scripture, or 
 in the Reason, enlightened by Scripture. 
 It was a punishment for despising the just 
 limits of that-which-naturally-belongs-to- 
 man, {lit. the Naturally-Human,) which 
 will assert its own rights and be recog- 
 nised and cultivated in its own place, — it 
 was a punishment for such contempt, that 
 this latter (the Naturally-Human) should 
 thrust itself into a higher region and trou- 
 ble it, and that the symptoms of a mor- 
 bidly excited nature should be promoted, 
 and should be honoured, as the inspiration 
 of the Spirit.* In this manner the heathen 
 system af- oracles and auguries might be 
 introduced under a Christian garb into the 
 Christian Church. 
 
 As the attainment of perfection in 
 Christian conduct, of which Montanism 
 was inclined to lay the foundation, was 
 not deduced from the nature of Chris- 
 tianity, working outwardly from a prin- 
 ciple within, but was to repose on new 
 commands, which were added to Chris- 
 tianity through a pretended Divine au- 
 thority, and were first delivered out- 
 wardly ; so tliis pretended perfecting of 
 the moral doctrine of Christianity might 
 in fact be only an error, deduced from 
 the essential nature of Christianity itself 
 according to which all is contained in 
 Love, and Love is the fulfilling of the 
 Law ; it might become only a counterfeit 
 of that, by means of a new legal op7is 
 opcratum. Even on this side, Montanism 
 joined itself to an already existing ten- 
 dency of Christianity, which it only carried 
 to the extreme. That ascetic tendency, 
 which attributed a merit to certain out- 
 ward works of abstinence, and which 
 would make the essence of humility, 
 whose foundations are within, consist in 
 certain outward gestures, by which hu- 
 mility would easily be feigned (was also 
 
 * As Miltiades in the book »•«§/ tcu ^« im rr^c- 
 
 j- E. g. Origen. in Joh. T. VI. § 2. Tr^oTriTai; 
 iJ«-c<f>)i'«5'6«( TTs^i T^O'^iiTaiv, i!Lf ou iro<fa";, a fj-n vivo>i- 
 
 K'-lCrt T-X iTTO th'.V O-TO^tf-TOC. 
 
 i Prsfat. in acta Perpetuas : majora reputandii, 
 nobiliora qua;que ut novissimiora, secundum cxu- 
 berationem gratioe in ultima sseculi spatia de- 
 cietam. 
 
 * Thus in a Montanistic consrregation at Car- 
 thage in the case of a Christian female, who dur- 
 ing the service had fallen into an ecstacy, which 
 resembled those described as the eflect of Mag- 
 nctic Somnambulism, they expected to obtain 
 from her not only the healing of diseases, as the 
 Heathen did in their incubations in the Temple of 
 I Esculapius, but also information concerning the 
 ' invisible world. See TertuUian de Anima, c. 9. 
 
THEIR VIEWS OS MARRIAGE. 
 
 taken up by Montanism.*) The Mon- 
 tanistic prophets, wished to prescribe as 
 binding on all Christians, the fasting on 
 the dies Slatioman^ which up to that time 
 (see above,) had been considered as left 
 to their free choice, and they commanded 
 this fast to be extended to three o'clock 
 in the afternoon. For two weeks in the 
 year they prescribed for all Christians, as 
 a compulsory ordinance, such a spare diet 
 as the conlinentes, or acry.»)T«» observed 
 from free inclination-! Against these 
 Montanistic positions the spirit of evan- 
 gelical freedom expressly and becomingly 
 remonstrated; but in later times, in this 
 respect also the spirit, which then gave 
 utterance to its sentiments in IMontanism, 
 passed over into the Catholic Church. 
 
 That enthusiastic tendency, which in- 
 duced many Christians to give themselves 
 up to martyrdom was carried by Mon- 
 tanism to its flirthest height. The Mon- 
 tanists condemned flight in seasons of 
 persecution, and other innocent means of 
 saving life, while they laid down a prin- 
 ciple, which, if consistently carried out, 
 would have overwhelmed every social 
 constitution, and destroyed all activity on 
 the part of man, viz., that man giving 
 himself up wholly to the will of God, 
 must use no means in order to avoid the 
 persecutions which the will of God has 
 permitted to impend over Christians, for 
 the trial of their faith.J The Montanistic 
 prophetic spirit incited men to strive to 
 win the martyr's crown for themselves. 
 We recognise that morbidly excited, over 
 wrought state of feeling, which was alto- 
 gether deficient in Christian reverence for 
 all that is pure in human nature, and in 
 
 * [The words in a parenthesis have been added 
 to the original, in which the sense is left quite in- 
 complete. The sentence stands thus : " Jene 
 ascetische Riclitung, welche gewissen ilusserlichen 
 Werken der Enthaltung ein Verdienst beilegte, 
 welche das Wesen der im Innern begnindeten 
 Demuth an gewisse (iusserliche Geberden, wo- 
 durch leicht die Demuth erhcuchelt werden 
 konnte, binden wollte." — H. J. H.] 
 
 j- The Xerophagia, as they were called, Sun- 
 day and Saturday, were exempted from this fast 
 The Montanists were also in controversy (see 
 above,) with the Romish Church, about not fasting 
 on the Saturday. In the time of Jerome, in which, 
 however, the Montanists appear to have departed 
 considerably from their original views, (e. g. in the 
 matter of the constitution of the Church,) they 
 had three weeks of Xerophagire. These may be 
 compared with the Quadragesimal Fiists of the 
 later Church, a name, indeed, which .Jerome ap- 
 plies to them. Ep. 27, ad Marcellum, " illi tres in 
 anno faciunt quadragesimas." 
 
 I Sec Tertullian de Fuga in Persecutione. 
 
 333 
 
 Christian tenderness of feeling, in thi 
 
 expression of xAIontanus: "Desire not to 
 I die upon your beds, or in childbirth, or 
 I in the debility of a fever, but desire to die 
 as martyrs, that he may be glorified who 
 died for you." Thus Montanism went 
 j to the very farthest point in an abrupt re- 
 jection of all customs, which, though 
 I they were to be looked upon as mere 
 I civil institutions, could in no wise be de- 
 j duced from a heathen origin, and in a 
 ' neglect of all the prudential measures by 
 which the jealousy of heathen rulers 
 might be obviated.* It appears to have 
 been objected, among other things, to the 
 Montanists, that, by their frequent assem- 
 blies for prayer, combined with their fasts, 
 they violated the law of the state against 
 secret assemblies.! 
 
 Although the ascetic spirit of Mon- 
 tanism promoted a false over estimate of 
 I celibacy.]]; we must still acknowledge tliat- 
 i Montanism expressly brought prominently 
 j forward the Christian view of marriage as a 
 I spiritual union, sanctified by Christ. The 
 ! Montanists considered it essential to a 
 i genuine Christian marriage, that it should 
 be accompanied by a religious sanction, 
 and that it should be celebrated in the 
 Church in the name of Christ : a marriage 
 celebrated in any other manner they looked 
 upon as an unpermitted union.§ From 
 
 * [We may observe from the History of St. 
 Paul, that he did not sanction this disregard of 
 prudence, as on more th;in one occasion he as- 
 serted his privileges as a Roman citizen : see e. g. 
 Acts xxii. 2.5; xxv. 11, yet no man can accuse 
 him of shrinking from persecution, or fearing 
 martyrdom. — H. J. R.] 
 
 I De Jcjuniis, c. 13. 
 
 t Priscilla exjiressly declares in an or.icular 
 response, (which is to be found in Tertulli in de 
 Exhortatione Castitatis, c. 11, but only in the 
 edition of Rigault,) that the genuine servant of 
 the Temple, who is an instrument of the Holy 
 Ghost, must live in celibacy. In this also Mon- 
 tanism led the way for the Catholic Charrii. [I 
 have searched this treatise in Rigault's cili'io'i of 
 169.'i, but am unable to verify the quotation. — H. 
 J. R.] 
 
 § Tertullian de Pudicitia, c. 4. Penes nos 
 occultae quoque conjunctioncs, id est non prius 
 apud ecclcsiam profcssjc, juxta mocchiam et forni- 
 cationem judicari periclitantur, ncc inde consertai 
 obtentu matrimonii crimen eludant. According 
 to the principles of Montanism, the essence of a 
 true marriage in a Christian sense would consist 
 in this, (Tertullian de Monogainia, c. 20:) " Cum 
 Deus jungit duos in unarn carnem aut juiictos de- 
 prehendens in eadem came conjunctioncin sig- 
 navit." (Where to a marriage concluded between 
 two parties while they were yet heathens, the sanc- 
 tifying consecration of Christianity was added.) 
 Montanism prepared the way for the notion of 
 considering matrimony as a sacrament. 
 
334 
 
 this view of marriage it would follow 
 also, that Montanism would admit of no 
 second marriage after the death of the 
 first husband or loife ; for marriage, as an 
 indissoluble union in the spirit, and not 
 in the flesh only, was to endure beyond 
 the grave.* Here also the Montanists only 
 carried a view to which others weve in- 
 clined, to the extreme, in consequence of 
 their legal spirit,^ [i. e. their inclination 
 to bind down every thing by compulsory 
 rules.] The Montanists also belonged to 
 the zealots for the strict principles of 
 penance^ as were afterwards the Nova- 
 tianists, (see above,) and there was here 
 shown by the Montanistic teachers an 
 ardent zeal for sanctification, and an honest 
 apprehension, lest men should make them- 
 selves secure in their sins by a false re- 
 liance on priestly absolution ; but it must 
 be confessed that the Montanists might 
 •easily have come to an explanation with 
 their opponents^ by means of candid dis- 
 cussions on what is objective in the for- 
 giveness of sin, and on the relation of 
 absolution to that (see above.) The zeal 
 for sanctification, as opposed to a false 
 reliance on the forgiveness of sins, with- 
 out any entrance into an inward Spiritual 
 communion [literally, Life-communion, 
 or communion of the Life] with Christ, is 
 beautifully expressed in those words with 
 which the Montanist TertuUian opposes 
 those who appealed to I John i. 7, in their 
 opposition to the severer doctrines of 
 penance. John says, " if we walk in 
 the Light, as he is in the Light ; so have 
 we communion one with another, and 
 the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, makes 
 us free from all sin. But do we sin also, 
 v/hile we walk in the Light, and shall we 
 be purified, if we sin in the Light? By 
 no means. For he who sins, is not in 
 the Light, but in darkness. He shows 
 also, liow we may become purified from 
 all yin, if we walk in the Light,m which 
 no sin can take place ... for such is 
 the cjficacxj of the blood of Christ, that 
 those whom it has purified from sin, and 
 thus raised to the Light, it thenceforth 
 preserves from sin, if they continue to 
 
 VIEWS OP MARTYRDOM. 
 
 * See TertuUian de Monogamia, and his Ex- 
 hortat. Castitatis. 
 
 f Athenagoras Legal, pro Christian, p. 37, cd. 
 ('oion. calls y^fAOi; Siur^o; ijTrejTDn: /uoi^ua. Origcii, 
 Horn, in Malt. Ibl. 363", says'that Paul had given 
 the permission for a second niarriage after Ihe 
 death of the first husband, or the first wife, 7r^o( 
 
 \ The bo^ok of Tertuilian de Pudicilia treats 
 of thia controversy. 
 
 walk in the Light."* It is true, that Mon- 
 tanism, as we observed above, promoted 
 a wild enthusiasm for martyrdom, and 
 honoured the over estimate of martyrdom 
 as an opus operatum, for, according to the 
 Montanistic doctrines, martyrs were to 
 have the advantage of attaining imme- 
 diately after death to a higher state of 
 blessedness,! to which other believers 
 had no access ; but nevertheless, the 
 struggle for the severity of penitential 
 discipline led the Montanist Tertuilian to 
 contend against an exaggerated reverence 
 for the martyrs. For while many, to 
 whom Montanism refused absolution, 
 could obtain it in the Catholic Church 
 by the interposition of the confessors, 
 Tertuilian thus expressed himself against 
 a false reliance on the sentence pronounced 
 in their favour by these confessors, and 
 against their spiritual presumption. "■ Let 
 it be sufficient for the martyrs to have 
 cleansed themselves from their own sins. 
 It is unthankfulness or pride, to lavish 
 upon others also what a man must think 
 it a great thing to have obtained for him- 
 self. Who has atoned for the death of 
 another by his own, except the Son of 
 God alone.'' .... For it was for this 
 purpose that He came, that He himself 
 being pure from sin, and perfectly holy, 
 might die for sinners. Thou, therefore, 
 who endeavourest to rival Him in the 
 forgiveness of sins, suffer for me,»if thou 
 hast never sinned thyself! But, if thou 
 art a sinner thyself, how can the oil of 
 thy litde lamp be sufficient for me and 
 for thyself too ?"J 
 
 If the Montanists laid especial stress 
 upon the doctrine of an approaching Mil- 
 lenarian reign of Christ upon the earth, 
 in this part of their faith they agreed with 
 a large portion of the rest of the Chris- 
 tian world. 
 
 What promoted the spread of Mon- 
 tanism, was partly this circumstance, that 
 it only carried to extremes such disposi- 
 tions and views as had already long been 
 in existence with multitudes, and partly 
 that impulse of enthusiasm, which carries 
 every thing along with it, and the manner 
 in which it nourished spiritual pride, be- 
 cause all those who acknowledged the 
 new prophets seemed entitled to look 
 upon themselves as really regenerated, 
 and as members of the elect assembly of 
 
 • De Pudicitia, c. 19. 
 + That is to Paradise. 
 Aninia, c. .56. 
 
 ^ De Pudicitia, c. 22. 
 
 See Tertuilian de 
 
EXTERNAL HISTORY OF MONTANISM. 
 
 335 
 
 the spiritually minded, and to despise all 
 other Christians, as carnally minded, and 
 not yet regenerated. Montanistic con- 
 gregations were at first formed in Asia 
 Minor, bnt there arose up violent oppo- 
 nents to it among the Church-teachers of 
 weight, authority, and influence, who 
 placed the Montanistic prophets in the 
 same class with the Energumcni, (or pos- 
 sessed,) and called attention to the danger 
 which threatened pure Christianity and 
 the order of the Church, if this unclean 
 spirit should gain ground. It must be 
 confessed that these teachers, by their 
 blind condemnation of Montanism alto- 
 gether, as a possession of the Evil Spirit, 
 without separating what is false from 
 what is true in it, contributed exactly to 
 this result, that the enthusiastic spirit 
 should harden itself more and more, and 
 spread still further. Synods were held 
 for the investigation of these matters, in 
 which many declared themselves against 
 Montanism: the transactions of these 
 synods were transmitted to more distant 
 Churches, and thus these latter were also 
 implicated in the controversy. But, un- 
 happily, from the want of sufficient in- 
 formation, great obscurity prevails with 
 respect to these transactions, and thence 
 also with respect to the gradual formation 
 of the Montanistic party in the Church, 
 and its relation to the rest of the Church. 
 Although the Montanists looked upon 
 themselves alone as the genuine Chris- 
 tians, and their adversaries only as im- 
 perfect ones, who occupied a lower grade, 
 and believed themselves raised up above 
 the rest of the Church, yet it does not 
 appear that they directly separated them- 
 selves from these latter, and renounced 
 communion with them ; they only de- 
 sired to be the ccclesia spiritus, the spi- 
 ritalis ecclesia in the carnalis. But it 
 must be acknowledged, certainly, that 
 they could not be permitted to remain in 
 this relation to the rest of the Church, in 
 which they were continually endeavour- 
 ing to extend themselves farther, without 
 great danger to the Churchly life, for they 
 claimed only toleration at the first, in 
 order to attain afterwards gradually to 
 domination. 
 
 As the Church at Lyons (see above,) 
 when it was visited by the sanguinary 
 persecution under Marcus Aurelius, had 
 at that season many members of the j 
 Churches in Asia Minor, among which 
 the Montanistic movements had chiefly 
 taken place, they were induced thereby [ 
 to take a lively sympathy in these cir- I 
 
 cumstances. It wrote a letter to Rome to 
 the Bishop Eleutheros, and the Presbyter 
 Irenseus was the bearer of the letter. 
 Much light would be thrown on the 
 transaction, if we had a more distinct ac- 
 count of the contents of this letter, but 
 Eusebius* says merely, that their judg- 
 ment in this matter was very pious and 
 orthodox. Now, as Eusebius decidedly 
 looked upon the Montanistic views as 
 heretical, we may conclude, from this 
 expression, that the judgment delivered in 
 the letter was against the Montanists. 
 But in this case the letter could not have 
 had the object which Eusebius attributes 
 to it, of adjusting the controversies. It 
 suits this object better, to suppose that in 
 this letter the prevalent sentiment was 
 a spirit of Christian moderation, which 
 endeavoured to lower the importance of 
 the difierences, to rebut many exagge- 
 rated accusations against the Montanistic 
 Churches, and also to maintain Christian 
 unity while they diflered in their estimation 
 of the value of the new prophetic gifts. If 
 we suppose this, it can easily be explained 
 how Eusebius came to pass so favourable 
 a judgment on the contents of the letter, 
 which could not have happened, if the 
 letter had spoken a fZeciVZed/j/ Montanistic 
 language. This coincides best also with 
 the character of Irenaeus, which we know 
 to have been peaceful and moderate, as 
 well as with his habits of thought, which, 
 though by no means decidedly Monta- 
 nistic, were not so entirely opposed to 
 the Montanists. Eleutheros was probably 
 induced by this ambassage to conclude on 
 terms of peace with those Churches, but 
 afterwards there came from Asia Minor 
 to Rome a violent opponent of Montan- 
 ism, named Praxeas, and he induced the 
 Roman bishop, partly by representing to 
 him the opposite conduct of his two pre- 
 decessors, Anicetus and Soter, and partly 
 by prejudicial representations of the con- 
 dition of the Montanistic Churches, to 
 revoke all that he had done. The Mon- 
 tanists now propagated themselves as a 
 schismatical party [literally^ a separated 
 Church party :) they were called Cata- 
 phri/glans, from the country of their 
 origin, and also Pepuzians, because Mon- 
 tanus taught that a place called Pepiiza, in 
 Phrygia, whicii was, perhaps, the first 
 locality of a ]\Iontanistic Church, was 
 selected as tlie spot from which the Mil- 
 lenarian kingtlom of Christ was to pro- 
 ceed. 
 
 • Lib. V. c. 3. 
 
336 
 
 We must distinguish between the 
 moderate and the violent opponents of 
 Montanism, who carried their opposition 
 against it to the very highest pitch. There 
 were some who, in their opposition to it, 
 not only condemned all Chiliasm as 
 sometliing altogether unchristian, and as 
 one of the unchristian doctrines which 
 proceeded from the detested Cerinthus, 
 but also maintained that the gifts of pro- 
 phecy, to which the Montanists attached 
 so great importance, were altogether 
 foreign to the Christian economy, inas- 
 much as the line of the prophets had ne- 
 cessarily been closed by John the Baptist, 
 after wliom, the end and aim of all pro- 
 phecy had appeared. The words, that 
 the Law and the Prophets should only 
 last till John, (Matt. xi. 13.)* were for 
 ever in their mouths ; and certainly they 
 were thus far in the right, that prophecy 
 in the economy of the New Testament 
 cannot be looked upon as something es- 
 sential and necessarUy belonging to the 
 development of the whole, and that by 
 the prophetic office of Christ every other 
 prophetic office is altogether done away 
 with as a necessary means for the forma- 
 tion and maintenance of the Church. 
 They, therefore, declared the Apocalypse, 
 ■with which the Montanists occupied 
 themselves a great deal, and from which 
 they endeavoured to demonstrate the truth 
 of their Chiliasm, to be a spurious book, 
 forged by Cerinthus, which was at vari- 
 ance with the very nature of the Christian 
 economy. They also considered the first 
 season of the foundation of the Church, 
 the time of the apostles, as the limit of 
 tliose especial and extraordinary opera- 
 tions of the Holy Ghost in the gifts of 
 grace. To the one-sided state of feeling 
 predominant among the Montanists, these 
 overwrought opponents of Montanism 
 opposed a predominant one-sided and cold 
 state of mind, dericient in warmth of in- 
 ward Christian feelings ; and in virtue of 
 this they rejected much which was of a 
 genuine Christian character, from too 
 great fear of falling into something mys- 
 tical.! But this last disposition was too 
 strange to the prevailing spirit of the 
 
 THE OPPONENTS OF MONTANISM. 
 
 • Tertullian makes frequent allusion to this 
 watchword of the anlimontanistic party ; but wc 
 must confess that it would not be used by all in 
 the same sense : many would intend by it only in 
 a general way to oppose that iritermixtureof Law 
 and Gosi)el, of that which lielongs to the Old with 
 that which belongs to the New Testament, which 
 they found in Montanism. 
 
 ■j- See the account of the Alogi, given hereafter. 
 
 Christian Church, in its youthful life, to 
 allow of its finding much acceptance. 
 
 The second jninc'ipal direction of the 
 theological spirit proceeded from the 
 school of Alexandria. The peculiar spi- 
 ritual life in this city, then of so great 
 importance as a middle point of union be- 
 tween the East and the West, communi- 
 catid then, as it had done formerly to the 
 Jewish, a peculiar character to the Chris- 
 tian theology, which formed itself there. 
 The Christian theology which proceeded 
 from Alexandria, bore the same relation 
 to the different directions of tlie Christian 
 religious and theological spirit, that the 
 Jewish-Alexandrian theology had borne 
 to the different directions of the Jewish 
 religious and theological spirit.* But a 
 pecidiar institution of the Alexandrian 
 Church had an especial influence on the 
 formation of this Christian-Alexandrian 
 theology, I mean tlie Jilexandrian Cate- 
 chetical School, about the early rise of 
 which, however, and its gradual comple- 
 tion, we are without authentic informa- 
 tion. It is natural to inquire, whether the 
 original destination of this school was 
 merely to give instruction to those hea- 
 tliens who were converted to Christianity, 
 or who desired to become better ac- 
 quainted with it, or whether a sort of 
 school for the education of Christian 
 ministers, a kind of spiritual theological 
 seminary, existed there from the very 
 first. The accounts of Eusebiusf and Je- 
 romej are too indefinite to decide this 
 inquiry ; and, indeed, both these fathers 
 were scarcely in a condition to be able to 
 distinguish accurately between the state 
 of this school in their oion days and that 
 
 * See p. 29. 
 
 I Lib. vi. c. 10. It appears that from ancient 
 times there had existed there a StSxtnt^Kuov ngcoi 
 ytjKuv, which would, according to the ecclesiastical 
 usage of terms, most naturally be explained as 
 "a School for the interpretation of Scripture," and 
 this is certainly insuflicient to determine the nature 
 and kind of the Alexandrian School ; but when 
 once one is acquainted with the nature and charac- 
 ter of that school, these words may be made to 
 contain all that belongs to its theological studies. 
 For its Gnosis was intended to give tli« key to the 
 proper understanding of Scripture, and would be 
 deduced out of Scripture by allegorical interpreta- 
 tion. We cannot, in this age of the Church, 
 which as yet jumbled every thing together in a 
 chaotic fashion, expect to find any division of 
 theological discipline into various classes, such as 
 Exegesis, (hgmutics, S^c, as Professor Hassellwch 
 of Stettin has justly observed, in the explanation 
 of these words in his treatise, "de Schola, quaj 
 Alexandria floruit, Catechetica, Particul. i. p. 15." 
 
 \ De Viris Illustr. c. 36. 
 
REQUISITES FOR A CATECHIST. 
 
 337 
 
 which it had originally. We must, there- 
 fore, confine ourselves to the considera- 
 tion of that which is known of the opera- 
 tions of individual catechists, as presidents 
 of this school, in order thence to gather 
 some conclusions as to the general cir- 
 cumstances of the school itself. We find, 
 then, originally at Alexandria only one 
 person appointed as a catechist by the 
 bishop, whose business it was to com- 
 municate religious instruction to the hea- 
 tlicns, as well as to instruct the children 
 of the Christians of the place in their 
 religion also* Origen was the first who, 
 as catechist, divided with another person 
 the duties of his calling, which had be- 
 come too much for him, while he was 
 desirous of prosecuting at the same time 
 his learned labours in theology ; and on 
 that account he formed his catechumens 
 into two classes. But although in other 
 })laces the catechist might not need to 
 possess very high spiritual qualities and 
 peculiar knowledge, the case was different 
 in Alexandria, wliere they often had to 
 instruct men of a literary and philoso- 
 phical cast of mind, who had already inves- 
 tigated a variety of systems, in order to 
 find out a system of religious truth adapted 
 to their wants, and where they were often 
 obliged to converse with such men on re- 
 ligious subjects, and philosopiiical matters 
 which are connected with them. 
 
 In that place men were required who 
 possessed a learned acquaintance with the 
 Hellenic religion, and the philosophical 
 systems then peculiarly in vogue in the 
 educated classes, among which the Plato- 
 nic-eclectic was chiefly predominant, and 
 ■who would thence be in a condition to 
 set forth the insufficiency of these things 
 to meet the religious requirements of the 
 heathens; to counteract the prejudices 
 against Christianity which arose out of 
 their philosophical habits of thought, in a 
 manner suitable to them ; to compare 
 Christianity with the prevalent religious 
 and philosophical systems ; to seek 
 and to point out the part of their phi- 
 losophically-developed religious know- 
 ledge,! on which Christianity might be 
 engrafted ; and generally to set before 
 them the Christian doctrines in a manner 
 suited to their learning and cultivation of 
 mind. It was not sufficient here, as it 
 was in other Churches, to bring forward 
 the main doctrines of Christianity, accord- 
 
 • Eiisebius says, lib. vi. c. 5, that Origen, when 
 a boy, had been the scholar of Clement. 
 
 ■\ Bewusstseyn consciousness or knowledge ; 
 is the word in the German. — H. J. R.] 
 43 
 
 ing to the so-called 9ra^a^c/o-»ci but it was 
 necessary with the better informed cate- 
 chumens to trace things up to the original 
 source of religion in Scripture itsell', and 
 to endeavour to lead them to the under- 
 standing of Scripture ; they desired a 
 creed which would bear a learned and 
 enlightened investigation. One of these 
 very catechists, Clement gives a hint of 
 what is required for the successful dis- 
 charge of the duties of the catechist office, 
 when he says :* " lie who desires gen- 
 erally to select that which is useful for 
 the advantage of the catechumens, and 
 more especially when there are Helle- 
 nists,! (but the earth is the Lord's and all 
 that therein is,) he must not, like the 
 beasts devoid of reason, refuse to leara 
 much ; but he must seek to gather to- 
 gether as many aids as possible for his 
 hearers." He shortly afterwards adds.J 
 " All cultivation is useful, and especially 
 the study of the Holy Scriptures is neces- 
 sary, in order to be able to prove that 
 which we bring forward, and also, where 
 the auditors are persons of Hellenic edu- 
 cation."§ It was, therefore, necessary that 
 great care should be used in the choice 
 of these Alexandrian catechists, and the 
 office was assigned to men of literary and 
 philosophical attainments, who liad them- 
 selves come over to Christianity after a 
 learned investigation of it, such as Pan- 
 tajnus iuavrxivoq) who is the first Alex- 
 andrian catechist, who is known to us ; 
 and such also his disciple Clement. 
 
 Now, as these men formed the suc- 
 cessors to their office out of the circle of 
 their scholars among the converted Hea- 
 thens, and as many of their scholars, in- 
 cited by their lectures and conversation, 
 devoted their learning, as well as all they 
 had besides, only to the service of Chris- 
 tianity, and became afterwards zealous 
 ministers of the Church, and as many 
 young Christians also joined them and 
 endeavoured to attain a learned well 
 grounded Christian knowledge, as well 
 as an aptitude to instil the same into 
 others, it happened of itself without en- 
 
 • Stromal, lib. vi. 6.59 B [Pott. 785. Sylb. 
 279. Klotz, iii. 1.52.] 
 
 ! We may thus supply what is requisite to 
 complete the sense : he need not fear to seek even 
 in Heathen literature the traces of truth, and ap- 
 propriate to himself what is useful there, for all 
 comes from God, and as such is pure. 
 
 \ Strom, vi. CfiO C. 
 
 4 We must here compare tot^ether generally, 
 what Clement says of those with whom the faith 
 must receive 'a demonstration after the Hellenistic 
 fashion. 
 
 - 2F 
 
338 
 
 WIDE INFLUENCE OP THES^ SCHOOLS. 
 
 deavours for that object, that their sphere 
 of exertion enlarged itself, and a kind of 
 theological school, a learned seminary for 
 ministers of the Church, was formed 
 around them. 
 
 In order properly to understand the de- 
 velopment of the peculiar theological 
 spirit of this school, we must fully enter 
 into its relations with regard to the three 
 different parties, in connection with which, 
 and in opposition to which, it was form- 
 ed, and the different spiritual dispositions 
 of which, it hoped to be able to reconcile 
 and to unite together by means of a higher 
 principle, which would smoothe down the 
 contradictions between them. 
 
 These relations were, 
 
 1. Their relation to the Greeks^ who 
 sought after wisdom, who despised Chris- 
 tianity as a blind, reason-hating belief, and 
 who were only strengthened in their con- 
 tempt of it, by the sensuous conceptions 
 of the uninformed and abruptly repulsive 
 Christians by which they were met. 
 
 2. Their relation to the Gnostics, then 
 very common in Alexandria, who at the 
 same time spoke with contempt of the 
 blind belief of the sensuous multitude, and 
 by the promise of a higher exoteric reli- 
 gious creed, attracted to themselves the 
 Heathens who were inquiring after wis- 
 dom, and the Christians who were un- 
 satisfied with the common instruction in 
 religion. 
 
 3. Their relation to that first class of 
 pastors of the Church, whose views were 
 of a Practical-realistic natttre, and par- 
 ticularly those among them who were 
 very zealous, to whom from the specula- 
 live pride and presumption of the Gnos- 
 tics, all speculation and pliilosophizing, 
 and every attempt at any thing like a 
 Gnosis, were objects of suspicion, and 
 were always fearful of the intermixture of 
 foreign philosophical elements with Chris- 
 tianity. 
 
 By means of a Gnosis,* proceeding 
 from faith, and engrafting itself on that 
 faith in harmony with it, the Alexandrians 
 expected to avoid the one-sided and false 
 views of these three dispositions, and to 
 appropriate to themselves whatever there 
 was of truth in each of them, nay, even 
 to be able to reconcile them to each other. 
 
 In their theory of the relation of yvua-K; 
 to 7r*i7T»{ they differed from theGnostics in 
 this respect,that they recognised ttio-ti? as 
 the foundation of the higher life for all 
 Christians, as the common bond, by which 
 
 • -yvug-is dx»6«v» opposed to the ■^uimvuD;. 
 
 all, however they might differ from each 
 other in intellectual culture, might be 
 united into one Divine community. They 
 even also opposed the unity of the Ca- 
 tholic Church, founded on this faith, to 
 the discrepancies of the Gnostic schools 
 (.Jiar^i^ai,) the one with the other, and 
 they did not assume different sources of 
 knowledge for w»o-tk and yvuaK;, but the 
 same for both ; namely, the tradition of 
 the main doctrines of Christianity, exist- 
 ing in all Churches, and Holy Scripture ; 
 they ascribed to Gnosis only the work, 
 of bringing into full consciousness, that 
 which was first acquired by faith and re- 
 ceived into the inward life, of developing 
 it according to its full extent and its in- 
 ternal connection, of grounding it upon 
 knowledge, and presenting it to others 
 with knowledge, of proving that this is 
 the genuine doctrine, which came from 
 Christ, of giving a reason fi)r it, and of 
 defending it against the reproaches of its 
 adversaries among the heathen philoso- 
 phers and heretics. They used here for 
 their motto the passage of Isaiah, which 
 appears already to have been used as a 
 motto in more ancient days, and which 
 afterwards was the motto to designate the 
 relation between faith and knowledge 
 from the days of Augustine to those of the 
 scholastic theology formed upon Augus- 
 tine — the passage found in Isaiah vii. 9. 
 This passage, indeed, if taken only in the 
 Alexandrian version, and without refer- 
 ence to the context, may bear this mean- 
 ing :* lav fji.n 'TTiCTTtva-nrs, ciiSi fxri crvvnn, if 
 ye believe not, neither will you attain to 
 knowledge — which words they first took 
 in this sense : whosoever does not be- 
 lieve in the Gospel, cannot attain to an 
 insight into the spirit of the nature of the 
 Old Testament; and then in the sense 
 which is akin to it : without faith in 
 Christianity man cannot penetrate into 
 the deeper knowledge of the nature of the 
 Christian doctrines.J Thus Clement says, 
 
 * Just as in later times, many passages of the 
 translation of the Bible by Luther have become 
 current, as proofs, for some proposition which had 
 reference to Christian faith, or Christian Hfe, 
 although this application of them was not in con- 
 formity with the meaning of the original. 
 
 [How often c. f'. have the words, " Search the 
 Scriptures," been cited as a command, by persons 
 who (lid not dream that the original would bear a 
 very diflfercnt sense, ' Ye search the Scriptures ;' 
 and that some distinguished critics have main- 
 tained that the latter sense is the more appro- 
 I)riatc. See Bp. Jebb's Sermon on tliis text — 
 H. J. R.] 
 
 i Stromat. lib. ii. 362 A ; lib. i. 273 A ; lib. iv. 
 
ALEXANDRIAN IDEA OF FAITH. 
 
 339 
 
 "Faith is as necessary for the spiritual | 
 life of the Gnostic, as breath is for the! 
 aninial life."* They endeavoured to make ! 
 good the sabstantial nature, the dignity I 
 and power of Faith against the heathen { 
 and lieretics. Clement combats the no- [ 
 tion, that Faith is a mere arbitrary opinion. | 
 Faith with him is a free apprehension of 
 the Divine, preceding all demonstration,! 
 a practical assent, in virtue of the feeling 
 of truth implanted in the nature of man, 
 and in virtue of the natural disposition to 
 a belief in the truth that reveals itself to 
 man ; unbelief is, therefore, in his opinion, 
 a deficiency on the part of man jj and he 
 says in another passage, '" He who be- 
 lieves on the Son, has eternal life. Since 
 then, the believers have life, what higher 
 thing remains for them, than the pos- 
 session of eternal life } But nothing is 
 deficient in Faith, which is perfect and 
 self-sulncient in itself."§ Clement here 
 sets forth as the characteristic of Faith, 
 that it brings with it the pledge of the fu- 
 ture, that it takes beforehand the future 
 as a present possession. || How a deeper 
 knowledge of that which is believed pro- 
 ceeds, by means of the enlightenment of 
 the reason, from a Faith, which passes 
 into the interior life, while that which is 
 believed is enacted in life (lit. becomes 
 lived,) is beautifully explained by Origen 
 in the passage quoted above,ir where he 
 says, after quoting a narrative from the 
 Gospel, "He who believes and under- 
 stands what is written in Isaiah vii. 9, 
 will have received understanding, from his 
 faith, according to the measure of his 
 faith ; and when he has received this, let 
 him say what he has a right to say after 
 the foundation of his faith, in the spirit of j 
 his faith, in the spirit of these words : / 
 believe, a7id therefore, I speak^'Ps.cw'i. 10; ' 
 Rom. X. 10.** Let such an one believe ] 
 1 
 
 52S B; and Origenea in Matt. Ed. Hue!, p. 424.] j 
 [The passages of Clemens are in Pott. p. 432. I 
 320, 625; in Sylb. 156, 117, 226.] j 
 
 • Stromal, lib. ii 373. 
 
 ■]■ n^'AJi^'f eu'j.i'ajwii'sc Tre'.KrtTi.Kyi-^tst^. — Stromal. | 
 lib. ii. 371. [Pott '444. S^lb. 1.59.] 1 
 
 % Stromal, lib. ii. 3S4. [Poll. 459. Sylb. 165.] 
 
 § PffidaRog. lib. i. c 6. 
 
 U 'oMio it TO (tm) JT/iTTa/s-*/ y.i» 5r§cBX;)4>oT£f fflf;- 
 f^iKt, //tTi rut i..M%T'rt.in i-mK'J.fjL&avoui!) ytvofjtiv.v. 
 
 Ii Compare also Stromal, vii. 731. [Pott. 864. 
 Sylb. 310.] Faith is a good indwelling in the 
 soul (ivh-jbiT'.v Ti [ti] (S^^Soc) while it acknow- 
 ledges God, and values Him, without an effort, and 
 therefore, must man, proceeding from this faith, and 
 increasing in it by the grace of God attain as far as 
 possible the kingdom of him (God.) 
 
 * • These words also are not used properly, ac 
 
 not merely in Jesus, and on that which 
 is written in this place, but let him re- 
 cognise the sense that is included in it ; 
 for he who remains in the truth of faith, 
 and lives in the word by works corres- 
 ponding to the word, learns the truth, as 
 Jesus promised, and is made free by the 
 truth." What Clement also says about 
 the new powers of perception for Divine, 
 things proceeding from this inward life of 
 faith, is beautiful : " See, says the Logos, 
 (Isaiah xliii. 9,) I will make a new thing, 
 which no eye hath seen, and no ear hath 
 heard, and hath not entered into the heart 
 of any man, 1 Cor. ii. 9. Which may be 
 beheld, received, and comprehended with 
 a new eye, with a new ear, with a new 
 heart, by faith and understanding, in as 
 much as the disciples of the Lord speak, 
 understand, and act spiritually."* 
 
 This is exactly the peculiar Christian 
 feature in this Alexandrian theory, that 
 they do not conceive Gnosis to be a matter 
 of mere speculation, but as something 
 proceeding from a new inward living 
 power, produced by faith, and shown in 
 conduct, as a habifus practicus animi ; and 
 thus Clement says :t " As the doctrines, 
 so must the conduct also be, for the tree 
 is known by the fruits, not by the blos- 
 soms and leaves, and Gnosis comes also 
 from the fruits and the conduct, not from 
 the doctrine and the blossoms : for we 
 say that Gnosis is not only doctrine, but 
 a Divine knowledge, that light, which 
 arises in the soul out of obedience to the 
 commandment, which makes all things 
 clear, and teaches man to know what 
 there is in creation and himself, and how 
 he can stand in communion with God, 
 for what the eye is to the body, that 
 Gnosis is in the soul." No knowledge 
 of Divine things can exist, without a life 
 in them, which comes from Aiith ; here 
 knotolcdge and life become one.'''''^ 
 
 cording to the Alexandrian version, and in con- 
 formity with the context; but the sense which 
 Origen attaches lo them, and the theory built 
 upon them, are clear; all deeper dcvelopmcnl 
 of the sense of Holy Scripture, or of the doc- 
 trines of the faith, must proceed from a life in 
 faith. 
 
 • Clem. Stromal, lib. ii. 365 B. [Pott. 436. 
 Sylb.. 136.] 
 
 f Stromal, lib. iii. 444. [Poll. 531. Sylb. 191.] 
 
 i Clem. Stromal, lib. iv. 490 : ic jumin imr- 
 TUfxnY iX^'-v **' •yvwri/ KiKTxr^Ai (t:v yvarriicov) hrlT- 
 T«w;iv Jf fimt X.XI ywTii. [Pott. 581. Sylb. 210.] 
 
 He might certainly have obtained this idea from 
 what the i\co-Platonic philosophy which is older 
 than Plolinus, taught, concerning the identity of 
 subject and olijcd in the case of the highest con- 
 
OBJECTIVE SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 340 
 
 This is, therefore, in the Alexandrian 
 theory, the subjective condition and the 
 subjective nature of Gnosis •, as far as 
 regards the objective sources of know- 
 ledge, from which tlie ' Gnostikos' was to 
 endeavour constantly to learn Avith greater 
 clearness and depth the truths received 
 through faith by him into his inward life : 
 these were, according to Clement — the 
 Holy Scriptures. Although many who 
 Avere deficient in the education requisite 
 for the purpose of investigating Scripture 
 for themselves, only held fast the essen- 
 tial fundamental truths, which had been 
 communicated to them at their first in- 
 struction, in accordance with tradition ; 
 the Gnostikos was to distinguish himself 
 from tlie common race of believers, by 
 proving these truths by a comparison of 
 Scripture with itself, and supplying all 
 that- was needful to them, by knowing 
 how to combat from the same Scriptures 
 the errors which opposed them, and thus 
 a fiiith grounded on much Biblical know- 
 ledge, was in his case to take the place 
 of a belief on the authority of the Church. 
 Clement uses the following language:* 
 " Faith is, then, the shortly-expressed 
 knowledge of that which is essential, but 
 Gnosis is the strong and firm demonstra- 
 tion of the things received by faith, 
 grounded on faith by means of the teach- 
 ing of our Lord, by which faith is raised to 
 an enlightened belief not to be shaken."! 
 And, in opposing the proofs grounded on 
 the undeceiving touchstone of Scripture 
 to the reproach of the Heathens and Jews, 
 that it is impossible, from the many sects 
 among the Christians to know where 
 truth may be found ; the same writer says, 
 " We do not confide on men, who only 
 proclaim their own judgment, to whom 
 
 we might, in like manner, oppose our 
 own judgment. But since it is not 
 enough, merely to express our own 
 opinion, but we must support what we 
 say, we do not wait for the witness of 
 men, but we support what we say, by the 
 word of the Lord, which is the most 
 worthy of confidence of all modes of 
 proof, or rather which is the only one, 
 by the knowledge of which, those who 
 have only just tasted the Scriptures, are 
 Believers — those who have gone farther 
 and are more accurately acquainted with 
 the truth, are ' GnosticsP* 
 
 Hence Clement calls the Gnosjs, which 
 proceeds from a comparison of different 
 passages of Scripture with one another, 
 and developes the consequences which 
 flow from the recognised doctrines of 
 faith, a faith according to knowledge 
 (literally, a knowing faith.)"f With him, 
 therefore, the Gnostic is one, who has 
 grown gray in the study of the Holy 
 Scriptures, and whose life is nothing else 
 than works and words, which correspond 
 to the Divine truths received tradition- 
 ally.! But it is only to the Gnostic that 
 the Holy Scripture brings such a know- 
 ledge of Divine things, because it is he 
 only, who brings to it a believing sense 
 (or capacity) — a sense capable of receiv- 
 ing that which is Divine. Where a man 
 wants this sense, Scripture appears un- 
 fruitful. § This inward sense is, neverthe- 
 less, not sufficient to deduce out of the 
 Scriptures the truths contained in them, 
 to develope their whole extent, and to 
 unite them into a systematized whole, so 
 as to defend them against Heathens and 
 Heretics, and to apply them to all which 
 had hitherto been objects of human 
 knowledge. For this there was needed 
 a previous learned preparation, and such 
 tlition of intuitive perception; but he might have j could not have been created anew at once 
 
 drawn the thing itself from his inward Christian 
 experience and conceptions, without our assuming 
 any other hypothesis to explain the circumstance, 
 and he need not be sujjposcd to have borrowed 
 any thing from the Neo-Platonic philosophy, ex- 
 cept \\\c form in which ho represented his notions. 
 And besides, since the inflvience of spiritual phe- 
 nomena,' which lay hold deeply of the life of their 
 age. extends far wider than is immediately per- 
 ceptible, and cannot be mechanically reckoned, 
 who can determine how far Christianity had 
 already influenced the spiritual atmosphere, in 
 which certain ideas became current ? 
 
 * Stromat. vii. 732. [Pott. 865-6. Sylb. 311.] 
 
 ■j" 'H /JtiV Ot/V TTKrTIi O'UVTC/L/.Oi iCTIV, w; ITTC; itTTilV, TOSV 
 
 Tria-Tiui; ?rctpiK>ifj'jUivci)V itr^f^st kui li'-^stio;, iiA rut 
 nv^iaMn; SiS^ta-KctKia.? iTroiK'JofMufx&ni tji Tria-Tii, tU to 
 ujUiraTTTCd'Tcv KUt /AcT iTrfnuy.))^ Kcira.M7rnv 7raea.7ri^- 
 r:ucTa. 
 
 by Christianity ; but Christianity was 
 obliged to engraft itself here on the class 
 of learning and cultivation of mind here 
 in vogue, just as it had grown up into 
 existence and was ready for it, in order 
 that Christianity, as the leaven for all 
 niankind,|| might by degrees penetrate it. 
 
 • Stromal, vii. 757, [Pott. 891. Sylb. 322.] 
 j- ew/a-TXjMcvww miTK. Stromat. ii. 381. [Pott. 
 454. Sylb. 164.] 
 
 \ Stromat. vii. 762-3. [Pott. 896, Sylb, 323.] 
 § Stromat, vii, 756, tc/c yvma-rix-on K&iviiKoia-tv ai 
 yg-x<pcti. 
 
 II Clement has beautifully alluded to this pa- 
 rable of the leaven, " The power of the word, 
 given to us, which does much with small means, 
 which attracts every one, who receives it unto 
 him, to itself in a secret and invisible manner, 
 
RELATION OF PHILOSOPHY TO CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 341 
 
 and give its own peculiar turn to this 
 cultivation of mind. 
 
 The Alexandrian Gnosis by this, now 
 attracted to itself a multitude of re- 
 proaches from the other party, which 
 compelled it thoroughly to justify its 
 method of proceeding. This content, 
 which has often been repeated in history, 
 is au interesting one. It was objected to 
 the Alexandrian party, that the prophets 
 and apostles had no philosophical educa- 
 tion and attainments. Clement answered, 
 "The apostles and prophets spoke cer- 
 tainly as disciples of the Spirit, what it 
 inspired them to say ; but we cannot 
 reckon on a guidance of the Holy Spirit 
 that stands in the place of all human 
 means of information, in order to unravel 
 the hidden sense of their words. The 
 training of the mind by learning, must 
 make us capable of developing the whole 
 intention of the sense communicated to 
 them by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. 
 He who wishes to become enlightened in 
 his thought by the power of God, must 
 already be accustomed to philosophize on 
 spiritual matters ; he must already have 
 attained for himself the proper frame of 
 thought, which may be then illuminated 
 by a higher Spirit. He needs a dialectic 
 education of the mind, in order to be able 
 sufficiently lo distinguish the ambiguous 
 and synonymous terms of Holy Scrip- 
 ture."* Against those who maintain that 
 man ought to content himself with faith, 
 and who cast away all the knowledge, 
 which men wish to use in the service of 
 faith, he says — " As if, without even using 
 any care towards the culture of the vine, 
 they expected at once to obtain the grapes. 
 The Lord is represented to us under the 
 image of a vine, from whom we must 
 harvest fruit with the reasonable careful- 
 ness and the skill of the husbandman. 
 He must cut, dig, bind up, and do every 
 thing of that kind, he needs the hook, 
 the axe, and other tools of husbandry for 
 the care of the Vine, in order that it may 
 preserve fruit that we may enjoy."t He 
 had to defend the Alexandrian Gnosis 
 
 and conducts his whole nature to an unity (lite- 
 rally, a oneness.") >i iV;^;ac t-.u Xoycv, i i-.bua-n M/un, 
 av/TojUH o-jo-u. x.*i /uvxT< rxvrx rev <A^a^Eyiv Km tiJTic 
 
 tai/TCU KTHTHUtJCV sti/TilV, ITIKU^Vf/LfjlUw: T« ICXI aOMCUi: 
 3-gi? iXUTHV tKKit KXl TO TU-V atx/nu TUVrHfAU. UC tVCTHT* 
 
 iruvctyfi. Strornat. lib. v. p. 587. [Pott. 694. 
 Sylh. 249.] 
 
 * Strornat. i. 292. [Pott. 342. Sylb. 126. 
 N. B. This passage is not exactly translated from 
 Clement, l)ut paraphrased and a little altered. — H. 
 J. R.] 
 
 t L. cp. 291. 
 
 against the reproach, that Divine revela- 
 tion is not allowed to be the self-sullicing 
 source of truth ; that it is made to need 
 completion and support from foreign 
 sources ; and that those who are not well 
 informed and highly educated, are ex- 
 cluded from a knowledge of it. He says 
 in reply* — " If we are to make a distinc- 
 tion of those, who are always ready to 
 complain, we should call philosophy 
 .something, which co-operates towards 
 the knowledge of truth : an endeavour 
 after truth — a preparatory training of the 
 Gnostic, and we do not make the co- 
 operating principle the original cause, nor 
 the chief. Not as if that last could not 
 exist without philosophy, for certainly all 
 of us, without a general and encyclopee- 
 dical instruction,! and without the Hel- 
 lenic philosophy, but many also, even 
 without being able to read and write, being 
 laid hold of by the Divine pliilosophy, 
 which comes from tlie barbarians, have 
 received by the power of God through 
 faith, the doctrine concerning the being 
 and attributes of God, {literally, tlie doc- 
 trine about God.) The doctrine also of 
 our Saviour is perfect in itself and self- 
 sufficing, as the power and wisdom of 
 God; but the Hellenic philosophy which 
 is added to it, does not make the truth 
 more powerful, it only renders inelTectual 
 the sophistical attacks against it ; and as 
 it wards off delusive machinations against 
 the truth, it is called ttie proper ward and 
 fence of the vineyard.^ The truth of the 
 faith is as it were the bread neces.sary for 
 life; the form under which it is represented 
 to us, is to be compared with that wiiich 
 is eaten with the bread, and is like the 
 dessert." 
 
 While, on the whole, Clement is dis- 
 tinguished by the mildness and modera- 
 tion with which he opposed the adversa- 
 ries of the Alexandrian Gnosis, he himself 
 was well aware how much their anxiety 
 was awakened by the adulterations of 
 simple Christianity among so many sects, 
 who mixed with the Gospel, elements the 
 most uncongenial to its nature; and he 
 well knew, also, how natural it is for 
 men to confound the abuse and the right 
 use of the same thing with each other. 
 The zeal, however, of his adversaries. 
 
 • Strornat. i. 318. [Pott 376. Sylb. 138.) 
 
 j" aiBJ T)lf eyx.vKKl'.u TTAiSuxi;. 
 
 % What the ancients said generally of Dialer- 
 tics in relation to philosophy, t1i;it thoy were its 
 fence, was applied by the Alexandrians to the re- 
 lation of philosophy itself to the Christian Gnositi. 
 2f2 
 
DEFENCE OF THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 342 
 
 which was certainly often a blind zeal, 
 and the persuasion that this too sensuous, 
 and one-sided disposition stood much in 
 the way of the Spirit of Christianity, 
 which endeavoured to ennoble all human 
 things, and that many were tliereby de- 
 terred from Christianity, led him to speak 
 somewhat too sharply against their oppo- 
 nents, and did not suffer him to do be- 
 coming justice to their pious zeal, as 
 when he says,* " It is not unknown to 
 me, what many ignorant and clamorous 
 persons! constantly say, that our faith 
 must confine itself to the most necessary 
 and essential points, and must let go all 
 foreign and superfluous matters, whereby 
 we are detained with things that do not 
 contribute towards our object." And in 
 another passage^ where he says : " The 
 multitude in their anxiety lest they should 
 be carried away by the Hellenic philoso- 
 phy,§ dread it, as children dread masks. 
 But i^ their faith is of such a kind (for I 
 cannot call that knowledge) as to be over- 
 turned by plausible discourses, then it 
 may just as well be overturned, in regard 
 to these people, for they themselves con- 
 fess, that they have not the truth ; for the 
 truth cannot be overturned, false opinions 
 may." Now this is dealing out a hard 
 and unjust sentence, if we refer it to per- 
 sons ; for all worth was not to be denied 
 to the faith of these persons, although 
 they did not feel confidence in their own 
 ability, to enter into a contest with a 
 spirit of understanding prejudiced against 
 the faith, and although they were afraid 
 of being constantly disquieted in the en- 
 joyment of that, which was to them their 
 dearest possession. But if we look at it 
 objectively it is a great and an instructive 
 truth for all ages, which the free spirit of 
 Clement here proclaimed ; that Christianity 
 need fear nothing from any opposition, but 
 that the truth, when placed in opposition 
 to that which is false, only shines forth 
 the brighter. In conformity with that 
 declaration, which is ascribed to our 
 Saviour in the Apocryphal Gospels yima^B 
 oGxt/i/oi Tg«7r5^tT«» (be ye skilful money- 
 
 • Stromat. i. 278. [Pott. 326. Sylb. 120.] 
 
 I u/j.'j.BcDC -^'^(fa'Sili. 
 
 ^ vi. fi.5.5. [Pott. 780. Sylb. 278.] 
 
 § In Stromat. vi. G.59, Clement, in a manner 
 full of Kpirit, says: "Most Christians handle the 
 doctrines after a clownish manner, like the com- 
 panions of Ulysses, who got out of the way, not of 
 the Sirens, but of their music and song, by shut- 
 ting their ears out of ignorance; because they 
 knew, that if they have once given their ear to the 
 Hellenistic knowledge, there is no chance of their 
 turning again from them." [See p. 337.] 
 
 changers,) the Gnosticos, according to 
 Clement, ought to be able universally to 
 distinguish mere appearances from the 
 truth, as he would false money from 
 genuine ; and hence, to fear no might of 
 false appearances. He needed an acquaint- 
 ance with the Grecian philosophy, just to 
 be able to point out to the philosophically 
 educated heathens, its errors and unsatis- 
 factoriness, to battle with them on their 
 own ground, and thence to lead them to 
 the knowledge of the truth. Clement 
 says* — " Thus much 1 say to those who 
 are desirous of finding fault, that even if 
 philosophy be useless, yet the study of it 
 is useful, because it is useful fully to prove 
 that it (philosophy) is useless. For we 
 cannot condemn the Heathens by a mere 
 prejudice against their doctrines, unless 
 we go into the development of particulars 
 witli them, until we compel them to ac- 
 cede to our sentence: for a refutation 
 combined with a knowledge of the matter 
 before us, is the most likely mode of ob- 
 taining their confidence." And in another 
 passage he saysf — " For we must give to 
 the Greeks who ask for that wisdom, 
 which is in esteem among them, such 
 things as they are accustomed to, in order 
 that they may be brought to a belief in 
 the truth by the most easy way, through 
 their own proper method. ' For I be- 
 came,' says tlie apostle, ' all things to all 
 men, that I might win all.' " 
 
 The most eager antagonists of this free 
 spirit, in order wholly to condemn the 
 occupying oiu'selves with the Grecian 
 philosophy, appealed to the Jewish tale 
 related in the Apocryphal Book of Enoch, 
 that all the higher branches of knowledge 
 had come to the Heathens in an unlawful 
 manner, through the communications of 
 fallen spirits, and they looked upon all 
 heathen philosophers without distinction, 
 as instruments of the evil Spirit. They 
 either considered the whole antichristian 
 world only in stern opposition to Chris- 
 tianity; they confounded that which is 
 heathen with that original and divine sys- 
 tem, without which the heathenism that 
 only adulterated and troubled this original 
 system, could never even have existed at 
 ail; they woidd not so much as hear of 
 any point through which Christianity 
 could be engrafted on a nature and quali- 
 ties in man, which are akin to the Divinity, 
 and which beam through it constantly 
 
 * I. 278. [i. e. Ed. Paris. In Sylburg. ed. p. 
 120. In Potter, vol. i. p. 327. Klotz, vol. ii. p. 
 15.] 
 
 t V. 55i. [Pott. 656. Sylb. 237.] 
 
PHILOSOPHY P.EDAGOGICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 even in its worst corniption; and yet i 
 without such a point, Christianity could 
 never have propagated itself upon the 
 heathen soil; — or else, like tlie impetuous, 
 fiery Tertullian — the friend of nature, and 
 of all tlie original revelations of life, the 
 enemy of art, and of all perversion (of 
 such revelation) — tliey saw in philosophy 
 only the hand of Satan, that adulterates 
 and mutilates the original nature of man. 
 Clement endeavoured to refute this party 
 also on their own principles. " Even if 
 this view were just,'' he says, " yet could 
 Satan deceive men only when he clothed 
 himself as an angel of light: he must 
 attract man by the appearance of truth, 
 and by the intermixture of truth and false- 
 hood ; and man mu«t always seek the 
 truth, and acknowledge it, let it come 
 from whom it may. And even this com- 
 munication can only take place in accord- 
 ance with God's will, and therefore, 
 nuii«t have been contemplated in the plan 
 of education proposed for humanity by 
 God."* 
 
 But this view, however, which was so 
 exceedingly contradictory to the natural 
 development and progress of human na- 
 ture, was thoroughly repugnant to his 
 own sentiments; and he expresses him- 
 self very strongly against it, when he 
 speaks in conformity with his own views. 
 '» Is it not then absurd," he says, " while 
 we attribute disorder and sin to Satan, to 
 make him the giver of a good thing, i. e. 
 philosophy.' for he appears, under this 
 point of view, to have been more benevo- 
 lent towards good men among the Greeks 
 than Divine Providence."| 
 
 Clement was inclined rather to seek in 
 the progress of the Greek philosophy the 
 work of God in his care for the improve- 
 ment of man, and a preparation for Chris- 
 tianity adapted to the peculiarities of the 
 Greek character; as it is impossible to 
 deny that the philosophical development 
 of the human mind, which proceeded from 
 the Greeks, tended both negatively and 
 positively to render the soil capable of the 
 reception of the Gospel. The idea of 
 the Divine education of man as a great 
 whole, was Clement's favourite idea, and 
 he conceived the object of this great 
 scheme to be Christianity; and to this 
 he attributed the dealings of God, not 
 only with the Jewish people, but also 
 
 • This is the substance of passages found in vi. 
 647. [Pott. 773. Sylh. 274.] and i. 310. [Pott. 
 367. Sylb. 134.] 
 
 t L. c. vi. 693. [Potter, vol. ii. p. 822. Syl- 
 burg, 294. Ed. Klotz, vol. iii. p. 198.] 
 
 343 
 
 those with the heathen world, although 
 not in the same manner. The Alexan- 
 drians combated that confined view [lit. 
 particularism] which would limit the gov- 
 ernment of God, in whom we live, and 
 move, and are, only to the narrow limits 
 of the Jewish people. Thus Clement 
 says, " Every good impulse comes from 
 God ; he uses those men who are fit to 
 lead and to instruct other men,* as in- 
 struments for [the improvement of] the 
 greater mass of mankind. Such men were 
 the better class of Greek philosophers. 
 Philosophy, which forms man to virtue, 
 cannot be a work of evil ; it can only be 
 a work of God, whose work every im- 
 pulse to good is. And all, which is given 
 by God must be given and received with 
 advantage. Philosophy is not found in 
 the hands of the wicked, but it was given 
 to the best among the Greeks ; and it is, 
 therefore, evident whence it was given, — 
 it must have been given by Providence, 
 which gives to every man that which is 
 adapted to his peculiar condition. It is 
 clear also that the law was given to the 
 Jews, and philosophy to the Greeks, till 
 the appearance of our Lord ; and hence 
 proceeds the universal call to a peculiar 
 people of Righteousness, in virtue of the 
 doctrine which we receive by faith, as the 
 one God of both, the Greeks and the 
 barbarians, or rather of the Avhole race 
 of man, brought all together through the 
 one Lord.t " Before the appearance of 
 our Lord, philosophy among the Greeks 
 was necessary for righteousness, but now 
 it is useful for the furtherance of holi- 
 ness, as a kind of preparation for the de- 
 monstration of the faith ; for thy foot 
 will not stumble, if thou trace up every 
 j good thing, whether it belongs to the 
 j heathen or to us — to Providence ; for 
 1 God is the cause of every good thing, 
 \ but partly in an especial manner, as (he 
 lis the cause) of the Old and the New 
 ; Testament, and partly in a more remote 
 j (or derivative) manner, as he is of phi- 
 I losophy. But, perhaps, even this was 
 also given in an especial luanner to the 
 Greeks at that time, l)efore the Lord called 
 j the heathen also, for it educated the hea- 
 then as the law did tlie Jews for Chris- 
 ! tianity, and thus philosophy was a degree 
 j of preparation for him, who was to be 
 
 * The nyiiA'^viKU and miStuTMu 
 
 f vi. 393,' 4, [Potter, vol. ii. p. 822, 823. Ed. 
 Sylb. p. 294. Ed. Par. G03, 694. Ed. Klotz. 
 § 158, 159, vol. iii. p. 197, 198. The passage 
 is abridged. I have followed the German. — 
 H. J. It.] 
 
344 
 
 PHILOSOPHY A TRANSITION POINT. 
 
 brought to perfection by Christ."* When 
 Clement speaks here of a righteousness to 
 be attained by philosophy, lie does not 
 mean to say tliat philosophy can impart 
 to man the disposition requisite to the 
 fulfihiient of his moral destination, and 
 the attainment of the happiness of heaven ; 
 he makes a distinction between a doctrine 
 iustifying man, which with him can be 
 only the Gospel, and such a one as 
 can merely prepare him for that.| He 
 makes a distinction between a certain 
 degree of awakenment in the moral and 
 religious conscience, as well as of excite- 
 ment to moral endeavours, and of moral 
 preparation ■, and between the universal 
 perfect righteousness, which is the object 
 of the whole nature of man,J and is op- 
 posed to that cultivation of man's nature 
 which is only partially adapted for a cer- 
 tain condition of human development : 
 he himself says of the Greek philosophy,§ 
 that it is too weak to practise the com- 
 mandments of God, and that it makes men 
 capable of receiving the most majestic 
 doctrines only by ennobling their morals, 
 and by furthering their belief in tlie super- 
 intendence of Providence.il " As God," 
 says Clement, " willed the salvation of 
 the Jews, by giving them prophets, so 
 also he separated the most pre-eminent 
 among the Greeks from the mass of or- 
 dinary men, by making them come for- 
 ward as their own prophets, in their own 
 language, inasmuch as they were capable 
 
 of receiving the blessing of God 
 
 As now the preaching of the Gospel has 
 come at a convenient season,!! so also 
 were the law and the prophets bestowed 
 upon the Jews, and philosophy upon the 
 
 * Strom, i. 282. [i. e. ed. Paris, vol. i. p. 331. 
 Ed. Pott. p. 121, 122. Ed. Sylburg. vol. ii. p. 
 20. Ed. Klotz.] 
 
 ■j" £>iS:tiTx.a.Kt:i « T6 Sin.-'iciKri, «' TS a; tcuto ^u^ctyai- 
 ycv<r'JL x.tt (TuKKajj-^^tw-ya., vi. 844. 
 
 [Tlie context is here imi)orlant. Clement says, 
 that as every relation {jr-xTftiL) ultimately ascends 
 to God the Creator, so also to the Lord must be 
 referred, jj Tm kxkuiv JiSu.irKit\t^, « n, &c. Potter's 
 edit. vol. ii. p. 770. Sylburg. p. 274. Klotz, 
 vol- iii. p. 134.— H.J. R.] 
 
 X « KaBoKov tfwa/co-uvii, Strom, i. 319. [Potter, 
 vol. i. p. 377. Sylb p. 137. Klotz, vol. ii. p. 70.] 
 
 § i. 309. [Pott. i. p. 366. Sylb. p. 133, Klotz, 
 vol. ii. p. ^7.] 
 
 II 'A///i^iT)i a-ai^e^cvi^'.utroL to >16o? KUt (a'. Ktti to 
 
 oKybu-M Tiiv Treoiu^y Si^-j^iuasi. [Ita ap. iNeand. 
 Sc^u^ovTSL, Potter, Klotz, &c., which seems the right 
 reading. — H. J. K.] 
 
 ^[ Kxra K3t;gcv, i. e. after human nature had been 
 prepared for it by the previous dealings of God. 
 
 Greeks at the proper time, in order to ac- 
 custom their ears to the Gospel message."* 
 Clement had observed, from inter- 
 course with many who had received a 
 philosophical education, and perhaps, had 
 learned also from his own experience, 
 that previous philosophical culture might 
 become a means of facilitating conver- 
 sion, (lit. a transition point,) to Chris- 
 tianity, as he appeals for proof of what 
 has been alleged to the circumstanee, 
 that those who received the feith, whe- 
 ther prepared for it by the Greek phi- 
 losophy, or by the Jewish law, were both 
 led to the o7ie race of the redeemed peo- 
 ple.y As the Pharisees, who had mixed 
 the law of God with human traditions, 
 by Christianity attained to a right know- 
 ledge of the law ; so the philosophers, 
 who had defiled the revelation of Divine 
 truth to the soul of man by the partial 
 and imperfect views to which human na- 
 ture is liable (lit. by human otie-sided- 
 ness) attained to true philosophy by 
 means of Christianity .J Clement, in or- 
 der to represent the ennoblement of phi- 
 losophy afforded by Christianity, uses the 
 simile of a graft which had been used by 
 the apostle in a kindred sense, and was 
 very expressive and well adapted to de- 
 note the ennoblement of human nature 
 by Christianity. The wild olive tree§ is 
 not deficient in sap, but in the power of 
 properly concocting the juices which cir- 
 culate through it. Now, when the germ of 
 the garden olive is engrafted upon the wild 
 stem, the former obtains more sap, which 
 it appropriates to itself, and the latter the 
 power to assimilate (or digest) it. Thus 
 also the philosopher, who is compared to 
 the wild olive tree, has much which is 
 undigested, because he is full of the ver- 
 satile spirit of inquiry, and longs after tlie 
 noble nourishment of trutli ; and if he now 
 receives Divine power through faith, then 
 
 * Totc iixo!tf sfl/fcuo-a !rgoc to mi^vy/mst. Strom, 
 vi. 636. (Potter, vol. ii. p. 761—2. Sylb. p, 270. 
 Klotz, vol. iii. p. 123 
 
 t vi. 636, 637. [Potter, vol. ii. p. 761—763. 
 Sylb. p. 270. Klotz. vol. iii. p. 122. 123.] 
 
 tvi. 644. [Potter, vol. ii. p. 769, 770. Sylb. 
 p. 273. Klotz, vol. iii. p. 133.] 
 
 ^ vi. 671. [vi. 672. Potter, vol. ii. p. 799. 
 Sylb. p. 285. Klotz, vol. iii. p. 170. The German 
 is hardly an exact translation of the Greek. It is 
 rather a condensation of the text of Clement. I 
 have, therefore, followed the German. The word 
 verdauen, to digest or concoct, I have translated 
 by a.ssimt7a/e, which is equally applicable to veget- 
 able and animal functions. See Prout's Bridge- 
 water Treatise, part iii., especially p. 469.) — 
 H. J. R.] 
 
INTERMIXTURE OF PLATONISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 345 
 
 he will be able to digest the nourishment 
 imparted to liim, and become a garden 
 olive tree." He beautifully illustrates the 
 difference between the pure revelation of 
 truth in Christianity, and those individual 
 beams of truth which are dimmed by an 
 intermixture of human imperfection, by 
 a comparison drawn from the light artifi- 
 cially imprisoned in a burning lens, as 
 contrasted with the pure and clear sun- 
 shine.* The Alexandrians were full of 
 the great idea, which now, when Chris- 
 tianity if ^707? louvfold its essential nature 
 to the thinking mind, for the first time re- 
 vealed itself in a passing manner, and was 
 unable as yet to become the principle 
 which, carried out into every individual 
 application, should be the life-giving prin- 
 ciple of Christian theology, and of a 
 Christian consideration of hietory, the 
 idea which alone gives the right key to 
 the contemplation of human nature and 
 of history ; namely, that Christianity is, 
 as it were, the centre to all the rays of 
 human imperfection| (lieralJij, one-sided- 
 ness;) that it proves itself the religion 
 of human nature, inasmuch as it recon- 
 ciles with each other all the contending 
 dispositions which meet each other in 
 human nature ; that it divides truth from 
 falsehood in all human and imperfect sys- 
 tems, that treat of Divine matters ; and 
 that it teaches us to recognise in errors 
 the truth, which being misunderstood, 
 
 luK'. Kay.TnJrn, v. 5fi0, vi. 688. ' [Potter, vol. li. p. 
 663. Sylb. p. 239. Klotz, vol. iii. p. 22. iVow, 
 I do not see any mention in thi.s passage of Brenn- 
 glas, though the part of the sentence which fol- 
 lows should be given also ; it is this iiv Liitttcvtiv 
 cvSjaiTT'-/, TTi^a. rxicu KXiTTTcvTi; hTt^vai; to 4/»f. It 
 seems to me only a comparison of the artificial and 
 fieble light of a lain]), which is, in fact, origi- 
 nally stalcnfrom the .sun, to the full clear light of 
 day. The Rrtnnglus is taken from vi. 688, 
 (Potter, vol. ii. p. 817. Svlb. p. 292. Klotz, 
 vol. iii. p. 191,) where a dilTerent simile is used, 
 
 ejM- iiit'^; juii'Jiuu » Tsp^vx lie 5n/g, cCfce x.cil i 
 <;:/Accrc<f/K ix, TK (iui( jft^wc TO ijUTni^tufjist hA^cu<rn 
 h i?jy'.is cpuvTa^sTa/. — H. J. R.] 
 
 •j- [I understand by this a point in which all 
 hmnan dispositions which are apt to run into ex- 
 cess, each in one direction, and thus some in di- 
 rections exactly opposite to each other, may meet 
 and be reconciled and united ; e. g. extreme li- 
 lierality tends to prodigality, extreme prudence to 
 inhumanity ; Christianity alone gives the right di- 
 rection of the heart which shall unite the two pro- 
 perly. I have thought it necessary to add this ex- 
 planation, because I do not choose to incorporate 
 A paraphrase with the text, and the literal transla- 
 tion hardly gives an adequate notion of the mean- 
 ing to the English reader. — H. J. K.] 
 
 44 
 
 I has formed the foundation of them. 
 Such a light of tlie Spirit, according to 
 \the idea of Clement^ o\\g\\i Christianity 
 to have lighted for the Gnostic, and thus 
 , ought he, standing on the ground of Chris- 
 tianity, through which he has attained the 
 ■ true centre for the religious nature of man, 
 , to be able freely and securely to separate 
 truth and falsehood from each other in 
 all the systems of Grecian philosophers 
 and Christian heretics. Thus Clement 
 says :* " As truth is one, ibr falsehood 
 only has a thousand paths of error, in 
 which truth is dismembered, just as the 
 Baccha? dismembered the body of Pen- 
 theus, thus the sects of the philosophy 
 derived from the barbarians {the Chris- 
 tian) and of the Hellenic philosophy pride 
 themselves upon that portion of truth, 
 which each happens to possess, as if it 
 were the whole truth, but all is enlight- 
 ened at the rising of the dawn. As," he 
 says, '^ eternal existence^ represents that 
 in 0726 moment, which is broken by 
 means of time into past, present, and 
 future, so also is truth able to collect to- 
 gether the seeds which belong to her, 
 even if they may have fallen into a strange 
 , soil. The Hellenic and the barbarian 
 ; philosophy have in some sort received 
 'portions of eternal truth; they have re- 
 ceived not Dionysius, as in that mystical 
 legend, but the divine revelation of the 
 \ eternal Logos, dismembered and divided 
 . into fragments. But he who gathers to- 
 gether again that which was torn asunder 
 by them, and reinstates the Word in its 
 perfection and unity, will without doubt, 
 learn the truth. "J This mode of view 
 peculiarly distinguished the Alexandrians, 
 as compared with the partial polemical 
 views of other divines, and therefore, they 
 alone were in a condition to appreciate, 
 , with less prejudice, the opinions of here- 
 tics, to judge about them with more jus- 
 tice, and in considering their systems, to 
 separate not only the truth from the false- 
 j hood which appeared in them, but the 
 
 • i. 298. [Potter, i. p. 348. Sylb. p. 128. 
 ' Klotz, vol. ii. p. 43.— H. J. R.] 
 j f " Das ewige Seyn." In the Greek it is i aluv. 
 ' — H. J. R.] 
 
 j i Strom, i. 298, as above. [Potter punctuates 
 1 and explains the latter part of the sentence some- 
 what differently. It is thus : o Jtrx Sut^n/ufi/i a-vt- 
 6ac, KM ivovoi^a-it tsas/sv Acj.6v uKivJuvir; «i iTb' or/ 
 x«Tc4«T*/, t;iv uxiifewav. He, therefore, makes txv 
 I uX»6Mav in apposition with TSAaov toy A., but I ap- 
 j prehend JVeander's is probably the more correct 
 I construction, for I think in the other case we 
 I should have tcv tj>.ocv At^cv. To.a'.v is the predi- 
 1 cate of a clause of the sentence. — H. J. R.] 
 
346 
 
 INTERMIXTURE OF PLATONISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 important errors also from the imim- 
 portant.* 
 
 On the one side it may, indeed, also 
 appear that Clement, far from supporting 
 the Gnostic distinction between an esoteric 
 and an exoteric Christianity made one life 
 of faith in all Christians, and understood 
 by Gnosis nothing but a well-informed 
 knowledge and capacity of explaining 
 the one faith, whicii was to belong to all 
 Chrisiians. It is certain, in accordance 
 with the connected theory, which has 
 been laid down above, and which may 
 be proved by many passages of Clement, 
 that this alone was his impression on the 
 one side, but on the other side we find also 
 indications, tliat he had no clear view of 
 the bearing which dillerent forms of reli- 
 gious belief and knowledge had to the 
 essential character of the Christian life. 
 Beautifully as he speaks in many passages 
 of the nature and the power of faith ^ yet 
 he was not always clearly conscious to 
 himself of the full meaning of these de- 
 clarations, and they did not become prin- 
 ciples, logically carried out, of his dog- 
 matical (doctrinal) opinions. There was 
 mixed up with that idea of faith which 
 Clement had deduced from the essential i 
 nature of Christianity, the idea wliich 
 adhered to Clement from his former Pla- I 
 tonism, namely, the idea of a mythical 
 popular faith,! "^ which fancy and truth 
 are intermixed, as contrasted with the 
 pure religious knowledge of the philo- 
 sophically educated, and this notion 
 would have a close affinity with the 
 Gnostic ideas of the relation of yma-K; to 
 wts-Tif. By many explanations, which 
 he gives, he appears to understand by 
 wicTTK only a very subordinate slagfe of 
 subjective Christianity, and of the Chris- 
 tian life, a carnal faith, received upon 
 authority and clinging to the letter, a 
 
 * Hist, as in Strom, vi. 675. [Pott. vol. 
 ii. p. 802. Sylb. p. 287. Klotz, vol. iii. p. 
 195.] The important distinction is made between 
 
 01 TTigl TIV3. TtDV SV /UifJI ITCpaWOfAiVCl ailj thoSC ol £K 
 
 TO. Ku^icTctTit 7rst^i7ri7r'r(,vTiu Clement also in 
 vi. 647. [Pott. vol. ii. p. 773. Sylb. p. 275. 
 Klotz, vol. iii. p. 138,] argues against the blind 
 condemnation of all, which is said by heretical 
 teachers, merely on account of the person by 
 whom it is said, without weighing the matter it- 
 self, and this he does particularly with reference 
 to the Montatiistic prophets. " Nor must we on 
 account of the person who speaks ignorantly, con- 
 demn before hand that which he says, which ob- 
 servation is applicable to those who now pass as 1 
 prophets, but we must j)rovc that which is said, | 
 whether it is conformable to the truth." 
 
 f S'.^x raiv TroKKcty, ' 
 
 I faith which is still far removed from the 
 true spirit and essence of Christianity, 
 and which, as Clement represents it, is 
 essentially more able to repress the ex- 
 ternal outbreaks of evil, than to produce 
 true inw-ard sanctification of the heart 
 (although he well knew that on this latter 
 the very essence of practical Christianity 
 depends ;) but ytua-K;, on the contrary, is 
 in his language, an inward, living, spi- 
 ritual Christianity, a Divine life. ]f the 
 mere Believer is impelled towards good 
 by fear of punishment and hope of future 
 happiness, the Gnostic^ on the contrary, 
 is animated toward all good by the in- 
 ward, free impulse of love ; he needs no 
 outward grounds to persuade him of the 
 Divine origin of Christianity, he lives in 
 the consciousness and in the perception* 
 of Divine truth and even already feels 
 himself blessed by its means. If the 
 mere Believer (ttic-tixoO acts on the dic- 
 tates of uncertain feelings, and therefore, 
 at times fails in doing that which is right, 
 or does it, but not in the right way, the 
 Gnostic, on the contrary, acts always 
 under the guidance of an enlightened 
 reason with clear Christian views and 
 with a consciousness of their clearness.| 
 
 * [Anschauung. This word is variously used. 
 It sometimes means merely contemplation, some- 
 times intuitive perception, sometimes the object of 
 our perception. It is here applied to the act, ami, 
 therefore, may be rendered perception, as showing 
 that the Gnostic has (in the view of Clement) as 
 clear perceptions of Divine truth, as men usually • 
 have of those ideas, which we call ideas of sen- 
 sation. See the Edinb. Rev. for Oct. 1832.— H. 
 J. R.] 
 
 f Clement, Stromat. 518-9, [Pott. vol. i. p. 612, 
 615. Sylb. p. 222-3. Klotz, vol. ii. p. 338, 341.] 
 645. [Pott. vol. ii. p. 770-1. Sylb. p. 274. Klotz, 
 vol. iii. p. 133-4.] 652. [Pott. vol. ii. p. 777-8. 
 Sylb. p. 277. Klotz, vol. iii. p. 143.] where he 
 says that the Trt^n; yvui-TMH has already received 
 in anticipation, what to others is still something 
 future ; through love, the future is to him already 
 present; ii-Ttv oLtui Si uyxTrnv ivio-n,; ih to f/.ikKcv; 
 vi. 663, [Pott. vol. ii. p. 789. Sylb. p. 281. Klotz. 
 vol. iii. p. 158,] where he divides good into that 
 which is worthy of being pursued for its own 
 sake, and that wliich is only a means to something 
 higher. Gnosis belongs to the first class, because 
 we shall attain nothing else by means of it, when it 
 is attained, but only obtain the possession of itself, 
 and be in the enjoyment of an uninterrupted imme- 
 diate knowledge,* and we shall make our way to 
 
 * Anschauung. See note above. The last 
 clause of the sentence is thus in the German: 
 dass wir uns in ununterbrocheiien Anschauung 
 befindcn, und zu dioser und durch diese uns 
 durchkampfcn; by which I only understand that 
 this stale becomes a means only to its own con- 
 tinuance, and not an introduction to a higher state. 
 -11. J. R. 
 
NOTIONS OF 7r»3-T»f AND yvua-n;- 
 
 Wheie Clement speaks of the progres- 
 sive enlargement of the Divine scheme 
 for the education of man, and represents 
 the Logos as the Gc-to? wai^ays-voj, he 
 says,* "All men belong to him, some of 
 them with a consciousness of what he is 
 to them, {y./zT fTTiywcru,) Others without 
 that consciousness; some as friends, some 
 as faithful servants, and others merely as 
 servants ; it is the teacher, who leads the 
 Gnostic by the revelation of mysteries, 
 (the inward perception of truth,) the be- 
 liever by good hojjes, and the hard-hearted 
 by corrective discipline, by appeals to the 
 senses." Now here Clement's ypua-Tiy.o<; 
 appears in many respects to resemble the 
 -nrviv/xuTtKci; of the Gnostics, and liis 
 •n-io-Totcf their i^v^iy.oc, and in regard to 
 their interior life they both appear to bear 
 the same relation to each other, but there 
 is, nevertheless, this great distinction, that 
 amidst all the differences which tiiey held 
 to exist in the subjective Christianity of 
 the two conditions, the Alexandrians 
 maintained that there was the selfsame 
 foundation of objective Christianity, of 
 which they only admitted different con- 
 ceptions, the one more spiritual and the 
 other more sensuous, nor did they, like 
 the Gnostics, make these two dillerent 
 subjective conditions dependent on an 
 original and ineflkceable difference of hu- 
 man dispositions. It may, indeed, be 
 said, that, nevertheless, the two differ- 
 ent conditions of subjective Christianity 
 which Clement distinguishes from each 
 other, were really in existence in his day, 
 and are again found in other times, inas- 
 much as they are founded in the very 
 nature of man ; and therefore, that it 
 cannot be of so nmcli consequence, by 
 what name we distinguish tlie two condi- 
 tions, nor can it make so great a difference 
 whether we consider them as two dif- 
 ferent stages in the tlevelopment of faith, 
 and of the life under the influence of fiith, 
 or whether we accord the true spiritual 
 life of faith only to Gnosis, as Clement 
 has done in many passages. And yet 
 this difference is by no. means so unim- 
 
 tliis and through this, [i. e. a state to which we 
 attain through itself. — H. J. R.] Faith belongs 
 to tlie second class, on account of the fear of 
 punishment which arises from it, and on account 
 of advantages, and the hope of reward; fear being 
 a motive to the muhitude to abstain from sinning, 
 and the promises a motive to strive after obedience, 
 through which the happiness of heaven is to be 
 obtained. 
 
 * viii. 702. [Potter, vol. ii. p. 831-2. Sylb. 
 p. 298. Klotz, iii. 209, and seqc^.] 
 
 3^ 
 
 portant, as it may seem at first view, but 
 its foundations lie deeper and its conse- 
 quences are more important. The cause 
 that the Alexandrians conceived the thing 
 in this way, lay partly in their own pre- 
 dominant turn of mind, and partly in the 
 manner in which they viewed the faith of 
 a large class of Christian people. 
 
 As far as the first is concerned, the 
 contemplative and speculative turn of 
 mind was far too predominant among the 
 Alexandrians, and this prevented them 
 from recognising in its full extent the 
 independent practical power of faith in 
 the reformation of the interior life, and 
 they were still under the influence of that 
 view, which proceeded from the Platonic 
 School, and was natural, indeed, generally 
 to the whole of the ancient world, nainely, 
 that the inward, spiritual, and religious 
 life, in short, maturity in religion, could 
 not exist without philosophical culture 
 of the mind.* 
 
 As far as the second point is concerned, 
 we must take into the account the manner 
 in which they (the Alexandrians,) were 
 often accustomed to meet with faith in a 
 certain class of uneducated Christians, as 
 a mere belief received upon authority, 
 united with a sensuous Eud[emonism,"f 
 and a fear of hell, that presented to the 
 mind only images of horror derived from 
 the senses. They could not mistake the 
 bettering influence of faith upon the life, 
 even where it appeared to them under 
 this form, when they compared what these 
 men had become, as Christians, with what 
 they had been as heathens ; but they did 
 not believe that tliey could perceive any 
 traces of the ennobling influence of Chris- 
 tianity upon the whole inward nature of 
 man, or of a divine spiritual life ; and this 
 sensuous Christianity was in contradic- 
 tion to their spiritualized religious habits 
 
 * There is a remarkable passage in Clement, 
 vi. 691, in which he distinguishes an inward per- 
 ception, [Geistes-anschauung,] a learned know- 
 ledge or Gnosis and faith, from one another. The 
 first, or yoxTi;, consists in an immediate connection 
 of the Spirit with the highest origin of things, 
 the mere iTiJiu>j,uv ; yvniTu; is distinguished from 
 vo»3-/c by the addition of /2s3«-.uv Ai^w uir-JtiicTuee, 
 the reception of the fundamental doctrines with- 
 out the inward perception (anschauung) in regard 
 to the practical exercise of them is Faith. (» <p^cv 
 na-t:) fv TJ/c si; i'jMf6ii^v Tv/TWMTt ^«v:^sv», xx/ vytu 
 
 ai/TM 8^4§)/3ij-«c Th^xr/v mTTi; Kr^tTXt. 
 
 ■\ Eudacmonisin. The word in the original is 
 Eudamonismus, which is a modern coinage. It 
 expresses a notion of the Deity being pleased with 
 
 I man and rewarding him, especially in good that 
 
 I affects the body.— H. J. R.] 
 
348 
 
 SEPARATION OP TJiJTK AND TnuffH. 
 
 of thought. They might, therefore, be in- 
 clined to attribute a very low grade of the 
 religious life to 7ri<7T»? and to the xouoj 
 wto-Tjxof, and to consider the higher life 
 of Christianity, of which they saw no- 
 thing in the y.oivoi wio-thcoi, as fruit due 
 only to the yi/uai^ of the well informed 
 and highly cultivated. It must, indeed, be 
 avowed that they were very likely in this 
 case to do injustice to those, who were 
 in an entirely different condition as re- 
 garded both the turn of their mind, and the 
 extent of its development, if they passed 
 judgment upon the more hidden spiritual 
 life of faith from the impure reflection of 
 it in a habit of thought, neither tho- 
 roughly formed, nor as yet thoroughly 
 penetrated by the leaven of Christianity. 
 
 The prejudicial consequences of this 
 predominance of the contemplative and 
 speculative turn of mind, and of this ex- 
 tremely sharp division of yvuo-ii from 
 iriarnt show themselves in Clement in a 
 variety of ways. Instead of bringing 
 forward the Gnostlcos, under the image 
 of an humble-minded Christian, living in 
 the constant conviction of the sinfulness 
 that still adheres to him, and constantly 
 advancing in holiness, he often appears in 
 Clement under the form of a Neoplatonic 
 Theosopher, living in contemplative self- 
 sufficingness,* and unmoved by passions,| 
 although, even hither the Christian ele- 
 ment has again made its way, as may be 
 seen by the circumstance, that the Gnostic 
 cannot feel himself entirely blessed in con- 
 templation alone, and living for himself 
 and shut up in himself alone ; but is repre- 
 sented as actuated by the desire of work- 
 ing actively for the benefit of others.J 
 
 Hence also it happened, that instead of 
 contenting themselves with a mere sys- 
 tematic {lit. organic) development of that 
 which is known in faith, the Alexan- 
 drians wished to transcend the bounds 
 
 * [The word " self-sufRciency" is so con- 
 stantly used in English in an idiomatic sense, as 
 implying merely conceit and vanity, that I have 
 used a word which, if not a current word, may be 
 perhaps allowed. — H. J. R.] 
 
 f See F. 748. [See Potter, vol. ii. pp. 881-2, 
 Sylb. p. 318. Klotz, vol. iii. p. 2G8.] 
 
 i Clement says, beautifully, on this point: 
 " The (inostic, who sees his own salvation in the 
 advantage of his neighbour, may justly he called 
 a living image of the Lord ; not with regard to 
 the circumstances of liis outward form, but from 
 similarity to that which he was in power, nnd from 
 a resemblance to his preaching." 'O jvaio-Twsc 
 
 TMC IUC^<p>l( iSlljThTU., cKKn. Krf.TX TO TJIf tfuVi^SOJf 
 
 aufA^iXoy Ksu hhtx to tx; xaguj**)? ofitoucua.. 
 
 of faith by their Gnosis, and lost them- 
 selves in the region of Theosophy, which 
 desired to comprehend divine things; so 
 that mistaking and overlooking the prac- 
 tical aim of Divine Revelation for the im- 
 provement and salvation of human nature, 
 they endeavoured to find the solution of 
 speculative inquiries in Scripture. When 
 many came forward and opposed the 
 speculative Gnosis with this just argu- 
 ment : "The wise man is persuaded that 
 there is much which is incomprehensible, 
 and his wisdom even consists in the very 
 acknowledgment of the incomprehensi- 
 bleness of the incomprehensible :"* Cle- 
 ment answered, "This is also common to 
 those, who are able to see only a litde 
 way before them ; the Gnostic apprehends 
 that which appears to be inapprehensible 
 to the rest of men, for he is persuaded 
 that there is nothing which cannot be 
 apprehended by the Son of God ; whence 
 it follows that there is nothing Avhich 
 cannot be taught [by him,] for he who 
 suflered out of love to us, would debar 
 us from nothing which could contri- 
 bute to the instruction of Gnosis." One 
 sees how indefiniteness here becomes the 
 source and foundation of great error, for 
 this declaration is true enough when un- 
 derstood of that only which it is neces- 
 sary for man to know for his salvation, 
 but not when applied to things, which 
 serve only to the gratification of specula- 
 tive and ill-directed curiosity. 
 
 The notions of Clement in these mat- 
 ters, are repeated in those of his great 
 disciple Origen, only conceived in a pecu- 
 liar manner, full of deep thought, and 
 systematically worked out, but there is 
 the same connection of the ideas of 
 Gnosis and Pistis in relation, as well to 
 diflerent conditions of subjective Chris- 
 tianity, as to the different operations of 
 a Divine scheme for the general instruc- 
 tion of man, which lets itself down to the 
 varied wants which arise from the variety 
 of these conditions of man. In his con- 
 troversies with the heathen, who re- 
 proached Christians with their blind faith, 
 Origen often declares it to be a pecu- 
 liarity of Christianity as a revelation of 
 a God who came for the salvation of nil 
 men, that it is able to attract even the 
 multitude who are incapable of scientific 
 investigation and knowledge, and in virtue 
 
 • vii. 649, [Potter, vol. ii. p. 77.5. Sylb. p. 
 276; Klotz, vol. iii, p. 140. N.B. The refer- 
 ence in Neander should be vi. 649. not vii. 649. — 
 H. J. R.] 
 
ORIGExV ON FAITH. 
 
 of mere faith,* to work upon them to 
 sanctification with divine power; and he 
 appeals to the experience of very many, 
 as a testimony to this eflicacy of Chris- 
 tianity .j Those who had attained to faith 
 at first only in this manner, might then 
 become impelled of their own accord to 
 penetrate constantly more and more also 
 into the deeper sense of Soriplure.J He 
 makes ttjs-tk the lowest stage of Chris- 
 tianity, which must, nevertheless, have an 
 existence, in order, that '' the simple, who 
 give themselves up to holiness according 
 to their power, may be able to attain sal- 
 vation ;" and above faith he places both 
 Gnosis and Sophia. This last is that 
 Divine Wisdom, which is imparted to the 
 souls, who are, by God's grace, capable 
 of receiving it, and who have sought to 
 obtain it from God, by study of the Scrip- 
 tures, and by prayer. Human wisdom, 
 the wisdom that belongs to our world, is 
 only a preparatory exercise of the soul, 
 in order that it may become capable of 
 attaining that which is the real aim and 
 object of its existence, by means of cul- 
 tivating its intellectual faculties.§ 
 
 Origen, as well as Clement, in many 
 places declares expressly in reference to 
 the nature of faith, that it is a fact of the 
 inward life, through which man enters 
 into a real communion with divine things, 
 and he distinguishes this living faith 
 from a belief, resting on authority, which 
 clings only to outward things. Thus, in 
 explanation of John viii. 24, || he says, 
 " That faith brings Avith it a spiritual 
 communion with that on which we be- 
 lieve, and hence there is generated a 
 kindred condition of the heart,1 which 
 must show itself in works. The object 
 of our belief is received into the inward 
 life, and becomes a forming and fashion- 
 ing principle for it. In all the relations 
 (ewmojai,) under which Christ becomes 
 an object of faith, according to all these 
 
 • M'/xx W/3-T/C, TrKTTi; i.X'jyi':. 
 
 -j- Compare e.g. c. Celsum, lib. i. c. 10. 
 
 i, C. Celsum, lib. \i. Philocal. c. 15. //st* tuv 
 dT«| yin/xam ii3-:tyary>iv <plKiTi/Jin<r3L(TS<tl Tg:c to km 
 P'jtBvTtsu, Tuv Ksx-^uju/uiaiav you/xhtuv ir to.k yfjt/^ati 
 jtctTctXi^av. 
 
 § C. Cels. vi. 13. [Ed. Spencer, p. 283.] 
 Origen maintains that St. Paul sets those graces, 
 which are connected with knowledge, higher than 
 the gift of working miracles, ittu tci X'^y.v Tr^-.t- 
 
 St/vijUiav Kit ■^■xfiTfj.'i.'rrL lufAATm iv Tit KiTteTiPui 
 tAhti x^'i"^ -Ti-e^i. TA K'.yux ^t^KT/x^irit. c. Cels. 
 iii. 40. [Ed. Spenc. p. 139.] 
 
 II Tom. xix. Joh. § 6. [See Origen, cd. Huet. 
 vol. ii. pp. 284, 285.— H. J. R.] 
 
 349 
 
 '. the believer receives Christ into his in- 
 ward life ; thus, for example, since Christ 
 is called the power of God, power to all 
 good action.s cannot be wanting to him, 
 who believes on Ciirist, as the source of 
 divine power." Thus, in tom. xx., in Joh. 
 
 , c. XXV., he makes a distinction between a 
 sensuous belief in miracles, and a faith in 
 
 j the truth. He compares John viii. 43, 
 and 45, and says, that tliose sensuous Jews 
 
 [ were impressed by the miracles, and 
 
 I would have believed on Jesus as a worker 
 
 t of miracles, but they were incapable of 
 
 I receiving Divine truth,* and never would 
 have believed on Jesus as a preacher 
 
 I of deep truth ; and he adds, '^ This 
 may also be seen in many, who look 
 
 j with wonder on Jesus, when they con- 
 sider his history, but who cannot have 
 
 j any farther faith in him, when a deep 
 doctrine, which surpasses their compre- 
 
 I hension, is unfolded, but begin to cavil 
 at it, and say that it is false. Therefore, 
 let us take heed, lest he say to us also, 
 ' ye believe not me, because I declare the 
 truth.' " Nevertheless, the relation to 
 what is dependent on historical grounds, 
 and the practical influence, which is in- 
 herent in the idea of faith, as conceived 
 by St. Paul, is clearly thrown more into 
 the back ground by Origen. That higher 
 condition of faith was, in his notions, at 
 the same time a condition in which Chris- 
 tianity was applied and conceived in a 
 more spiritual manner — a condition in 
 which truth was more immediately the 
 object of interior perception ; and this 
 condition of faith so exactly accorded 
 with his notion of the condition of Gnosis, 
 that he often contrasts Gnosis with a 
 mere historical belief " Faith may exist 
 without a definite conception of the thing 
 believed."! He ascribes this Gnosis to 
 those who devote themselves wholly to 
 the contemplation of Divine matters, who 
 after they have cleared their spirit from 
 foreign elements, behold God with more 
 godlike eyes. He finds also that such a 
 Gnosis is contrasted with mere faith, in 
 John viii. 31, 32.1 For this distinction 
 between Gnosis and Pistis he appeals also 
 to 1 Cor. xii. 9 ; where, however, faith 
 being represented as a gift of g race, can - 
 * As if our Saviour had intended to say, xstS' 
 
 /UK T^atT* Tniu, TtTTeUim y.A, Klh' ii T*y ci>JlSt/«V 
 
 Kr^<t, oi mTTojiTi ix'A. [The reference in the text 
 has not enabled me to consult the original passage. 
 -H. J. U.] 
 
 -(■ [Erkcnntnisse is the German word here used, 
 which I have translated " definite conception." 
 See the Conversations Lexicon in vcrbo. — H. J. H] 
 
 ± See t. xix. in Joh. c. 1. 
 2G 
 
350 
 
 not be that historical belief of which 
 Origen speaks as opposed to Gnosis, but 
 where it is rather the designation of a 
 peculiarly practical power of faith. Origen 
 places tlie condition of Gnosis so far 
 above that of faith, that he represents it, 
 in speaking of this contrast, as a life of 
 sight. '•> Those," he says, " who have 
 received the charisma of Gnosis and 
 Sophia, no longer live in faith, but in 
 sight; the spiritually-minded, who already 
 dwell no longer in the body, but even 
 here below, are already present with the 
 Lord. But those do still dwell in the 
 body, and are not yet present with the 
 Lord, wlio do not understand the spiritual 
 sense of Scripture, but cling wholly to its 
 body (i. e. the letter, see below.) For 
 how, since the Lord is the Spirit, should 
 he not be far from the Lord, who does 
 not understand the life-giving spirit and 
 the spiritual sense of Scripture ? such an 
 one lives in faith."* He busies himself 
 here very diligently in endeavouring to 
 explain, after his own notions, what St. 
 Paul says in utter contradiction to this 
 view in 2 Cor. v., about the relation of 
 faith to sight; and not without sophistical 
 arguments involving a confusion of ideas, 
 he contends against the just interpretation 
 of most of the fathers, who maintain that 
 even Paul speaks of himself, as one who 
 still lived in faith, and had not yet arrived 
 at living in sight. He makes the expres- 
 sion, "to dwell in the body," entirely 
 equivalent to " living in the flesh, and ac- 
 cording to the flesh ;" and thus obtains 
 as a result, that St. Paul said this, not in 
 reference to himself and all spiritually- 
 minded persons, but only in reference to 
 those believers, who were still carnally- 
 minded. He applies also (and in him the 
 application is consistent) what St. Paul 
 says (1 Cor. xiii.) of the perfect, to the 
 genuine Gnostics, as contrasted with the 
 mere believers, who are still in childhood, 
 and still have only the mere partial know- 
 ledge.! This twofold condition, according 
 to the notion of Origen, corresponds with 
 the twofold condition of a spiritual and 
 a fleshly Christianity .J Me who is in the 
 position afforded by a fleshly Christianity, 
 abides only by the letter of Scripture, 
 
 ORIGEN ON FAITET. 
 
 * Origen. t xiii. Joh. c. 52. 
 
 f In Matt. ed. Huet. frag. 213. He Joes not 
 always remain consistent in this respect ; in another 
 passage (in Matt. 271,) he properly refers 'r^^£(cv 
 to eternal life. 
 
 i A -^eja-rtuvKriuaK Tnisj/uxTixac and a ^^io-tuvkt- 
 fJM a-cc/nUTiK'yg, a 7r)/ejfA^TtKm; and a (ra/^iaT/xajc XV' 
 
 I and by the historical account of Christ ; 
 he clings only to the outward appearance 
 of the Divine, without raising himself up 
 in spirit to the inward essence, which is 
 revealed in it; he confines himself wholly 
 to the earthly, temporal, and historical 
 appearance of the Divine Logos ; he does 
 not raise himself up to the actual percep- 
 tion of the latter (tlie Logos) itself; he 
 contents himself with the mere shell of 
 the Christian doctrines, without pene- 
 trating to the interior kernel contained in 
 them ; he clings solely to the letter of 
 Scripture, in which the spirit lies bound. 
 The spiritual Christian on the contrary, 
 in the temporal appearance and operations 
 of Christ, sees the revelation and the re- 
 presentation of the eternal government 
 and operations of the Divine Logos ; with 
 him, the letter of Scripture is only the 
 covering of the spirit, and he knows how 
 to detach the spirit from this covering. 
 With him, all that is temporal in tlie form, 
 under which Divine things are presented 
 to us, is elevated into the inward percep- 
 tions of the spirit ; with him the sensuous 
 Gospel of the letter,* becomes spiri- 
 tualized into the revelation of the eternal 
 spiritual Gospel, f and it is the highest 
 question to which his soul applies itself, 
 to find the latter in the former, and to 
 turn the former into the latter; and to 
 understand Holy Scripture as the revela- 
 tion of a continuous scheme of education, 
 provided by the Logos for human nature, 
 and of his uninterrupted activity for the 
 salvation of man, a scheme of which the 
 centre point is his appearance among 
 men (which is the sensuous representa- 
 tion of his eternal and spiritual opera- 
 tion,)]}] and the aim of which is to bring 
 back all fallen being to God. While he 
 refers every thing to this one view, the 
 whole volume of Holy Scripture becomes 
 to him, by means of the Gospel, elevated 
 and refined into Gospel. Hence, Origen 
 believes by means of spiritual communion . 
 with the Logos, by the reception of the 
 Spirit of Christ into the inward life alone,§ 
 can any one attain to the true spiritual 
 Christianity, and to the right spiritual un- 
 derstanding of the whole Scripture. Just 
 then as the prophets before the temporal 
 advent of Christ were partakers in spi- 
 ritual communion with the Divine Logos, 
 
 -f Tou i'jxyyiKitiu 'n-iaJu-jLrix.iiv, etletvicv. 
 
 i The \mSnfAix tt'tO-BnTn, an image of the iTrtfu/uut 
 
 ;»T» TCU K!,yov. 
 
 § The friixfAtx vhitm tcv Xgfo-Tiu. 
 
SPIRITUAL AND CARNAL CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 351 
 
 and in virtue of that communion were guardians and stewards, and have not vet 
 enabled to foretell that advent, and the reached the fulness of time, to them have 
 whole of Christianity beforehand, just as the harbingers of Christ appeared, namely, 
 they, therefore, had the spiritual under- the ideas proper for the souls of children, 
 standing of the Old Testament, and in of which (the ideas or notions) it mav be 
 some degree were Christians before the justly said, iliat they are advantageous for 
 coming of Christ; so after the temporal tlie instructions of such souls. But tlte 
 appearance of Christ, there are among Son himself, the Divine Loijos, in his 
 
 majesty has never yet appeared to them, 
 because he awaits that preparation which 
 must take place beforehand among the 
 men of God, who are to l»e capable of 
 receiving his Godhead. We must also 
 know, that as there is a law, which con- 
 tains the shadow of ffood tilings to come, 
 
 Christians, persons also, by whom this 
 spiritual communion with the Divine 
 Logos has not been obtained, and they, 
 like the Jews of old, still cling to the 
 outward covering ; and the saying of St. 
 Paul about the Jews before the appear- 
 ance of Christianity, (Gal. iv. ;) r/-. '■'•That ^ ^ ^ 
 
 they were still children, that the time ap- | which good things are revealed (in Chris- 
 pointed by the Father for them, had not tianity) by the preaching of the true law; 
 yet arrived, and that thev were still under | so also the shadow of the Christian mvs- 
 
 guardians and governors," is still appl 
 being in 
 
 teries is represented by that Gospel, which 
 
 cable to them, as being in a condition ' all, who read it, think they understand, 
 through which they must necessarily j The Gospel, on the contrary-, which St. 
 pass, in order to be prepared and made ' John calls an eternal Gospel, and which 
 capable of receiving the true spiritual j ought properly to be called the spiritual 
 Christianity. " Every soul," says Origen, j Gospel, sets clearly before the eyes of 
 
 " which enters upon childhood, and pro- 
 ceeds on the road towards perfection, 
 untU the time destined for its perfection 
 shall arrive, requires a teacher, and guard- 
 ians, and stewards."* 
 
 Whatever portion of truth there may 
 be in this expression of Origen, and how- 
 ever applicable it may be to the progress 
 
 those, who understand it, every thing 
 which regards the Son of God himself; 
 the mysteries which were shadowed forth 
 in his language, and the things of which 
 his actions yvere the symbols. In con- 
 formity with what is here said, we must 
 also suppose that, as there is an outward 
 Jew, and an outward circumcision, so 
 
 of the development of the Christian also there is an outward Christian and an 
 Church, yet it cannot be denied, that the outward baptism." Origen here scrip- 
 
 meanmg of historical Christianity, the 
 intimate connection between historical 
 and inward Christianity, appear to be ob- 
 scured in his representation. We will 
 now hear him speak in his own words,! 
 '" We must know, that the spiritual ap- 
 pearance of Christ, was communicated 
 before his personal advent to the perfect 
 and to those who were not in the condi- 
 
 turally points to spiritual communion 
 with Jesus Christ, as the source of sys- 
 tematic and lively perception of that, 
 which is only hinted at in Scripture; and 
 what he said, was certainly just when 
 taken as said in opposition to a blind and 
 narrow-liearted zeal for an orthodoxy 
 which adhered merely to the letter, and a 
 conceited, unprofitable acquaintance with 
 
 tion of infants, — to those, who were no j Scripture; but such declarations, if they 
 longer under schoolmasters and guardians, I were not sufliciently defined and limited, 
 and to whom the spiritual fulness of time : might easily favour a speculative habit of 
 had appeared, namely, the Patriarchs, Mo-; dealing arbitrarily with Scripture, which, 
 ses, the Servants of God, and the Propliets, ; under the pretence of a higher truth, 
 who had seen the glory of Christ. Now myslilied the simplicity of the Gospel, 
 just as he himself, before his visible and and did not recognise the depth which 
 bodily appearance, appeared to the per- was united with that simplicity. As for 
 feet, thus also after his incarnation has instance when he says, ^ I believe, that 
 been preached to those who are still in aj the whole body of Holy Writ, even when 
 state of childhood, because they are under uiulerstood very accurately, conUiins only 
 
 - — a very small part of the elements of 
 
 Comm. in Matt 213. jra« ^W W."'''' "^ ' Gnosis, and a very brief introduction to 
 
 oiKovouaj h-jU iTiTP'.Traiv. 
 
 I Origen in Joh. torn. i. p. ix. [p. 8, 9. Ed 
 Huet, in which, however, the last sentence of this 
 quotation is imperfect. — H. J. R.] 
 
 It." Thus in his allegorical explanations 
 of die conversation with the Smnaritan 
 woman, the well of Jacob is the symbol 
 of the Holy Scripture, and the living 
 water which Jesus gives, is the symbol of 
 
352 
 
 LOGOS REVEALED IN DIFFERENT FORMS, 
 
 that, which transcends Scripture. " Scrip- 
 ture is then," he says, '• the introduction, '• 
 and after we have sufficiently understood 
 that, we must raise ourselves up to Jesus ' 
 in order that he may bestow upon us the 
 fountain of water that bubbleth up into 
 eternal life."* 
 
 In his mind this theory of two different \ 
 stages of Christianity was closely con- 1 
 nected with the theory of different forms 
 of the Revelation of Christ, or of the 
 Divine Logos, in relation to these two 
 different conditions. The Gnostics, in- \ 
 deed, according to the different condi- [ 
 lions of the spiritual world, by reason of 
 the difference in the natures of men, were 
 accustomed to dividef the revealing and j 
 the redeeming power of God among dif- ; 
 ferent hypostases; they acknowledged a 
 Monogenes, a Logos, a Soter, an uvu and 
 a Kocru Xfio-To;, a spiritual and a natural J j 
 Christ ; but, on the contrary, Oiigen the ' 
 unity of the being of Christ and of his ! 
 Divine-human appearance; the one Christ ' 
 is every thing to him, he only appears j 
 under different predicates, in different 
 modes of conception, and in different re- 
 lations to those, to whom he reveals him- 
 self, according to their different capacities, 
 their different requirements; and hence he 
 appears either in his heavenly dignity, or 
 his human state of abasement. The 
 thought often occurs in Origen, " that the 
 Redeemer became all things to all men in 
 a more Divine sense than St. Paul, in order 
 to win all men."§ " The Redeemer," he 
 says, " becomes much, or rather perhaps, 
 every thing, according as the Avhole crea- 
 tion, which is to be released by him, 
 happens to require him."|| We must 
 separate those predicates, which belong 
 to the Divine word, in virtue of his nature, 
 as the eternal Revealer of God for the 
 ■whole spiritual world, and the source of 
 
 * Tom. 13. Joh. p. 5 & 6. [Ed. Huet. vol. ii. 
 p. 201, 2.— H. J. R.] 
 \ See Part II. 
 
 I [Pneumati.schen and psyckischen are the 
 German terms, which are here opposed as in St. 
 Paul : the pneiimatical meaning spiritual as be- 
 longing to the soul, and psi/chical meaning natu- 
 ral as required only to the animal soul or life of 
 man. 
 
 The difference between the Gnostic view and 
 that of Origen, may be shortly stated in one sen- 
 tence. They believed in an ohjcclLvc difference in 
 Christ's nature, and he only in a subjective. — 
 H. J. R.] 
 
 § Tom. 20. Joh. 28. 
 
 II Tom. 1. Joh. 22. Where, I think, instead 
 of it«fla^/^a, we must read xaQ' a xsi^^u o-I'tm >i 
 
 all truth and goodness, from those, which 
 he has taken upon him for the advantage 
 of the fallen natures, which are to be re- 
 deemed by him, in relation to the different 
 conditions in which those natures are 
 found. " Happy are they," says Origen,* 
 " who have made such progress, that they 
 need the Son of God no longer as their 
 physician that heals their sick, nor as the 
 shepherd, nor as their redemption, but 
 require him only as truth, as the Logos, 
 as righteousness, and whatsoever he is 
 besides to those, who from their own 
 perfection are able to conceive him in 
 the utmost splendour." Christianity in its 
 historical and practical form, the preach- 
 ing of Christ crucified, was reckoned by 
 Origen only a subordinate condition, above 
 which he placed the wisdom of the per- 
 fect, which acknowledged Christ no longer 
 in the condition of a servant, but in his 
 dignity as the Divine Logos, although he 
 recognised the former condition as a ne- 
 cessary preparatory stage, in order to 
 ascend ft-om the temporal to the eternal 
 Revelation of God, in order that a man 
 being purified through faith in the cruci- 
 fied Redeemer, and sanctified by the fol- 
 lowing after the Son of God who appeared 
 in human form, should be rendered ca- 
 pable of receiving the spiritual communi- 
 cations of his Divine Being. "If thou 
 canst understand," says Origen,| " the 
 differences in the Divine Avord, according 
 as it is announced in the foolishness of 
 preaching, or brought forward in wisdom 
 to the perfect, then you will see in what 
 manner the Divine word has the form of 
 a servant to novices in Christianity .... 
 but it comes in the glory of the Father to 
 the perfect, who are able to say, ' we have 
 seen his glory, the glory as of the only 
 begotten Son of the Father, full of grace 
 and truth ;' for to the perfect the glory of 
 the Word appears, as well as his being 
 the only begotten Son of the Father, and 
 his being full of grace and truth also, 
 which they are unable to comprehend, 
 who require the foolishness of preaching 
 to induce them to lielieve." In another 
 passage,! he says, '^ To those, who live 
 in the flesh, he becomes flesh; but to 
 those who walk no longer after the flesh, 
 he appears as the Divine Logos, who was 
 in the beginning with the Father, and he 
 reveals the Father to thorn." He says of 
 that preparatory stage of belief,§ " If any 
 
 • Joh. i. 22. 
 
 f In Matt. p. 290. Ed. Huet. 
 t Commentar. in Matt. p. 268. 
 § In Joh. i. 0.11. [1] 
 
AGAINST DESPISING THE SIMPLE. 
 
 353 
 
 one also belongs to the class of the Co- 
 rinthians, among whom Paul will know 
 nothing except the crucilied Jesus, and 
 whom he teaches to acknowledge only 
 him who became man for our sakes, yet 
 he may by means of the man Jesus be- 
 come a man of God, by the consequences 
 of his death may die to sin, and by con- 
 sequences of his resurrection may rise up 
 to a Divine life." So that Origen re- 
 verenced even that subordinate condition, 
 and he desired that the Gnostics would 
 let themselves down* to the weakness of 
 those Avho v.ere placed in it, and avoid 
 giving them oflence and occasions of bit- 
 terness. " Just as Paul," he says, " could 
 not be of service to those who were Jews 
 according to the flesh, if he had not, 
 when he had good reasons for his con- 
 duct, caused Tinioihy to be circumcised, 
 shorn his own hair, offered sacrifices, and 
 became a Jew to Jews, in order to gain 
 the Jews ; so also he, who is inclined to be 
 useful to many, cannot improve those who 
 are still in the school of sensuous Chris- 
 tianity, by spiritual Christianity alone, 
 nor lead them thus to a higher and better 
 state, and he must, therefore, unite spi- 
 ritual and sensuous Christianity together.| 
 And where it is necessary to preach the 
 sensuous Gospel, in virtue of which among 
 carnal men he can know nothing,^ but 
 Christ crucilied, lie must also do this. 
 But when they are grounded in the faith 
 and continue to bring forth fruit in the 
 Spirit, then must we bring forward to 
 them the word, which, having appeared 
 among men, has raised itself again to 
 that, which it was with God in the be- 
 ginning."§ Thus too, in his allegorical 
 interpretation and application of Matt. xiv. 
 10,11 after he has deduced from the pas- 
 sage, that a man must become a child to 
 children, in order to gain children to the 
 kingdom of Heaven, just as Christ, though 
 he was in a Divine form, became a child, 
 
 * Thus also Clement on the oIkcvojui* of the 
 Gnostic. Stromal, vii. p. 730. [Potter, p. 863,864. 
 Sylb. p. 310. Klotz, vol. iii. p. 246, 247.] Comp. 
 the notions of Philo given above, vol. i. p. 73, &c. 
 
 i [It is difficult to imagine a text more tortured 
 in its application than this passage. It was writ- 
 ten to show that the knowledge of Christ crucified, 
 whereby we are led to righteousness and to heaven, 
 transcends all other knowledge, which St. Paul 
 casts away in comparison of it — it is applied to 
 degrade that doctrine of Christ crucified, in com- 
 parison of other doctrines and revelations of the 
 same Christianity. — H. J. R.J 
 
 § Tom. i. in Joh. p. 9. 
 
 U In Matt. 1. c. 374, 37.'j. 
 45 
 
 j he says beautifully, '* We must be well 
 [aware of this, in order that we may not, 
 lout of a presumption of wisdom and ad- 
 j vancement, as great ones in the Church, 
 j despise the little ones, and children, but 
 inasmucii as we know tliat it is said, ' Of 
 : such is the kingdom of Heaven,' we ought 
 i to become such men, that through us the 
 salvation of children may be promoted. 
 I We must not only not hinder such from 
 I being brought to Christ, but we must do 
 his will by becoming children with chil- 
 dren, so that when those children arrive at 
 salvation, through us, who have become 
 children, we may be exalted by God, as 
 men who have abased themselves." Ori- 
 gen here blames those, who, like the 
 Gnostics, despised ordinary preachers and 
 ; teachers, who were destitute of spiritual 
 culture of the higher order, and wiio j)re- 
 j sented the simple Gospel in an unattractive 
 [form, just as if such persons did some- 
 thing unworthy of so great a Saviour and 
 j master.* " Even if we were arrived at 
 ' the very highest and clearest perception 
 [anschauung] of the Logos and of truth," 
 says Origen,t " yet still we must not 
 i wholly forget the passion of Christ, for 
 ; it is to that we owe our introduction into 
 I this higher life during our abode on 
 ! earth." 
 
 j With this twofold condition, namely, 
 that of spiritual, and that of sensuous 
 j Christianity, the theory of a twofold con- 
 dition of Scriptural interpretation and the 
 theory of different senses of Holy Writ 
 j were closely connected, for spiiitual 
 I Christianity brought with it a penetration 
 into the spirit of Scripture, and an under- 
 standing of tlie eternal, spiritual Gospel, 
 just as, on the contrary, sensuous Chris- 
 tianity abided by the letter of Scripture 
 alone. The highest problem of Scripture 
 interpretation was in his estimation the 
 changing of the sensuous Gospel into the 
 I spiritual,t just as the highest aim of 
 ! Christianity was to elevate itself from the 
 j earthly appearance of the incarnate Logos 
 ! to communion with him and to the con- 
 templation of his Divine nature. Thus 
 he saw also in the whole body of Scripture 
 a letting down of the overwhelming liea- 
 venly Spirit to the human form, which 
 was incapable of containing it ; a letting 
 down of the Divine Teacher of man to 
 
 * j8x«T«Ta> oiv T/c rnnc ran tTraty^'OJ^i/uftiiiv KtTtt- 
 
 fjtcepit Tcu K'^7/ui:u K:tJ 
 
 Tat 't^:uJtyauo3i ; 
 
 f Tom. ii. Joh. p. 4. [1] 
 
 i TO /unoLKaiSur TO tti<rfl«TS» fwatJJIWci' lie T» 
 ' TnejuiniK'.i. 
 
 2 g2 
 
HOW GOD REVEALS AND HIDES HIMSELF. 
 
 351 
 
 the weakness and the wants of men, and 
 all Scripture was in like manner a revela- 
 tion of the incarnation of the Logos. 
 Thus he says,* " AH which is here called 
 Word of God, is a revelation of the Divine 
 Word, which became flesh and emptied j 
 itself in relation to its heavenly natnre, | 
 and hence we see the Word of God on I 
 earth when he became man, as a human | 
 Word, for the Word constantly becomes j 
 flesh in Scripture, in order to dwell among 
 lis."!" But when we have lien on tlie \ 
 breast of the Word that became man, and 
 are enabled to follow him as he climbs up 
 the high hill, (Matt, xvii.) then we may say, 
 ' we have seen his glory,' "j He sets out 
 from the principle of an analogy between 
 the Holy Scripture as a work of God, and 
 the whole creation which proceeds from 
 the same God ; a principle, which carried 
 out in his lively and spiritual manner, 
 would at once become fruitful for the 
 right consideration of the twofold revela- 
 tion of God. Thus he says, and the say- 
 ing shows at once how thoroughly im- 
 bued he was with the notion that the 
 Holy Scripture is the Word of God:§ 
 " We need not think it strange, if in every 
 passage of Holy Writ the superhuman 
 nature of the thought does not strike the 
 unlearned, for in the works of Providence, 
 which extend over tlie whole universe, 
 some of them show manifestly, that they 
 are the works of Providence, while others 
 as so concealed, as to give occasion to 
 incredulity in respect to God who governs 
 all things with inexpressible skill and 
 
 power But just as we do 
 
 not dispute the doctrine of a Providence, || 
 on account of those things of which we 
 are ignorant, when once we are justly 
 persuaded of his existence, so we cannot 
 doubt of the Divine authority of the Holy 
 Scriptures, which extends to every por- 
 tion of them, because our weakness is 
 unable in every case to come up to tiie 
 hidden glory of their doctrines, which is 
 clothed in inadequate language, for we 
 
 * See Philocal. c. 15. 
 
 ■j- Similarly also Clement says, that the charac- 
 ter of the Holy Scripture is a parabolical one, as 
 also the whole appearance of ("hrist is a parabo- 
 lical one — viz. the Divine in an earthly garb, 
 
 ixBiv- Stromat. vi. 677. 
 
 i The ennobling of Scripture for him, who 
 learns to understand its spirit by a living commu- 
 nion with Christ. 
 
 § Philocal. c. i. p. 10. [p. 5. Ed. Spencer, 
 1/558.— n. J. K.] 
 
 have the treasure in earthen vessels." 
 And in another passage he says :* " He 
 who once admits that these Scriptures are 
 the work of the Creator of the world, 
 must be persuaded, that whatsoever phe- 
 nomena in regard to the creation present 
 themselves to those who attempt to give 
 an account of it, the same will also occur 
 to him who inquires about the Scriptures. 
 There are now, for instance, in Scripture 
 many things which human nature may- 
 find diflicult, or be unable to explain, but 
 we are not on that account, to accuse the 
 Creator of the Universe ; as for example, 
 wlien we are unable to explain the cause 
 why basilisks and other poisonous animals 
 were created; for here it is the duty of a 
 pious mind, taking into consideration the 
 weakness of man, and hovv it is impos- 
 sible fully to understand the creating wis- 
 dom of God, to reserve to God the know- 
 ledge of such tilings, and he will after- 
 wards, when we are considered worthy 
 of it, reveal to us that, about which we 
 have doubted in reverence." How full 
 he was of the belief in a Divine Spirit 
 which breathed throughout the whole of 
 Scripture, and how thoroughly persuaded 
 he was tliat this could be received only 
 with an humble and a believing heart, is 
 beautifully expressed in the foUoAving 
 words of Origen :t " We must believe 
 that no title of Holy Scripture is deficient 
 in the wisdom of God, for He, who pro- 
 claimed to man, ' Thou shall not appear 
 empty before me,' (Exod. xxxiv.,) will 
 himself far less utter any empty word ; 
 for the prophets take what they say, out 
 of his fulness ; therefore, all parts are ani- 
 mated {lit. breathe) by this fulness, and 
 there is nothing in the Prophets, the Law. 
 or the Gospel, or the Apostolic Epistles, 
 which does not proceed from this fulness. 
 The breath, therefore, of this fulness (•3-X»- 
 fw^a, Pleroma,) descends on those who 
 have eyes, to see the revelations of the 
 Divine fulness, ears to hear it, and a sense 
 to catch the sweet smelling savour, which 
 proceeds from this fulness. But if, i« 
 reading Scripture, you meet with a thought 
 which, so to speak, is a stone of stumb- 
 ling and a rock of oflence, blame your- 
 self, for be assured, that this stone of 
 stumbling contains thoughts, by which 
 that saying shall come to pass, ' He that 
 beUeveth shall not be put to shame, (Rom. 
 
 • Philocal. c. ii. p. 61. [p. 23. Ed. Spencer.— 
 II. J. R.] 
 
 + Ii. c. c. i. p. 51. [p. 19, 20. Ed. Spencer.— 
 II. J. K.] 
 
THREEFOLD SENSE OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 X. 11.) Believe first, and you shall then 
 find much holy assistance and support 
 under that which appeared to you an 
 ofience." 
 
 But however just this principle of 
 Origen might be, yet in the application 
 of it he was led astray by means of the 
 false position, from which he viewed the 
 spirit and the object of Holy Scripture, 
 and of all Divine revelation through tiie 
 Word ; and this false position was inti- 
 mately connected with his false concep- 
 tion of the relation between faith and 
 Gnosis (wiiTTij and yvws-i?.) In both 
 respects he was led astray by the specu- 
 lative point of view, Avhich was too pre- 
 valent, inasmuch as he did not sufficiently 
 distinguish the nature of a Christian sys- 
 tem of faith, and a Christian pliilosophy 
 from each other, and he did not keep 
 sufficiently before his sight the essentially 
 practical object of all Divine revelations, 
 and especially of Christianity. He did 
 not refer every thing to the one object, 
 that affects all mankind — redemption, re- 
 generation, sanctification, and the bless- 
 ings resulting from them ; but the prac- 
 tical object of man's improvement was, 
 in his estimation, only a subordinate one, 
 which was chiefly of use to the great 
 mass of believers, who were incapable of 
 receiving any thing of higher character. 
 In his estimation, the hiirhest object was 
 the specidative, the communicating the 
 most elevated truths to spiritual men who 
 were capable of understanding them, i.e. 
 to the Gnostics. These hitrher truths 
 have reference chiefly to the following 
 points:* *•' About God — about the nature 
 of his only begotten Son, and the mode 
 in which he is the Son of God — about 
 the cause which impelled him to come 
 down and take upon him the nature of 
 man — about the ctTects of this incarna- 
 tion, whom it affects — about the higher 
 kinds of reasonable beings who have 
 fallen from a state of happiness, and the 
 causes of their fall — about the difference 
 of souls, and whence this difference 
 arises — what the world is, and wherefore 
 it was created — why there is so much 
 evil in the earth, and whether evil is 
 found only there, or elsewhere also." 
 As Origen made it the chief object to find 
 explanations and answers to these in- 
 quiries ; many parts of Scripture, if he 
 abided by their natural interpretation, 
 would naturally appear to him to be un- 
 fruitful towards that which he considered 
 
 355 
 
 its essential object. All narratives cm- 
 bracing only earthly occurrences, all legis- 
 lation bearnig only on earthly rclatiorjs, 
 he explained as being only the symbolical 
 guise of a higher history of the world of 
 Spirits; and of higher laws which related 
 also to that world. Thus the higher and 
 the subordinate object of Scripture would 
 be united together, and the revelation of 
 the higher class of truth would be hidden 
 in a literal form, adapted to the improve- 
 ment of the general mass of mankind. 
 "The mulliiiule of genuine and simple 
 believers," says Origen, "• bears testimony 
 to the usefulness, even of this inferior 
 understanding of the Scriptures." Be- 
 tween these two kind of senses included 
 in Scipture, Origen imagined an inter- 
 mediate kind, an allegorical sense adapted 
 for those who had not yet arrived at that 
 higher state of spiritual perception ; this 
 was a general, moral, and instructive ap- 
 plication of those passages of Scripture, 
 which relate to individual cases, though 
 this application was not of that elevated 
 and profound class;* and he adduces 
 as examples of this, the explanation of 
 1 Cor. ix. 9; and most of the allegorical 
 interpretations of Scripture then com- 
 monly used, even in the instruction of the 
 people. Thus, the triple sense of Scrip- 
 ture corresponded to the three parts of 
 man's nature, which the theory of Origoti 
 acknowledged; that which is really Divine 
 in man, the Spirit, which is directed 
 towards the Eternal, and finds its proper 
 life in the perception ami contemplation 
 of Divine things ; the Soul, whose sphere 
 of action is the temporal and the finite; 
 and the Bodi/. While Philo agreed with 
 Origen in the essential and fundamental 
 features of his view, he (Origen) sought 
 also on the whole to preserve the objec- 
 tive truth of the literal and historical con- 
 tents of the Scriptures,! which are given 
 as the dress in which the spiritual reve- 
 lations are communicated. And yet, he 
 formed passages where the letter could 
 not, in his opinion, be defended; because 
 he was destitute of right hermeneutic 
 principles, and of other necessary helps 
 and aids; or because he did not know 
 hovv to separate the divine from the hu- 
 man in the Holy Scriptures ;;{: or else, 
 
 * [As in tlie hisihor chss of interpretation, 
 which he iiniiGjiiiod. — H. J. R.] 
 
 I T3 a-iefXJiTix..Y Til"/ y^i-pay, to iyiufxt ray ttw- 
 fji-j-Tiitaiv. 
 
 + As, for exariiiile, wlicre he found it impf)s<!ihle 
 to maintain the literal truth of the history of Ilri.ih, 
 Philocal. i. 28. [p. II, Ed. Spencer.— H.J. R.] ' because in David he saw only the man inspired 
 
m^. 
 
 because (which is connected with the 
 remark we have just made,) proceeding 
 from an exaggerated notion of inspiration, 
 he could not entertain the supposition of 
 any contradiction in Scripture, even in 
 unimportant things ; and then, lie thought 
 the only way to clear up the difficulties 
 was by a spiritual interpretation.* And, 
 like Philo, he united the supposition with 
 his reverence for the Holy Scripture 
 in such a manner, as to induce him to 
 say, that tliese things, the literal accepta- 
 tion of which cannot be maintained — this 
 mythical guise in which the higher wisdom 
 is clothed — were strewed purposely about 
 as a stone of stumbling,| in order to ex- 
 cite deeper inquiry. 
 
 These principles Origen applied not 
 only to the Old Testament, but expressly 
 to the New ; and expressly to the Gospel 
 history .J Thus he imagined that he was 
 able to clear up many difficulties, by sup- 
 posing, that the apostles represented§ 
 under the outward form of various mat- 
 ters of fact, what they had to say of a 
 difference in the operations of the Divine 
 Logos. II This principle of interpretation, 
 it must be avowed, gave an opportunity 
 for the exercise of every kind of sub- 
 jective caprice, and was liable to make 
 historical Christianity entirely a thing of 
 naught; as everyone could thus place 
 whatever did not suit his subjective ideas 
 and feelings, in the class of those things 
 which were not to be taken literally. 
 Origen felt with much force, what danger 
 might arise from this to objective Chris- 
 tianity ; and he, therefore, always de- 
 clared, that for the most part the spirit 
 and the letter were both alike to be main- 
 
 ms PIETY EVEN IN HIS ERRORS. 
 
 by the Spirit of Go<], and not a frail and sinful 
 man. 
 
 * dtvsLyaiyit ii; ro voutov. 
 
 i See the passage of the Philocalia quoted 
 above; and also c. xv, p. 139. 
 
 § T. X. Joh. p. 4. TTfcimino ttlirou;, ottov fAiV 
 
 in^Ct'e^ll i?i!lSlUilV TrviU/tA'JiTllCCi!; afAO. KXt <TU>/UArlna);, 
 
 rev a-ctuu-Tix^u, irai^o/uivcu ttoKKx^ii; tou c'a;i9:i/? ttvsj- 
 
 II Of different communications of the iTrihjuitA 
 VJXTJ) T6y Xplo'rcu. 
 
 [N. 13. In a passage requiring some delicacy 
 of touch in translating, I have used the word out- 
 ward for si7inMch, as I thought it gave the nearest 
 idea to the EngHsh reader. The imSii^ui^ ctla-(l>n>i, 
 or the abode (f the Logos with us which could be 
 perceived by the smses, was only the type of the 
 iTriJu/jtix vcxTX, the sojourn of the Logos or of 
 Christ in the spirit of man. This was ex- 
 plained above, p. 350, a reference to which will be 
 of service in considering this passage. — H. J. R.] 
 
 tained, and that the letter was to be aban- 
 doned only after careful examination. 
 But where were there any certain limits ?■ 
 
 And yet, we cannot but acknowledge, 
 that in Origen the caprice so prejudical to 
 objective Christianity, which might pro- 
 ceed from those principles, was softened 
 down by the intimately pious and be- 
 lieving feeling, which animated him, and 
 the thorough sense of the historical truth 
 of Christianity with which he was im- 
 pressed. And we must also take care to 
 remark, how truth and error here were 
 mingled together in a manner, wiiich must 
 be explained by taking into consideration 
 the peculiarities of his own character, and 
 his relation to his own times, which were 
 then agitated by a variety of contradictory 
 opinions. He saw how carnally-minded 
 Jews, cleaving to the letter of the Old 
 Testament, were unable to attain to a 
 faith in the Gospel ; how carnally-minded 
 Ciiristians by that disposition too were 
 led to rude conceptions [lit. representa- 
 tions) of God and divine things. He saw 
 how anti-Jewish Gnostics, in conse- 
 quence of this very mode of conception 
 of the Old Testament, fell, into the other 
 error ; so that they would not recognise 
 this God, who appeared thus carnally re- 
 presented (i. e. in the Old Testament,) as 
 the God of the Gospel ; which circum- 
 stance was an mtroduction for their whole 
 system of Dualism. Now Origen believed 
 that he should be able, by means of this 
 spiritualizing mode of interpretation, to 
 tear up all these contradictory errors by 
 the very roots.* He had not in this the 
 smallest intention of degrading that which 
 is Divine in Scripture into something 
 human ; but he was more inclined to 
 go too far on the other side, by not re- 
 cognising in that which was Divine, that 
 which was properly and peculiarly htman 
 in the mode in which it was brought for- 
 ward ; because, in accordance with the 
 general notions of that time, he deduced 
 throughout Scripture both form and mat- 
 ter from the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. 
 The Divine Spirit — such was the belief 
 of Origen — had so completely acted in 
 reference to the higher wisdom, that in 
 many passages the spirit was given with- 
 out the letter. 
 
 It must, however, be confessed, that the 
 
 * After mentioning all these errors, he says, 
 Philocalia, c; i. p. 1 7, aWt^ Si tt-jlo-i toic Tr^ode^iifxtyoK; 
 ■^iuScjSo^kdv xAi da-tfiiUifV « IJiceTUtev tti^i Gm Ko-yaiv ovk. 
 
DOCTRINES ABOUT GOD. 
 
 357 
 
 Alexandrian turn of mind, if carried to the 
 extreme, without any counter action, and 
 without the spirit of piety which imbued 
 an Orio'en and a Clement, might lead to 
 an Idealism, entirely subversive of all that 
 is historical and objective in Christianity; 
 and then, as the struggles which the Ori- 
 genian school had to undergo at the end 
 of this period indicate, we must look es- 
 pecially to the realistic tendency, which 
 proceeded from the Western Church, for 
 a counterbalancing power to meet that 
 idealism ; just as the Origenian school 
 was calculated to be efficacious in spirit- 
 ualizing that Church. Such is the general 
 picture of the relation which existed be- 
 tween the most remarkable and differing 
 dispositions of mind ; a picture, which 
 we shall be sure to find again in the 
 different modes of treating the chief points 
 of Christian doctrine singly, just as this 
 consideration will give us a proof, that, 
 even in the fundamental truths of Chris- 
 tianity, these two dispositions, notwith- 
 standing their opposite nature, must touch 
 each other and join together. 
 
 II. The Developemcnt nf the g^rcat (hdrines 
 cf Christiaaitij considered separately. 
 
 We must always bear in mind, that 
 Christianity did not deliver to man isolated 
 speculative ideas* of God and Divine 
 things, nor a ready made dogmatic sys- 
 tem in a settled form, but announced the 
 facts of a communication made by God to 
 man, through which man became placed 
 in a new relation to his Creator, by the 
 recognition and application! of which an 
 entirely new direction and formation of 
 the religious feelings might be produced, 
 through which all that was before con- 
 tained in it would receive an alteration 
 and modification. The fact of the re- 
 demption of sinful man by Christ, forms 
 the central point of Christianity, and 
 from the influence which the application 
 of this fact to the heart must produce on 
 the inward life of man, this new form or 
 condition of the religious conscience 
 
 • [Erkenntuisse. Like other words belonging 
 to the metaphysical vocalmlary of Germany, this 
 word is almost untranslatable. ' Cognitions' would 
 be the nearest if we had the word. It expresses 
 rather the ackmivledqment of an idea to our own 
 consciousness than the ideas themselves. The re- 
 presentations of the mind (vorstellungen) are iU 
 ideas, our erkeiintnisse are our knowledge of these 
 ideas. See the Conversations Lexicon on the 
 ■word. See Edinburgh Review, Oct. 1832, p. 173. 
 — H. J. R.] 
 
 f [Aneignung. UtenWy, apprnpnatton ; i.e. 
 application to the heart. — H. J. R.] 
 
 arises, and from this again there results a 
 new state of thought about Divine tilings, 
 which reflects the new world formed 
 within. The characteristic by which the 
 Christiannatureof any thing is determined, 
 depends on its connection with this, 
 which forms the essential and fnndament;il 
 ground of Christianity, according to the 
 manner in which dogmatic systems and 
 individual opinions are in relation to this 
 one doctrine, so will be their relation to 
 Christianity in general, and in the same 
 manner we must estimate the importance 
 or nonimportance of errors as far as their 
 efforts on Christian practice are concerned. 
 If from the beginning men had clearly 
 conceived this relation of insulated doc- 
 trines to the centrepoint of Christianity, 
 and maintained a full consciousness of it, 
 it would have been more easy for them 
 to come to an understanding as to unity 
 in that which forms the essential nature 
 of Christianity, and this unity would not 
 have been so easily destroyed by differ- 
 ences in speculative conceptions, to which 
 they attached in early times too much 
 weight, exactly because they were un- 
 acquainted with the true measure for es- 
 timating in what Christianity* consists. 
 
 Even the common God-consciousness, 
 the consciousness of the God, in whom 
 we live and move and have our being, re- 
 ceived a new impulse from Christianity \ 
 the believer who lived in God became 
 filled with a new feeling of the undenia- 
 bleness of God, and even in Nature, he, 
 on whom inward communion with God 
 had been bestowed through Christ, felt 
 the Omnipresence of a God, who filleth 
 all things, with more liveliness and greater 
 force. While those Fathers, who in early 
 life had been devoted to the Platonic Phi- 
 losophy, and had received through its 
 influence the shape of their mind and 
 the form of their knowledge, developed 
 under this form their Christian God-con- 
 sciousness, Tertullian, on the contrary, 
 expressed in the original but uncultivated 
 form of his powerfid and rugged pecu- 
 liarity, that Avilh which the animation of 
 an inward deep Christian God-conscious- 
 uesst inspired him. On the whole, al- 
 
 • [Literally, 'for the estimation of all which is 
 Christian,' meaning, how fiir any doctrine is es- 
 sentially Christian or not. As I am scrupulous 
 about paraphrasing. I wish my readers to know 
 exactly the force of the idioms which I cannot 
 render literally.— H. J. R.] 
 
 + [Gottesbowusstseyn. Go<l-consciousne33. I 
 have used this new word merely to express the 
 German term, which conveys the idea of "an 
 
358 
 
 though the fathers had not to contend 
 with Atheists, yet their controversial 
 treatises against superstUious men and 
 idolaters often took such a turn, as might 
 have been directed against atheists also. 
 Instead of endeavouring to prove the ex- 
 istence of God by logical inference,* they 
 appealed to that which is most immediate 
 in the human spirit, and is antecedant to 
 all proof, they appealed to the originally- 
 implanted consciousness [of God] which 
 human nature cannot deny : they ap- 
 pealed to an original revelation of the 
 one God, made to the human spirit, on 
 wliich every other revelation of God is 
 founded. Clement appealed to the fact, 
 that every scientific proof presupposes 
 something which is not proved, which 
 can be conceived only through an im- 
 mediate agency on the spirit of man. 
 He says,t " To the Supreme, the sim- 
 ple Being, and the Being elevated above 
 all matter, faith alone can raise itself." 
 Therefore, he says, there can be any 
 knowledge or perception of God, only 
 in as far as he himself has revealed 
 himself to man. God cannot be con- 
 ceived by means of demonstrative know- 
 ledge, for this proceeds only from things 
 previously acknowledged, and more known 
 [to other things which are less known] 
 but nothing can be prior to the Eternal, 
 and hence it results, that it is only by 
 Divine grace, and by the revelation of his 
 eternal word, that we can recognise the 
 unknown; and then he introduces the 
 words which Paul spoke at Athens, with 
 reference to the knowledge of the un- 
 known God.J And in another passage 
 also,^ he says, "The first Cause is 
 above space, and time, and name, and 
 conception. Therefore, Moses says to 
 God, ' Reveal thyself to me,' (Exod. 
 xxxiii. 18,) most clearly pointing out, 
 that no man can either teach or express 
 what God is, but he can make himself 
 known only by liis own power." He 
 recognises also in all men an outpouring 
 from God, a Divine seed,|| through whicli 
 lliey are impelled, even against their own 
 
 CLEMENT. — THEOPHILUS. 
 
 inward recognition of God's existence, and a sense 
 of his presence and operations," a mnschusness 
 of his existence and agency.— H. J. K.] 
 
 * [/. e. The a posteriori argument, or the argu- 
 ment of design. — H. J. K.] 
 
 f ii. 364. [yylh. 1.57. Pott. 435.1 
 
 t V. 588. [Ed. Potter, 696. Sylb. p. 251. 
 Klotz, iii. p. 60.— II. J. R.] 
 
 § V. 5&2. [Ed. Totter, p. 689. Sylb. p. 248. 
 Klotz, iii. p. 52.] 
 
 II iljrcggcw buKM. Protrept. p. 45. 
 
 will, to acknowledge the one Eternal God. 
 As Origen reckoned the idea of the one 
 God according to the language of philoso- 
 phy, among the xoitai iSicci (the ideas 
 common to the conscience (or mind) of 
 all human nature,) so he considers the 
 consciousness of God in man's nature as a 
 mark of his affinity to God.* Theophi- 
 lus, of Antioch, recognises a revelation of 
 God in the whole of creation ; but at the 
 same time he lays down the position, that 
 a capability and aptitude of the moral and 
 religious nature of man is requisite for the 
 perception of this revelation. Where this 
 nature is dulled and dimmed, that revela- 
 tion is unintelligible for man. To the 
 common inquiry of the sensuous heathen, 
 " Where then is your God ? show him to 
 us;" his answer was, "<S/toM' 7ne thy man, 
 and I will show thee my God ; show me 
 that the eyes of thy soul see, that the ears 
 of thy heart hear; all have eyes to see 
 the sun, but the blind cannot see it. Just 
 as the tarnished mirror will not receive 
 an image, so the unclean soul cannot re- 
 ceive the image of God. But God has 
 created all things in order that he may be 
 known by his works, just as the invisible 
 soul is known by its operation. All 
 life reveals him, his breath animates all 
 things ; without him all would again sink 
 back into nothingness ; man cannot speak 
 without revealing him, but in the dark- 
 ening of his own soul lies the cause of 
 his being unable to perceive this revela- 
 tion. He says, therefore, to man, ' give 
 thyself to the physicisn who is able to 
 heal the eyes of thy soul; Give thyself 
 to God .'"t 
 
 While Clement, the friend of philoso- 
 phy, sought the revelation of that seed of 
 a nature akin to the Divine, in the philo- 
 sophical development of that original be- 
 lief-in-God,^[Z</pra////,God-consciousness] 
 Tertullian, on the contrary, the friend of 
 nature, the enemy of art, and of the wis- 
 dom of the schools, in which he saw not 
 the developing handmaid, but the falsifier 
 of that original religious belief that is 
 founded in our very nature, appealed to 
 the involuntary testimony of the soul, not 
 as it is Avhcn trained in schools, but in 
 its siinple, rude, uncultivated condition.§ 
 He says, (Apologet. c. xvii,) ''Although 
 
 * c. Cels. lib. i. c. 4. 
 
 f Theoph. ad Autoylc. lib. i. c. 2. [The sub' 
 stance of this passage is found in ch. iii. 11. (Ed. 
 Wolf.) imt the exact words are not taken from 
 Theophilus.— H. J. R.j 
 
 § De Teslimomo Animie. 
 
TERTULLIANISM. TESTIMONY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 369 
 
 shut lip in the prison house of the body, 
 although cramped by bad education, al- 
 thongli enervated by bists and desires, 
 altlioiigh serving false gods, yet the soul. 
 
 pleased to appeal to the clear testimony 
 which was near at hand and accessible to 
 all, and whose genuineness none could 
 dispute, to those outbursts of the soul, 
 
 when it awakes, as it were, from a de- (eruptiones animse,) the still and silent 
 
 bauch or a sleep, or some disease, and at- 
 tains to its healthy condition, the soul 
 
 pledge of an innate persuasion and belief* 
 [literally, conscience or consciousness.] 
 
 calls on God as God, and with this name Marcion, was the only one, who through 
 only, because it belongs to the true God; ! a truth (see above) which he misunder- 
 ' Great God ! Good God ! and what God j stood and conceived in a one-sided view, 
 hath given,' this is the outcry of all men.* \ and through a turn of Christian feelings, 
 They appeal to him also as Judge, when | actually proceeding from a foundation of 
 
 truth, but only not sulhciently clear to 
 himself, and carried to the extreme, suf- 
 fered himself to be seduced into mistaking 
 or overlooking that witness of the God 
 of the Gospel in the creation and in the 
 common conscience of mankind. (See 
 above.) Therefore, TertuUian makes this 
 witness tell against him more forcibly,t 
 "God never will be hidden, God never 
 will fail to the human race, he will al- 
 ways be recognised, he will always be 
 understood to exist, [he will always be 
 heard,] yea, he will even be seen, if he 
 wills it. God hath for a witness of him- 
 self, all that we are, and all in which we 
 are. Thus he proves himself to be God, 
 and to be the one God, even by his being 
 known to all, while another must first he 
 proved to exist.t The consciousness of 
 God's existence is the original endow- 
 ment of the soul, a gift the same and iden- 
 tical in Egypt, in Syria, and in Pontus, 
 for souls proclaim the God of the Jews 
 to be their God." 
 
 While, however, we find this inward 
 and deep conviction of the universal ac- 
 knowledgment of God by man's con- 
 science among all the Fathers, we must 
 not expect to find a spiritual mode of 
 
 they say, ' God sees,' ' I commend it to 
 God,' and ' God will repay it to me.' O I 
 the vvlness of the sou] which is by its na- 
 ture Christian ! In fact when it makes this 
 appeal it looks not to the Capitol, but up 
 to Heaven, for it knows the seat of the 
 living God ; from him and from thence it 
 came itself!" While others sought for 
 testimonies to the truth which Chris- 
 lianiiy presupposes to exist in the reli- 
 gious conscience of man, among the trea- 
 sures of ancient literature, and even in 
 forged writings,! Tertullian was more 
 
 • [The reading of this passage varies consider- 
 ably in the difTerent editions of Tertullian. I sub- 
 join two — that of Cambridge, 1686, which runs 
 thus: " Deum nominat hoc solo quia proprie 
 verns hie unus Deus, bonus et magnus. Et quod 
 Deus dederit, omnium vox est" — and that of Ha- 
 vercamp. 1718. " Deum nominal, hoc solo no- 
 mine, quia proprius Dei veri. DECS MAGNUS, 
 DEIS BONUS, et quod DEUS DEDEKIT, 
 omnium vox est." Neander follows the reading 
 of Havercan)j)'s edition. I must ask my readers 
 to compare the treatise Ad versus Marcion. I. 10, 
 where nearly the same phrases occur, only "si 
 Deus dederit" and (jiwd Deo placet, are two of 
 the colloquial phrases quoted there. The " si 
 Deus dederit" would rather indicate, If God hath 
 so disposed matters, &c., but the appeal to Deity 
 
 js the same in each phrase. — H. J. K. i i , . ; i ^ .u . r r^ i „ 
 
 t As especially in those under the name of' thought about the nature of God corres. 
 Hirmcs (Tri.micgisfus) of the Eiryptian Thoth, I poiidmg to it in all ol them ; tor the lor- 
 of Hysfthipcs (the Persian Gushtaph) and of the mcr proceeded from the most profound 
 Sibyls. Such writings originally sprung, partly j depths of the inward life, on which the 
 fr.ini heathen Platonists, and jiarlly from Alexan- 1 Jeaven of Christianity which was thrown 
 drian Jews, and were only interpolated with new .^^^^ ^j^^ 1^^,^^^ ^j. n,a„kind, produced its 
 additions with a view to Christianity. According i . „ ,- , j - i- . i u-i 
 
 to the principle promulgated among piatonists I influence at first and immediately, while, 
 and Theosophistsofcvery class, that the delusion of; on the contrary, it was only gradually, 
 the multitude is allowable for pious purposes, poo- and in proceeding from this [i. e. this first 
 
 ]<\e thought themselves authorised to promote such I — 
 
 fictions. But we should be doing an injustice, if covered marks of spuriousness in the Pscudo- 
 \ve attributed this principle to the Fathers gencr- sibylline books, or rather, because on doctrinal 
 ally. As most of them, with the ex(ei)tion of grounds they would not allow of the existence of 
 
 the Alexandrians and particularly of Ouhjek, 
 were entirely destitute of critical attainments, (hey 
 might easily be deceived, especially where they 
 were willing to be so. Besides, at the time in 
 which the false Sibylline books first became cur 
 
 any Prophetesses among the heathen. See Ori- 
 gcn. c. Cels. lib. v. 5; 61. 
 
 * De Test, Anima;, c. 5. 
 
 f 1 c. Marcion, lib. i.e. 10. comp. 18, 19. 
 
 t [Sic probaturct Deus et unus, dum non igno- 
 
 rent among the Christians, there was ' a party I ratur ; alio adhuc ])robari laborante. This sen- 
 which did not approve of appealing to them, and j tencc and the next are transposed in Neander's 
 gave to those, who favoured them, the party name of translation, at least if he follows Rigault's Edition. 
 Sibyllists — perhaps, because their critical taste dis- — H. J. R.] 
 
360 
 
 REALISTIC AND IDEALISTIC VIEWS OF GOD's NATURE. 
 
 and immediate action on the interior life] 
 as a centre point and origin, that the en- 
 lightening inllnence of Christianity conld 
 extend itself over the individual ramifica- 
 tions of the spiritual nature of man."* 
 The saying of our Lord, " God is a 
 Spirit," appears, indeed, to a reason, 
 formed under the guidance of Chris- 
 tianity, at once to suggest the notion of a 
 pure Spirit, but a mode of thought, already 
 spiritualized through the practical influ- 
 ence of Christianity, or by the praying 
 to God in spirit and in truth, was in fact 
 needed, in order to understand the mean- 
 ing of this saying. Those men, the form 
 and fashion of whose religious sentiments 
 had been derived either from a sensuous 
 Judaism, or a heathenism occupied in the 
 contemplation of Nature, could not at 
 once justly interpret and develope the 
 idea contained in this saying, although 
 their heart well understood what it is, to 
 pray to God in spirit and in truth. Ac- 
 cording to their former habits of mind, 
 they would understand by vnvi^ai. nothing 
 but a mere refined body of an ethereal 
 nature, as contrasted with a body com- 
 posed of gross earthly materials,! and 
 they became, therefore, the rather con- 
 firmed in their error by that saying. The 
 more lively their religious feeling, espe- 
 cially when joined to lively and fiery 
 powers of imagination, the more they 
 were imbued with the conviction that 
 God is the most real of Beings ; and the 
 more deeply they were impressed by the 
 feeling of the omnipresence of God, the 
 more likely, on that very account, was 
 it to happen, that their conceptions of 
 God would lake a sensuous shape, and 
 the more difficult would it be to them to 
 lift themselves up above all objects of the 
 
 * [This is the same view which is often en- 
 forced throughout these volumes, viz. that Chris- 
 tianity first acted on the inward life of man, puri- 
 fying his affections and dispositions, &c., and 
 then served to clear his intellectual conceptions of 
 Divine things. The first was an immediate 
 effect of Christianity ; the second, an effect pro- 
 duced by means of the former. It is in this sense, 
 as opposed to secondare/, i. e. consequent on 
 other actions, or produced by mediate ai^enc>/,thaLt 
 the word immediate (unmittelbar,) is used in the 
 text. Our metaphysical vocabulary, slender as it 
 is, has been so injured by the usage of its words in 
 improper senses, that I feel it necessary sometimes 
 to draw attention to tlie language, which is used 
 in a sense different from that which it bears in 
 common conversation and writings where no 
 closeness is required. — H. J. R.] 
 
 -)- See Tertullian, adv. Praxeam, c. vii. Spiritus 
 corpus sui generis. Comp. Lactant. Institut. vii, 
 9. Origen, in Joh. t. xiii. c. 21. 
 
 senses, to that which would seem to them 
 a cold and negative abstraction. The 
 religious Realism, as yet not sufficiently 
 enlightened, which opposed itself to an 
 Idealism, inclined in religion too much 
 to refine away all things into insubstan- 
 tiability, and reduce them to shadowy 
 nonentities,* would be inclined in the 
 spirit of angry contrast too far to sen- 
 sualize every thing, and the more spiritual 
 conception of tlie idea of God would 
 then appear to such a disposition under 
 a somewhat suspicious point of view. 
 And these, indeed, are the very circum- 
 stances, which we meet with in Tertnl- 
 lian, who makes corporeality and exist- 
 ence convertible terms."]" 
 
 Now two different causes would ope- 
 rate towards introducing a spirituality 
 into the idea of God. These were, on 
 the one hand, a sober and chastened 
 practical direction of the religious spirit, 
 proceeding immediately out of Chris- 
 tianity, and seeking to raise itself up to 
 God through the heart, rather than 
 through speculation and the power of the 
 imagination ; this was a Spirit which ac- 
 knowledged from the depths of the reli- 
 gious conscience the truth, that the image 
 of Divine things is only an image, and a 
 faint expression of that which is be- 
 stowed upon the believing soul in its in- 
 ward life, — and, on the other side, a style 
 of thought, which worked up the con- 
 tents of the Christian doctrines after a 
 learned and scientific manner; such a turn 
 of thought, in fact, as we find in Clement 
 and Origen, and generally in the Alexan- 
 drian school. The former turn of mind 
 is found in an Irenaeus and a Novatian. 
 Irenasus says,;}; " All which we predicate 
 of God, we speak as if in a kind of simili- 
 tude [or comparison ;] they are only 
 I images which love makes for itself, and 
 our sentiments and feelings throw into 
 these images something more than ac- 
 tually lies in them ;" and NovatianJ says 
 
 • [Einem in der Religion allez zu sehr verdiin- 
 nende und verfliichtigenden Idealismus. [Lit. 
 To an Idealism in Religion too much inclined to 
 thin away and volatilize (or evaporate) every 
 thing.— H. J. R.] 
 
 I De Came Christi, c. xi. Nihil incorporaie, 
 nisi quod non est. 
 
 i L. ii. c. 13. § 4. Dicitur quidem secundum 
 haec per dilectionem, sentitur supra ha)c secundum 
 magnitudincm. 
 
 i See ch. _vi. and viii. 
 
 [The latter half of this sentence occurs p. 22. 
 Ed. Welchman, c. vi'ii." (juem mens omnis hu- 
 mana sentit, etiam si non cxprimit." The for- 
 mer seems to me most nearly expressed in ch. v. 
 
ANTHROPOMORPHISM AND ANTlIROPOPATHlSxM. 
 
 of the nature of God, " VVhat^ that is, I 
 that which he alone understands, that [ 
 wliich every human soul feels, though it 
 is unable to express its feelings.'''* The i 
 same writer says, '' that although Christ, 
 because the spirit of man must constantly : 
 be making progress in religious develop- 
 ment, made loss use of ant/iropomorphic , 
 images than the Old Testament, yet that 
 lie could speak of the Being, who is 
 above all human representation and Ian- j 
 guagc, only in images, which fell short 
 of the thing itself.'" | 
 
 We must be careful to make a proper 
 distinction between Jlnthropomorphism 
 in the representations of God, and ^^in- 
 tliropopathism* The latter consists in i 
 that inclination of man to represent to 
 himself the Supreme Being after the an- 
 alogy of his own spirit, and by it he is 
 easily misled into attributing to God that 
 which is founded upon the limits and im- ! 
 perfections of his own nature ; and even 
 if that Anthropomorphism, of which we 
 speak, was obliged to yield by degrees to 
 the spirimalizing influence of Christianity, 
 yet Christianity could not act upon An- ; 
 i/iropopat/iism in the same manner, be- ' 
 cause there is a foundation to it (iiamely^ \ 
 .inthrojJopatkis7n,) which is inseparable i 
 from the nature of man, which can never 
 step beyond its own peculiar condition, 
 and can receive all which it does appro- 
 priate to itself, only in the form allowed by j 
 that condition. A great truth is also at the 
 bottom of this Anthropopathism, inas- 
 much as the spirit of man is destined 
 to represent the image of the Supreme 
 Spirit. Now, as far as Anthropopathism ; 
 is founded on the essential attributes of 
 human nature, Christianity must engraft 
 itself upon it, but must at the same time | 
 purify and ennoble it together with the 
 rest of man's nature, because it revealed 
 the perfect realization of the image of 
 
 " f<st enim simplex, et sine uUa corporea concre- 
 tionc, qui(}quid illiid est totus, quod se solus scit 
 esse ; quundoquidem Spiri/us sit dictus." On 
 the passage afterwards which makes even/ Spirit 
 a creature, see Welchman's note. The meaning ' 
 seems to 1)6 clearly 'every mere Spirit;' i. e. that 
 of which nothing else could be predicated than ; 
 that it is A Spirit, ' is a creature.' The whole 
 passage to the end of ch. viii. ought to he read, 
 to enter into the writer's meaning. The first quo- 
 tation is the same as occurs in Neander's next 
 note, only with a different reading. — H. .1. R.] 
 
 * Quod mens omnis humana sent it, etsi non 
 expriiiiit. 
 
 I I use these two expressions in their proper 
 senses, which are both etymologically and histo- 
 rically widely diirerent. 
 
 46 
 
 3G1 
 
 God in the human nature of Christ, and 
 renewed that image of God in all man- 
 kind. Even here also all must arise and 
 develope itself from the fundamental con- 
 sciousness of a renewed communion be- 
 tween God and man. In the acknow- 
 ledgment of God as the Redeetner of 
 human nature an opposition was at once 
 established to all false Anthroj)opaliiism 
 in a moral point of view ; for here tiie 
 holiness of God revealed itself in oppo- 
 sition to all sin, as well as the eternal love 
 of God towards a being entangled in sin, 
 whom a holy love desires to free from 
 sin and to lead back to God. 
 
 Tlie two opposite dispositions, which 
 resolve themselves into the common con- 
 trast of religious Realism and Idealism, 
 were here aLso opposeil to each other (as 
 we remarked in tiie general introduction,) 
 among the Jews and the Heathens; 
 namely, — an impure scnsuotis corporeal 
 conception* of God among the ruder mul- 
 titude, and a stripping off' all human at- 
 tributcs^'f by which the idea of God was 
 too subtilized and rendered untenable to 
 the human mind ; the latter was found 
 among the Platonists, who placed only 
 an abstract idea of perfection in the stead 
 of that of the living God. Between these 
 two opposite extremes, the development 
 of the idea of God was to be conducted 
 by Christianity. 
 
 One extreme constantly produced the 
 other. The rude and carnal anlhropo- 
 pathical ideas, which fleshly minded Jews 
 and uninformed Christians, by clinging 
 to the letter, made to themselves out of 
 j)assages from the Old Testiiment, which 
 they misunderstood, induced a Marcion 
 to form to himself out of the God of the 
 Old Testament, exactly such a being as 
 those people had imagined their god to 
 be. The carnal conceptions of the ideas 
 of Divine wrath and a Divine justice, 
 which he found current, impelled him to 
 take up an opposite principle, by which 
 he entirely mistook ami obliterated the 
 fundamental and objective truth, which 
 really did belong to these notions, on ac- 
 count of the form in which they were 
 presented to him ; and after another mode 
 of Anthropopathism, more in accordance 
 with a tender heart, he formed to himself 
 the notion of a blessing and a redeeming 
 Love, entirely separate from the idea of 
 
 • [Literally, a humanizing of God. — H. J. R.] 
 I [Literally, a de-humanizing of God, if I 
 
 may coin such a word to represent the German 
 
 Enimenschlichung. — H. J. U.] 
 211 
 
362 
 
 CONTRASTS. TERTULLIAN, MARCION". 
 
 that Holiness, wliich is a consuming fire 
 to the sinner.* As lor Tertiilliaii, vvliose 
 powerful Christian realism made him hold 
 fast the fnndamental truth of a Christian 
 .A.nthropopathism, although in the feel- 
 ings of his heart, and in the conception 
 of his spirit, he frequently had more than 
 he was able neatly and clearly to express 
 in his uncultivated and carnal modes of 
 expression, he justly reproaches Marcion, 
 ■who thus separated the attributes of God, 
 with inconsistency in his belief about re- 
 demption : and says to him,! " Does not 
 the forgiveness of sin presuppose the 
 existence of sin in the eyes of God, who 
 forgives sin .'" and, on the contrary, he 
 maintains, that the goodness of God can- 
 not be separated from his righteousness; 
 that principle, which sets every thing in 
 order, and attributes to every one that 
 which is his.J " The goodness of God 
 has created tlie world, and his righteous- 
 ness has duly arranged it." In opposi- 
 tion to Marcion, he shows the necessity 
 of an Antliropopathism, which even Mar- 
 cion himself, although unconsciously to 
 himself, could not avoid; but he shows 
 also how a just Anthropopathism must 
 consist in this, that we should not let 
 down the attributes of God to human sin- 
 fulness and imperfection ; but by a resto- 
 ration of the image of God in human 
 nature, ennoble that which is human till 
 it becomes a mirror of the Divine. He 
 says to Marcion, "Those are extremely 
 foolish, who judge that which is Divine 
 according to that which is human. Why 
 shouldst thou imagine God to be partly 
 
 hiunan, and not wholly Divine .'' 
 
 [Moreover, while you acknowledge, that 
 man became a living soul, being breathed 
 into by God, and not God by man's ope- 
 ration,] it is perverse enough on your 
 part, to let down God to the nature of 
 man, instead of elevating man to the 
 image of God Why do ye con- 
 sider long suffering, mercy, and the mother 
 of all goodness ilself, to be something 
 Divine. And yet, at the same lime, all 
 this is not in us in its perfection, because 
 God alone is perfect."§ Tertullian re- 
 cognises in every revelation of God a 
 progressive condescension, the highest 
 point and the object of which is the 
 incarnation of God.|| "Whatever you 
 
 may collect together, which speaks of 
 inferiority, or weakness, or any tiling that 
 is unworthy of God, I will give you a 
 
 j simple and consistent answer. God can- 
 not enter into any association with man, 
 
 I without attributing to himself human sen- 
 sations and affections ; and thus by his 
 condescension he softens the overwhelm- 
 
 i ingness of his majesty, which human 
 
 j -weakness could not bear; and this is a 
 condescension, which, however unworthy 
 of the Deit)% is necessary for man, and, 
 therefore, worthy of God ; because no- 
 thing is so worthy of God, as that which 
 
 serves to the salvation of man* 
 
 God deals with man, as with one like 
 himself, in order that man may act towards 
 God as with a being like himself. God 
 appeared in humility, in order that man 
 might be raised to the highest pinnacle of 
 greatness. If thou art ashamed of a God 
 like this, I see not indeed how thou canst 
 believe in a crucified God." It must be 
 acknowledged that the latter charge of 
 inconsistency did not apply to Marcion, 
 because the same principle which induced 
 him to oppose tlie anthropopathical con- 
 ceptions of God belonging to the Old 
 Testament, made him also an opponent 
 of the doctrine of a crucified Deity. 
 
 ! The Alexandrian Fathers distinguish 
 themselves peculiarly, in consequence of 
 their philosophical culture, by endea- 
 vouring to eradicate entirely a carnal An- 
 thropopathism out of the Christian system 
 of doctrine; but it was also very easy for 
 them to carry their notions too far in the 
 
 , contrary direction, and they were liable 
 
 'to lower the doctrine of the Divine attri- 
 butes and involve it too completely in 
 what is onlv subjective. Let us take as 
 an instance the following beautiful pas- 
 
 ; sage of Origen, in which, notwithstanding 
 all the beauty with which he speaks of 
 God's education of man, he does not 
 conceive with sufficient depth the sense 
 of the Biblical expression of the ' wrath 
 of God' against sin. Working upon the 
 idea of Philo, as to the two systems in 
 regard to Divine things, the Humanizing, 
 and the De-Humanizing system,! lie 
 
 'says,;}; "When the Scriptures represent 
 God, as God in his Divine Majesty,§ and 
 
 ! do not involve in their consideration his 
 
 I dealings in relation to men, they declare 
 
 * See the representation of Marcion's system, 
 given in a former section. 
 
 f Adv. Marc. ii. 26-7. \ L. c. ii. 12. 
 
 § [TertuU. Contr. Marc. ii. xiv, Ed. Kigali. — 
 H. J. R.] 
 
 11 L. c. ii. 15. 
 
 • L. c. ii. 27. t See Part I. [p. 49.] 
 
 i Horn. 18, in .Tercmiam, § 6. [p. 169, and seq. 
 
 Ed. Huct— H.J. R.] 
 
 § [^63 ojas-/ Tcv 02:v K-JLr auTov, i. e. speak of 
 
 him absolutely and not in relation to man. — H. 
 
 J.R.1 
 
ALEXANDRIAN SPIRITUALIZATION, ETC. ORIGEN. 
 
 363 
 
 that ' he is not like a man, for there is no 
 end of his greatness.' (Ps. cxlv, 3.) And 
 again, ' the Lord is a great God, a great 
 
 king above all Gods.' (Ps. xcv. 3.) 
 
 But when his dealings with the human 
 race are interwoven with the subject, then 
 God assumes tlie mind, the f'asliion, and 
 the language of man; just as when wo 
 talk to a child of two years old, we lisp 
 for the sake of the child ; for if we main- 
 tain the dignity of mature age, in talking 
 to children, and do not let ourselves 
 down to their language, they are unable 
 to understand us. Think, then, that God 
 also acts in the same way, when lie lets 
 liimself down to the race of men, and 
 especially to those who are still in their 
 [intellectual] childhood. See now, how 
 we grown up men alter even the name of 
 things, wjien we conununicate with chil- 
 dren, and how we call bread by some pe- 
 culiar name, and also drinking we desig- 
 nate by some other term, because we 
 make use of the language of children, 
 
 about the goodness of God and the 
 abundance of his grace, which he pro- 
 perly hides from those who fear himy 
 
 The Alexandrians here also took a 
 middle path between the Gnostics and 
 the rest of the Fathers. While these 
 maintained that tliere is no absolute retri- 
 butive justice in God,' nay, set aside the 
 whole notion of justice as contradictory 
 to the nature of a perfect God, and op- 
 posed the God of justice to the God of 
 goodness, the Alexandrians, on the con- 
 trary, made the notion of justice alto- 
 gether into the notion of a Divine love, 
 which educates rational beings in a fallen 
 state, according to their several capacities 
 and needs."! Thus they might say, that 
 the distinction made by the Gnostics be- 
 tween a just and a good God, might be 
 applied in a certain true sense, by attri- 
 buting the epithet of " the just" peculiarly 
 to Clirist (the Divine Logos) as the edu- 
 cator and the purifier of fallen beings, the 
 aim of whose education was that they 
 
 and not of grown up persons If , might be rendered capable of receiving 
 
 the goodness of their everlasting heavenly 
 Father, and thus becoming blessed.J 
 
 The doctrine of a crcalioii out of no- 
 thing is closely coimected with the pecu- 
 liar character of the Christian doctrine 
 regarding the Deity, hi opposition to 
 the notions of antiquity founded upon a 
 religion, which consisted of a deification 
 of nature, which either carried back a 
 succession of causes and eflects to a 
 blind unconscious chaos, or at least made 
 ot God only the fashioner of an inorganic, 
 chaotic matter — in opposition to these 
 notions, Christianity, which frees the con- 
 
 * [The sentence in Neander runs thus : ' Wenn 
 (liesc eine absolute Gcrechtigkeit in Gott setzten, 
 ja den gan7.cn Gercchtigkeitsbegriir als einen des 
 Wcsen dcs volkonimencii Gottes widcrsprechenden 
 umstiessen, uiid den gereclitcn Gott dcm guten 
 entgcgenselzten,' &c. ' While these acknowledged 
 an absolute retributive justice in God, and even 
 farther than this threw aside,' «&c. 
 
 As the two parts of the sentence are contra- 
 dictor)' of each other, I conceive that there is some 
 inisUike, and I have translated it as if keine stood 
 in the i)lace of cine. — H. J. R.] 
 
 "[■ A SlKilOJUVH O-CfTHflOC. 
 
 4 Clemens, Picdagog. lib. i. p. 118. xaS" o /<» 
 wiTMj vcs:t«/ Lya^ji w», ayTs ^cy:!- o {tt«, KtKKMnu 
 i-yj.bic, Kib' it vlo; Zv i Ac^« a.in:u tv tu TrdLT^i 
 
 says,* " Much may be said to those, 7cho i^^i, Jik-uh ?r^'.<rxy'.ei-Jtra.i. And Origen t. i. in 
 
 any one heard us talking thus, would he 
 say 'Tins old man is become foolish.^' 
 and thus also God speaks [with us] as 
 with children. ' Behold,' says our Saviour, 
 ' I and the children whom God hath given 
 
 to me.' (Heb. ii. 13.) When you 
 
 hear of tlie wrath of God, do not imagine 
 that wrath is a passion to which God is 
 subject. It is a condescension of lan- 
 guage in order to convert and amend the 
 child, for we ourselves put on a look of 
 severity and anger towards children 
 from feeling the passion ourselves, but 
 designedly. If we preserve our mildness 
 of aspect, and testify our love of the 
 child, without changing our look, as the 
 real interest of the child would require us 
 to do, we spoil it utterly. Thus also 
 God is represented to us as angry, in order 
 to our conversion and improvement, while 
 in fact he is not sul>ject to anger; but 
 thou wilt undergo the wrath of God, by 
 drawing down upon thyself by thy wicked- 
 ness, sufferings hard to be borne, when 
 thou art punished by what is called the 
 wrath of God." Origen spoke thus in 
 one of his Si:r7no7is ; and also in another 
 passage in his commentary on Matthew, 
 where he developes the same theory, he 
 
 arc not in a condition to be injured by it, 
 
 Joh.p. 40, speaking of tlie dillerence between the 
 ©fic 1 vaSic and the JnfAUv^ycf iiKiiou 
 
 [The phrase ^who fear ks-6«v h\-i<T%xi Kr^iirh^i tTi t.-w ir^trfu ku nv ul.v, 
 
 ligious Tiu ^8'/ t/liu ruy j^^iV.YTit ilK*lc7uvyi(, r:u it Targtc TCUi 
 
 T» Stx.-ti:<Tuy>i T<.u uku TrauS'liibi.'Tx; ixvrx thv XpiTTcu 
 
 * p. 378, Ed. Huet 
 /(//«,' of course alludes to those whose 
 character is imperfect ; who have not arrived at the 
 point where they may cast away fear. — H. J. K.] ^trif^uuv iJif.ytT'.uyr'j! 
 
364 
 
 CREATION FROM NOTHING — HERMOGENES. 
 
 sciousness of God's existence from every | 
 thing like a connection with the deifica- 
 tion of nature, presented tlie doctrine of 
 tlie Creation as the object of a faith which 
 raised itself over the whole circle of 
 causes and effects in the world cognisable ; 
 by sense [literally, the appear n7icc-icorld^] 
 up to the free author of all existence. 
 I'he characteristic circumstance here, and 
 that which is of practical importance, is 
 this; that the incomprehensible was main- 
 tained to be incompreheusible, and that 
 which alone can be of any interest or im- 
 portance towards affecting our religious 
 faith here, was separated from all the un- 
 congenial elements of poetry and specu- 
 lation, by wliich it had been contaminated 
 in the old Oriental systems of religion. 
 Christianity was here destined to purify 
 the religious faith as it had been already 
 revealed in the Old Testament, from all 
 the strange additions it had received by 
 intermixture with the Platonic and the 
 Oriental systems. Thus in the Epistle to 
 the Hebrews, chap, xi., it is proclaimed as 
 an object of faith, that things visible came 
 not from things visible, but that the world 
 was created by the Almighty power of God. 
 This was negatively expressed in the doc- 
 trine of a Creation out of nothing,* a 
 conclusion which was altogether miscon- 
 ceived by the Gnostics,"]'" when they op- 
 posed to it the old saying, (ex nihilo nil 
 fit,) "from nothing, nothing can come," 
 because this doctrine has an antithetical 
 force only against the supposition of 
 matter, which should limit creation ; and 
 in this doctrine it is not Notliing but the 
 Supreme, absolute Being = GOD which 
 is declared to be the formation of all 
 existence. It must, however, be con- 
 fessed, that this conclusion was intended 
 to exclude also a view, which declared 
 all existence as a kind of development of 
 nature proceeding from God, subjected 
 God to a necessity arising from the course 
 of nature, and went near to destroy the 
 notion of the absolute dependence of 
 creation on the Creator. But we have 
 already remarked that those Oriental 
 Theosophists, the Gnostics, were unable 
 to content themselves with tliis nega- 
 tive conception of the incomprehensible 
 Being. Tliey wished to explain it, and 
 to make tiiat intelligible and perceptible 
 to our ideas, which the doctrine of the 
 creation out of nothing only presented as 
 an object of faith. 
 
 Hermogenes, who lived probably at 
 Carthage, about the end of the second 
 and the beginning of the third century, 
 agreed with the Gnostics in their contro- 
 versy against this portion of the Church 
 doctrine. He was essentially distin- 
 guished from the Gnostics by the turn of 
 his mind, which was more of a Western 
 cast, for he was more addicted to Grecian 
 speculation than to Oriental intuition 
 [Anschauuiig,] and hence also his system, 
 which did not, like the Gnostic systems, 
 set the powers of the imagination to work, 
 was not able to obtain so much accept- 
 ance as theirs, and in fact we do not hear 
 of any sect of Hermogenians. Nor did 
 he, like the Gnostics, sketch out for him- 
 self a peculiar system of esoteric religious 
 doctrines, but he departed from the 
 Church doctrine only in one point, which 
 was, however, a point necessarily very in- 
 fluential on the whole system of religion. 
 He was a painter, and probably a very de- 
 termined opponent of the Montanism 
 which was spreading over the north of 
 Africa ; the artist was as little suited to the 
 Montanistic sect, as they were lo the artist. 
 Perhaps also, Hermogenes,* while he op- 
 posed the harsh and gloomy character of 
 the Montanists, went into the other ex- 
 treme of laxness in his estimation of 
 what is Christian and what unchristian ; 
 he appears to have had no scruple in re- 
 presenting the objects of the Heathen 
 mythology in the way of his art, because 
 he considered them as mere objects of 
 
 mrf: IK, Tcu /A.M dvroc 
 See above, Part ii. 
 
 I * Tfie obf5cure wonls of Tertullian, from which 
 I we are enabled to derive this account, are as fol- 
 lows. Pinffit illicite, nubit assidue, legem Dei in 
 libidinem defendit, in artem contemnit. The fir«c 
 sentence might be understood so as to convey the 
 notion that 'i'ertullian looked on paintins^ itself 
 as something heathenish and sinful, but such a 
 judgment could not be confidently afTirmed even 
 of the Montanistic hatred of art in Tertullian, 
 and no proof in favour of such an explanation is 
 to be found in his writings. Neither do the 
 words " he despises the law of God in refercnee 
 to his art" favour this interpretation, for one can- 
 not think of any passage of Scripture, which 
 Tertullian can have considered as an entire pro- 
 hibition of painting; but probably Tertullian 
 comprised the old Testament under the expres- 
 sion " Lex Dei," and alluded to the prohibition of 
 idolatrous images : and the sense would then be, 
 " he despises tne authority of tlie Old Testament 
 by the manner in which he plies his art, and yet 
 he will make its authority available to him to de- 
 fend a second marriage, against the Montanists, 
 j who maintained that the authority of the Old 
 'i'estament in this respect was superseded by 
 (vhristianity, and by the new revelations of the 
 Paraclete." 
 
HERMOGENES ON MORAL EVIL. — PLASTIC GOD. 
 
 365 
 
 art, independently of any reference to re- 
 ligion at all. 
 
 Hermogenes controverted the emana- 
 tion doctrine of the Gnostics, because it 
 transfers sensuous images to the Being of 
 God, a>ul because tlie idea of tlie holi- 
 ness of God was irreconcilable with the 
 sinfulness of a nature which emanated 
 from him. But he also controverted the 
 doctrine of a creation out of nothing, 
 because, if the world had had no other 
 source than the will of God, it would 
 have corresponded to the nature of the 
 perfect and Holy God, and therefore, 
 would of necessity have beeu perfect and 
 holy ; nothing imperfect nor evil could 
 have found place in it, for in a world 
 M'hose only source was God, whence 
 coukl any thing arise which was uncon- 
 genial to the nature of that God ? Her- 
 mogenes, no doubt, here partly followed, 
 as the Gnostics did, a subjective rule of 
 too limited a nature in his estimation of 
 the diirerent creatures according to the 
 different grades of being, and partly he 
 omitted to take into consideration what is 
 included in the very idea of Creation. In 
 respect to moral evil he was as little in- 
 clined as the Gnostics to throw himself 
 back upon the distinction between xciUlng 
 and permitting on the part of God, and 
 he also with justice abandoned the ground, 
 that evil is necessary as the foil to good, 
 in order that the latter may be known by 
 the contrast; because this position denies 
 the self-existence and independence of 
 good, and the very nature of evil would 
 be destroyed, if it were considered as 
 something which is necessary to the har- 
 mony of the whole. But Hermogenes 
 fell into the very error which he desired 
 to avoid ; because he still deduced the 
 existence of evil from a necessity in- 
 herent in nature. According to his 
 theory, all that is imperfect or evil in 
 the world originates from this cause, 
 that God's creation is limited in conse- 
 quence of the eternal existence of inor- 
 ganic matter. From all eternity two 
 principles have existed \ the one, the ac- 
 tive, and the forming and fashioning (the 
 plastic,) — namely, God ; and the passive, 
 the undelerminate in itself,* and the form- 
 less — namely, matter. This latter is an 
 infinite chaotic mass in constant motion, 
 in which all opposite qualities are present 
 undeveloped and run into each other, full 
 
 * ['Das in sich selbst unbestimmte ;' 'without 
 power or purpose to throw itself into any definite 
 state or form." — H. J. R.J 
 
 of wild impulse, without law or order, 
 and like the motion of a cauldron that 
 boils up in every direction.* This infi- 
 nite chaos, thrown as it was into endless 
 and irregular motion, could not at any 
 point be laid hold of by a single act, 
 brought to a stand-still, and compelled to 
 subject itself to be formed and fashioned. 
 It was only through the relation of his 
 nature to that of matter, that God could 
 work upon tliis mass ; as the magnet by 
 some inherent necessity attracts iron ;"f as 
 beauty exerts a natural force of attrac- 
 tion on all that approaches it, so God 
 exerts a fashioning influence on matter 
 by his mere appearance, and by the su- 
 perior power of his Divine Being.J Ac- 
 cording to these principles, he could not, 
 with any consistency, maintain a begin- 
 ning of existence to the creation, and, in 
 fact he does not appear to have assumed 
 any such beginning, as we may judge 
 from the grounds which he alleges for 
 his doctrine on this subject; namely, that 
 since dominion is a necessary attribute of 
 God, there must always have been matter 
 for him to exercise that dominion upon. 
 In accordance with this view he main- 
 tained an eternal influence of God upon 
 matter, which consisted, according to his 
 system, in the victorious plastic power. 
 From what has been said, it follows, that 
 we must not conceive that in his system 
 chaos was a separate thing existing by 
 itself, and that the influence of this 
 Divine plastic power had begun at some 
 particular instant, whereas [according to 
 his system,] it can exist only in connec- 
 tion with this organization, which is im- 
 parted to it [by God,] and they can be 
 separated only in idea. Froni the resist- 
 ance of this infinite matter, which was 
 to be fashioned by degrees in all its sepa- 
 rate parts, against the fashioning power 
 of God, which could only penetrate ir 
 successfully by degrees, he deduced all 
 that is imperfect and evil. Thus the old 
 chaos manifests itself in all that is hateful 
 in nature, and all that is morally evil in 
 the spiritual world."§ 
 
 That Hermogenes should maintain a 
 
 * Inconditus, et confusus, et turbulentua motus, 
 sicut ollffl unJique ehullicntis. 
 
 ■|- We here recosjnise the painter. 
 
 t Non jjcrtransicns matcriam facit Dcus mun- 
 dum, sed solummodo apparcns et adpropincjuans 
 ei, sicut facit qui decor, solummodo ad|)arcas, et 
 magnes lapis solummodo adpropimiuans. 
 
 (j \\. c. Physical deformity and moral evil are 
 the phenomena which give testimony to the ex- 
 istence of this Chaos, and they are its manifesta- 
 tions.— H. J. R.] 
 
 2 h2 
 
366 
 
 PLASTIC GOD. ORIGEV. 
 
 progressive formation of matter, co-ex- 
 isting with an eternal creation, was an 
 inconsistency, because no progressive 
 development can be imagined witiiout a 
 beginning. His inconsistency would be 
 still more striking, if the account of Theo- 
 doret is accurate, by which he is made to 
 hold a final aim of this development. He 
 maintained in fact tiien, (if this account be 
 true,) like the Manichees, that at last all 
 evil woidd resolve itself into matter, from 
 which it originated, and then also that a 
 separation would take place between that 
 part of matter, which is capable of organi- 
 zation, and that which oliered an obsti- 
 nate resistance to it.* Here the teleolo- 
 gical and moral element, which adhered 
 to him from his Christianity, and did not 
 suit this heallienish natural view of evil, 
 rendered him inconsistent.! 
 
 Irenasus and Tertullian maintained, the 
 former against the Gnostics, the latter 
 against Hermogenes, the simple Christian 
 doctrine of the creation, without permit- 
 ling themselves to enter upon speculations 
 concerning it. 
 
 Origen was distinguished also in this 
 respect from these Fathers by a system 
 peculiar to himself, of which we must 
 develope the fundamental features, as far 
 as they are connected witli the doctrine 
 of the creation. In accordance with the 
 character of his Gnosis (see above,) he 
 fouiuled his system on the belief generally 
 prevalent in the whole Church, and 
 thouglit that his speculative inquiries, 
 which stepped beyond this, might be very 
 consistently imited with it. He declared 
 himself in favour of the doctrine of a 
 creation out of nothing, as far as the free 
 action of Divine power, unlimited by any 
 condition inherent in pre-existent matter, 
 
 * Theodoret does not say this expressly, but 
 such a doctrine is necessarily implied in that, 
 which, according to his account, Hermogenes 
 held. Theodoret's words (Ha^ret. fab. i. 19,) are 
 tfiese : tcv efs Si-xfioKcv x u tw; Sm/^ovu.; ik tdv iiKm 
 
 j Theodoret ascribes to Hermogenes also the 
 doctrine, that Christ deposited his body in the sun. 
 A question would arise here, whether Theodoret 
 has not confused his doctrine with some others 
 like it; and in what way his words arc to be 
 imdcrstood. Perhaps, Hermogenes taught that 
 Christ, when he raised himself into his heavenly 
 existence, left behind him in the sun the garb 
 which he had taken from the material world. And 
 yet it is difficult to attribute confidently so entirely 
 fantastic an opinion to Hermogenes, and tlie mat- 
 ter must be left in ol)scunty for want of evidence. 
 Perhaps also, some meaning of Psal. xix. 4, with a 
 messianic interpretation according to the version 
 of the LXX. may have led the way to this notion. 
 
 was indicated by this doctrine; and this 
 he did, not merely with acquiescence, but 
 out of hearty persuasion.* He also ac- 
 knowledges a definite beginning to the 
 limited and definite world now in exist- 
 ence ; but with regard to what preceded 
 it, he conceived that Scripture and the 
 faith of the Church left him fully at liberty 
 to speculate. And here then he found 
 those general grounds for opposing any- 
 beginning of creation, which are sure to 
 strike any thinking mind, which is un- 
 willing to be satisfied with a mere belief 
 in the incomprehensible. How can it 
 happen that if creating is suitable to the 
 nature of God, any thing which is suitable 
 to that nature, should ever have been 
 wanting.' How should the qualities, 
 which reside in the being of God, omni- 
 potence and goodness, fail to have been 
 always active.'' The transition from inac- 
 tion to creation cannot be conceived 
 without the notion of change; to which 
 the Being of God is not liable. 
 
 Origen was also an opponent of the 
 en\anation doctrine, as it was conceived 
 by the Gnostics; because it appeared to 
 him to transfer sensuous representations 
 to the being of God, and by the supposi- 
 tion of an imit^'-of-substance (the oia.o(jv 
 o-joi/,) between God and the natures that 
 emanated from him, appeared to abolish 
 tlie proper distinction between the Creator 
 and the creation. But he assumed a sys- 
 tem of emanation spiritually conceived 
 and abjuring all sensuous images, a spi- 
 ritual world of a kindred nature with God, 
 and which beamed forth from him from 
 all eternity, above which he is, however, 
 immeasurably exalted, and in all these 
 Spirits, was there the partial revelation, 
 the partial reflection of the Glory of God.f 
 as the Son of God is the collected revela- 
 tion of the Glory of God. 
 
 Origen here conceived the idea of an 
 absolute dependence without any begin- 
 ning in time;^: a causation, in which the 
 existence of the creation, as a thing which 
 
 * See Praefat. Libb. t (<p;^. p. 4. ibid. lib. ii, c. i. 
 § 4. Lib. iii. c. .5. — Comnieutar. Genes, init. 
 
 T. 13. c. 'Zr). T. 32. c. 18. axr /uiv civ tw? Sc^y,; tou 
 Qecu i.7rMjyu.vfA:t ilvxi t^v vlcv, (f(iu.niv /uiv tci yi iiTra 
 Tcu C?ntuyu.v/ui.ri,; tac oKh; ifi^»c /.^sgftc* uTTAuyst-irjuctTU. 
 
 iTTl ThV X'ATrm 'Kt.ylV.W XTtTIV. 
 
 ^ [' Ohne ein zeitliches wcrden,' literally 'with- 
 out a temporal becoming or coming into existence.' 
 
 In the next clause of the sentence (' as a. thing,' 
 &,c,A the original is ' als etwas scinem Wcsen 
 noch nicht in'sich selbst ruhendes,' ' as something 
 according to the laws of its nature not reposing on 
 itself;' i. c. not self-dependent, or self-existent. — 
 H. J R.] 
 
god's eternal action. ORIGEN ON OMNIPOTENCE. 
 
 307 
 
 could not have a self-existence, was 
 founded from all eternily4 VVhat he says 
 of the continuous regeneration of the 
 pious, and of the generation of the Son 
 of God, may be applied in the sense in 
 which he uses it to this also; because 
 the Divine Logos stimds in the same re- 
 lation to the rest of the spiritual world as 
 its source of Divine liglu, as God stands 
 in to him. He says, Jerem. Horn. ix. § 4. 
 [p. 106. ed. Iluet. H. J. R.] •' I will not 
 say tliat the righteous is born of God 
 once for all ; but that he is constantly 
 born of him in every good action. And 
 if also 1 lay down to you in reference to 
 our Saviour, that the Father did not beget 
 the Son and then cease, but that he always 
 begets him, I .should also maintain some- 
 thing similar in respect to the righteous. 
 Let us then see who is our Saviour.^ The 
 reilected image of [God's] glory. Now 
 tlie image of glory is not produced once 
 for all, and then ceases to be produced ; 
 but as long as the light is efFicient in 
 creating the image it-self, so long is the 
 image of the glory of God constantly 
 created. If, therefore, thou hast the spirit 
 of adoption (sonship,) God constantly 
 begets thee in that same sonship, in every 
 act and in every thought, and thus thou 
 art forever being born as a son of God in 
 Jesus Christ."t 
 
 Bishop .Methodius, the adversary of 
 Origen, whose theory of creation was 
 controverted by the bishop in his work 
 concerning creatures, was by no means 
 his equal in respect to a spirit of specula- 
 tion.;!; He had not a sufficient power of 
 speculative perception, justly to conceive 
 the ideas of Origen, and he represented 
 what he did not understand as foolish and 
 impious. While he himself compares the 
 relations in which God stands to his 
 creatures with the relation between a hu- 
 man workman and the works of his 
 hands, he makes against the system of 
 Origen objections, which could not justly 
 lie against it. How little able he was to 
 understand that great man, whom in his 
 blind zeal he calls a Centaur, appears by 
 the following argument, which he casts 
 
 • Methodius represents fiiithfully the expres- 
 sions of Orif^en, when he ascribes to him the doc- 
 trine of a yivnT'-.v utt ytvyrsax ^^X"' '^'' ^/t"' ^"'^ °^ ''" 
 
 ■f Thus torn. i. in Joh. p, 32, we must not ima- 
 gine that any limitation of time is indicated, but 
 
 ti.Ttti, p^«5k;c )i//fg* iO-TiY euiru an/jit^cr, it i ytyivtineu 
 
 W6f. 
 
 i Extracts from the book of Methodius found 
 in Photius, Cod. 2.35. 
 
 in his teeth ; viz. that if the transition 
 from noncreation to creation implies a 
 change in God, the transition from crea- 
 tion to noncreation equally implies a 
 change. Now God must have ceased to 
 create the world, wiien it was finished, 
 and llius a change in God would clearly 
 be implied. He did not observe, that with 
 Origen the conception of the upholding 
 of the world was the conception of a 
 continuous creation, and he did not con- 
 sider, that just exactly by such a repre- 
 sentation of creation, as is contained in 
 his own argument, a self-existence woidd 
 be attributed to creatures which is incon- 
 sistent with the idea of them as creatures. 
 He made another objection, wbicli al- 
 though more directed against an inaccu- 
 rate expression of Origen, than against 
 what he really meant, was more correct; 
 and it was this, that the idea of God's 
 perfection actually implied, that it is a 
 thing, whose foundation is in itself; that 
 it is dependent on nothing besides, and 
 limited or conditioned by nothing what- 
 ever.* 
 
 The doctrineof Origen relative to crea 
 tion is intimately connected also with his 
 peculiar conception of the omnrpnience of 
 God. It happened to him in this matter, 
 as, indeed, in many other respects, that, 
 being entangled in the ideas of the philo- 
 sophical school, from which his learning 
 and his education were derived, he set 
 out from those ideas, as if they were 
 acknowledged truths. Thus he set out 
 from the principle, that an infinite line 
 cannot he conceived hy anij mind, into 
 which the Neo-platonic school allowed 
 itself to be deluded, by their attempt to 
 measure an absolute reason by the limits 
 of finite human thonght.")" From this 
 Origen drew the conclusion ; that we 
 must not, in order to enhance the Divine 
 omnipotence, make it infinite, because 
 then it would be unable to comprehend 
 itself.;}; Thus also God could create only 
 
 • TO eturo St inuru ivjT'jU TrKx^iv/uu. it k-u olI/to »? 
 iaujru juitcv, TiKU'jt tivsu touto ju<,v:v J'.^t<rTf.t. 
 
 f [N.B. The word here is J3fU'".v.v/.sry«, which 
 will express that wherein our kiiowledi;e or our 
 capacity of entertaining idoas resides, as well as 
 our consciousness of those ideas. Inpirpular lan- 
 guage, under st audi riir would come the nearest; 
 but it is so desirable to keep the distinction be- 
 tween rcmon and under.standintj, as definite as 
 possible, that I would rather use tlinuqht ox com- 
 prehension instead of it. — H. J. R.] 
 
 + T5 (•■jritr.t aTrtejxmrot, and in Matt. Ed. Huet. 
 p. 305, he says expressly : a^v^x yie^ tu <^v<j-u ol^, 
 ol.tTt 7rsp/\«<//3<«<rfl»i T« vt^an-.ut Trt^uKuiit tx ^vva- 
 a-KCfjtttit. yyaxTtt. 
 
DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. 
 
 a definite and not an infinite number of 
 beings endued with reason, because other- 
 wise they couhl not be embraced by liis 
 providence. We recognise also in this 
 error of Origen the leaning which he had 
 in the matter of religion. This doctrine 
 is of great importance to his whole sys- 
 tem (as will be seen below) when taken 
 in connection with his theory, that, since 
 the number of reason-gifted beings is 
 definite, and is always the same, therefore, 
 it is only from the change of will and in- 
 tention among them that all other changes 
 can proceed. 
 
 The peculiar nature of Christianity re- 
 veals itself in the recognition and worship 
 of God, not merely as the Creator, but 
 also as the Redeemer and Sanctifier of 
 human nature, in the belief that God, who 
 has created human nature pure, has re- 
 deemed it when it became estranged from 
 him by sin, and continues to sanctify it, 
 until it shall have attained in an eternal 
 life to an untroubled and beatified com- 
 munion with him in perfect holiness. 
 Without this faith and knowledge, there 
 is no lively worship of God, no worship 
 of God in spirit and in truth, because a 
 lively worship of God cannot exist with- 
 out communion with him, and becanse 
 this communion cannot be shared by 
 man, as long as he is estranged from 
 God by sin ; as long as that, which se- 
 parates him from God, is not removed; 
 and because the worship of God in spirit 
 and in truth, can only proceed from a soul 
 which has been sanctified so as to become 
 a temple of God. This doctrine of God 
 the Creator^ the Redeemer and the Sanc- 
 tifier of human nature, is the essential 
 import of the doctrine of the Trinity, and 
 therefore, since in this latter doctrine the 
 essence of all Christianity is contained, it 
 could not but happen, that, as this doc- 
 trine proceeded out of the depths of Chris- 
 tian consciousness, it should be considered 
 as the chief doctrine of Christianity, and 
 that even in the earliest Church the es- 
 sential import of the faitli should be an- 
 nexed to the doctrine of the Father, the 
 Son, and the Holy Ghost.* This doctrine 
 again is nothing else than the doctrine of 
 God, who has revealed and imparted him- 
 
 • This is literally translated ; perhaps the mean- 
 ing would he more nearly e.xpressed as follows, — 
 that the acknowledgment of the doctrine of the 
 Father, Son, and Holy Ghost was considered to 
 comprise the essentials of the Christian Faith. 
 
 The original is " dass der wesentliche 
 
 Glaubcnsinhalt an die Lehre vom Vater, Sohne, 
 und Heiligcn Geist angerciht wurde.'' — H, J. R.] 
 
 self to sinful man in Christ ; every thing 
 here reverts to the doctrine of God's 
 being in Christ, for the working of God in 
 human nature redeemed by him, presup- 
 poses the inward relation, into which 
 God has entered with human nature 
 through Christ, and all is here only the 
 continuation and the consequence of that 
 [relation ;] and therefore, this doctrine is 
 nothing else but the perfect development 
 of the doctrine about Christ, which the 
 Apostle Paul, 1 Corinth, iii., calls the 
 foundation of all Christianity, the deve- 
 lopment of that which Christ himself de- 
 signates as the essential import of his 
 doctrine ; " This is Eternal Lile that they 
 should know thee, that thou alone art the 
 true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou 
 hast sent." But the speculative doctrine 
 of the Trinity is carefully to be distin- 
 guished from this its essential Christian 
 import, and men might agree in the latter, 
 and yet differ from each other ui their 
 conceptions of the former. The former 
 only set itself up as an human attempt to 
 bring into just harmony with the unity 
 of the Divine Being, the existence of 
 God in Christ, and through Christ in the 
 faithful, as it is represented in Holy Scrip- 
 ture, and out of that Holy Scripture 
 formed an image of itself in the inward 
 life and the inward perceptions of the 
 faithful. But it was an evil, that, in this 
 attempt, men did not rightly divide the 
 speculative and dialectic element from 
 that essential and practical foundation ; 
 the consequence of which M'as, that men 
 transplanted that doctrine from its proper 
 practical ground, in which it is rooted in 
 the centre point of Christianity, into a 
 speculative region foreign to it, which 
 might give an opportunity of mingling 
 with it much extraneous matter, and again 
 might lead to setting Christianity, con- 
 trary to its peculiar character, on a specu- 
 lative instead of a practical foundation ; 
 and the consequence of this again was, on 
 the one hand, that men, overprizing the 
 importance of speculative differences, 
 tore asunder the bond of Christian com- 
 munion, where there was yet an agree- 
 ment in what is practical and essential ; 
 and on the other hand, that men stinted 
 the free development of the Christian 
 doctrine by the attempt to attain an uni- 
 formity of speculative conceptions.* 
 
 * [We mMst also be careful that in endeavour- 
 ing to reconcile contending views we do not de- 
 part from the great truth which is contained in the 
 acknowledgment of the Athanasian Creed, that 
 
ITS SPECULATIVE AND PRACTICAL ASPECT. 
 
 369 
 
 It is self-evident from what has been busied themselves with specitlations on 
 said, tliat tlie development of this doctrine the self-revelation of God in his own ex- 
 must first proceed from speculations on press image — the Word that expressed 
 the manner, in which the Divine nature in his hidden nature, or the revealing and 
 
 Christ was in relation with tlie Godhead 
 of tlie Father. Providence had then so 
 exactly managed things in this respect, that 
 ia the Spiritual world in winch Chris- 
 tianity tirst made its appearance, many 
 notions, at least apparently of a kindred 
 
 creating Reason — to give a lively, an 
 historical and a practical meaning to this 
 idea, by applying it to the appearance of 
 Christ, instead of constantly restraining it 
 to the regions of speculation. By this 
 means, the development of the doctrine 
 
 kind, were afloat, in which Christianity of Christy's Divinity was placed in con- 
 could find a point on which to attach the nection with that speculative idea, which 
 doctrine of a God revealed in Christ, or , was already to be found current, although 
 which it might appropriate to itself as under a dilferent form, among the Jewish 
 general, intelligible forms, in which it Theologians, the Oriental Theosophists, 
 
 might envelope that doctrine. In a dis 
 course preserved to us by the Apostle 
 
 and the Platonic Philosopher 
 
 But in the conception of this doctrine 
 
 John, Christ himself has expressed with there existed already among the Jews 
 Divine confidence tlie consciousness of two dijfcrcnl views. One parly considered 
 
 his oneness with God, an incomprehen- 
 sible fact of his consciousness (Matt. xi. 
 27,) without founding his declaration on 
 any of the then notions of his age, but 
 rather in opposition to the limited repre- 
 sentations, current among the Jews, of 
 the Messiah as a man, who proceeded 
 from the ordinary development of human 
 nature. But the Apostles Paul and John, 
 
 the Divine Logos as a Spirit, which ex- 
 isted in an independent personality, al- 
 though in the most intimate union with 
 the Divine First Cause,* while another 
 party rejected this notion of an Hypos- 
 tasis, as inconsistent with strict Mono- 
 theism, and they conceived to themselves, 
 under the name of Logos, nothing but the 
 Reason, which is either hidden in God 
 
 united with the doctrine of God revealed and only engaged in contemplation,! or 
 in Christ, the idea tliat was already in ex- else reveals itself both after the manner 
 istence in the Jewish theological schools, ' of thought, which manifests itself in hu- 
 of a revealer of God elevated above the man speech, and also by its efficient ope- 
 whole creation, the perfect image of the ration in the work of creation,^ — the 
 hidden Divine Being, from whom [the Reason, which cannot be divided from 
 Word] all the communication of lile from | God, and which either concentrates itself 
 
 God proceeded, the image of the invisible 
 God, tlie Word, in whom the hidden God 
 reveals himself, the First-born before all 
 creation — and they confirmed and esta- 
 blished this idea and applied it to Christ. 
 John, in particular, by the brief introduc 
 
 in him or beams forth from out of him.§ 
 
 * [Literally, Urwesen. Original Being. 
 It is impossible to express the idea with meta- 
 physical accuracy; if we speak o^ first, we give 
 the idea of being prior to the Word, which is yet 
 ^ , , -y-, 1-1 1,1 held to be eternal. I use the word First cause, 
 
 tion prefixed to his Gospel, induced those therefore, relatively to other Beings, as it is used 
 among his contemporaries who sought in common parlance, not as expressing priority of 
 after a knowledge of Divine things, who | existence in the Father relative to the Son, or 
 
 each person is acknowledged " by himself to be 
 
 both God and Lord, and yet that no one should 
 
 for a moment believe that there be ' three Gods or for' clear statements 
 
 three Lords.' " We must take care that we do : Newm in's 
 
 Word.— H.J. R^ 
 
 I The Koy.i hSM^noi;. 
 
 [I recommend those English readers who wish 
 
 this subject, to consult 
 
 Arians of the Fourth Century," es- 
 
 not explain the Divinity of the Son as the mere ' pecially ch. ii. § .3 and 4. H. J. K.] 
 
 indwelling of the Father in Jesus Christ ; or be- ^ ^,^y^f Trfcocp/xjc. 
 
 Hevc that the Son is the mere manifestation of the j [The same Reason, therefore, was conceived 
 Father; or we shall fall into Sabelliani.sm or Patri- under two different conditions. It received the 
 passianism at once. The evil which Neander name of >.c>oc tvSiudircc when considered as re- 
 wishes to obviate seems to be the attempt to ex- siding in God, and delighting itself in contcmpla- 
 
 pluin this great truth speculatively, and creating tion, and that of 
 
 '-^5c 7r^',<i(.ejK'ji; when considered 
 
 diilcrenccs m consequence of such attempts, as emanating forth from Hiin and revealing God 
 However wrong such attempts may be, in oppos- : by spoken words or by the acts and the works of 
 ing them we must still be careful to maintain that creation. H. J. U.l 
 
 great Catholic truth, the Trinity in L'nity. and the 
 Unity in Trinity, which is founded on the Scrip- 
 tures and must be received by faith, though our 
 finite faculties are unable to explain its mysteries. 
 -H. J. R.] 
 
 47 
 
 § See Clementin. Homil. 16. c. xii. tk it 
 
370 
 
 PATRIPASSIANS. 
 
 While the former was the predominant 
 mode of conception [as to the Logos] in 
 the doctrines as exhibited by the Church, 
 tlie other mode of conception made its 
 appearance not imfrequently during this 
 season in opposition to the Church doc- 
 trine, and this opposition served again, on 
 the other hand, to promote the systematic 
 formation and development of the former 
 view. 
 
 Those who embraced the latter mode 
 of conception, in their controversy against 
 the Church Doctrine of the Trinity, and 
 in their religious leaning, were in agree- 
 ment in one respect, namely, that it was 
 of the utmost importance to them, firmly 
 to maintain the doctrine of the Unity of 
 God,* and to avoid every thing which 
 bore even the appearance of Polytheism.t 
 But in the manner in which they applied 
 this theory to Christ, they varied widely 
 from each other, according as they hap- 
 pened to be peculiarly interested in 
 maintaining merely the principles of the 
 Monarchla., or were at the same time lilled 
 with a belief in the Divinity of Christ, 
 and although they controverted the doc- 
 trine of an independent personality of the 
 Logos, yet had a lively interest in main- 
 taining the Divinity of Christ \ in fact, ac- 
 cording as they were under the direction 
 of a dialectic and critical understanding, 
 or of an inward and practical Christian 
 disposition. The former, together with 
 the Church doctrine of the Trinity, con- 
 troverted also that of the Divinity of 
 Christ, though they were nevertheless 
 content to admit his godly nature [Gott- 
 heit, divinity; Gottlichkeit, godly nature 
 or godliness] in a certain sense; that is 
 to say, they taught that Jesus was a man, 
 like all other men, but that from the very 
 first he had been animated and influenced, 
 more than all other prophets and mes- 
 sengers of God, by that Divine Power, 
 the Reason or Wisdom of God, and that, 
 on this account, he was to be called the 
 Son of God. They were distinguished 
 from those, who embraced entirely Ebi- 
 onite sentiments, by not admitting that 
 this connection of God with Christ began 
 at any one definite n)oment of his exist- 
 ence, but they conceived it to be coeval 
 
 * The fji.:vaex"t^ the doctrine of the mcv« Apx"^ 
 whence this party obtained the name of Mo- 
 narch i an s. 
 
 j- It was their term of distinction, tlic watch- 
 word of their party. Tertullian c. Praxeam, c. 
 iii. Monarcliiam tenemus. Origen, in Joh. t. ii. 
 
 I with the development of the human na- 
 
 I ture of Christ. 
 
 I The others, on the contrary, in regard to 
 the doctrine about Christ, were still more 
 
 ! strongly opposed to this class of Monarch- 
 
 [ ianism than to the opinion adopted by the 
 Church ; not only a leaning towards the 
 
 j doctrine of the Monarchia, in which even 
 a Jew might join with them, but also a 
 leaning towards some of the peculiar fea- 
 
 I tures of Christianity, made them hostile 
 to the doctrine of the Church. Not only 
 did the manner, in which the doctrine of 
 the Unity of God was conceived in the 
 Church doctrine, fail to meet their Mono- 
 theistic views, but also the manner, in 
 which the Divinity of Christ was there 
 understood, was unsuited to their peculiar 
 Christian class of feelings and wants. 
 
 I While the Logos, who became man in 
 Christ, was usually represented as a Be- 
 ing, different in person from God the 
 Father and subordinate to him, although 
 in the most intimate connection with him, 
 they thought this a disparaging representa- 
 tion of Christ, and such a distinction be- 
 tween Christ and the Supreme God was 
 offensive to their belief about Christ; to 
 them he was the one. Supreme God him- 
 self, who in a way that he had never done 
 besides, had revealed himself in human 
 nature, and had appeared in a human 
 body. It was only inasmuch as God was 
 to be named after two different considera- 
 tions [or relations, E^nvotai] — the hidden 
 Being, as he was before the creation, the 
 Father — and in so far as he revealed him- 
 self, the Son of the Logos — it was only 
 in virtue of these considerations that 
 Christ as the most perfect revelation of 
 God the Father, was called the Son of 
 God. They maintained that their doctrine 
 was most eminently calculated to dignify 
 Christ.* They were called Pat.ripassia7is, 
 
 * ri ou ncLun TTQict, io^^mv tcv Xgi^ny ; said 
 Noetus, an adherent of this theory, when he was 
 accused before a Synod. Hippolyt. c. Noet. c. ii. 
 And Origen, in Matth. p. 420. ed. Huet, says, oy 
 I vcjui^THv ilmt i/Tj^ eturcv (rcu X^i^rcv) (that 
 j t/iey arc on his side') tcwc ru -^sJh tti^: ttin-ov 
 I <p^cvcvvTx;, ^mdiiTii. rev S'^^^^uv cti/Tcv, cttoici ilun ci 
 : a-uy^i-.fri; Tntrgs; x.iu viov tnoixv x.tt th vTroTTMra ivx 
 ' M'jvri; iivAl Tcv ^TotTSg* x:u t:v uUv, ryi (Trtvcitt /ucyri 
 ' X.-M rctc ovoiAiTt ^tilgc-jint: to tv CTrCKil/uevoy (the one 
 ! Divine Sul)ject.) And Origen, probably, had this 
 in Iiis mind, when, like the Gnostics, he separated 
 J those who knew no higher God than the God of 
 the Old Testament, the Demiurgos, from those, 
 j who elevated themselves above him (the Demi- 
 urgos) to the knowledge of the Supreme God, 
 j and like Philo also, separated those who knew 
 j God only in his mediate revelation, the uku; tm» 
 
PATRIPASSIANS. NOETUS. 371 
 
 because they were accused of attributing learn the doctrine of this person with any 
 the sufferings of Christ to the Father.* \ certainty. 
 
 The first name which occurs among But, if we take Tertullian as our guide, 
 the Patripassians is that of Praxeas, of we might take two different views of his 
 Asia Minor, the native region of the doc- doctrine. From some places it would 
 trine of the Monarchia. Having made a appear that Praxeas had tauglit the doc- 
 confession of faith under torture, during trine of tlie Patripassians, in tlie manner 
 the persecution of Marcus Aurelius, he in which we have before represented it. 
 afterwardsf travelled to Rome, where : He acknowledged the doctrine of a Divine 
 Eleutheros was bishop (see above,) and Logos in a certain sense, he applied the 
 there he brought forward his doctrine name of Son of God not merely to Christ 
 without receiving any obstruction, which after his appearance in the form of man, 
 perliaps, arose from the Church doctrine | but he recognised from the time of the 
 not having as yet been so accurately de- ' creation of the world a diflerence he- 
 fined, that the contradiction to it by the \ tween the hidden invisible God, and that 
 doctrine of Praxeas could at once make | [God] who revealed himself outwardly 
 any impression; it may have been the ! as well in the Creation, as in the Theo- 
 case, that by his zeal for the Divinity of phanijc [appearances of the Deity] of the 
 Christ against the other party of Monarch- I Old Testament, and lastly in a human 
 iani, the Theodotians, which had perhaps, body in Christ. In the latter respect he 
 arisen at Rome by that time, Praxeas,' was called the Logos or the Son; by cx- 
 who must have been favourably looked tending his a^encv in a certain manner 
 upon in virtue of having been a Confessor. 
 
 won still greater favour for himself, and 
 thence, therefore, that men were more 
 easily induced to overlook other points 
 of difference. He appears afterwards to 
 })ave betaken himself to Carthage, where 
 he found followers, but where the con- 
 trast between his doctrine and that which 
 was predominant attracted more observa- 
 tion. He wrote and published an explana- 
 tion which vvas looked upon, at least by 
 his opponents, as an express recantation ; 
 but we cannot very accurately determine 
 the state of the case, because it may have 
 happened that Praxeas defeiuied his doc- 
 trine only again.«t consequences with 
 which it was unjustly charged, and mis- 
 representations of it. Tertullian, who 
 would not be favourably disposed to- 
 wards Praxeas, as an adversary of Mon- 
 tanism, wrote against him, and his book 
 is the only source from which we can 
 
 A'-)-:u, from those who elevate themselves above all 
 mediate revelation t« the intellectual perception 
 of the Divine Bcincr. who are the uii rcu @hv ; 
 and this is the manner in which Origen arranges 
 the two classes of men. 
 
 beyond himself and thus begetting the 
 Logos, he made himself into a Son to 
 himself* On the contrary, in other pas- 
 sages, it appears as if he had denied every 
 distinction in regard to the Divine Being, 
 and had applied the name of Son of God 
 only to the human nature of Chrisl.t Wc 
 may suppose, either that Tertullian has 
 not always entered justly into the tenour 
 of the ideas of Praxeas, or else, that 
 among the adherents of this latter, difler- 
 ent conceptions of his system had arisen, 
 because men of uncultivated understand- 
 ing, whom this doctrine suited, could not 
 enter into those subtle distinctions. 
 
 Noetus, also, who appeared at Smyrna 
 during the first half of tiie third century, 
 and was excommunicated for his un- 
 churchly theory, belongs to this class of 
 Patripassians. Theodoret gives, as well 
 as llippolylus, the most characteristic 
 traits of his doctrine,;]; and he observes, 
 with justice, that Noetus did not bring 
 forward any new invented doctrine of his 
 own, but that others§ had made up such 
 a system before his time. According to 
 this system, there is one God the Father, 
 
 1. d juiv etiv \x''<j7i T'.v Ta>y Uuv 0s;v, CvQ^uvci j who is invisible when he will, and appears 
 ootasi T«o n-arp/.^egJ-.c ;VT«.- otiTcu, 2. c( (VTa//«'./5»-/ (rnveals himself) wlicn he will; he is 
 
 visible and invisible, begotten and unbe- 
 
 t;v ui'.v Tcy Oeu, r-.v X^/3-tsv oljT'.u, ci i?rt tcV trairrgt. 
 oSa^atcTt- Kiv Ts 7r:tv iv uuTcp 't(rrJVTf . In Joh. t. ii. 
 § .3. [Ed. Iluet. p. 49. In the above quotation 
 /uie^tSs; ought clearly to be /uf^iJr. The words arc 
 not exactly co[)icd throughout. — H. J R.] 
 
 ' Origen expressly distinguishes l>etween these 
 two classes of Monarchiani, particularly in Joh. t. 
 ii. § 2, and t. ii. Joh. § 18, t. x. § 21. c. Ccls. I. 
 viii. c. 12. On the obscure passage Cominentar. 
 in Tit. f. 69.5, t. iv. Ed. de la Rue, see below. 
 
 \ With regard to the chronological questions 
 involved here see above. 
 
 gotten. 
 
 • Sec Tertullian, c. 10. 14. 26. 
 
 f Sec c. 27. 
 
 + HiEret. fab. iii. c. n. 
 
 § Among whom he mentions two men who 
 are unknown to us, Ejiigoriius and Cleomenes. 
 
 H Theodoret refers this latter expression to the 
 birth of ('hrist, but one is inclined to ask, whether 
 he has i)roperly understood the meaning of Noetus, 
 
3T2 
 
 It might be asked whether Beryllus of 
 Bostra ought not to be placed in this 
 class; and this question will be treated 
 of hereafter. 
 
 Of the other class of Monarchiani, the 
 first traces are found in the end of the 
 second century, in the Roman Church, 
 whither however, as the very name of 
 the founder of the sect indicates, it must 
 have come from some other place, and 
 that too from the Oriental Church. A 
 worker in leather, who came from Byzan- 
 tium, by name Theodotus, is named as 
 the founder of this party. Victor, the 
 bishop of Rome, must have excommuni- 
 cated him at the end of the second or the 
 beginning of the third century; but still 
 his party extended itself in a state of 
 separation from the predominant Church 
 
 THEODOTUS AND ARTEMON. 
 
 The Theodotians and the Artemoiiites 
 are, no doubt, to be considered as holding 
 that Christ is a mere man, and as having 
 looked upon him as being in no peculiar 
 connection with the Father ; but as far as 
 Theodotus is concerned, his own words, 
 which Epiphanius, his adversary, himself 
 quotes, militate against this supposition. 
 It appears that in the words of the angel, 
 Luke i. 31, he would not find any proof 
 that the Spirit of God itself had appeared 
 in a human nature ; but he saw clearly 
 enough, that they implied tliat the man 
 Christ developed himself under the pecu- 
 liar influence of that Spirit.* And as far 
 as the Artemonites are concerned, they 
 professed that theirs was no new doctrine, 
 but the old doctrine of the Church, and 
 that Bishop Zephyrinus was the first who 
 _nd it endeavoured to procure itself re- I taught a different one in the Church, 
 spect on the ground that it was inclined | Now if they would acknowledge nothing 
 
 to maintain Natalius, a Confessor held in ! , 
 
 much honour, in the rank of ^'^^o^■\^YmeAiom^.xe^xe,enii■^.^i^,oriorein^^io^<,\,^^o^. 
 This man appears, however, to have been ^ lejge them, yet both of these cases must liave 
 thrown into a state of conflicting feelings, j something, at Ipast, on which they may be sup- 
 by thus falling away from the faith, which ] ported. We can then only imagine, that the 
 at an earlier period had enabled him to Artemonites did not choose to acknowledge Theo- 
 j „ «•« • ,™ f :i„ „„i.« nnu^ .,r,^„c.; dotus as their predecessor, and that they thought 
 endure sultermof lor its sake. 1 ne uneasi- > , , , ^^ . ' .,, ,, ,,;;, ,^ 
 
 .,.,'= , ,. ir-r r-i they had reason to mamtain, either that 1 heodotus 
 
 ness of his heart showed itself in fearful ^^^ ^^^^ excommunicated for some other reason 
 visions and dreams, and at last he returned ■ than his doctrinal opinions, or that their doctrines 
 in sorrow and penitence to the Catholic j were different from the Theodotian. Perhaps the 
 Church. ' following account may be given. The ancient 
 
 One Artemon came forward also, from { author of the additions to Tertullian de Prmscrip- 
 
 ,, ■ . r 1 c T, (■„ tione, says, 1. c. c. 53, that 1 heodotus brought for- 
 
 another point, as founder of such a party, | ^^^^ ^^ ^^^^.^^^^ ^p.^^.^^^^ ^,.^^^ ,^^ had denied 
 
 which were called Artemonites alter his , ^^^-^^^ j^.^^g the persecution. Although this 
 name, and continued for a long time to account, which is prejudicial to the character of 
 spread themselves abroad. For about > Theodotus, coming from the mouth of an enemy, 
 the middle of the third century. Nova- cannot be accepted with confidence, yet it maybe 
 tian, the Roman Presbyter, considered it 1 true, at least it is quite possible, that a man, who 
 ' ■ 1 ■ 11 ^ r *i 1 had embraced Christianity more with the under- 
 
 necessar)', in his development of the Lt,„^^^g than with the heart, should, for that very 
 Doctrine of the Divinity of Christ, to ! ^^.^^q^^ ^ant the courage and the zeal to make a 
 take especial notice of the attacks of that j confession of it in the face of death. Perhaps he 
 party, and in the later controversies, ! was excommunicated on account of this denial of 
 arising from Paul of Samosata, this party ! H'e faith, and then, when he had nothing more to 
 was spoken of as one that still existed. 
 
 and whether Noetuo was not thinking of the 
 yiniuTt; rcu Acycu, and under that phrase meant 
 nothing but the agency of God extending out- 
 wards beyond himself. 
 
 * The relation between the Artemonites and 
 Theodotus is involved in great obscurity. One 
 naturally asks how the Artemonites could appeal 
 to it as a fact, that their doctrine had been the 
 predominant doctrine at Rome down to the time 
 of Bishop Zephyrinus, who was the first to corrupt 
 the doctrine of the Church, if a sect existed at 
 Rome at that time, whose founder, Theodotus, 
 had been excommunicated by Victor, the prede- 
 cessor of Zephyrinus, on account of professing 
 that very doctrine. Although one may imagine 
 it likely enough, that where the maintenance of 
 men's dogmas is concerned they should be in- 
 
 fear from the dominant Church which would not 
 acknowledge him as one of her members, he 
 brought forward his doctrines in public for the first 
 time. This piece of truth may form the founda- 
 tion of the old account of the matter, although it 
 is to be looked upon as a fable after the fashion of 
 Epiphanius, if the latter has only invented the 
 opinions of Theodotus about Christ in order to 
 excuse his denial of the faith. 
 
 * It is not said ytviiTirxi iv <rii, but sTJXa/«T«l 
 iTTt a-i. He set out with the notion of an sTs^;^83-9i( 
 t:u Bilou TrviUfAUro; (or tou Aoyou, if Theodotus 
 admitted the doctrine of the Aoj-oc in any shape 
 whatever) i?ri tcv Xpia-Tov. As it is clear from this 
 quotation, that Tlieodotus admitted the first 
 chapter of St. Luke as genuine, the account 
 given in the addttamenta prescript., and by 
 Theodoret, that he acknowledged the supernatural 
 birth of Christ, is more probable than that of Epi- 
 phanius, that he denied it. 
 
THE ARTEMONITE VIEWS. THE ALOGl IN IREtfJEVS. 373 
 
 whatever that is Divine in Christ, and | with which critical inquiries were often 
 utterly denied the doctrine of a Di- , conducted at this period so as to favour 
 vine Logos, they had far too clear a dogmatical prcjuilices, this accusation is 
 testimony of facts against them when likely enough to be a just one; and yet 
 they maintained the high antiquity of on the other hand it cannot be denied, 
 their doctrines. But on the contrary, if that men were then inclined at once to 
 they belonged to the other class of the accuse heretics of falsifying Scripture, 
 Monarcliiani, they might very well make when they only quoted a various lection 
 use of the indefinite nature of many old | which was found in their manuscripts.* 
 expressions so as to favour their views, One is inclined to inquire whether we 
 and they might, perhaps, find some in- , are to assign to this class certiiin oppo- 
 definiteness in a dogmatical point of view, nents of the genuineness of ilie writings 
 in the statements of the Roman Church, of St. John, whom we shall designate by 
 which would also serve their purpose, i the name of ^^/oj^/, after the example of 
 And besides the Samosatensians, who Epiphanius, who lias given them in one 
 belonged to this class of Monarchians, I place this heretical appellation, although 
 were afterwards classed together with the the name is not particularly applicable."!" 
 ArtemoniteSiacircumstance which favours The first trace of such opponents of the 
 the notion of a similarity of doctrine be- genuineness of St. John's Gospel is found 
 tween the two parties. in a remarkable passage of Irena^us.^ He 
 
 As to the turn of mind from which the \ 
 
 doctrine of these Artemonites proceeded, * An example of an unjust polemical argu- 
 one of the accusations made against ihem , ment may be found in what is said by the writer 
 gives us some very instructive hints ; they "S;^!"/'* ^^^ Artemonites in Eusebius v 23. 
 P . J ., , -^ I a ,u •' "Either they do not behove that the Holy Scnp- 
 
 busied hemselves much with mathema- ! ^^^^ j^ j^^^f^^j by the Holy Ghost, and thev are 
 tics, dialectics, critical inquiries, with the , unbelievers, or else tliey consider themselves wiser 
 pliilosophy of Aristotle and with Theo- than the Holy Ghost," as if those Artemonites, 
 phrastus,* and thus their disposition was [ however capricious their criticism might be, did 
 one in which the reflecting, the critical, ! ^°^ think that by it they were enal)led to restore 
 and dialectic elements predominated, and , '^' original, genuine text just as it came from the 
 
 , . , ,,,..., ^. , . ' , inspiration of the Holy Ghost, 
 
 which would diminish in their case the , ^ .^^..^,,^ ^ „.„,j^ /hich contains an allusion to 
 inwardness and depth of the Christian , their denial of the genuineness of the Gospel 
 feeling; they Avanted a Christianity, which I which treats of the Logos, and thus contains a 
 the understanding could fully compre- j paronomasia on the word Logos, i^cya as deny- 
 hend, and that which exceeds the bounds i '"S ^^^, Logos, and as being unreoivnalk. 
 
 r .1 1.1- 1 X u ■ i The passage is in Irenajus, lib. m. c. xi. fto- 
 
 of the understanding, and must be assi- 1 *, ., * ,*= „ , -n ^ r r ,-^ , ,„ „,.; 
 1 ir r u i wards the end. — H. J. K.J Inlehccs vcre, qui 
 
 milated into the lile ot man through some pgeudo-propheta- quidem esse volunt. propheticam 
 other channel, found no place in their verogratiam repelluntabecclesia: similiapatientes 
 dialectic categories, [t was also made an his, qui propu-r eos, qui in hypocrisi veniunt, 
 accusation against them, that by means of ftiam a fratrum rommunicationc se abstinent. 
 
 a system of criticism, which professed to V"*""" f "^T i"''"'^'- ^''".^ hujusmod. nequc 
 •' , ^ . . r .u II 1 c • Apostolum Paulum recipiunt. In ea enim cpislola, 
 
 restore the true text of the Holy Scrip- ^J^^^^ ^,, C^^i^^j^i^^,,;p^„pj^^ji^i3^harismatibus 
 tures, they allowed themselves to change ^iligenter loqnutus est, et scit viros et mulieres in 
 at their own will those passages of Scrip- Ecclesia prophctantcs. Per ha;c [igitur, Ed. Mas- 
 ture, which were opposed to their doc- suet.— H. J. R.] Omnia peccantes in Spiritum 
 trine. If we judge from their whole Dei, in irremissibile incidunt peccatum." Accord- 
 turn of mind, and from the boldness, ! '"S ^o the common reading, the f.rst part of thi« 
 ' ' I would mean, " The truly unhappy persons, who 
 
 j wish themselves, indeed, to be false prophets, but 
 • Not with the Philosophy of Plato, which ex- ' deny the grace of prophecy to the Church." And 
 citing more the heart and the powers of inward this would give a sense, which in itself is quite 
 perception, led to a conception of Christianity, good, and which suits the severity of the rest of 
 more based on inward perceptions, and was the passage tolerably well. But the reading which 
 exactly calculated to give a speculative form to the has been accepted by my friend Dr. Olshauscn, 
 doctrine of the Trinity. We here perceive the and is, if I mistake not, an emendation proposal 
 different influence, excercised by the different by Grabe, viz. />A«u/o-;7rr>pAf7rt.v, has the advantage 
 schools of Philosophy, on the conception of of conformity with the part of the context which 
 Christianity by their adherents. 'J'he Neopla- follows it. The sense would then be, " Thoy sup- 
 tonists, who were converted to Christianity, ' pose, indeed, that there are false jirophcts in the 
 formed to themselves a speculative doctrine of Church, but from fear of false prophets, they go 
 the Trinity; the Aristotelian Dialecticians denied to the length of acknowledging no true prophete 
 the doctrine of the Divinity of Christ, and would either, and they resemble those schismatics, who, 
 represent the existence of God in Christ as some- out of fear of hypocritical Christians, withdraw 
 thing entirely capable of l)eing comprehended. , themselves also from intercourse with genuine 
 
 2 I 
 
sn 
 
 THE ALOGI IN IRENiEUS, AND IN EPIPHANIUS. 
 
 says, that they rejected the Gospel of St. 
 John on account of the promise of the 
 Paraclete, in order to cut off from the 
 Montanists (see above) their appeal to 
 this promise as a means of rendering cre- 
 dible the new revelations of the Paraclete. 
 They maintained as a general position 
 that there are no gifts of prophecy in the 
 Christian economy, and they declared all 
 that pretended to them to be false pro- 
 phets. It was probably these same per- 
 sons, against whom Hippolytus defended 
 the genuineness of St. John's Gospel and 
 the Apocalypse. The same persons occur 
 again in Epiphanius : he describes them as 
 warm opponents of Montanism and of the 
 prophetical gifts of the Spirit, who thought 
 that the Gospel of St. John was contra- 
 dictory to the rest of the Gospels ; and 
 he represents them, where he treats of 
 them specifically, as orthodox in other 
 respects.* But he contradicts himself 
 when he calls the Theodotians an offset 
 from them, and then at the same time 
 ailirms that tliey rejected the doctrine of 
 the Logos. It may be said, indeed, and 
 not without reason, that Epiphanius is 
 more worthy of credit, when he absolves 
 from a charge of heresy, than when he 
 makes such a charge, but other grounds 
 of judgment also must be taken into the 
 account. And, in fact, Epiphanius, when 
 he absolved them from the charge of 
 heresy, may have had before his eyes 
 some writing of the Alogi, in which they 
 
 ones." It is not necessary to suppose that this 
 
 had purposely avoided dogmatical argu- 
 ments. 
 
 if, in accordance with the expressions 
 of Irenseus, we suppose that the Jllogi 
 were seduced into the rejection of the 
 Gospel of St. John merely in consequence 
 of their controversy with Montanism, yet 
 still it is extremely improbable, that they 
 should have rejected a book of so great 
 value and importance to every believing 
 Christian, (and which in its whole ten- 
 dency is so antimontanistic,) only in 
 consequence of those few passages, the 
 application of which is so easily wrested 
 from the Montanists by a right interpre- 
 tation, and indeed, may so easily be turned 
 against them.* The matter appears more 
 capable of the following representation ; 
 when the Montanists appealed to that 
 promise of the Paraclete, the Alogi imme- 
 diately answered that the whole Gospel 
 Avas apocryphal [Ulerally^ not genuine,] 
 and from this their opponents gathered 
 that they denied its genuineness, only in 
 order to avoid recognising that promise. 
 The case, indeed, we must confess, is 
 possible, that the Alogi may have belonged 
 to the class of those who, whenever they 
 believed that they perceived contradic- 
 tions between the Gospels, immediately 
 rejected that Gospel which appeared to 
 them to stand in contradiction to the 
 rest.| But still it is not probable, that in 
 this age, in which the dogmatic influence 
 was so powerfully predominant, any one 
 to whom the doctrine of the Divinity of 
 Christ was of importance, could have 
 
 passage must have proceeded from a Montanist, it ^ determined himself, for the sake of some 
 is only requisite to acknowledge as its author some i (li^Jiculties, Avhich struck him, to give up 
 
 person, who thought it of importance to maintain 
 that the outpouring of the Holy Ghost revealed 
 itself in the Christian economy hy ' prophetica 
 charismata' — and it is clear from many of the ex- 
 pressions of IrenfEus, that such were his senti- 
 ments. And yet, nevertheless, the passage does 
 bear rather a Montanistic character. The latter 
 part, especially, is wholly spoken in the tone of a 
 Montanist, who sees an adversary of the Holy 
 (ihost himself, in every one, who will not acknow- 
 ledge the new communications of the Paraclete, j 
 One can hardly attribute to a man of the modera- 
 tion of Irenaeus such violence in tiiis matter, and , 
 one could almost be induced to suspect, that the | 
 whole j)assage has been interpolated by a Mon- I 
 tanist. The context would hold together entirely, : 
 if the whole passage were wanting, and there | 
 would be nothing in it except in reference to the 
 Gnostics, to whom alone the whole section re- 
 lates. 
 
 * Hteres. 44. ^ 4. S;x.iva-i t* aiirx ny.a Trivrsuav. 
 The passage, where he says of them tcv aoj/ov oi 
 Si'^cvTuircv TT^gx 'la:i)>j:u KiKHguyutviv, does not make 
 it altogether certain that he^neaut here to charge 
 them with a denial of the doctrine of the Logos, 
 because the word ko-^o; is ambiguous. 
 
 the very chief book for the maintenance 
 of this doctrine, especially in this youth- 
 ful season of the Church, in which the 
 immediate feeling bore far greater sway 
 than reflection, and in which the immediate 
 impression upon every one, who was not 
 just enslaved by a prejudice against the 
 Christianity of St. John, must have borne 
 its testimony to the genuineness of that 
 Gospel. 
 
 On the contrary, every thing is ex- 
 plained, if Ave abide by the account of 
 Epiphanius, which indicates a connection 
 between the Alogi and the Theodotians 
 
 * As for instance, if they said, as in fact the 
 Church teachers did say, in answer to the Mon- 
 tanists, that this promise had already been fulfilleJ 
 in the case of the apostles. 
 
 t Origen, vol. iv. p. 160, t. 10. Joh. § 2, speaks 
 of this capricious critical conduct in certain people 
 of this age. The exaggerated view of inspiration 
 promoted tlus hypocritical conduct. 
 
THE ALOGI AND THEODOTIANS — PAUL OF SAMOSATA. 
 
 375 
 
 or Artemonites, although we would not ' 
 assert at once, that all the adherents of ' 
 this party belonged to the Alogi, and re- 
 jected the Gospel of St. John. Their 
 principles made the latter course unneces- 
 sary, for, as they admitted a certain con- 
 nection of God with Christ, they might 
 also adinit the doctrine of a Divine Logos, 
 who worked in him,*' and they might also 
 explain the Gospel of St. John after their ', 
 own notions, as it is clear from Novatian, 
 that they explained many passages which : 
 did not suit their doctrine, as merely re- 
 ferring to a previous destination of Jesus 
 as the Messiah, in the counsels of God. | 
 The unknown adversary of the Theodo- i 
 tians and Artemonites in Eusebius says, 
 that they did not all misuse the Holy 
 Scriptures in the same way, and that, 
 while some endeavoured to bring it into 
 accordance with their doctrinal opinions [ 
 through their oxvn sort of criticism, others j 
 rejected whole books of Scripture. The 
 unnamed person here is certainly speak- I 
 ing, not of the New, but of the Old Tes- 
 tament, lie says, that while they set the 
 Gospel of grace in complete opposition 
 to the Old Testament, they had cast away 
 the Divine authority of the Law and of 
 the prophets, and had torn asunder all 
 connection between Clu'istianity and Ju- 
 daism.| But this account gives us reason 
 to suspect that they indulged in a critical 
 system which judged according to their 
 dogmatical preconceived opinions, and 
 which might take different directions 
 simply in consequence of their other (hf- 
 ferences. Tlius it is by no means im- 
 probable that to many among these peo- 
 ])le, all, which was said of a Divine 
 Logos, appeared to be something Gnos- 
 tical or too mystical, as we learn from 
 Epiphanius, tliat they felt themselves pe- 
 culiarly at a loss in regard to the Prologue 
 to St. John's Gospel ; and the Gospel of 
 St. John, which from its whole character, 
 would probably correspond but little to 
 their predominantly dialetic and reflective , 
 cast of mind, and might appear to them too ; 
 theosophical, was declared by them to be 
 a forgery of the Gnostic Cerinthus. It 
 will be seen also, that this cast of mind 
 must have made them enemies of the 
 prophetic gifts of the Monlanists. In the 
 
 * As the flaov mw/jLH, of which the angel spoke 
 lo Mary, as at that time the ideas of the Holy 
 Ghost and the Logos were joined together by 
 many persons. 
 
 same way, what we hear of the rejection 
 of the Old Testament by one portion of 
 this party, agrees with their violent oppo- 
 sition to ftiontanism, which was often 
 inclined to mingle together too indiscri- 
 minately what belonged to the Old and 
 what belonged to the New Testament, 
 and it accords also with their rejection of 
 the Apocalypse, although this last cir- 
 cumstance may easily be explained on 
 other grounds. That they attributed both 
 the Gospel of St. John and the Apocalypse 
 to Cerinthus, shows, that, although they 
 ill understood the Gospel of St. John, 
 because the sense for its understanding 
 was wanting in them, yet they knew 
 Cerinthus rightly for a Judaising Gnostic. 
 Nor can we leave it unobserved, that the 
 Montanistic prophetic spirit busied itself 
 much with the defence of the doctrine of 
 the Trinity as received in the Church, to 
 which it may have been induced by the 
 circumstance of the Monarchians being 
 violently opposed to it [i. e. this prophetic 
 spirit.] 
 
 To this class of Monarchians belongs 
 also Paul of Samosata in Syria, who be- 
 came bishop of the Church of Antioch 
 at some time between the years 260 and 
 270, A. D. The bishops, who condemned 
 his doctrines, make a very unfavourable 
 report of his character,* and represent 
 I him as a proud, vain, and avaricious man, 
 who was inclined to concern himself 
 j with w^orldly matters. Men, however, 
 being but little a])le to distinguish be- 
 ' tween persons and opinions, opponents 
 j in faith, and more especially passionate 
 I opponents, as these men appear to have 
 been, deserve but little credit for their 
 I accusations ; but these accusations con- 
 1 tain, nevertheless, too many special traits 
 I to have been wholly without foundation, 
 and alas! the picture drawn of him har- 
 monizes well with what we hear besides 
 I of the bishops of Antioch,t the great 
 
 • See Eusct). vii. c. 30. 
 
 I Sec what Origcn says in Matt. Ed. Huct. p. 
 420. " We, who either do not understand what 
 the doctrine of Jesus here means, or else despise 
 such expressive exhortations of our Saviour, are 
 of such ft kind, that sometimes we even exceed 
 the state of the wicked governors among the hea- 
 thens, and want a hody suard like the emperors, 
 and make ourselves awful and inaccessible, espe- 
 cially to the poor. And in many so-called 
 Churches, and esi)ecially those of the <^reiiler 
 towns, you may find rulers of the (Jhurch of (Jod ; 
 such that they would hardly acknowledge the best 
 among the disciples of Jesus to be their equals." 
 fji.niifj.it\ )V;Xcj<av iTnTgta-ovTJtf i^S' ct/ jti« tc<c 
 
3T6 
 
 FAVOURED BY ZENOBIA. — HIS DOCTRINES. 
 
 metropolis of the Roman dominions in 
 eastern Asia. The being surrounded by- 
 earthly glory, pomp,and pride, has always 
 been a most dangerous circumstance to 
 Christianity, and especially dangerous to 
 the clergy, if they allow themselves to be 
 attracted by the glitter and the show of 
 the world, which they, of all men, ought 
 to despise in consequence of their ele- 
 vated employment. At that time Zenobia* 
 had the sovereignty of those regions as 
 queen of Palmyra, and appears always 
 to have been friendly towards Judaisra.l 
 Paul has been blamed, on the ground that, 
 in order to obtain favour with this queen, 
 he endeavoured to present the doctrines 
 about Christ in a form more agreeable to 
 the Jewish style of thought; but there is 
 no proof to warrant such an accusation, 
 as it was unnecessary to resort to this 
 mode of explanation,;}; and as the firmness 
 of Paul in this persuasion, even after 
 political circumstances had changed, does 
 not appear to bespeak the truth of the 
 charge. But intercourse with the Jews, 
 who were around the queen, with whom 
 Paul, as a courtier, had much influence, 
 may very probably have worked upon this 
 tendency of his doctrinal views, although 
 even this supposition is not necessary 
 to be made. It may also be the case that 
 his peculiar doctrinal views contributed 
 to procure him favour with the queen. 
 He now made use of his connection 
 with this powerful patroness, in order to 
 obtain influence and authority in worldly 
 things, and to keep up considerable state. 
 In flat contradiction to laws already pub- 
 licly promulgated (see above) at least in 
 the western Church, he held a civil 
 employment under government,§ which 
 could scarcely be compatible with the 
 
 ■* Wife of the celebrated Roman general, 
 Odenatus, who had made himself independent of 
 the Roman empire. 
 
 •j" 'UvS'ittu. iiv Znvc^irt H.-J.I n^uMu Trg'.iTTn rw 2*//c- 
 traw-sa)?. Alhanag. hist. Arianor. ad Monachos, § 71. 
 
 i [This expression is not entirely clear. I 
 have translated it literally, and I suppose it means 
 that we need not resort to any supposition of a 
 wish to procure the favour of Zenobia, in order 
 to explain the Judaizing form under which Paul 
 presented Christianity. — H. J. R.] 
 
 § The ofiice of a ducenarius procurator (which 
 is not to be confused with that of ducenarius 
 judex ;) so called because the pay amounted to 
 two hundred sestertia [about 3000/.— H. J. R.] 
 See Sueton. Claud, c. 24. Cyprian, Ep. 68. But 
 it is also possible that he was in possession of this 
 ofiice, when he was elected bishop ; and then of 
 course the bishops would have themselves to ac- 
 cuse for having sufTered such an infraction of the 
 laws of the Church 
 
 episcopal office. At Antioch it seems 
 that the profane custom of testifying 
 approbation to preachers, by waving of 
 handkerchiefs, exclamations, and clap[)ing 
 of the hands, which sets preachers in the 
 same class with actors and declaimers for 
 effect, had already passed into the Church 
 from the theatre, and from the exhibition 
 schools of the rhetoricians. The vain 
 Paul saw this with pleasure; but the 
 bishops, who were his accusers, were 
 well aware that this custom was contrary 
 to the dignity and order which ought to 
 prevail in the house of God. The Church 
 hymns, which had been in use since the 
 second century, he banished as an inno- 
 vation, apparently proceeding on the prin- 
 ciple which has been set up by others in 
 later times, that only passages out of the 
 Holy Scripture ought to be sung in the 
 Church; and thus he probably suffered 
 nothing but Psalms to be used. There is 
 no sulficient ground for the suspicion, 
 that Paul did this in order to pay court 
 to his patroness Zenobia, as being a 
 Jewess. It is more probable that Paul, 
 who might be well awt^re how deeply the 
 import of Church hymns impresses itself 
 upon the heart, when he banished those 
 old hymns (which spoke of Clirist as the 
 incarnate Logos,) might hope also to 
 banish the doctrines they contained from 
 the hearts of men. When we find it 
 stated, that the man who thus carefully 
 removed the expressions used to desig- 
 nate Christ, was delighted to receive the 
 incense of exaggerated expressions about 
 himself, in poems and declamations in 
 holy places, and to be called in bom- 
 bastic rhetorical phrases an angel sent 
 I down from heaven, we cannot consent to 
 j receive such an accusation from the 
 - mouth of violent enemies as one on 
 which we can entirely depend, but we 
 have no reason whatever, for declaring it 
 to be false. 
 
 As far as the doctrines of this man are 
 concerned, he appears to have had but 
 little tliat was peculiar to himself; in ac- 
 cordance with his Judaizing notions, he 
 compared the Divine Logos to the reason 
 of man,* eitlier as the hidden contem- 
 plative reason,! existing witliin the very 
 nature of God, or as the reason that re- 
 veals itself outwardly by word and by 
 creation.'l In the latter sense, the Logos, 
 as the reason of God, by its agency in- 
 
 * iiTTre^ iv avB^ieTTcv K,tipJii o IJtoi K'-yo;. ap Epi- 
 phan. p. 67. 
 
THE LOGOS. 
 
 spired all the men of the Old Testament, 
 Avho were enlightened by God, and thus 
 would also inspire Christ; and whereas 
 he was the most illuminated of all man- 
 kind, tliis Logos dwelt in him as it dwelt 
 in none besides; but the difference of this 
 indwelling was only in degree and not in 
 kind.* It was in virtue of this pre-emi- 
 nent degree of illumination through tlie 
 Divine wisdom, that the name of a Son 
 of God belonged to Jesus. When he 
 used the phrase Jesus Christ, who came 
 from below, 'ina-cvi; Xpurro; Kccrubi*-, he 
 must have used it to imply, that the Logos 
 did not receive any human body, but that 
 the human nature, whicli had already an 
 independent existence, had been honoured 
 by a peculiar influence and operation of 
 the Divine wisdom.! From the deficiency 
 of authentic and accurate information, it 
 cannot be determined with certainty, but 
 the point is quite unimportant, whether 
 he referred the name of Son of God to 
 Jesus only as a man, when he says of 
 him, that, in accordance with the Divine 
 predetermination, or the Divine coun- 
 sel, he existed before the creation ;!{; or, 
 whether, in the sense which we have re- 
 marked above, he transferred tlie name of 
 Son of God to the Divine Reason also, 
 inasmuch as it (the Divine Reason) had 
 equally called forth God out of himself 
 into outward activity in the creation of 
 the world ;§ for his adversaries accused 
 
 He taugllt i'j <ri/yy?yim<r(iut t£i) uvfipaT/ca) tw a-i(fiuv 
 cii:rutJai , ixxu. x.-xt'J. Trw^rnTn.. TllC^e words of 
 I'aul are to lie found in Lcontius Dyzantin. c. 
 I\'e.st. el Euticheii., a work which has hitherto 
 been known to us in a Latin translation ; but the 
 fraijnient of Paul has been published in Greek 
 from the MSS. of the Bodleian Library at Oxford, 
 by Erlicli, in a Disscrtatio de crroribus Pauli Sa- 
 niosatensis. Lipsia, 1745, p, 23. 
 
 •j- See the Synodal Ejiistle in Euseb. vii. 30. 
 
 % In the Synodal Epistle to Paul of Samosata, 
 published by Turrian in Mansi's collection of 
 Councils, i. 103-1, which is the only authentic 
 document among those made known by him 
 which refer to these transactions, the following 
 antithesis occurs, viz. that the Son of God ex- 
 isted T£0 a-locva^v vj TTgj.ytuKiil uK>C ciivta. ku iiTr.a- 
 Txou; Irom which we might judge that Paul 
 maintained the contrary, Tti» Ci:v t-.u Qtiu ci-;^' 
 C'r.a'ra^ii axxu. Trf'-yvw^it. 
 
 § He might engraft his own opinions on the 
 older expression in the Apologetic writers, iywM(rt 
 T'.v xoy.v ,T^-.<fog;x:v, by understanding this so as 
 not to include the notion of an emanation which 
 had the attribute of personality. The antithesis 
 in the Synodal Epistle quoted above, seems to 
 support this explanation: hx r-.u k,-^cu o ttxth^ 
 Tj-vrn TTiTUiiKiv '.i^, ^ i' '(jyJ-nu, ciJ' J,: Si' vria-- 
 Txuns avuTn.ffTS.'T'.u, ytmia-xyTtit /jui Tiu Trure^t Tc» 
 
 48 
 
 37/ 
 
 him of having maintained the existence 
 of two Sons of God, one properly so 
 called, the other improperly, although 
 [ this may be regarded only as a conse- 
 I quence from his propositions drawn hif 
 I his adversaries from their oini point of 
 \vieu\ and then charged on him. It is 
 very probable that when he wished to 
 hold more closely to the doctrines of the 
 \ Church, he spoke, in his oicn sense, of a 
 Son of God, whom God had begotten 
 before the creation of the world; but on 
 the contrary, when he expressed himself 
 freely without any sucii intention, he 
 spoke only of the man Jesus as the Son 
 i of God, for he expressly says that he 
 j knen} nothing of two Sons of God* 
 
 Many Synods were held on account of 
 ! the controversies with the Bishoj) Paulus 
 at Antioch ; but he probably availed him- 
 self of the indeliniteness of the eccle- 
 ' siastical terminology, and the dillerent 
 i polemical views under which different 
 j expressions might be used, in order to 
 I hide his own opinions under ambiguou.s 
 : explanations, so that no charge of erro- 
 neous doctrine could positively be fixed 
 I upon him. In the last Synod, A. D. 265, 
 I an able dialectician, the Presbyter iMal- 
 1 chion,t succeeded at last in forcing him 
 to an open declaration of his opinion. 
 He was deposed and his oflice bestowed 
 I upon another; but as he was supported 
 ! by a party, and favoured by Zenoliia, the 
 \ matter could not be accomplished before 
 i she was conquered by the Emperor Au- 
 I rclius, A. D. 272. This prince left the 
 I decision to the Bishop of Rotne. (See 
 jp.304.) 
 
 I Besides these two classes of Monarch- 
 I ians, we find also a third, which stands 
 i in certain respects between the other two; 
 I these were such persons as approached 
 the second class the most in their theory 
 of the Logos, as a power that beamed 
 ! forth out of the Divine nature, but re- 
 ceded from them again, and more nearly 
 I resembled the Patripassians as to their 
 representations of the himianily of Christ. 
 iThey were not satisfied with the idea of 
 
 uht 1- ^ai3-oiY 'ivi^yvu.v tut ivuT'.a-Tariv. From this 
 it may be concluded that Paul spoke of a ri^w, 
 
 j iTna-Th/ux uK/TsiTTiTcc, and understood by the yuvn^K 
 
 ! t:i/ Koyw nothing but an tviQuat. i.»uri3-Tu.Ti: of 
 
 I God the Creator. 
 
 1 * fxM iu'j erurTx^Qii ui:t/f. T^eont. Byzant. 
 
 I -j- From the expressions of Eusebius, although 
 
 j Theodoret, to whom they appeared very oHensive, 
 interprets them dillerently, we must conclude, 
 that this clergyman alfo practi.-^cjl the profession 
 
 I of a rhetorician, which was hardly compatible 
 
 I with his spiritual calling. 
 
 2i2 
 
3T8 
 
 EUSEBIUS ON BERYLLUS. 
 
 an influence of the Divine Logos on Jesus 
 as man, which diflered only in degree 
 from the influence exerted on other en- 
 lightened and holy men ; but, on the other 
 hand also, they did not accept the Patri- 
 passian view of an indwelling of the whole 
 Divine Being in a human body. They 
 agreed with the Patripassian theory, so 
 far as not to separate that which was Di- 
 vine in Christ, from the soul that resides 
 within him. But they modifled this view 
 so far that they supposed the Divine in 
 Christ, the soul of his human nature, not 
 to be the Divine Being himself, but a cer- 
 tain emanation [streaming out] from him, 
 which formed itself to an individual spi- 
 ritual life. 
 
 Among the Patripassians, who will not 
 admit of any distinction in the Divine 
 Being (see above, on Theodotus and Ar- 
 temon,) Beryllus, the bishop of Bostra, 
 in Arabia, comes the nearest to this opi- 
 nion. According to the theory of Beryl- 
 lus, the personality of the Son of God 
 first arose through a beaming forth, or an 
 emanation out of the Being of God into 
 a human body.* 
 
 * From the deficiency of clear and accurate 
 p.ccounts, the development of the doctrine of this 
 man is one of the most difficult subjects of histo- 
 rical investigation, and therefore, we cannot expect 
 to arrive at a perfectly certain result. The chief 
 passage to the point is in Euseb. vi. 33, toi- awrngA 
 
 jU>l Trej.U^fiO'TJ.VAl H.U.'T liuv (.'vJliLi Triply g^V^cfUV TT^'j T«; 
 
 ik ivb^a>?raj; i?nj>ijuia.i;, and in Origcn ISiu. 7neryi^t(^» 
 or r/jG-td x.j.'Tci. TTi^i-) ^x<p}iv nicans an individual, pro- 
 per, personal existence, the same as CTro^ra.nu to 
 which is contrasted ((VUTrctrTttr'.;, siva/ »*t' imvoMv 
 iTi^'.v rivoc See Origen. t. i. Joh. p. 42. In this 
 description of his doctrine two points arc to be 
 remarked: (1.) Before the earthly appearance of 
 Christ there was no Son of God, as a Being per- 
 sonally different from God the Father, which is to 
 be understood, either as asserting that a Son of 
 God existed only in an ideal Being, in the idea or 
 the foreordaining counsel [of the Father] (jc^Tct 
 Tgcyvcixxiv, or x^t* Tr^ct-^i^jucv rev TIut^oc) or else, 
 that the Logos existed at first only as a dependent 
 (unselbstandige, lit. not-independent) Power of 
 God ; (2.) That contemporaneously with the in- 
 carnation of Christ, an existence of the Son of 
 God also began, which was independently personal, 
 and distinct from the Being of God (an J<f.35-Tava/ 
 KXT iJtxv cu(Ti^( '^i^ty^a.<p>iv.) • A Patripassian could 
 not assert the latter, for he could only speak of an 
 existence of the Father himself in the human 
 nature, which existence was called the Son, from 
 revealing itself 
 
 And now we must add the second part of the 
 representation of Easeh'ms, /unit /unv 6mt;/t* iSttv 
 t^ilv uAx' ifA-rokiTW./uivnv civTm juivnv Tuv Tra^^inyiv. If 
 what we have above remarked is incompatible 
 with the opinions of a Patripassian; so, on the 
 contrary, this last says too much to suit the doc- 
 trine of a Monarchian of the second class. At the 
 
 I In the year 244 a Synod Avas held 
 [respecting the affairs of Beryllus, which 
 ; was attended by the great Origen, who 
 lived at that time at Caesarea Stratonis. 
 He discussed matters with him very much^ 
 and apparently by his superiority of mind, 
 his ability and moderation, he succeeded 
 in persuading him, that he had erred. It 
 ; is true, that in this case, we follow the 
 ; account given by Eusebius,au enthusiastic 
 friend of Origen, and we have not the 
 means of consulting the document used 
 by him, in order to form an unprejudiced 
 ] and independent judgment. And yet, we 
 I must take into the account that as yet 
 
 j same time an opponent of this doctrine would 
 I certainly have been more ready to charge it with 
 ; representing Christ as a mere man, than to make 
 ! it say more than it really did say, of the Being of 
 I God in Christ. There remains, in order to recon- 
 ' cile these contradictory statements, only the repre- 
 ' sentation given of the doctrine of Beryllus. We 
 must, therefore, here bring forward the fragment 
 1 occurring in the Commentary of Origen, on the 
 I Epistle to 'I'itus. Origen, t. iv. p. 695. 
 
 ' Sed et eos qui hominem dicunt Dominum 
 Jesum prtEcognitum, et praedestinatum, qui ante 
 adventum carnalem substantialiter et proprie non 
 extiterit, sed quod homo natus Patris solam in se 
 I habuerit Deitatem, ne illos quidem sine periculo 
 1 esse ecclesiiE numero sociari.' As in this passage 
 j Origen joins together two classes of Monarchians, 
 and in the other member of the sentence, which 
 has not been quoted here, the Patripassians ; it 
 may be supposed, if we should compare this pas- 
 sage with that above quoted (some pages back, 
 on the subject of the Piitripassians) from the 
 I Tom. on St. John, that Origen in the first member 
 I of the sentence was describing the two classes of 
 I Monarchians, while in that passage from his 
 1 writings on St. John, he was opposing these two 
 classes to each other. I was myself deceived for- 
 merly by this comparison of passages; but it will 
 I not bear being carried out fully. Origen ascribes 
 to those, of whom he is here speaking, too high 
 ^ an idea of the Divine in Christ, for us to suppose 
 j that he has in view the doctrines we have re- 
 marked ; and he also expresses himself too mildly 
 about their relation to the Church, to suit that 
 supposition. So that these words most strikingly 
 agree with those of Eusebius, and both passages 
 are most naturally to be explained in the same 
 way. We must suppose that Origen here speaks 
 j of a doctrine, with which he was unacquainted 
 before, and with which he had first become ac- 
 quainted by means of his transactions with Bcryl- 
 j lus of Bostra. And then by comparing Origen 
 with Eusebius we find, that Beryllus, under the 
 words 7r^ov<^i<rTxvAi avuTotn-ctTaic, understood a 
 7r^ou<f array *i KH-rat Tr^oyvoKriv Kit !rgscg(3-^ov rcj 
 riiTgo-. And thus also it is explained, why the 
 Synod, as Socrates, b. ii. c. 6, informs us, should 
 maintain against Beryllus the doctrine of a rea- 
 sonable human soul in Christ; because Beryllus 
 supplied the place of such a soul, by the special 
 oiKovofjLi^ rev fiacu Tvw^aTt/f. out of which the j)ro- 
 per, and God-allied personality of Christ was 
 formed. 
 
ORIGE.N OS BERYLLUS. SABKLLIUS. 
 
 379 
 
 there was no slate Tteligion^ and no state 
 Churchy which could cvmpcl Beryllus to 
 a recantation, although tiie authority of 
 the Episcopal college had already much, 
 and indeed, too much power over the 
 Church. But if the bishops liad wished 
 to overpower tlieir colleague by mere 
 numbers, they would have had no occa- 
 sion to call in the services of a Presbyter 
 who had been driven away and branded 
 as an heretic, and who had no other 
 power than that which belongs to know- 
 ledge. And besides, Origen was not the 
 man to use the weight of his name or of 
 his superiority of mind for the purpose 
 crushing an individual. 
 
 It is only among the men of the Alex- 
 andrian school tliat we liiul instances of 
 theological conferences, which, instead 
 of introducing still greater divisions, pro- 
 duced unity of mind. To what else can 
 we attribute this, unless it be, that these 
 men were not blind zealots for the letter, 
 but men of a liberal spirit, and united the 
 spirit of love and moderation \\\\.\\ that 
 zeal for the truth, which would not wish to 
 triumph, except through the force of truth ! 
 
 Although in other respects the system 
 which Origen opposed to that of Beryllus 
 was not free from error, and although, 
 perhaps, it was not merely the superiority 
 of the system, but the mental superiority 
 of Origen himself that contributed to 
 eflect this triumph ; yet still the system 
 of Origen was in many points of view 
 when compared with the doctrine of his 
 opponent, nearer to a pure development 
 of the truth. 
 
 According to the account of Jerome,* 
 Beryllus thanked Origen by letter for the 
 instruction he had received. We have 
 no cause to doubt this, but the account 
 of Jerome is not so authentic as that of 
 Origen. 
 
 Tlie next to Beryllus of Bostra, is Sa- 
 bellius, who lived at Ptolemais, in Penta- 
 polis, after the middle of the third cen- 
 tury; and who may, probably, have main- 
 tained a doctrine more curiously deve- 
 loped and perfected, than any other of this 
 class, but unfortunately, we have only 
 an imperfect acquaintance with his system 
 as to the internal dependence of its va- 
 rious parts. The account of Epi])hanius, 
 that Sabellius borrowed the germ of his 
 doctrine out of Apocryphal Gospels, and 
 especially from one| that was current in 
 Egypt, and bore the stamp of the Jewish 
 
 Theosophy of Alexandria, is by no means 
 to be rejected. In this Gospel, Christ, as 
 a teaciier of esoteric wisdom, commu- 
 nicated this to his disciples, which en- 
 ; tirely suited the Tiieosophic disposition 
 of a certain class: If the multitude, which 
 camiot raise itself up to the perception of 
 the Supreme simj)le Unity, hold God tlie 
 Father, the Son, and tlie Holy Ghost for 
 different Divine beings, tliey must acknow- 
 ledge that Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are 
 only one; that ihey are only tiireedilliirent 
 forms, under which the Supreme Unity in 
 revealed.* As it is said in the Clementiney 
 that God is either a /LAom?, or a (Jt;a,-, just ac- 
 cording as the Divine wisdom is hidden 
 within him, as his soul ; or as it works ac- 
 tively proceeding forth from him, as the 
 hand that creates the world ;']; so also Sa- 
 bellius said tliat God before the creation 
 had been the pure Unity, ^ as being entirely 
 hidden within his own Being, and not 
 active through communication [of any of 
 his attributes, kc.,] witli any thing be- 
 yond himself; and in this respect, he 
 called God the Father ; but, at the crea- 
 tion, this unity had developed itself into a 
 Trinity.W As, according t-o the apostle 
 
 • De Vir. III. c. 60. 
 
 I" From the u-xyyiuzt »xt" Aij.!/TT«t/f. 
 
 * Epiphan. Hseres. 52. He says of this Gos. 
 pel: El* ctiiTti) yjg TT'^yxrt TUivrit L; iv T-xfji^TTm 
 
 ai/Tiv Jiih'juvTo: ni: /ui^TXi: tsv ai/TJV ilyxi 
 YXxTigu, t;v cl'jt'jv ihn uhv, t;'/ o-ut.v ilvn ayr.v 
 Uvrjjux. This may be illustrated hy a passage in 
 Phil, de Abrahamo, f. 367. (Kd. Hoeschel.) 
 where it is said, that the '.v from which his two 
 supreme i-jv^/xii:, the. TrtihTinii, and the /Hnro.uh pro- 
 ceed, appears cither one, or threefold, according 
 to the greater or less purified condition of the 
 souls which contemplate it. If the soul has ele- 
 vated itself above the revelation of God in the 
 creation to the intellectual perception (an- 
 schauung,) of the cv, then the Trinity glides into 
 Unity to its view : it looks upon one Light, from 
 which at the same time two shades proceed, i. e. 
 God's Being and those two operative faculties 
 [Wiirkungsweisen. Lit. the modes of operation,] 
 are only shades, that fall from his overpowering 
 Light. T^iTHv (^tvTU.Tii.v evsr vTiKUua'yj kxtx- 
 
 XltfJifiMil, TiU JUiV !>; CKTSC TitV S' uXJ^'.IV iuitt, i; ill" 
 
 u:Tai/)^/^-,M«vaiv u^3 tii/tcu o-kiuv. And then : m- 
 
 ^i^it Til ijaT/JCH SiXtUU, TiTS //SK SV;-, TITS Si T^ittV 
 ipXVTUflU.V 'i/i( /UiV, iTXV CK.^Cu: X.tbx(JjiirX » ^•''Al*' 
 
 ■yimvx /uoviSif S-j:fJu. Cri>2t<j-x, &c. 'i'here is also 
 a remarkable likeness between the mode of ex- 
 pres.sion used by Sabellius, and that, which is pe- 
 culiar to the Clementine, a work which proceeded 
 from a Juda;o-Chrislian theosophist. 
 
 f Clementin. H. 10, c. 12. kxtx yt^ inTXTiv 
 Kit (Tua-TiViv » /Lf.'.vx: iux: jlva/ viui^triu. 
 
 i According as it may be said cither <ru3-ri\KtT- 
 6x1, or inTHvwSiv, 
 
 § K xnuTTKiK'.: fx'ivaji to iv, according to Philo 
 
 II See Athanas. Orat. iv. c. 13 : » /jtcvxc TKxruy. 
 du(rx }iyoy'. T^'ic And yet, one is inclined to 
 
SABELLIUS S DOCTRINES. — HIS LOGOS. 
 
 380 
 
 St. Paul, there is one Spirit, and yet this 
 one Spirit worketh several ways through 
 manifold gifts and graces ; thus, also, he 
 says, is God the Father one and the same, 
 but he pours himself abioad in the Son, 
 and in the Holy Ghost,* under which 
 names Sabellius means to designate only 
 two different modes of operation of 
 the same Divine subject; namely, God 
 the Father. Therefore, he says also, 
 it is one Divine Being, as to its self-ex- 
 istence, which is designated by two dif- 
 ferent names, according to these two dif- 
 ferent modes of operation — one Divine 
 Subject, which represents itself under dif- 
 ferent forms, according to the necessity of 
 each occasion, and sometimes speaks as 
 the Father and sometimes as the Son, and 
 sometimes as the Holy Ghost.| Pie had 
 therefore, no scruple in using the language 
 prevalent in the Western Church, and 
 saying that we must acknowledge one 
 God in three persons ;J but then he un- 
 derstood under the word Person, nothing 
 but different parts, different personifica- 
 tions under which the one Divine Subject 
 presented itself. He made use also of 
 the following comparison : As in the 
 Sun we must separate his proper sub- 
 stance (the ov, the fxoi/a?,) the round body, 
 from the warming and illuminating power 
 that proceeds from it, so also in God 
 we must distinguish between his proper 
 self-existent Being, and the enlightening 
 power, the Logos, and the Holy Ghost, 
 
 inquire whether he supposed that the //ovj? un- 
 folded itself immediately at the creation into a 
 TWatc, or whether it was not originally only into a 
 S'ui;, so that the Tp/s-f, took its first origin from the 
 emanation of the Logos into human nature. In 
 order to decide on this point, we must know more 
 of the manner in which Sabellius represented to 
 himself the i-elation of the communication of the 
 Holy Ghost to the incarnation of the Logos, and 
 how he viewed tlic relation of God's operation in 
 the ISew 'I'estament, to that in the Old. It were 
 much to be desired, that Origen had left us more 
 distinct accounts of those whom he accuses, in 
 the above quoted iragmcnt of his Commentary on 
 the Epistle to Titus, of making the Holy Ghost 
 as relates to the prophets, and the Holy Ghost as 
 regards the apostles, two difierent things, and 
 whom he expressly distinguishes from the Gnos- 
 tics ; to whom one would at first be inclined to 
 apply this passage, were it not for that express 
 distinction. 
 
 * 1. c. 2.5, iflTTTfg intet^ii- ^'jgia-juttToiv i\<ri, to h 
 
 JLVTO TTVOilXrl, oi-TOH K'M FlaTJ)? UUTCif i(JTl, TTKU- 
 
 Tuvircu h a- Thv k« FIva/^Mi. 
 
 ■|" liasil. Ep. 210. T(,v uiiTiv ©siv ivu. tcd Ctc- 
 
 Kit/AlVCe (.VTO. VeOC Tis IK-XfrcTi 7tdi('Jim7T'T!.WJi% ytUUQ 
 
 IxerufAigi^iVfjiinv vuv fxtv Li n<TSfi, ny it L; ytt,v, vuv 
 wf TO iytcv llvivji/.u St'Jhiyiabdit, 
 
 the power that warms, glows through 
 and vivifies the hearts of believers.* 
 
 Sabellius spoke in the sense above 
 given, of a Aoyo? Tr^oi^o^iHo?, and of a 
 begetting of the Logos, which preceded 
 the whole creation, without which no 
 creation could have taken place. No 
 Being could have existed, if the thinking 
 Divine reason had not become a speaking 
 reason ; if the Divine Monas, wrapt up 
 in itself, had not unfolded itself in the 
 words of creation. In this sense Sa- 
 bellius said, " God, being silent, is in- 
 operative ; but God speaking, is effec- 
 tive."! He considered, however, hu- 
 man souls to be a revelation or a partial 
 outbeaming of the Divine Logos, in 
 which idea he followed Philo and the 
 Alexandrian Churchmen; reason in man. 
 in this view, is nothing but a feeble re- 
 flection of that reason of God, wiiich is 
 active in communicating itself. There- 
 fore, Sabellius applied what he had said 
 of the creation in general to man in par- 
 ticular, "That we might be created," 
 says he, " the Logos proceeded forth 
 from God [or was begotten,] and no 
 sooner hath it gone forth from God, than 
 behold ! we are in existence.";}; 
 
 For the purpose of redeeming the souls 
 of men that were akin to it, the Divine 
 power of the Logos let itself down into 
 human nature ; and the whole Spiritual 
 personality of the Logos was considered 
 by Sabellius, as a certain hypostatized 
 outbeaming, a peculiar modification of 
 the Divine Logos ! The doctrine of a 
 class of Jewish Theologians, that God 
 sends forth his revealing power, the 
 Logos, from himself, and recalls it to 
 himself again, as the Sun sends forth its 
 beams ; that the appearance of angels, 
 and the Theophanies of the Old Testa- 
 ment, are nothing else than difierent tran- 
 sient ibrms under which this one power 
 of God appeared;§ this theory he applied 
 
 • Epiphan. Hseres. 62. 
 
 ■j" Tov ©Jcv (T/aiTavTa y.i)i aiiVig^ytiTcv, K-J-Kivvth Si 
 la-^vuv. I.e. Athanas. iv. c. 1 1. 
 
 ■f Athanas. iv. 25. ivx >i/jm<: iniaSafAfi', tt^uik- 
 div /c^oc, Ka.t 7re_^oihBovTC,c auTaj to-^w. These 
 words would take a different sense, if they are re- 
 ferred to the xjuvo KTia-K, and are understood of the 
 incarnation of the Logos. But, both from the 
 words themselves, and from the context and the 
 manner in which it is quoted by Athanasius, the 
 most natural interpretation is that given above. 
 
 § Dial. c. Try ph. Jud. 358. As the Light 
 proceeds from the Sun, and returns to it, c-Jto); a 
 Tlu-TUP, oruv S'.vKinan S'vv^/aiv ciutcu T^cTrnSav Trim, 
 
 K'M CTSV ^■.VKhTSU TTUKIV uVslffTiKKa t'n (JLUTOV^ [p. 372. 
 
 Ed. Jebb.— H. J. R.] 
 
DOCTRINES OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 to the Tlieophany in the appearance of j 
 Christ. He made use of the same meta- ' 
 phor, that the Sun was like a beam, that , 
 issued from the Sun, and returned again 
 into God, like the beam to the Sun. 
 
 It may be doubted, whether he used the | 
 name, *' the Son of God,"' merely for the 
 human form under which the Logos ap- ' 
 peared, or whether he applied this name [ 
 to the Xoyof w^oipogixo? on its first origin. [ 
 As he spoke of an original generation of [ 
 the Logos, and was generally willing to ^ 
 take up the expressions used in the 
 Church, it would suit well with his 
 whole theory, to suppose that he would | 
 have no scruple in applying this term, in : 
 the sense which we have observed, to the i 
 Logos.* 
 
 It is farther certain, that Sabellius as- 
 ascribed to the Redeemer no elernalhi- 
 cnduring personality ; but it might be j 
 doubtful, whether he maintained, that : 
 God did not recall again into himself the 
 beam that had proceeded from him, until { 
 the whole work of redemption with all its j 
 consequences (after the general resurrec- 
 tion) was completed, or whether he sup- ] 
 posed that God had taken back to himself j 
 this beam immediately on the ascension 
 of Christ. The words of Sabellius sup- 
 port the first view : "just as the Logos 
 was begotten for our sake, so also, does t 
 he return back again after us, to that , 
 which he was before, so that he may be j 
 what he was,t after we have attained to j 
 the union with God, to which we are des- 
 tined ;" (that is to say, after man through 
 him shall have attained to a Being in 
 God, analogous to the Being of the Logos i 
 in God ;) on the contrary, the account of 
 Epiphanius, who appears also to have 
 had the words of Sabellius before his 
 eyes, especially if we compare it with the 
 doctrines of that Jewish sect, rather sup- 
 ports the second supposition. And there 
 is something quite accordant with the 
 whole Sabellian theory in the idea, that 
 after God, through the sinking down of 
 this one perfect beam into human nature, 
 had again restored this to himself.t he 
 
 • He pronounced an Anathema as^ainat those, 
 who (lid not believe in Father, Son, and Holy 
 Ghost, which he nii^ht do in his own sense 
 of those terms. See Arnobii conflictus cum Sera- 
 pione. Bibl. Patr. Lugd. t. 8. 
 
 I Lib. cit. c. 12. ju& yiuji; uvar^i^uia ii JLtr.Tfg I'-v. 
 
 ^ [The word " dieselijc" here translated "ffiis," 
 grammatically considered, refers to " human na- 
 ture" with which it acp-ees ; but I apprehend it 
 means the " human nature of Christ, with its en- 
 lightening beam of Divine Light." — H. J. R.] 
 
 38t 
 
 should in its stead communicate himself 
 to the individual souls of the faithful 
 through individual separate beams of the 
 same divine Life, by means of the Holy 
 Ghost. The words of Sabellius in Atha- 
 nasius might certainly refer to something 
 else ; namely, they niight mean, that 
 after every thing had been restored to 
 unity with God, the whole Spiritual crea- 
 tion would be in immediate connection 
 with God, and then the Trias would also 
 subside into the Monas, the Myo<; w^o^o- 
 fixof and the Xc,yo<; tviJiaOsro-; : and llien 
 nothing else would exist than the One* 
 simple Divine Being, at repose within 
 itself with the blessed Spirits reposing 
 within him. But wiiat opinion Saljellius 
 mav have held with respect to the en- 
 during personality of souls, we cannot 
 state with any certainty from the defi- 
 ciency of any authentic vouchers.! 
 
 The Church doctrine formed itself in 
 opposition to both these classes of 31 o- 
 narchians, and sought to maintain the 
 substantial [selbstiindig] personal Being 
 of the Logos. While these Monarchians 
 considered the self-revelation of God in 
 the Xoyoi; w^ofpo^ixo?, as only a certain ac- 
 tivity of the JDivine nature, in which the 
 Avhole creation was called into existence ; 
 the Church teachers, on the contrary, 
 supposed a self-revelation of God, pre- 
 ceding the whole creation, and forming 
 the foundation of it : which self-revelation 
 consisted in a Being, emanating from 
 God with the attribute of personality, re- 
 presenting the Divine Being of God, and 
 realizing his first conceived ideas ; this 
 Being was the substantial Word, in which 
 the Divine thouffht came forth into crea- 
 
 • In the tliayyvj^M KdT AiytrrrKv; also, which 
 Sabellius used, the doctrine that all opposites will 
 at last be lost in unity, appears to be brought 
 forward; for there, in answer to the inquiry of 
 Solomon, when the kingdom of Christ was to 
 come ; Christ gives the answer, " when Two be- 
 come One, and the outward like the inward, and 
 the male like the female; when there is no farther 
 distinction of sexes." 
 
 I According to this view, we can understand 
 how Dionysius of Alexandria (Euseb. vii. 6,) 
 might accuse Sabellius of having spoken in- 
 juriously of God the Father (as the expression 
 of the evolution of the Divine Monas into 
 a Trias must have apjicarcd to a follower of 
 Origen,) and of great unbelief in regard to the 
 Logos, who became man (inasmuch as he looked 
 upon Him as only a transient manifestation of 
 Divine power,) and of great insensibility (,.»(Ut. 
 Sxj-ja) in respect to the Holy Ghost (because he 
 denied the reality, and the objectivity of the Holy 
 Ghost, and understood under that name only indi- 
 vidual transient outpourings of Divine power.) 
 
382 
 
 ORIGEN S DOCTRINES. 
 
 tive activity.* They said, " While the 
 word of man is onl)'^ the transient ex- 
 pression of his thought; on the contrary, 
 out of the Supreme and entirely perfect 
 Being, nothing can come forth as his self- 
 revelation (or the first act of the commu- 
 nication of Life iVom God,) which is not 
 substantia!, real, and objective." They 
 conceived to themselves this Logos as the 
 most perfect outpouring of the Divine 
 Being, and they made the doctrine of the 
 unity of God (the (/.ovoc^^tac) to consist in 
 supposing the Divine Logos to be nothing 
 but an outpouring from the Divine First 
 Being [Urwesen,"] who revealed himself 
 through this Logos, and works by means 
 of him. But still by degrees this idea, 
 in the conceptions formed of it, was de- 
 veloped in two different and opposite 
 ways ; the one prevailing in the Western, 
 the other in the Eastern Church. 
 
 In regard to the latter, the fashioning 
 which this doctrine received from the 
 philosophical spirit of the Alexandrian 
 school, and especially of Origen, had a 
 very great influence upon it, and we can- 
 not fail to recognise the influence also, 
 which the system, from which his philo- 
 sophical notions were derived, had exerted 
 upon him. Although the Christian spirit 
 had leavened his speculative ideas, al- 
 though his "God the Father" is some- 
 thing different from the supreme, simple 
 principle of the Neo-Platonists, the of, 
 Avhich was to them a mere abstract idea 
 of perfection, although his Logos is some- 
 thing different from the vovi; of the Neo- 
 Platonist, absorbed in ideal contemplation 
 of itself; yet the speculative form, under 
 which he had viewed things from this 
 philosophy had certainly great effect in 
 modifying his conception of this doctrine. 
 We shall now view the ideas of this pro- 
 found man, in their proper connection 
 with each other. 
 
 That which is to be called God abso- 
 
 * [Lest I should have failed to represent by a ' 
 literal translation the meaning of my author, I 
 will merely state what appears to me to constitute 
 the ditFerence which he wishes to establish be- ' 
 tween these two views. The first considers the 
 creation itself to be the act of this Divine energy of 
 God set into activity, and thus the creation is the 
 only manifestation of the thought of God, and is 
 the Kvyoc !roi<pip;Ko;. The second, on the contrary, 
 maintains that, previous to the creation, and in- 
 dependent of it, there was a manifestation of God, '^ 
 and a conversion of the xt,j.c«c hSuScn', into the 
 T^cycc TTfi-.rp'.piKo;. This Acyoc TrfxpooMX has a per- I 
 sonal existence, and hy means of him God created ! 
 the world.— H. J. R.f I 
 
 j lutely,* is the original source of all being 
 the source of Divine life, and of blessed 
 I ness for a blessed world of spirits which 
 is akin to him, and also elevated by com- 
 munion with him above the bounds of 
 temporary existence, and thus rendered 
 : divine. The higher spirits, in virtue of 
 : this Divine life, communicated to them 
 ^ by means of their communion with that 
 j original Divine Being, may, in a certain 
 sense, be called Divine Beings or Gods.f 
 But as the avTo^eo^ is the original source 
 of all being, and all Divine life, so also 
 is the Acyo;, the indispensable medium 
 through which all communication of life 
 from him must flow. This is the collected 
 revelation of the glory of God, the uni- 
 versal all-embracing image of the glory, 
 from out of which the partial beams of 
 the Divine glory spread themselves over 
 the whole world of Spirits.:]: 
 
 Now as there is only One. Divine 
 First Being.§ there is also, One Divine 
 First Reason, II the Absolute Reason, 
 through which alone the eternal Supreme 
 Being reveals himself to all other beings, 
 which is the source of truth to all them, 
 the objective subtantial truth itself. With 
 Origen it is a great point to maintain 
 firmly, that every particular class of rea- 
 sonable beings has not its own subjective 
 reason, nor every separate intelligence; 
 but that there is one objective Logos for 
 all, just as there is one objective absolute 
 truth for all, the one truth of God-con- 
 sciousness, which unites man with all 
 classes in the world of Spirits. " Every 
 one," he says, " will concede that truth 
 is One, and in respect of truth, no one 
 can venture to say, that there is one truth 
 of God, another truth of angels, another 
 of men ; for in the nature of things there 
 is One truth only in respect to every 
 single thing. But now if truth is One, so 
 must also the development of truth, which 
 is wisdom, if thought of properly, be 
 thought of as One also; because every 
 false appearance of wisdom embraces not 
 the truth, and does not deserve to be called 
 wisdom. But if there be then One truth 
 and one wisdom, the Logos which reveals 
 the truth ami wisdom to all who are ca- 
 pable of receiving it, will be One also." 
 But although the Logos as to his nature 
 and being, is absolutely One; yet he pre- 
 sents himself under a variety of forms 
 
 * The awAojc flfjf, eturcBlos. 
 
 ■j" ^STO^l) TK iKflVCV di.rtircf BtOTTOIOV/UiVOI. 
 
 i .loh. li. c. ii. 32 ; 
 
 § The ctuTcflMf. 
 
 18. 
 
 11 The nuToKoyo;. 
 
ORIGEN ON THE LOGOS. 
 
 and modes of operation, according to the 
 different conditions and necessities of rea- 
 sonable beings, to whom he is every 
 thing, wliich is needful for their salvation, 
 (see above.) Wliere tlie Gnostics, from 
 the different modes of operation of the 
 One Redeemer, and according to the dif- 
 ferent conditions of his operations, sup- 
 posed different hypostases, Origen re- 
 duced these diiferent hypostases to differ- 
 ent conceptions and relations; but just 
 as he opposed this fasliion of hypostatiz- 
 ing every thing, so he opposed himself 
 also to the Monarchians who reduced the 
 whole Trias (or Trinity) only to different 
 conceptions and relations under wliich 
 the One Divine Being is vievved. Who- 
 soever denied tlie subtantial existence of | 
 the Divine Logos, appeared to him to re- j 
 duce every thing into that which is sub- 
 jective, to deny tlie existence of an abso- : 
 lute objective truth, and to make it a mere 
 abstract idea [abslracfiun^] for he could \ 
 not think of the Divine Logos in any : 
 otlier way, tlian as he had been accus- 
 tomed to think of the novi of the Neo- 
 Platonists. " None of us," says Origen, ! 
 c. Cels. viii. 12, " has so debased a mind, 
 as to think that the Being of truth* had 
 no subsumtial existence before the appear- 
 ance of Christ on earth." 
 
 As Origen explained all designations 
 of the Logos as symbolical, he looked 
 upon the name Logos in this light, and | 
 he spoke against those, who built exclu- j 
 sively upon this name, and made the com- ! 
 parison w-ith ihe ^o7o; Trpopopixo? always j 
 applicable, which to him, as a philo- i 
 sophical thinker, appeared too human, 
 and one which would not allow the 
 Logos to be represented as something 
 having a substantial existence.| The re- 
 presentation which up to this time had 
 been current : that God before the crea- 
 tion had caused the substantial Word to 
 emanate from his Reason, in which he 
 had conceived the plan of the world, 
 which was to be executed by the Word, 
 and that he had caused his thought to 
 become the Word, was banished, together 
 with that comparison by the philosophical 
 spirit of Origen ; because he could not 
 allow the propriety of transferring in this 
 manner the relations of time to the Eter- 
 nal. Acknowledging no beginning of j 
 
 fx'.u K'jy.'i (iyihi^y -if. 44. 1. oio^stu/ 7rg;<?og-xi' 7tx- 
 rejxjii/ ilivit iv trjKKoi8xji Kii/maio ilvut rot Tuv tow 
 
 383 
 
 creation, but supposing an eternal crea- 
 I tion, he could still less acknowledge a 
 beginning in tliis case, and he endeavoured 
 to remove every consideration of lime 
 from the idea of the generation of the 
 Logos, and to maintain that we must 
 think of a " present," without any deter- 
 mination of time, [lU. a timeless present; 
 an eternal now,] which he believed to he 
 intimated in the '' to-day" of Ps. ii. 7. 
 What the Platonists said of the relation 
 of the iv to the »oy,', tliat the revelation of 
 the former in tlie latter is contempora- 
 neously co-existent with the former, he 
 applied to the relation of God the Father 
 to the Logos, that the reffection of the 
 glory of God in the Son is co-existent 
 with its own existence ; and thus, that 
 always this redeclion had been present 
 with the glory after a manner, which 
 is indepeiuleiit upon time.* And thus 
 he was peculiarly instrumental in esta- 
 blishing the notion of an eternal gene- 
 ration. 
 
 While Origen endeavoured to conceive 
 the idea of the generation of the Son 
 after the most spiritual manner possible, 
 he declared himself strongly against all 
 sensuous conceptions of it, and against 
 all such expressions as might give occa- 
 sion to, or favour them at all. On this 
 account he rejected the phrase of a gene- 
 ration out of the substance of the Fatlier.t 
 (which, on the contrary, was used in the 
 western Church, in order to distinguish 
 the Son of God from all creatures,) be- 
 cause this expression, it appeared to him, 
 might easily be used to favour the notion 
 of a sensuous partition of the Divine 
 Being.J 
 
 As the idea of a generation out of the 
 
 * Joh. i. 32. T. ii. c. I ; ii. 9. In Jerein. iii. 
 181. 
 
 t ymiirii: Ik th: o'jtix; tm Qi-.u- 
 
 i In opposition to those, who falsely explained 
 the pa-ssage of St. John viii. 44, of the generation 
 of the Son. T. 20, Joli. c. 16. Ckku it ry j--«\9;k 
 UT3 ©i.u, SiMy)i^t.tro uVT/ T',v yiyiyxu-u .(T3 tcu e)s;w, w'f 
 LKcA.ci/5a ix T«c <,-j<rn.: <i3.TKiiv tco FlxTgic yr)Bi»>ir&n 
 t;v Tm, oiovu fA.U:u.ii:u ku Xi.'TiVTic Tii si/x«i, » 
 TT^iri^'jt sl^f S:.yuu.Tn OvSe^wTut juvf cvi^ •fjrir .i:j3t- 
 T;y K-u uircufjurzt 7rijiitvru3-/ui.!sav. In the re|)ort of 
 a discussion between ()ri£;en ami CanJiJus the 
 Valcntinian, a passaf^e occurred in which the for- 
 mer attacked an expression made use of by the 
 more ancient Church doctors, as Justin, for ex- 
 ample, (viz. a ^^-^jkii tK TKf oia-iti; t'.v t*t^'-c,) 
 without any scruple, — nc Deus Pater divi.latur in 
 partes, and, on the contrary, in order to remove 
 the idea of a necessity resultint; from the na- 
 ture of thitii^s, he maintained that the S)n of 
 God had received his existence from the will 
 of the Father. Lib. ii. adv. Rutin, t. iv. 1 13. 
 
384 
 
 substance {lit. the Being) of God ap- 
 peared to Origen to be too sensuous, 
 it was also a concomitant of this caution 
 on his part, that he thouglit it entirely 
 necessary to maintain strictly the absolute 
 superiority of God the Father the avro- 
 6ioc. in respect to his nature, over every 
 other Being, just as he had, indeed, been 
 accustomed as a Platonist, to consider 
 the ov as something incomparable with 
 any thing else, and as elevated in his na- 
 ture, even above the ^oy? itself. Jt ap- 
 peared to him, therefore, injurious towards 
 the Great First Being, to suppose any 
 equality of nature or unity between him 
 and any other Being, were it even the Son 
 of God himself. As the Son of God and 
 the Holy Ghost are incomparably elevated 
 above every thing else, even above the 
 highest grades of the spiritual world ; so 
 much, or more than this, is the Father 
 elevated above him.* This distinction 
 between the nature of the Son of God, 
 and of the Fatherj would necessarily be 
 brought prominently forward by Origen 
 against the Monarchians, because they 
 denied not only the difference of nature, 
 but even the distinction of the persons; 
 and thus, on account of the connected 
 nature of his philosophical and Christian 
 system it was a point of practical import- 
 ance to Origen to maintain against them 
 the personal substantiality of the Logos. 
 Sometimes, in the course of this con- 
 troversy, he distinguishes between unity 
 of nature and a personal unity, or unity 
 of substance [subjects-einheit, lit.suhjcct- 
 or substance- unity] so that he only under- 
 takes to controvert the latter idea.J This 
 was the matter which was practically the 
 most important to him to maintain, and 
 he must liave been well aware that many 
 Church-teachers, who held a distinction 
 of persons, at the same time maintained 
 an unity of nature.§ But in virtue of 
 the intimate connection of his own sys- 
 tem, as a system, both these opinions 
 would give way together, and when he 
 spoke as from the position taken by that 
 system, he maintained both the Ite^otj)? 
 T5?? oiiffiK^ and the ereporrn t>j<; inroa-raaici^ 
 
 or TOU iTTOKEJfAEVOU.jl 
 
 GENERATION OUT OF SUBSTANCE. 
 
 • T. 13. Job. c. 25. 
 
 ■(- The doctrine of an sts^otxc a»c oia-ixi; main- 
 tained in opposition to that of the i/ucuvi-iov. 
 ■^ T. 10. Joh. against those who said iv cu 
 
 fJlCVOV CU^l:l C'XX-X KiJ CtcKSI fAiVCfi Tiry'Jf^'^Vil u/U!pOTiecv:' 
 
 § [Wesen-cinhcit, oneness of being. See Wil- 
 son on the New Testament, p. 521. — H. .f. R.] 
 II In Joh. ii. t. ii. Do Oral. c. 15. nctr' oh<nnv 
 
 From this doctrine he drew the prac- 
 tical consequence, that we must pray to 
 the Father and not to the Son, from which 
 it is clear, how much in a Christian and 
 practical point of view, the Patripassians 
 (whom Origen accused of knowing only 
 the Son, and being unable to raise them- 
 selves up to the Father) must have thought 
 themselves obliged to exert themselves 
 against such a system. But still Clirist 
 was, nevertheless, to Origen, as he himself 
 declared, with full conviction from the 
 connection of his philosophical and 
 Christian system, the way, the truth, and 
 the life ; he knew no other way to the 
 Father, no other source of truth, and of 
 Divine life for all creatures, than him, 
 " the mirror, by means of which Paul 
 and Peter, and all who are like to them, 
 beheld God."* He says, that in some 
 respects, we may agree with the Gnostics, 
 tliat the Father was not revealed before 
 Christ revealed him, that men till that 
 time, had known only the Creator and the 
 Lord of the world, and that it was 
 through the Son that they had first 
 known him as their Father, and by the 
 spirit of adoption received from him, had 
 become capable of calling to him as to a 
 father.f He acknowledged him to be 
 the mediator, a confidence in whom must 
 penetrate the whole inward life of Chris- 
 tians and unite them with God, in his 
 name and through him. Christians must 
 always pray to God the Father. Origen 
 says, " How can we in the sense of him, 
 who said, ' Why dost thou call me good, 
 there is none good, save only God the 
 Father;' avoid saying also, ' Why dost 
 thou pray to me } thou must pray only to 
 the Father, to whom I also pray I' As 
 ye have learned from Holy Scripture, ye 
 must not pray to him who is appointed 
 by the Father to be your high priest, and 
 who has received from your Father the 
 office of being your advocate ; but you 
 must pray through your high priest and 
 your advocate, through him wlio can 
 have sympathy with your feebleness, who 
 was in all things tempted like unto you, 
 but by the gift of the Father without sin. 
 Learn also what a gift ye have received 
 from my Father, by reccivitig througli a 
 new birth in me the spirit of adoption, so 
 as to be called the sons of God, and my 
 brethren."! -^"*^ ^'^"^ ^''^"^^ *^^^ grounds 
 already pointed, as we see, by Origen, a 
 controversy arose against the doctrine, 
 
 • T. 13. Joh. c. 25. t T, 19. Joh. 1. iv. 286. 
 t De Oral. c. 15. 
 
COUNCIL AT ANTIOCH. 
 
 that the Son of God was hpgotten of the 
 Father, and against tliat of an unity of 
 nature between them both, from -wliicli 
 controversy, an opposition was afterwards 
 to arise between tlie eastern and the west- 
 ern Churches ; for in the latter of these 
 Churclies, the doctrine of one Divine 
 Being in tliree numerically ditfcrent per- 
 sons, was already become predominant. 
 
 When we compare Origen and Tertul- 
 lian together, we learn liow the concep- 
 tion of tlie same Christian truth may be 
 formed differently in persons, according 
 to the diiference of their spiritual cha- 
 racter and education. TertuUian accus- 
 tomed to sensible representations of the 
 Supreme Being, could not find the difli- 
 culties, which met the philosophizing 
 Origen. With his sensuous notions of 
 emanation, he could easily make it clear 
 to himself, how tlie Divinity could cause 
 a being to proceed out of his own sub- 
 stance, which possessed this same sub- 
 stance, only in a smaller decree, and bore 
 the same relation to the Divinity that the 
 sunbeam does to tlie sun. Hence, he 
 acknowledged one Divine Being in three 
 persons intimately united together.* 
 
 The Son [according to this view] does 
 not differ in number from the Father in 
 relation to the Divine Nature, inasmuch 
 as the same Nature of God is in the Son 
 also; but he differs in degree, inasmuch 
 as he is a smaller portion of the common 
 whole of the Divine Being.f This be- 
 came the prevailing view in the Western 
 Church; viz. one and the same Divine 
 Nature in the Father and the Son; but a 
 subordination withal in the relation of 
 the Son to the Father. But while tlie 
 interior Christian life impelled men con- 
 stantly to make the distinction between 
 Christ and all creatures, always more and 
 more sharply defined, and while on the 
 other hand the idea of the Unity of God 
 was constantly more and more definitely 
 conceived, particularly by the spirit of 
 the western people, so the notions of this 
 subordination would necessarily be more 
 driven into the background. 
 
 Tlie form of doctrine, which had formed 
 itself in the Alexandrian school, was now 
 again brought more prominently forward 
 in the second half of the third century, 
 during the controversy against the sys- 
 tems of Sabellius, and of Paul of Samo- 
 
 385 
 
 sata. In the controversy against the latter, 
 the expression ofjLoovTtiv was condemned 
 by a council at Antioch,* a circumstance 
 wiiich is of importance as an introduction 
 to the controversies of the next century."]" 
 We see already the seed of a contro- 
 versy between the system of Origen, and 
 the system of the UnityJ in Trinity, which 
 was constantly becoming more strongly 
 defined in the Romish Church, and a 
 protype of the doctrinal controversies 
 of the fourth century, Dionysius, the 
 bishop of Alexandria, issued a pastoral 
 letter against the doctrines of Sabenius,§ 
 which were spreading themselves abroad 
 in the province of Pentapolis, a district, 
 the churches of which were under the 
 superintendence of the bishop of Alex- 
 andria. In this letter in contradiction to 
 the Sabcllian confusion of persons [hy- 
 postases] he brought forward in conse- 
 quence of that heresy tlie difference be- 
 tween the Son of God and the Father still 
 more strongly, and made use of many 
 inappropriate comparisons, and hard ex- 
 pressions, which he would not probably 
 have used, if he had not been carried to 
 extremes by means of this contrast be- 
 tween the two systems, and which miglit 
 be so understood, as if he acknowledged 
 no essential difference of nature between 
 the Son of God and created beings, and 
 as if he ascribed a temporal commence- 
 ment of existence to the Son ; he declared 
 himself against the word Hoinousioti. 
 j\Iany, who were offended by the expres- 
 sions he used, complained of them to 
 Dionysius, the bishop of Rome, who 
 thereupon issued a letter, in which he 
 contradicted those who denied the unity 
 of nature in the Trinity [Trias,] who 
 placed the Son of God in the rank of a 
 creature, and assigned him a beginning 
 of existence in time, as well as the Sabel- 
 
 * Una substantia in trilius cohaerentibas. 
 ■j- Dcus de Deo, modulo alter, nou numero. 
 Adv. Praxeam. 
 
 49 
 
 * See e. g. Athanas. de Synod. § 43, and 
 Hilar, de Synodis, § 86. 
 
 "t" As this may be explained so naturally by the 
 doctrinal conceptions of the Aloxaiulrian school, 
 and also the ground brought fonvard by the coun- 
 cil against this expression of the Church is quite 
 in accordance with this, this account has hence, 
 an a priori probability. The Arians, from whom 
 it comes, are, however, suspicious witnesses in 
 this respect; but the circumstance that neither 
 Athanasius, Hilary of Poictiors, nor B.xsil of (^a;- 
 sarca, their bitter opponents, who quote from their 
 mouths, contradict them in the matter, may pass 
 as a voucher for its credibility. 
 
 t [Wesenseinheit. Literally, Unity of Being, 
 or nature. — H. J. H.] 
 
 § The lctt3r to Ammonius and Nicanor. 
 
 2K 
 
386 
 
 lians. If Dionysius of Alexandria (who 
 would easily be able to show that people 
 had fastened too severely on single ex- 
 pressions of his, instead of explaining 
 these expressions according to a general 
 view of his ideas) had at once maintained 
 obstinately his opposition to the doctrine 
 of the Roman Church, and had proclaimed 
 these points of difterence more definitely, 
 this would have sounded a tocsin to a 
 contest of doctrines, in which the Eastern 
 and Western church might possibly have 
 taken part. But Dionysius acted in the 
 spirit of moderation, which held fast what 
 is material, and avoided contests on in- 
 comprehensible Divine things; a modera- 
 tion which had passed from the great 
 Origen to his worthy scholar. Without 
 manifesting any resentment against his 
 accusers, who had appealed to a foreign 
 bishop, who was glad enough to set him- 
 self up as a judge over other churches, 
 without manifesting any resentment to- 
 wards the latter himself [the bishop of 
 Rome,] who appears to have spoken more 
 in the tone of a judge, than in that of a col- 
 league in the office of bishop, he developed 
 with composure and sound thought, the 
 meaning of his expressions which had 
 been misunderstood, and endeavoured 
 while doing this, to avoid as much as 
 possible any opposition to the Roman 
 doctrine. He supplied also, according to 
 the mode of Origen, what was requisite 
 to complete the idea of the eternal gene- 
 ration of the Logos. He was willing even 
 to allow the validity of the word ot^oivaiav^ 
 as far as it was applied only to denote 
 the affinity of nature between the Father 
 and the Son, and to separate the Son from 
 all creatures, although he might say 
 against it, that this word had hitherto 
 never been in use in the Church, and did 
 not occur in the Holy Scriptures: which, 
 however, it must be acknowledged, is not 
 a satisfactory objection to make to a doc- 
 trinal expression: because the changes 
 wiiich take place in the general develop- 
 ment of mind in a doctrinal point of view, 
 and new errors arising in it, may render 
 new expressions necessary; and because 
 the only point of any importance here is, 
 that the idea, which the doctrinal expres- 
 sion is to denote, can be deduced from 
 the Scriptures. By this self-denial of 
 Dionysius (in which he showed more of 
 the spirit of Christ, and did more to 
 honour him, than if he had maintained 
 the unity of nature by dialectic rules,) 
 the controversy was put aside, and a divi- 
 sion, which miffht have torn asunder the 
 
 THE HOLY SPIRIT. 
 
 bond of Christian communion, was thus 
 avoided.* 
 
 It will appear from what we have re- 
 marked above, that the development of 
 the doctrine of the Holy Ghost is closely 
 connected with that of the Son of God. 
 We see also here, how completely reli- 
 gion is a thing of life, before it can obtain 
 for itself an adequate form of develop- 
 ment in definite conceptions, and we see 
 the want of correspondence which must 
 arise between the inward life and con- 
 science, and the conceptions of the mind, 
 until Christianity has penetrated the 
 whole of man's nature. In that age of 
 the first outpouring of the Holy Ghost on 
 human nature, while the new life com- 
 municated by Christ to human nature, 
 the life in communion with God, was 
 felt so powerfully, and while its ope- 
 rations against the corrupted heathen 
 world were so strongly marked there 
 were generally wanting ideas of ii,, cor- 
 responding to the nature of that Spirit, 
 whose power was felt to be Divine. 
 
 The Church-teachers, in virtue of the 
 modes of mental conception in those 
 days, could not (if we except the Monar- 
 chians above mentioned and Lactantius)"*" 
 maintain the reality and objective exist- 
 ence of the Holy Ghost in any other way 
 than by representing it to themselves as a 
 personal substantial being. They were 
 therefore, compelled by their system of 
 subordination, to consider the Holy Ghost 
 as a being subordinate both to the Father 
 and the Son. Justin Blartyr, for ex- 
 ample, who certainly spoke with a just 
 interior experience of that, wliicli the 
 Holy Ghost is for the interior life of the 
 Christian ; calls him "the angel of God, 
 the power of God sent to us through 
 .Tesus Christ, which defends them [Chris- 
 tians,] from the assaults of the evil spirit, 
 and compels him to leave them."J With 
 
 * See the fragments of the letter of Dionysius 
 to Ammonius and Eu[)hraaor, and of the second 
 letter under the title, 6X?),;^oc xa< uiTroK'.yfL: ia 
 Athanasius dc Sentenlia Dionysii et de Decretis 
 Synodi NicenfE. 
 
 •j- Who appears to have declared the Holy 
 Ghost to be the sanctifying power of the Father 
 and the Son, " cum vel ad I'atrem referri vel ad 
 Filium ; et sanctifieationem utriusque personae 
 sub ejus nomine demonstrari." See Hieionym. 
 ep. 41. ad Pamach. et Ooeanum. 
 
 I Dialog, c. Tryph. .lud. .344. o cyyfKK tou 
 ©set/, TOUT '((Tjiv ti Suvu/uk; tcu ©s;u m irf/u^OiaiL ti/uiv 
 Siu. 'lucriu Xgia-Ti,v, irntuu. a/yrm k*i u/^ivmTua 
 a<^' ifxcey. This affords a key to the passage 
 in the Apolog. ii. ed. Colon, p. 56, which is 
 often found diiBcult ; " we reverence the Son of 
 
DOCTRINE CONCERNING HUMAN NATURE. 
 
 387 
 
 a jiiPt Christian view [Anschauung,] also, 
 Oiigen calls the Holy Ghost — as the 
 source of the Divine life communicated 
 to the Christian, which, penetrating and 
 sanctifying the natures of men, although 
 according to its nature it be One, still re- 
 veals itself in manifold ways in the mani- 
 fold qualities of human nature, and shows 
 itself efficient in acting upon them — " the 
 substance of all gifts and graces effected 
 by God, and communicated through 
 Christ, as something substantial in the 
 Holy Ghost." According to his system 
 of subordination, which is of importance 
 for the development of the doctrine of 
 the Greek Church in the following period 
 the Holy Ghost is in his view, the first 
 Being [or nature, Wesen,] produced by 
 God the Father, through the Son. In this 
 respect also the Unity system was already 
 brought more prominently forward in the 
 Western Church during the last years of 
 this period, especially in the letter of 
 Diony*:ius the bishop of Rome to his 
 namesake of Alexandria. (See above.) 
 
 From the 'Doctrines relating to God' 
 (Theology in the more confined sense of 
 the word) we pass to the Doctrines which 
 relate to the nature of man (Anthropo- 
 logy;) two classes of doctrines which 
 stand together in close connection, when 
 conceived after that mode of viewing them 
 which belongs exclusively to Christianity, 
 just as both of them receive their pro- 
 perly Christian character and significance, 
 by their peculiar relation to the Doctrine 
 of Redemption, the centre point of Chris- 
 tianity. 
 
 The Doctrine of Redemption, while it 
 is indissolubly connected with one mode 
 of viewing human nature, is essentially 
 contradictory to other modes. It neces- 
 sarily presupposes the recognition of tiie 
 truth, that human nature stands in need 
 of redemption, and hence, that there exists 
 a schism and discord in it, and an es- 
 trangement of it from God, through com- 
 munion with whom alone it can be ren- 
 dered blessed. It stands in contradiction 
 to the stoic view of the moral self-suffi- 
 ciency of man, as well as to lliat heathen 
 view of nature, which removed the oppo- 
 sition between sin and the holiness of God, 
 and deduced evil from the natural organi- 
 zation of man, or from the influence of a 
 blind destiny. Christianity, therefore, ne- 
 
 God, anil all the host of the other arfiels which 
 follow Him, as especially the Holy Ghost;" ns 
 this! lust is rankcil among antjcls, although consi- 
 dered to be elevated above all others. 
 
 cessarily introduced with itself a new 
 point of view for the consideration of 
 human nature, and this point of view was 
 to be maintained against those conceptions 
 of it previously in existence. Christianity 
 directed the attention of the thoughtful 
 to the struggle [Zwiespalt, division] be- 
 tween good and evil in human nature, 
 from which that nature must be set free, 
 and to such inquiries as the following : 
 '• Whence this struggle arose ? whence 
 did evil originally come ? and how is it to 
 be considered in respect to the holiness 
 of the Creator ?" And in the case of manjj 
 men (see the Gnostics as described above,) 
 even before this time speculation had 
 taken the turn to those inquiries, in con- 
 sequence of. the desire that had been 
 awakened for some solution of the enig- 
 mas of the course of nature ; and in con- 
 sequence of the perception of the dis- 
 harmony that exists, and the feeling of 
 commiseration for man's misery, that had 
 already been excited. 
 
 Christianity united Anthropology with 
 the Doctrines that relate to the nature of 
 Spirits (Pneumatology.) inasmuch as it 
 ascribed to man the same reasonable and 
 moral nature, and the same destination, as 
 to all the spirits of a high order; it re- 
 presented man, on the one hand, as the 
 companion of a race of holy and blessed 
 Spirits in a world to which he belongs, 
 even while here below, in virtue of his 
 inward life ; while on the other hand, it 
 threw back the origin of moral evil on 
 this very world of Spirits, by the doctrine 
 of a fallen Spirit of a higher order, from 
 whom at first the origin of sin proceeded. 
 This latter representation was of practical 
 import£ince, in estjiblisliing the doctrinal 
 view of sin, inasmuch as by means of it, 
 a more express and direct contrast might 
 be presented against the important error 
 of the moral judgment, which deduced 
 evil from the mere nature of the senses, 
 and from the natural organization of man. 
 
 The Gnostics, however, did not merely 
 neglect the practical and Christian view 
 in their union between Anthropologv and 
 Pneumatology, Iiut tlioy rather lost sight 
 of it entirely in tlieir idle speculations. 
 We observed before (see above,) how 
 their theories, intended to reconcile the 
 holiness of God with tiie actual presence 
 of evil, necessarily disparaged alike the 
 holiness and the omnipotence of God. and 
 tended altogether to remove (he notion of 
 evil, which they traced finally up to a 
 necessity arising from the nature of 
 things. The Christian doctrine of Satan's 
 
388 
 
 NORTH AFRICAN AND ALEXANDRIAN VIEWS CONTRASTED. 
 
 influence, &c., lost with them its whole 
 characteristic importance; because in their 
 estimation, Satan was nothing more than 
 a mere natural power, tlie culminating 
 point of the power of the 'Y^»j, which re- 
 sisted every Divine influence. 
 
 In contradiction to the Gnostics, the 
 Church-teachers were especially con- 
 cerned to show, that evil was no neces- 
 sary result of the composition of nature, 
 but had its origin in the freewill of 
 beings, created by God for good, and also 
 that there were no natures either essen- 
 tianly wicked in consequence of their de- 
 rivation from one source, or essentially 
 good in consequence of their derivation 
 from another; but that in consequence of 
 their derivation, equal moral capabilities 
 ■were present in all, and the use or neglect 
 of them was wholly dependent on the 
 freewill of the individual. There was no 
 need, in arguing against the Gnostics, to 
 prove, in the first instance, that human 
 jiature had been defiled by some element 
 foreign to it; but on the contrary, the 
 first point to make good against them 
 was, that this foreign admixtuie could not 
 have utterly destroyed man's freewill. 
 Upon the whole, the Church-teachers 
 agreed unanimously in maintaining both 
 tlie freewill of man, as a necessary con- 
 dition for the existence of any morality, 
 without which there could be no right- 
 eous judgment on the part of God and 
 also in maintaining, at the same time, the 
 necessity of Divine grace for the moral 
 reformation of human nature. The accu- 
 rate investigation of the mutual relation 
 between these two things, was yet far 
 from this period; but still, amiclst this 
 agreement in essentials, two tendencies in 
 the development of the doctrines per- 
 taining to these points, which recede from 
 each other, are nevertheless, to be found, 
 when we compare the doctrines of the 
 Nortli African and the Alexandrian teach- 
 ers with each other. 
 
 The formation of the North African 
 system of Church doctrine proceeded 
 from TertuUian. He received from the 
 then existing Church doctrines the idea, 
 that the first man, as he was created by 
 God, had every capability of manifesting 
 the image of God through his spiritual 
 and moral nature ; but that these capa- 
 bilities were still undeveloped. Their 
 development depended on the freewill of 
 man. The nature of man was pure 
 enough that no obstruction was ofl'ered to 
 the influence of God upon it ; through 
 communion with God human nature 
 
 ] would have been constantly more and 
 more ennobled and refined, and would 
 have been enabled to attain to a partici- 
 pation in a divine and imperishable life, 
 so that it would have been forever re- 
 moved out of the dominions of death. 
 But, by'means of the first sin, which con- 
 sisted in man's not subjecting his will to 
 the will of God, but opposing it,* man 
 stepped out of this communion with God, 
 and thus became subjected to the mastery 
 of sinfulness and perishableness."f As 
 the harmony between the Divine and the 
 human will entailed as its consequence a 
 harmony between all the parts of human 
 nature ; so the rent between the Divine 
 and the human will introduced a rent in 
 the li'hoh nature of man. Connection 
 with an ungodly Spirit took the place of 
 connection with the Spirit of God. The 
 Father of the race of men communicated 
 tlie Spirit of this world [Ufa-ally, the 
 world-spirit,] to all his descendants.^ 
 
 But Tertullian's theory about th& mode 
 of propagating this first element of de- 
 struction to the nature of man, was pecu- 
 liar to himself, and connected with his 
 theory, of the propagation of souls. In 
 fact, he thought that original forefather of 
 the race bore within himself the unde- 
 veloped seed of all mankind ; that the 
 soul of the first man was the source of 
 all other human souls, and that all the 
 qualities of human nature were only 
 manifold modifications of that one spi- 
 ritual substance. § (This is a point of 
 view, which, although it was conceived 
 in sensuous images by TertuUian, who 
 could not think of any thing except 
 through the medium of images drawn 
 from the senses, was not necessarily con- 
 nected with sensuous views.) Hence, 
 the whole nature of man became cor- 
 rupted in our first forefather, and sinful- 
 ness was propagated together with the 
 souls of men. II 
 
 TertuUian was, in like manner, imbued 
 with the conviction of the sinfulness that 
 adhered to man's nature, and also the 
 conviction of man's nature being unde- 
 niably akin to God ; and that it was ex- 
 pressly in contrast to this latter element 
 of his nature, that sin manifested itself as 
 
 * Electio suffi polius quam divinse sententirc. 
 
 ■j- Among the Fathers of this period Ijoth of 
 these notions were included in the idea of <fifl:§a : 
 just the opposite term a<|>9«?(ri« with them signi- 
 fied divine, imperishable, and holy life. 
 
 ■^ Spiritum mundi universo generi suo tradidit. 
 
 § l)e anima, c. 10, and c. 19. 
 
 II Tradux animse, tradux peccati. 
 
tertullian's anthropology. 
 
 3S9 
 
 sin. " Tlie corruption of man's nature," 
 he says,* " is a second nature, whicli has 
 its own God and Father; namely, the 
 author of this corruption himself; but 
 still in such a way that good is also pre- 
 sent in the soul, that original Divine and 
 genuine [Good] which is properly natural 
 to it. For that which is from God is not 
 so much extinguished as dimmed. For 
 it may be dimmed, because it is not God, 
 but it cannot be extinguished, because it 
 is from God. Wherefore, as Light, which 
 is obstructed, nevertheless remains, but 
 does not appear, if the obstruction is suf- 
 liciently dense, so also the good which is 
 in the soul, being oppressed by the evil, 
 in conformity to its own peculiar nalure,t 
 either remains entirely inactive, while its 
 Light remains hidden, or when it finds its 
 freedom, shines out where an opportu- 
 nity is given. Thus some are very good 
 and some are very wicked, and j'ct all 
 souls are one race ; and also in the very 
 worst there is something of good, and in 
 the very best something of wickedness, for 
 God alone is without sin, and Christ is the 
 only man wholly sinless, for Christ is 
 also God. The Divine nature of the 
 soul breaks forth into anticipations in 
 consequence of its original goodness, and 
 its God-consciousness delivers a testimony. 
 . . . . Therefore, no soul is Avithout guilt, 
 because none is without the seed of good." 
 He considered every part and power of 
 man's nature as the work of God, as 
 something intrinsically good; and hence, 
 all tliat is contrary to reason in it, only 
 as the consequence of that first rent pro- 
 duced in man by transgression ; and he ac- 
 knowledged the justice of Plato's division 
 of the soul into the Xoyjxov and uXoyon, 
 not in reference to the original nature of 
 man ; but only in regard to it in a state of 
 corruption.:]: 
 
 • De Anima, c. 41. 
 
 •j- [Ita boniim in anima a malo oppressnm, pro 
 quulitnte ejus, aut in totum vacat, occultala luce, 
 aut qua datur radial, inventa lil>ertate. 
 
 So auch ist das von dem Bosen, wie dfssen 
 e/i^en(humliches We.se?} mlt sich bringf, unter- 
 driicktcGute in der Secic ganz wirkungslos, &c. 
 
 It would seem, although it is rather ambiguous, 
 from this, that Neander refers pro qualilafe ejus 
 to the nature of evil, as opposed to good, and op- 
 pressing it where it can ; but (if Kigali's reading is 
 correct,) it seems to nie to belong to ii;iH)d, which 
 being like light in its nature, sulFers either partial 
 or entire obscuration.] 
 
 % Ue Anima, 16. Naturale enim rationale 
 crcdeiidum est, quod aniinaj a primordio sit in- 
 gcnitum a ntlioni/li videlicet auctore ; irrationale 
 autem poslcrius intcUigendum, ipsum iilud trans- 
 
 With regard to liie Gnostic doctrme of 
 essential dilFerence in the natures of men, 
 in consequence of which they maintained 
 that no Pneinnaticus [or Spiritual man] 
 could be formed from a llylicus or 
 Choicus [a man of a low, material or 
 earthly nature] or vice versa — Terlullian 
 contrasted with this doctrine the omnipo- 
 tence of grace, and the changeableness of 
 the hinnan will. When the Gnostics ap- 
 pealed to the declaration of Ciirist, tiiat 
 no good tree brings forth evil fruit, and 
 no evil tree good fruit, Tertullian an- 
 swered them thus,* " If this be so, then 
 God cannot raise up children to Abraham 
 out of stones, nor could the generations 
 of vipers bring forth fruits of repentance, 
 and the apostle was in error when he 
 wrote as follows: ' Jlnd we loo once were 
 darkness^ and we also once were Ike chil- 
 dren of wrath, among whom yc were once 
 also, but ye are washed.^ Ikit can the 
 declarations of the Holy S()irit stand in 
 contradiction to each other } No ! for 
 the evil tree will never bring fortli good 
 fruit, tmlil it he grafed, and the good tree 
 will produce evil fruit, if it be not culti- 
 vated ; and the stones will become the 
 •children of Abraham, when tliey are 
 Aishioned into the faith of Abraham, and 
 the generation of vipers will bring forth 
 the fruits of repentance, when they have 
 vomited out the poison of wickedness. 
 This, the grace of God may eiU^ct, which 
 is certainly more powerful than nature, 
 and to which the freewill of man is sub- 
 ordinate in us But as this will is 
 
 also a part of our nature, and changeable, 
 withersoever it turns, thither our nature 
 leads us also." This remarkable passage 
 may be taken by some, as if Tertullian 
 ascribed to grace an irresistible and at- 
 tractive power in reference to the cor- 
 rupted will of man ; and it might be said, 
 that he maintained the freewill of man 
 only in opposition to the doctrine of a 
 necessity of fate, and against the opinion 
 of an entire moral incapacity in ceriain 
 natures : but that he did not maintain it 
 in reference to the nature-reforming prin- 
 ciple of grace. Montanism might easdy 
 lead to this result, that the overpowering 
 influence of die Divine nature should be 
 exairgerated, and the freewill of man 
 made onlv a blind passive instrument. 
 But still tliis view would be by no means 
 
 gressionis admissum atque (quod) exinde inolfl- 
 verit in anima, ad insLir j.un naturuliUtis, quia 
 statim in nnturic primordio acccdit. 
 • De Anima, c 21. 
 
 2k2 
 
390 
 
 ORIGEN'S VIEWS. 
 
 supported by the context, according to 
 which Tertullian only wishes to make 
 out, that grace by its Divine influence on 
 our corrupted nature, in virtue of its free- 
 will can communicate to it a higher power 
 than that which resides in itself; and we 
 are bound to take that explanation, which 
 best accords with the rest of Teriullian's 
 declaration about freewill. And even 
 supposing that Montanism necessarily 
 exalts especially the doctrine of Divine 
 grace, yet the doctrine of an irresistible 
 grace is any thing but established by it, 
 [Montanism,] for the very circumstance 
 that Montanism attributes such an influ- 
 ence to the case of prophets only, proves 
 that it does not maintain it in ordinary 
 cases. 
 
 The other disposition we find in the 
 Alexandrian Church. Clement, without 
 intending it, opposed the North African 
 Church doctrine, while he had in view 
 only the Gnostic doctrine, that birth is a 
 work of the evil Spirit. '' As children 
 may have sinned, and fallen under the 
 curse of Adam, while as yet they have 
 never done any action of their own."* 
 Clement was particularly anxious to 
 maintain this point ; that all the Divine 
 operations of grace went on the condition 
 of the independence [lit. self-determina- 
 tion, self-choice] of the freewill, as the 
 ground of all moral development. No 
 doubt he went too far, (as any man is 
 likely to do, who always follows a single 
 point of view,) in endeavouring to define 
 too accurately the limits which separate 
 [in these operations of grace] the Divine 
 from the human; but at the same time he 
 did it only out of a wish to maintain the 
 practical importance of the moral inde- 
 pendence of man ; though it is still quite 
 certain that he was far from ascribing to 
 the will of man, a self-sufliciency that 
 was independent of the reforming power 
 of Divine grace, hi one passage he ex- 
 presses himself thus, with respect to the 
 mutual relation of these two :| "When 
 man seeks to free himself from passions 
 by his own discipline and his own en- 
 deavours he does not succeed. But if he 
 shows a right earnest desire and endea- 
 vour after this end, he will attain ii by the 
 assistance of God's power, for God com- 
 municates his Spirit to those so\ils that 
 desire it. But if they relax from their 
 desire, then also tlie Spirit of God which 
 
 * III. f. 4.53, 469. [p. .541, 556-7. Ed. Pott. p. 
 191. 201. K(1. Sylb.] 
 j Quis dives salvetur? c. 21. 
 
 ' had been bestowed upon them, withdraws 
 
 I itself For the kingdom of God 
 
 j does not belong to those who sleep and 
 are lazy, but the ' impetuous seize upon 
 I it.' " 
 
 j The system of Origen in respect to 
 this matter is altogether peculiar to him- 
 self. We observed above, that he was 
 attached to an Emanation-scheme, spirit- 
 ually conceived ; but while the Gnostics 
 tried to explain the diflerence between 
 reasonable creatures, partly by a natural 
 law deduced from the gradual development 
 of life from God, and partly by their de- 
 scent from two fundamentally different 
 principles, Origen, on the contrary, en- 
 deavoured to deduce all differences from 
 moral freedom. " God," he maintained, 
 " as the absolute unity can be the source 
 of nothing but unity ; inasmuch as all 
 being is derived from him, the unity of 
 its nature must be shown therein. From 
 him no diflerence and no variety [lit. 
 multifariousness] can arise, and it would 
 be contrary to his love and his justice, 
 not to bestow on all his creatures the 
 same measure of perfection and blessed- 
 ness. Thus God is to be conceived 
 originally as the first source of a spiritual 
 world, allied to him, and rendered blessed 
 by communion with him, and the mem- 
 bers of this world were all similar to 
 each other. In the second book of his 
 work w£^i a.^x'^ii, he expresses himself as 
 if he not only considered all differences 
 in the measure of powers and of blessed- 
 ness, but also generally all differences of 
 proper and peculiar being, no original 
 difference, but as something which had 
 proceeded in the first instance from a dif- 
 ference in the moral direction of the will. 
 According to this, Origen will have con- 
 sidered the original creation to have been 
 only one that consisted of beings alto- 
 gether alike, but only numerically dis- 
 tinct, and all peculiarity to have been the 
 consequence of alienation from God. 
 This was, to say the truth, a very limited 
 representation of the creation, in relation 
 to the infinite Being of God ; but in con- 
 trast to Gnosticism and to the Platonism 
 by which Origen is usually directed, the 
 predominance of the Christian point of 
 view in his mind (although tliis was con- 
 ceived by him in a one-sided way) is 
 here shown in a characteristic manner, 
 because he opposes the moral view as the 
 highest, and as that which shall deter- 
 mine every thing, to the scheme of a na- 
 tural necessity or fate. 
 
 It may, at the same time, be the case 
 
ORIGIN OF EVIL. 
 
 that Origen in later days retracted this 
 notion, as he did many other crude ideas, 
 wliich he had brought forward in that 
 work of speculative doctrine. He says, 
 neverdieless, in a passage of later dale,* 
 that the Son of God is the general reflec- 
 tion of the glory of God, but that in part, 
 tlie beams of tliis general reflection spread 
 themselves over the rest of tlie reasonable 
 creation ; for no created being can contain 
 the wiiole of the glory of God, and the in- 
 ference to which this would seem to lead 
 is, that what is One in the Logos, in the 
 rest of the spiritual world developes itself 
 into a variety of individual properties, of 
 which every one reflects and represents 
 the glory of God in some mode peculiar 
 to itself, and thus the collected totality of 
 these individualities, which mutually sup- 
 ply the deficiency of each other, would 
 correspond to the collected revelation of 
 the glory of God in the Logos. That 
 would certainly be a just conclusion, if 
 Origen had unravelled to himself with a 
 clear consciousness the full meaning of 
 the thought, which he expressed ; but 
 one is led to inquire whether this was 
 the case. He appears, in a passage of the 
 same Commentary of St. John, from which 
 the first passage was quoted, to determine 
 it as the final aim of all this development, 
 that all reasonable beings, in attaining to 
 God through tlie Logos, miglit have only 
 one employment, [Thiitigkeit, activity] 
 namely, the employment of the contem- 
 plation [Anschauung, perception or intui- 
 tion] of God ; and that being fashioned 
 through the knowledge of the Father, 
 might thus become perfectly, that which 
 the Son is, as now none but tlie Son hath 
 known the Father.f As now according 
 to this last doctrine of Origen, by means 
 of this last completion,;]; every thing will 
 return again to its original condition, it 
 appears also to follow as a consequence 
 tliat according to this same doctrine such 
 an equality and unity also originally 
 existed. 
 
 Origen still farther concluded that God 
 alone is good by his very nature ; but on 
 tlie contrary, that all created beings are, 
 and remain good, only by means of their 
 
 391 
 
 communion with the original source of 
 all good, the Logos. As soon as ever 
 the desire exists in any being gifted with 
 reason, of being any thing for itself, tliere 
 evil is sure to exist. " The good, which 
 has become so," says Origen,* " cannot 
 be like that which is good by its nature; 
 this, however, will never be wanting to 
 him, who receives in himself for his own 
 preservation the bread of life, as it is 
 called. But wherever it is wanting to 
 any one, it arises from his own fault ; be- 
 cause he has neglected partaking of the 
 living bread and the true drink, by which 
 his wings being nourished and moistened 
 will grow."j Evil is the only thing 
 which has the foundation of its being in 
 itself and not in God, and which is, there- 
 fore, founded in no being, but is nothing 
 else than an estrangement from the true 
 Being, and has only a subjective and no 
 objective existence at all, and is in itself 
 nothing.^ Therefore, he says: "The 
 proposition of the Gnostic, that Satan is 
 no creature of God,§ has some truth for 
 its foundation, namely this, that Satan in 
 respect to his nature is a creature of God, 
 but not as Satan."|| 
 
 When the will of the Spirits, who were 
 blessed in a Divine life, estranged itself 
 from God, the original unity became dis- 
 solved, there arose a disharmony, which 
 needed now again to be brought to unity 
 by means of a process of purification and 
 improvement. The soul of the world is 
 nothing else than the power and wisdom 
 of God, who knows how to bind up 
 
 • T. xxxii. Joh. c. 18. 
 
 j- T. i. Joh. c. 16. Also the passage in Matt. 
 ^07, "Then will the righteous no longer shine 
 after a cliflbrent manner, as in the beginning, but 
 all will shine as one sun in the kingdom of their 
 Father." Matt. xiii. 43. But still this passage of 
 Origen may be understood to ap|)Iy only to an 
 equality of moral condition and blessedness. 
 
 \ The O^.K-JLTdLrTAJK. 
 
 * c. Cels. vi. 44. [p. 305 Ed. ypenccr. The 
 two expressions are, to ilriaJan u-yitdcy, and iij,»Si» 
 TO KiTA rj/n0i0;<K'j(: ajaSif xa/ i^ i7riy(vvii/uii.Ti( 
 ..^a6cv. The "this," in the text refers to this last; 
 the adventitious good. — H. J. R.] 
 
 \ An allusion to the I'latonic myth of the 
 wings of the soul in the Phajdrus. [We must 
 observe that Origen himself continues the sen- 
 tence by alluding to the wings of the eagle men- 
 tioned by Solomon, Prov. xxiii. .5, which Origeii 
 rather alters. But see Plat. Phad. § 56.~H. 
 J. R.] 
 
 ^ Origen gave a more ethical meaning to the 
 metaphysical Platonic idea of the jux :» (according 
 I to which [namely, the Platonic notion] if we 
 make the idea clear to our own minds, evil is ne- 
 cessary as the limit to the development of life, and, 
 therefore, the idea of evil according to its moral 
 import is really supersetlcd.) With him [i. c. 
 Origen,] the jun cv is here rather a privative than a 
 negative. See t. ii. Joh. ^ 7. u jWirt;^ /ti: t-.u 
 ivTi;, /uiTtX'u^i it ol uyKi, i^K'^yo!; uv ovti; ;^5x/uaT<- 
 ^'./» c« Jt ^^■r',<rr^t^>Tt( Txir tcu Irro; fjt%r(,j(>ii t* 
 ia-TS^MO-So/ Till ivToc, yry.ti:un>i oi/'jc ^cti:. 
 
 § Sec above in the account of the Gnostics. 
 
 i In Joh. t. ii. c. 7. 
 
392 
 
 ORIGEN AGAINST CREATIANISM, 
 
 these great moral differences in one living 
 whole ; and which, subjecting all these 
 dissonances to a higher law, penetrates 
 and vivifies the whole.* We see before 
 us only a fragment of the great course, 
 which the world will run, which em- 
 braces all moral differences with all the 
 consequences that develope themselves 
 from them, until their entire removal ; 
 and hence our imperfect TheocUcea.f 
 
 h follows necessarily from the doc- 
 trines of Origen, that even human souls 
 Avere originally altogether of a similar 
 frame with all higher Spirits, and that all 
 differences between the former and the 
 latter, and between individuals of the 
 former, proceeded only from differences 
 of the moral disposition of the will of 
 all individuals, and that, consequently, all 
 souls are fallen heavenly beings. The 
 whole temporal conscience moving itself 
 between opposites, the understanding, 
 directed to what is finite, proceeded only 
 out of estrangement from that unity of 
 the Divine life, the life of immediate 
 intuition, and it is the destiny of the soul 
 that it should, being purified, again raise 
 itself up to that life, in the pure imme- 
 diate intuition of God; or, that, just as 
 through the cooling of that heavenly 
 fire, the life of spirit degenerated into 
 the life of the soul, so also the soul 
 should again be elevated to the rank of 
 spirit. J 
 
 Origen set this theory of the pre- 
 existence of souls in opposition to Cre- 
 atianism, which supposed individual souls 
 to arise from the immediate act of creation 
 on the part of God; for this theory ap- 
 peared to him irreconcileable with the 
 love and justice of God, which maintains 
 itself equally towards all his creatures ; 
 and also in opposition to the Traducian- 
 ism of Tertullian, for this theory appeared 
 to him too sensuous. Thus, as he in 
 order to be able to maintain his theory of 
 a creation wliich preceded this temporal 
 world, without prejudice to the Church 
 doctrine, appealed to the circumstance that 
 the Church doctrine defined nothing con- 
 cerning this point ; so alsp did he appeal 
 
 f Honiil. iv. in Jer. § 1. [Theodicea is, per- 
 haps, a new word in English, althouf;!i known as 
 the name of tlie essay of Leibnitz. — H. .1. I?.] 
 
 ^ Tlae*. Tyiv aTnTrraiTiv km tuv -^u^iv rxv uts tsu 
 
 liib. ii. c. 8. m^i "g;^^!. Compare the similar view 
 entertained by the Gnostics, for which see page 
 238. 
 
 to the same circumstance, in regard to 
 his own peculiar speculative theory of 
 the origin of souls. 
 
 In tlie doctrine, however, of a corrup- 
 tion and guilt that cleaved to human na- 
 ture from the beginning, he might, exactly 
 as the North African Church-teachers 
 expressed themselves, — he might speak 
 of a mystery of a birth,* according to 
 which every one who comes into the 
 world needs purification, and he might 
 quote in favour of this view the passages 
 of the Bible, which were quoted by others 
 in favour of the doctrine of original sin 
 [Erbsunde — inherited iniquity — original, 
 or birth-sin.] But he felt himself obliged 
 to deduce this condition of human nature 
 from another source ; namely, from the 
 proper guilt of every individual fallen 
 heavenly Spirit, contracted in a former 
 state of existence : and hence, according 
 to the theory of Origen, this corruption 
 could not be alike in all, but its degree 
 would depend on the degree of the for- 
 mer guiltiness. Although he accounted 
 Adam as a historical person, yet he could 
 be nothing else in his view, than the first 
 incarnate soul that srmk down from the 
 heavenly state of existence : he must Iiave 
 looked upon the history of paradise, like 
 the Gnostics, as being symbolical, so that 
 it [paradise] was to him the symbol of a 
 higher spiritujil world, and Adam was to 
 him at the same time, the type [image or 
 form] of all mankind, of all fallen souls.f 
 
 Origen in his v/ork tte^i ccp-^qiiv^ agreeing 
 also here with the Platonisls, and many 
 Gnostics, had considered]] tlie doctrine, 
 that the fallen souls might, through entire 
 decomposition, sink into the bodies of 
 animals, as at least something which was 
 not to be exactly rejected. But as his 
 system was essentially distinguished from 
 the Neoplatonic by the predominance of 
 the Christian, morally-teleological point 
 of view ; so this point of view, always 
 becoming more and more fully formed, 
 necessarily would lead to the following 
 result; namely, at last entirely to throw 
 away§ the doctrine of such an incorpora- 
 
 •j- c. Cels. 1. iv. § 40, o'jx oCtui; tti^i h:; rmr, Zn 
 TTiet cKcu Tou yfv-.uc rcujr:t <^i.7H.:vToi: rm &i'.(.u Kt,-^c.-j, It 
 is not inconsistent with this, that Origen should 
 speak of Adam, quite in accordance loilh th^ 
 Church view, as in t. i. Joh. ^ 22. t. xiii. § 34 ; 
 he might place his own sen.se upon this ; espe- 
 cially in Homilies, where Gnosis was out of place. 
 H. 14. in Jcrem. 
 
 \ Sec the Greek Fragment, tt. uf^X'^v, lib. i. Ori- 
 gen. Ed. de la Rue, t. i. p. 76. 
 
 4 See c. Cels. iii. c. 75; ii. IG, in Jcrem. 
 
Zafxixoj ^vp(^iKoi — vntv/jteiTiKot. 
 
 393 
 
 tion of souls, as inconsistent with tlie | llie more refined egotists, the mcn-of- 
 final purpose of the purification, which understanding,* among whom a more re- 
 presupposes a continuity of conscious- fined selfisliness prevails, which docs not 
 ness. According to the same point of j manifest itself in open outbreaks of sinful 
 view, he opposed his theory of the pro- , conduct and passions ; who are, as he 
 cess of purification of souls, which was expresses himself, neither hot nor cold 
 
 to continue to the last limit of the resto- 
 ration, to the doctrine of a cycle in the 
 •wanderings of the soul. 
 
 Origen, like the Gnostics, supposed 
 three principles* in human nature in its 
 
 and he throws out tlie inquiry, whether 
 the o-a^Knto? cannot attaint more easily 
 than the '{'i;;)^i(£&f to a consciousness of the 
 misery of sin, and lirncc to a true con- 
 version ; an incpiiry whicii may be 
 
 fallen state, tlie cra^y.iy.ov, the ■¥vp(^ty.cii^ and j changed into that odier, whether the pub 
 
 the 7rvivfA.ce.TiKoii, and also three different 
 conditions of human nature, correspond- 
 ing to these principles. But he separated 
 himself from them in an essential point •, 
 namely, that as he recognised all human 
 souls as similar, he accordingly supposed 
 the same principles in every one of them, 
 and that he, tlierefore, considered their 
 different conditions to proceed, not from 
 
 licans often miglit not be more easily 
 converted than the Pharisees. Willi this 
 is connected the idea of Origen, that, just 
 as a skilful physician sometimes calls 
 forth the sources of disease, which are 
 lying hid in the body, and produces an 
 artificial evil, in order that this source of 
 disease which threatens to destroy the 
 whole fabric may bv this means be driven 
 
 an original dilference of nature in them, forth out of the body; so also God places 
 but from the predominance of one or other I men in sncli a condition, that the evil 
 of those [three] principles in them, de- 1 hidden within them is called forth into 
 pendent on the different directions of their ; open activity, in order that they may 
 will. The -TTuvixoc is that portion of man''s | tliereby be led to a consciousness of their 
 
 moral guilt and its destructive conse- 
 quences ; and then may be able to be 
 
 nature properly called the Divine, the 
 power of the higher inward intuition of 
 that which is Divine, which originally 
 formed the essential nature of the Spirit, 
 and is synonymous with »ot? ; this -n-vivfAu 
 can have no connection with evil, and 
 nothing evil can proceed from it.t But 
 by the predominance of sensuousness, 
 and of the lower powers of the soul, 
 which conduce to selfishness, the activity 
 of this ir>tvijt.a becomes depressed. Those, 
 
 healed more easily and more completely.;]; 
 And in tliis way he explained tiie Scrip- 
 tural phrase " God hardened the heart," 
 and others similar to it. 
 
 It is clear from the remarks we have 
 made above on tlie Anthropolosy of the 
 Church-teachers of this period, that the 
 need of redemption for human nature was 
 generally recognised in their svstem, and 
 
 in whom, on the contrary, this higUesitl ihiis the Doctrine of the Redeemer. \\U'\ch 
 principle of human nature is the predomi- i forms the peculiar essence of Christianity 
 
 nant and animating one, are the 
 
 c- found in it [their system, or anthropology] 
 
 ».| lie by no means, as follows im- a point on which it would naturally en- 
 mediately from his general ideas on the graft itself As far as the development 
 relation of human nature to God, ascribed ; of this doctrine is concerned, its essential 
 
 import, the idea of a God-man, was deeply 
 of human nature ; but he considered implanted in the Christian conscience; 
 the organ destined lo receive in but the difiiirent portions of which it ron- 
 
 an independent self-existence tothisprin 
 
 cipl 
 
 it f 
 
 itself the operations of the &nc» wivixu.^ j sists, which belong to the perfect develop- 
 
 The Psychici are, in the. view of Origen,! ment of the .full contents of this idea, 
 
 — — 1 could not come forward at once and im- 
 
 nediately with clearness in the Christian 
 It was only through the 
 opposition called forth in controversy 
 that the full impression of what was com- 
 prehended in this idea, could be obtained 
 
 where he speaks of a Metempsychosis in a jjara 
 
 boUc sense, and guards himself carefully atrainst \ conscience. 
 
 any misunderstanding, which could lead to taking 
 
 this literally. 
 
 • [I have used the word " Principle' through- 
 out this passage, as Princ'p is the word in the 
 original. Perhaps, to an English reader the word 
 " element" would better convey the idea intended. 
 — H. J. R.] 
 
 f T. xxxii. Joh. c. 11. dn^jBtTcv Ta>i .;^ji^:vm 
 
 T'. TniUfAdU 
 
 er-jLV 'Xt'^y-'*-'^'i^ '" ^rtiuua.riK'A. In .loh. t. ii. c. 15. 
 § Urigen Comment, in Matt. Ed. Huet.p. 306. 
 50 
 
 • [ Verstandes-menschen ; where Veratand is 
 opposed to Vernunft. — H. J. R.] 
 ■j- lli^i I g;^^»i', 1. iii. e. 4. 
 
 t See de Ural. c. 29 ; and the fragment of the 
 Commentury on Exod. c. lU, "7; in the 20lh 
 ! rhapter of the cu.hk iKtx, and in the 2d Part [Band] 
 I of de la Rue's Edition, p. 3. 
 
394 
 
 with all its rival show of beauty, was 
 worked up so as to present a contrast 
 between the hidden Divine glory of 
 Christ, and the wretchedness of his out- 
 ward form and appearance. Tertuliiau 
 says,* " This vvas the very thing which 
 makes the rest about him wonderful; for 
 they said, 'Whence came this man to 
 such wisdom and such works ?' That is 
 
 in definite conceptions ; namely, the clear 
 and definite consciousness of that, which 
 we have to conceive in the assumption 
 of human nature on the part of the Divine 
 Logos. Jn the development of this doc- 
 trine, realistic Christian vinos would be 
 peculiarly called forth by the opposition 
 to all Gnostic attempts to set aside, or to 
 mutilate the one side of [the doctrine of] 
 the God-man, that is the human part of the outcry of those who despised also his 
 
 It, to do away with the human nature of 
 Christ, or, at least either more or less to 
 
 form."t 
 
 In Clement of Alexandria, pure Chris- 
 
 deprive it of the proper attributes of hu- | tianity was on this point disturbed by in 
 inanity, — and especially by the opposition I termixture with Neo-Platonic ideas. The 
 to Docetism. The consciousness of the ! Neo-Platonic philosopher wished to have 
 objective reality of the human nature of I a Christ, freed from the wants and imper- 
 
 Christ, and his appearance in the flesh, | fections of 
 the idea of the form of a servant taken 
 upon him by Christ, was declared during 
 this opposition [to Gnosticism] strongly 
 and clearly. Thus, Ignatius of Antioch 
 can find no words sufficiently strong in 
 his opinion, to express the confidence of 
 the Christian persuasion on this point, 
 and he says in an original manner of the 
 Docetae. that they who would make 
 Christ only an apparition, were them- 
 .selves only like apparitions.* "How 
 comes it that thou makest Christ half a 
 lie r" says TertuUianf to a Docetist : 
 '' he was wholly truth !" And the same 
 writer in another place,t " It is oftensive 
 to you to think that the child is taken 
 care of in swaddling clothes and caressed ! 
 Dost thou despise this reverence shown 
 to nature .'' and how wert thou born thy- 
 self.? Christ, at least, loved 
 
 man born under these conditions [and 
 charged with these infirmities] .... For 
 his sake he came down, for his sake he 
 let himself down to every humiliation, 
 even unto death he loved, to- 
 gether with man, both his birth and his 
 flesh." In opposition to Docetism, the 
 idea of the form of a servant, taken 
 upon him by Christ, as it peculiarly 
 suited this primitive Christian spirit,§ 
 which opposed itself to heathenism 
 
 * diVTCI Tlj i'.M» Orri; i.lUlfJI.'tfVU K'U iuifACtlMt. 
 
 ■j- De Carne Christi, c. .">. 
 
 i L. c. c. 14. [c. 4. Ed. Riffalt. Tn the pas- 
 sage as it is found at length in TertuUian, the in- 
 firmities attendant on the birth and infancy of a 
 child are enumerated and mentioned, as things 
 which Marcion looked upon with horror or con- 
 tempt; and the argument appears to lie, "though 
 you consider these things derogatory to the dignity 
 of man's nature, our Saviour did not ; he loved 
 the race of man, though encompassed with all 
 these weaknesses," &c. In the portion selected 
 by Neander, this, perhaps, is not sufficiently ap- 
 parent.— H. J. R.j 
 
 «, See Part II. 
 
 and utterly unafliicted 
 by it, and this Christ was to represent 
 to him the Ideal of u7ex^uct\ and there- 
 fore, he must not be subjected to hunger 
 and thirst, to the sensations of pain, 
 to pleasure or displeasure. But in tliis 
 case, how could the form of the his- 
 iorical Christ of Scripture be maintained ? 
 The forced explanation was to be used, 
 that Christ, although not subject to tliose 
 affections by his nature, had subjected 
 himself to them voluntarily {kcct oIkomo- 
 fjudv) with a peculiar view to the salvation 
 of man.J ISevertheless, Clement in a re- 
 markable manner Avith this view, which 
 does not accept the servant's form of 
 Christ in its full extent, united the other 
 view, which carried it to the extreme. 
 But even this suited his philosophical 
 ideas ; " the unsightliness and formless- 
 ness of Christ's appearance ought to teach 
 men to look upwards towards the invi- 
 sible, incorporeal and formless nature of 
 God."§ 
 
 But while from the beginning, the true 
 and real humanity of Christ was main- 
 tained; yet at first, the distinction be- 
 tween the different parts which belong to 
 the completeness of man's nature, M-as 
 either not brought at all, or only brought 
 forward in individual cases, and even then 
 witli only a dim consciousness about 
 them. Under the notion of an assumption 
 of man's nature nothing was thought of 
 but the assumption of a human body, as 
 in Irenscus we find this only clearly 
 spoken of. Justin, on the formation of 
 
 * De Carne Christi, c. 9. 
 
 f Nee humanae honeslatis corpus fuit, nedum 
 coelcstis claritatis. 
 
 i Clemens, Strom, vi, 649-50. [Pott. 775. 
 Sylb. 276. Klotz iii. 140.] 
 
 § Strom, iii. 470, o Xgis-Tcc ev a-ctez-t &>ii>ii Shxh- 
 At/8aif Kit afAO^i^o;, sic to usJsf x«i (5<r&i//atTcv T«f Bin; 
 a.iTt3.i aTc/ikeruv itjurt^ StS:t(TKU [Pott. 559. Sylb. 
 202. Klotz ii. 271.] 
 
TERTULLIAN ON TEIE SOUL OF CHRIST. 
 
 whose mind the Platonic pliilosophy had 
 some induence, appears to have formed j 
 to himself the following peculiar chain ' 
 of ideas : Christ, as the God-man, consists 
 of three parts, like every other man — of 
 the body, the animal sonl (the inferior^ 
 principle of life,) and ihef tliinking reason; 
 only with this dillerence, that the place 
 of the fallible human reason, which is j 
 only a beam of the Divine reason, of the I 
 >.o7i;,* is snppliedf in him by the g-eneral ' 
 Divine reason {he >,,yo<; itself;! and hence 
 in Cliristianily alone could the universal ^ 
 revelation of religious truth be given, | 
 without being obscured by any one- 
 sidedness.§ | 
 
 Tertullian was the first who definitely ! 
 and clearly proclaimed the doctrine of a ' 
 proper human soid in Ciirist, being led' 
 to this by his view of the relation of the 
 soul to the body in general, and by the j 
 direction taken by his controversy about 
 tlie person of Christ in particular. He j 
 did not assume, like otliers, that there are 
 the t/iree above mentioned parts in human | 
 nature, he only acknowledged two parts ! 
 in it; he maintained that we must not! 
 consider a mere animal soul distinct from j 
 the rational soul in man to be the ani- 
 mating principle of the body, but that in 
 all livinff beings the animating principle i 
 [//7f 77;//^, being] is one only, but in the case 
 of man's nature that this is furnished with 
 liigher powers, and that the thinking soul j 
 itself is also the animating [soul] of the | 
 human body.|| When Tertullian acknow- 
 ledged only one soul as the means of ; 
 communication between the Divine Logos 1 
 and the body in Christ, he must neces- 
 sarily have thought here of a j)roper rea-j 
 sonable human soul. And farther, he 
 was in controversy with a Valentinian 
 sect, which taught that Christ, instead of 
 investing his soul with a gross material 
 body, had so modified the >]/t;x*ii that it 
 migiu become visible to the senses of 
 man [lileraUij, to the sensuous man] like 
 
 • The TTTfouA Koyuiv, the Kiyi( tr^sg^aTotsc, the 
 y.y.i xtTH yi^of. 
 
 I Apol. II. § 10. And yet one niiq;ht suspect 
 that the word-s »<i <rafAX utt X'.ycv km •^■j^mv were 
 interpolated hy a later hand, with the intention of 
 niakins? Justin orthodox on tliis point, herause 
 this more precise determination on the matter does 
 not occur any where else in Justin, and does not 
 seem aItos;ether in its place here. But, to say the 
 truth, the first reason cannot be a very strikinfj 
 proof; nor indeed, the second either, in the case 
 of a writer, whose works are like those of Justin. 
 
 ^ K:yiic:v TS «.:v. 
 
 § Justin is the predecessor of Apollinaris 
 
 I De aninia, c. 12. 
 
 395 
 
 a body. Against this sect he maintains, 
 that we must necessarily, in the person 
 of Christ, as in the case of every other 
 man, distinguish between soul and body, 
 and the attributes of each, and that lie 
 [/. e. Christ,] in order to redeem man, 
 must [ilace a proper lumiaii sold in union 
 with himsL'U, and indeed, so much the 
 more, inasmuch as tiie soul conij)oses tlie 
 proper nature of man.* 
 
 Oii;fen, however, had greater influence 
 than Terlullian on the duvelopment and 
 the selllement of this doctrine in the doc- 
 trinal system of the Church. His strug- 
 gles to attain an inward living intuition 
 into the doctrines of the faith, his peculiar 
 philosophical education, and his spirit tliat 
 longed after a systematic connection of 
 ideas, led him to an erudite and scientific 
 development of this doctrine. The com- 
 munion of believers with Christ alforded 
 him an analogy for the union of the Di- 
 vine Logos with the human nature in 
 Christ. From the derived Divine life of 
 believers, which is to appropriate to itself 
 and penetrate by degrees more and more 
 their whole human nature, even to the 
 completion [of this process] at the general 
 restoration, from tliis Origen reverted to 
 the original source of this Divine propa- 
 gation of life in man's nature, which, in 
 his view, was Christ as the God-man. If, 
 as St. Paul says, believers become one 
 spirit with the Lord; this has happened 
 [according to the view of Origen] in a far 
 higher manner with t/iul soul, wliich the 
 Logos has received into an indissolnt)le 
 union with himself. According to the 
 theory of Origen, it is the original destina- 
 tion of the soul, to be wholly spirit {vov;,) 
 and to find its life only in communion with 
 the Logos. That which happened with 
 other souls only in the highest concerns 
 of the inward life, namely, that they enter 
 wholly into conimimion with the Logos, 
 and wholly forget themselves in the intui- 
 tion of the Divine, this had become with 
 that soul something constant and tminter- 
 rupted, so that its whole life had passed 
 into the commvinion with the Logo.s, 
 and it had become itself entirely made 
 Divine.t 
 
 As Origen, still farther, in every man 
 distinguished the irnvua. from the ^vx,ri 
 in the stricter sense of the word : so also 
 he applied this distinction to the hnnian 
 nature of Christ. Christ [in his view] 
 
 • De came Christi, c. 1 1 . et seq. 
 
 j- iij fxov.f KUV0HI13J u>A* ittr^ic x*/ iJv««jaT/f, t)»c 
 
396 
 
 SYSTEM OF ORIGEN. 
 
 represents the Ideal of human nature in 
 the verij circumslance., that ail activity, 
 all conduct, and all sufli^ring in him pro- 
 ceeded from, and was surrounded in, that 
 supreme [source,] whicii was in his whole 
 human nature the animating principle. 
 " As the holy man," says Origen, " lives 
 in the -n-^Ev/Aa, as that from which his 
 whole life, every action, every prayer, and 
 the praise of God proceeds, thus he does 
 all which he does, in the Spirit ; yea, 
 Avhen he sufl'ers, he suffers also in the 
 Spirit, [f this be so in the case with the 
 holy man, how mucli more must we af- 
 firm this of Jesus, the forerunner of all 
 holy men, with whom, when he took 
 upon him the whole of man's nature, the 
 mvivua. set all the rest of his human quali- 
 ties into movement."* 
 
 But as we observed, it was a chief point 
 in the system of Origen, that all in the world 
 of Spirits must be limited and subjected 
 to conditions dependent on the differences 
 of the moral direction of the will. From 
 this general law of the order of the world 
 he was able to allow of no exception in 
 the case of tliis supreme dignity, to which 
 a soul attained. That soul, through the 
 faithful direction of its will towards the 
 Divine Logos, and by affection to him, 
 through which it had always remained 
 united with him, had deserved that it 
 should after such a manner become al- 
 together One with him.f Thus all here 
 corresponds with the destination con- 
 formable to his nature; the soul, which 
 the Logos received into personal union 
 with himself, has obtained the highest 
 destination attainable by any Spirit, and 
 it is, therefore, become the instrument^ 
 through which the communication of 
 Divine Life by inward communion with 
 the Logos, shall extend itself also to all 
 other souls. And again it suits the na- 
 ture of the soul, that it should unite itself 
 with a body, and become the intermediate 
 
 * T. 32. Joh. c. xi. This is a just doctrinal re- 
 mark, but it is one which Origen, with whom 
 this often happens, when he inserts his own doc- 
 trinal distinctions of ideas into Scripture, wishes 
 to support by a passage to which it is altogether 
 foreign, if we look at the meaning of the words : 
 viz. Joh. xiii. 21, tr^ifi'^x tod Tm-j/mr:. 
 
 f TTipt ('fx^'v, L. ii. c. 6. c. Ccls. ; L. ii, 
 c. 9. and c. 23; L. iii. c. 41. In Joh. t. 
 i„ 33; t. xix. 5; where he says altogether 
 after a Platonic fashion, m -^yx" '^'■'^ 'J««"cu tfA- 
 
 WCX(T8U5//fra TW OXW K-,TU(t> lK.Hm tllC K.'.VfA'i^ Vin- 
 
 to; tcdv IJcifv being synonymous with vcyc or the 
 
 itself- 
 
 ifxTrifii^X'l^i 
 
 •■X''- 
 
 i-t.yufy'j\i7-x ITT axirm tou; ^aO-iTtyv/usv:!;,-. In Malt, 
 34-i, 423, H. 15, in Jercm. f. 147. 
 
 connecting principle between this and the 
 Logos. 
 
 As Origen supposed a peculiar connec- 
 tion to exist between every soul, and the 
 body which serves it as an instrument — 
 (considering that every soul does receive 
 such a body, which corresponds to its 
 condition as derived from a former state, 
 either an instrument which will willingly 
 lend itself to spiritual activity ; or such 
 an one, as will specially impede and op- 
 pose it) — thus he applied this principle 
 to the relation between that soul and the 
 body which was bestowed upon it as an 
 instrument. The noblest soul was to 
 appear in the noblest body, which was 
 the purest and most free instrument of the 
 Spirit. But this dignity of the body of 
 Christ was, like the glory of the Logos 
 at his appearance here, a hidden glory. 
 Here also the earthly life of Christ is an 
 image of the spiritual activity of the 
 Logos. As the Logos (see above) re- 
 veals himself in different ways to men, 
 according to their different capabilities ; 
 thus Christ appeared to the greatest num- 
 ber in the unattractive form of a servant, 
 but to those who had eyes to perceive it, 
 he showed himself in an ennobled form. 
 Thus Origen was able to unite with his 
 theory of the correspondence between 
 the soul and body of Christ, even the 
 common representation of the unattrac- 
 tiveness of the outward appearance of 
 Christ, in fact to reconcile Ps. xliii. 2, 
 [xlv. 2 }] and Isaiah liii. 3 ; the passage 
 on whicli that common representation was 
 founded. This glory of the body of 
 Christ, which was usually hidden here 
 below, and only shone forth on particu- 
 lar occasions to those who were worthy 
 of it, was to come forth fully after his 
 glorification, the body was then to be 
 freed from the imperfections of sense, 
 and be ennobled into an ethcrial nature 
 more analogous to the spirit. Tiiis 
 change vvould be entirely conformable to 
 the nature of matter, which in its own 
 nature is wholly indefinite, and capable 
 of receiving different forms and quali- 
 ties.* 
 
 By means of Origen, who wrought out 
 this doctrine so systematically, the idea 
 of a proper reasonable soul in Christ 
 received a new dogmatical importance. 
 This point, which up to this time had 
 
 • See c. Cels. i. 32 ; iv. 15; vi. 75. et son.; 
 ii. 23; iii. 42. On the Ubiquity of the glorified 
 body of Christ, see in Matt, iv. Ed. dc la Rue, p. 
 
 887. 
 
DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION. 
 
 397 
 
 been altogether untouched in the contro- 
 versy with the Patripassians, was now 
 for the first time expressly brought for- 
 ward in the Synod held against Beryllus 
 of Bostra, A. D. 244 ; and the doctrine 
 of a reasonable human soul in Christ set- 
 tled as a doctrine of the Church. But as 
 Origen w^as the first who so completely 
 carried out the theory of this distinction, 
 as he found in the spiritual communion 
 of believers with the Redeemer an analogy 
 for the union of that soul witli the Logos 
 in Christ, so he drew upon himself from 
 those, who maintained the old mode of 
 conceiving tlie matter, the reproach that 
 he, like many Gnostics, made a distinc- 
 tion between a higher and a lower Christ, 
 or between a Jesus and a Christ ; or that 
 lie made Jesus to be a mere man, who 
 only differed from other holy men by a 
 liigher degree of communion with the 
 Logos, that is, differed from them only in 
 degree.* Thus, we perceive also here 
 the germ of a difference, which entered 
 into the following period of the Church. 
 
 As far as relates to the work of redemp- 
 tion itself, we find already existing in this 
 period all the fundamental elements of 
 the development of this doctrine as held 
 in the Cliurch ; only, however, not so 
 precisely defined and not so sharply sepa- 
 rated. For the most part the Church- 
 teachers spoke, without striving after any 
 very sharp distinction of doctrinal con- 
 ceptions, out of the fulness of the Chris- 
 tian feeling, and tlie Christian intuition, 
 which had accrued to them from the 
 lively appropriation of the doctrines of 
 the Bible. The doctrine of Redemption 
 has two sides, a negative and a positive 
 side, in relation to the condition from 
 which mankind was set free, and in rela- 
 tion to the new condition into which it 
 is to be placed — the assumption of man's 
 nature with all the consequences of sin, 
 which had hitherto prevailed in it, and 
 with the guilt whicli burdened it [thus 
 making] a communion, Avitli sinful hu- 
 manity, weighed down with a conscious- 
 ness of its own guilt — and the perfection 
 of an ideal holiness [literalhj, of the 
 Ideal of holiness,] in this human nature, 
 hitherto under the dominion of sin, [thus 
 effecting] a communication of a Divine 
 life to this nature and ennobling it. Both 
 these important points, although at first 
 they were not so sharply separated from 
 
 each other, were to be specially main- 
 tained against Docetism and similar Gnos- 
 tic views, througli which Christ was more 
 or less withdrau-n from communion with 
 the real and true nature of man. Irenanis 
 brings forward especially the latter i)oint 
 of view with great strength, allhougli the 
 first is not wholly wanting [in him.] We 
 will now present a comiected view of his 
 ideas on this subject :* " Only the Word 
 of tlie Father could reveal the Father to 
 us, and we coidd not learn from him 
 unless the Teacher himself had appeared 
 to us. Man must accustom himself to 
 receive God into himself, God is to 
 accustom himself to dwell in human 
 nature. The Mediator between the two 
 must restore the communication between 
 them, by means of his affinity to both, 
 and he must pass through every age of 
 life, in order to sanctify every age (i. e. 
 human nature according to all its several 
 degrees of development) [by means of] 
 the perfect likeness of God, which is 
 perfect holiness.f In a human nature, 
 which was that very nature that was 
 bound captive by sin, he condemned sin, 
 and banished it, as now being condemned, 
 out of human nature, Rom. viii. 3, but he 
 required of man to become like him. 
 Men were the prisoners of evil, and of 
 Satan, Christ gave himself up for the re- 
 demption of the prisoners. Evil reigned 
 over us, who belonged to God, God re- 
 deemed us not with might, but in a 
 manner consistent with justice, as he re- 
 deemed those who were his.;j; If he had 
 not, as man, conquered the adversary of 
 man, the enemy would not have been 
 conquered in a right manner; and, on the 
 
 • See many of the passages cited and referred 
 to, and the Apology of Pamphilus for Origen, t. 
 iv. p. 35. 
 
 • [LUerally, we will represent hh ideas ac- 
 cordin;; to their inward connection. — H. J. R.] 
 
 ■j- i/jL'.LctJK T.u ©2:t>, accordin;^ to the views 
 [litcr/tlli/, the connection of ideas] of this Father 
 is different from the tinoaiv rw &t:u, which latter 
 expression denotes only Ihe framework [.\nlage] 
 for a likeness to God, which has its foundiition in 
 the reason and in the freewill. [X. B. In the 
 text I have supplied the words ['by means of] 
 which seem to be necessary, from Ircnaus, lib. ii. 
 c. 22, Ed. Massuet. (39 in other editions,) which 
 appears to me the passage referred to here. — H. 
 J. R.] 
 
 t This thought often occurs in the Church- 
 teachers [the Fathers'!] under different forms. 
 The just notion, which is the foundation of it, is 
 this, that redemption is no act of caprice ; but a 
 method consonant to law and order, and answer- 
 ing the conditions re(inired by the moral order of 
 the world, a nxelhod, by which God freed the 
 beings, who belonged to him by their original na- 
 ture, from the dominion and coase<iucncc3 of evil, 
 and led them back to himself. 
 2L 
 
398 
 
 other side, if he had not, as God, given 
 this salvation, then we should not have 
 it in a secure manner. And if man had 
 not been united with God, then he could 
 not have participated in an incorruptible 
 life.* Through tlie obedience of one 
 man, must many be made righteous, and 
 obtain salvation, for eternal life is the 
 fruit of righteousness. What that means, 
 that man is created after the image of 
 God, was hitherto not revealed, f for the 
 Logos was still invisible ; and, therefore, 
 man easily lost even the likeness to God. 
 But when the Logos became man, he 
 sealed both. He revealed truly the image, 
 while himself was that which his image 
 was, and he represented in a secure man- 
 ner the likeness of man to God, while he 
 made man like the invisible God."t The 
 other side is brought forward by Justin 
 Martyr, when he says,§ "The law pro- 
 nounced the curse upon all men, because 
 no man can fulfil it in its whole extent. 
 Dent, xxvii. 26 \ Christ freed us from 
 this curse, by bearing it for us." The 
 author of the Letter to Dlognetus joins 
 the two together: "God, the Lord and 
 Creator of the universe, is not only full 
 of love to man, but also full of long 
 sufTering. He was, and alioays is such a 
 one, and always will be such a one, the 
 benevolent, the angerless, and the true, 
 the only good I He made a great and 
 inexpressible resolution, which he com- 
 municated only to his Son. As long as 
 he kept this resolution, as a secret one, to 
 himself, so long he appeared to have no 
 care for us. During the time past, he 
 suffered us to follow our own lusts, as we 
 chose, not as if in general he had any 
 pleasure in our sins, but in order that we, 
 after we had proved ourselves during that 
 time through our own works unworthy 
 
 JUSTIN MARTYR. — ORIGEN. 
 
 * The communication of a Divine Life to man 
 through Christ, thfi haiTii ttpo^ Cp(l-j^<ri:tv. 
 
 I Two ideas are here to l)e taken together, 
 which were already in existence in Philo, that 
 man, as the image of God, had been created after 
 the image of the Logos, and that God had already 
 had for his aim as the original form of human na- 
 ture, the Ideal of the whole nature of man, repre- 
 sented in the person of the (jod-man. Limus ille 
 jam turn imaginem inducns Chrisli futuri in carne, 
 non tantuni Dei opus, scd et pignus fdii,qui homo 
 futurus certior et vcrior. Tertull. de carne Christi, 
 C. 6. adv. Praxeam, c. 12. 
 
 t See Iren. lib. iii. 20. Massuet. (al. 22,) lib. 
 iii. 18, (20,) .31 ; v. IG. [I have not been able to 
 verify and compare all these quotations, and I 
 think there is sonic error in the refjerenccs. — H. 
 J.R.] 
 
 § Dial, c, Tryph. Jud. c. 30, p. 322, Ed. Col. 
 
 of life, might now become worthy through 
 the grace of God, and in order that we, 
 after we had revealed our own inability 
 to enter into the kingdom of God, might 
 become capable of that through the power 
 of God. But when the measure of our 
 sins had become full, and it htid been 
 fully revealed that punishment and death, 
 were before us as our recompense, he 
 hated us not, but he proved his long 
 suflering. He himself took our sins upon 
 him. He himself gave his own Son as the 
 ransom price for us, the Holy One for 
 sins, for what else could our sins dis- 
 cover, but his righteousness .?" 
 
 Now Origen, according to the exposition 
 of his views, given above, considered that 
 the highest object of the appearance and 
 operations of Christ on earth, was the fol- 
 lowing; to set forth the Divine operation 
 of the Logos, limited neither by time nor 
 space, for the healing and purification of 
 the fallen beings, in order that sensuous 
 men, who were unable to lift themselves 
 up to the intuitive perception of the ever- 
 lasting spiritual operation of the Logos, 
 might be able to raise themselves to [the 
 consideration of hi.s] spiritual nature from 
 his appearance in the tlesh ;* but accord- 
 ing to his tlieory, the individual actions 
 of Christ, besides this object of setting 
 forth [these truths] have also, considered 
 in themselves, a special and salutary 
 operation. And thus, also, about the 
 relation of the passion of Christ to sin, 
 he might express that, which was ac- 
 knowledged in the common conscious- 
 ness of Christians although he might 
 point it out in a manner peculiar to 
 himself. 
 
 Thus, he says,! "He took upon him- 
 self our transgressions, and bore our dis- 
 eases, the transgressions of the soul, and 
 the diseases of the inner man; on account 
 of which transgressions and diseases 
 which he bore away from us, he said his 
 soul was troubled and disturbed ;" and in 
 another place he says,J "This man, the 
 purest among all creatures, died lor man- 
 kind; he, who took our sins and diseases 
 upon himself, as he was able to take upon 
 himself and abolish the sins of the whole 
 world. His passion was the means of 
 
 * [Literal/i/, ' from the sensuous appearance to 
 the spiritual Being,' von der sinnlichen Erschein- 
 ung zum geistigen Wesen. This appears am- 
 biguous. I have, therefore, suj)plied what is 
 requisite in English. — H. J. R.] 
 
 j In .loh. torn. ii. c. 21. 
 
 i In Joh. torn. 28. c. 14. 
 
CLEMENT OP ROME. 
 
 399 
 
 purification for the whole workl, which 
 wouhl have gone to destruction if he liad 
 not died for it." 
 
 As far as rehites to the particular opinion 
 of Origen, he thought, that according to 
 secret causes in the nature of things, the 
 suffering of a holy Being for tlie guilty 
 Iiad a sort of magic power, in crippling 
 the power of evil spirits, and freeing the 
 former [the guilty] from the evils that 
 impended over them, and he appealed to 
 the belief existing even among the iiea- 
 ihen, that innocent individuals by a volun- 
 tary sacrifice of themselves had saved na- 
 tions and cities from heavy calamities.* 
 
 As the whole nature of Christian life 
 depends upon a living appropriation of 
 the redemption through Christ, as all de- 
 pends upon this, viz. that Christ slionld 
 through faith become in man all in all, a 
 life-giving and a forming principle for his 
 whole nature; as, therefore, in Holy 
 Scripture, the whole life of the Christian 
 is set forth as a fruit of faith, a super- 
 structure raised upon the foundation of 
 faith in Christ, as the whole of practical 
 Christianity is nothing else than faith 
 working by love, so every thing required 
 for the genuine conception of practical 
 Christianity, both in theory and in Life, 
 depended on this circumstance, that tlie 
 right relation of Life to the appropriation 
 of the work of redemption in faith should 
 be set forth in a clear manner. It had, 
 for the essential nature of Christian doc- 
 trines, and for tlie true power of Christian 
 morals, and thereby, at least in its conse- 
 quences, for the Christian life itself, the 
 most prejudicial consequences, when this 
 intimate connection between the objective 
 and subjective in Christianity was not 
 rightly brought forward. It is, therefore, 
 of great consequence, that, while we ob- 
 serve, how that intimate connection was 
 bestowed upon the original condition of 
 the Christian conscience, we should also 
 recognise the seed of the errors of later 
 times, adhering to this connection, and 
 troubling this conscience. The whole 
 mode of conception of the doctrine of re- 
 demption in this period, pledges for the 
 recognition of this intimate connection. 
 
 ' See Origen, in Joh. t vi. c. 34; t. 2S, c. 14. 
 Origen was certainly ri!,'ht in one respect ; that is, 
 instead of deducing for himself a system of reh- 
 gious truth a priori from- abstract conceptions, he 
 inquired after the voice of the universal religious 
 conscience of man, and quoted this as a witness 
 for the Christian doctrine, although he did not 
 understand this testimony rightly in one of its 
 bearings [Ulerally, on one side.] 
 
 Men recognised Ciirist as him who had 
 comnuinicaled an inward Divine Lili-* to 
 human nature; tiirough faith in Ciirist 
 this Divine Life was to be received by 
 man into himself, and to be appropriate<l 
 to himself, and his whole Udiure to be 
 constantly more penelratt'd by it. — (it is 
 only unlorlunate, that niL-n bouml this 
 belief up too nnich with the outward 
 things, which Christ, in consideration of 
 die necessities of the mixed naturef of 
 man, had appointed as tokens to repre- 
 sent the Invisible and the Divint-, which 
 faith apprehends, and it is unfortunate 
 also that men did not sulhciently sepa- 
 rate from each other the operations of 
 faith, and of those outward things.) — 
 Men acknowledged Christ as the destroyer 
 of the kingdom of Satan, and they as.signed 
 all evil to this kingdom, and through 
 communion with Christ, by means of faith 
 every one also was to appropriate to him- 
 self the victory of Christ over the king- 
 dom of Satan; the Christian must, there- 
 fore, (see above,) from a viiU-s Satance^ 
 become a miles Christi. The idea, also, 
 of the general calling of all Christians to 
 a priesthood, has its root here. 
 
 We might here bring forward separate 
 living [contemporary] witnesses to the 
 original Cliristian conviction and con- 
 sciousness of the intimate connection be- 
 tween redemption ami sanctification. Faith 
 and Life. A man, of whom it cannot be 
 said, that he distinguished himself by any 
 peculiar power of mind in the elaboration 
 of Christian doctrine, viz. Clement, the 
 bishop of Koine, after he had strongly 
 expressed that no man could be justitied 
 by his own righteousness and his own 
 works, but that all could lie jusiificd only 
 through the grace of God and faith, says, 
 "And what shall we do then, brelliien .=■ 
 Shall we be slack in doing good, and ne- 
 glect love.' The Lord would in no wise 
 suffer this to happen with us, but lie in- 
 duces us to endeavour to fuUil ail good- 
 ness with unal)atin<r zeal, for tlic Crtator 
 and Lord of all delights himself in his 
 vvorks.":|: The author of the epistle to 
 Diognetus, after the heautiful passage 
 quoted above [page 40,] says of the 
 redemption: '' VVith what delight wilt 
 thou be tilled, when thou recogniscst 
 this ; or how wilt thou love him, who 
 
 • The a^^iejrit, about which see above. 
 
 + [Zi(7cr«//'/, 'the spiritually -seniu.HH n:iliirp,' 
 i. e. a nature consisting partly of spiritu d, p.irlly 
 of sensuous elements. — H. J. K.] 
 
 4 Sec Ep. i. ad Corinth. § 3'^ and 33. 
 
400 
 
 JUDAIZING VIEWS OF FAITH. 
 
 hath first loved thee so much? But if 
 thou lovest him, thou wilt be a follower 
 of his goodness." Irenseus thus contrasts 
 the free obedience that Hows from faith 
 with the servile obedience under the Law : 
 " The Law given to servants formed the 
 soul through that which is outward and 
 sensuous, by attracting it to obedience to 
 the commandments, as it were by chains 
 
 but the Word, that makes free, 
 
 taught a free purification of the soul, and 
 through that of the body. After this had 
 happened, it was necessary that the chains 
 of slavery, to which man had become ac- 
 customed, should be taken away, and he 
 must follow God without chains. The 
 requirements, therefore, of liberty must 
 be extended more widely,* and obedience 
 towards the king must become greater, 
 that no one may turn back and appear 
 
 unworthy of his liberator for God 
 
 hath not set us free, in order that we may 
 run away from him, as no one, Avho severs 
 himself from the source of all goodness 
 in the Lord, can find the nourish of salva- 
 tion for himself, but in order that we 
 should love him the more; because we 
 
 had obtained more To follow the 
 
 Saviour, is to partake of salvation; and 
 to follow the Light, is to partake of the 
 Light."! 
 
 It cannot, however, be denied that the 
 genuine Pauline notion of faith vi'as soon 
 obscured. In the stead of faith, in that 
 peculiarly Christian sense (viz. the living 
 appropriation of that, which Christ has 
 efiected for human nature, as a fact of the 
 inward Life, by means of which some- 
 thing altogeUier different results from that 
 [Life,] men placed the notion of a mere 
 belief-upon-authority, which could only 
 mediately introduce a new direction of 
 Life, but could not immediately produce 
 it. And from this error, the second ne- 
 cessarily followed, that men, instead of 
 considering all good as the necessary 
 revelation of the new Divine Life planted 
 with faith, spoke of good works which 
 were to be added to faith, and that they 
 added to that belief-upon-authority, the 
 doctrine of a moral law that incited man 
 to good; both of these being more Jew- 
 ish than Christian. Here, also, as well 
 
 * [That is (see the context in the original,) 
 the law of I'recdom must even require more of 
 man than that of servitude, e. g. where the latter 
 forbids murder, the former must prohibit even 
 malice, &c. — H. J. R.] 
 
 •}■ Lib. iv. c. 13, 14. [In the last sentence Mas- 
 suet reads percipere lumen, instead of participare 
 lumen.— H. J. R.] 
 
 as in the history of the formation of the 
 Church, and of Christian worship, a great 
 source of the corruption of Christianity 
 appears in the intermixture of the Jewish 
 and the Christian position, and the Apostle 
 Paul cries out to all ages, "Ye have 
 received it in the spirit, will ye fulfil it in 
 the flesh ?" 
 
 The Gnostics, and in part, the Alexan- 
 drians had that false notion of faith be- 
 fore them, when they overprized Gnosis 
 in respect to it. Marcion (see above) ap- 
 pears here clearly and deeply to have 
 conceived the Pauline idea of faith, and 
 on this side, not without reason, to have 
 fought against the intermixture of Jewish 
 and Christian things; we may here cite 
 the heretic as a witness for Catholic truth. 
 
 The idea, indeed, of that Divine com- 
 munion of Life with Christ, as is clear 
 from what has been said above, was a 
 fundamental idea of the whole Church 
 system of doctrine; but the right point 
 of view was thrown into the background 
 by the circumstance, that men were ac- 
 customed to annex this Divine commu- 
 nion of Life, not to the inward facts of 
 faith, but to the outward things, which 
 were meant to be for faith, only the out- 
 ward tokens of that which was present 
 in the inward Life — a confusion between 
 the hiward and the Outward, of which 
 we have already had occasion to speak 
 several times. 
 
 This shows itself particularly in fhe 
 doctrine about the Church and the Sacra- 
 ?nents. 
 
 In the doctrine concerning the Churchy 
 we have nothing to add to that which 
 we have said in the history of the forma- 
 tion of the Church; we have already 
 there pointed out the origin of the con- 
 fusion of tlie ideas and the predicates of 
 the invisible and the visible Church, and 
 its prejudicial practical consequences. But 
 in regard to the doctrine of the Sacra- 
 ments^ as standing in close connection 
 with the history of the doctrine of the 
 Church, we have still much to add to 
 that which we have already said in the 
 history of the Christian worship. 
 
 The source of the interchange between 
 the Inward and the Outward* was here 
 the same as in the case of the doctrine 
 concerning the Church. Of that, which 
 is the Divine matter in the Sacrament, 
 the teachers of tlie Church had a lively 
 perception from their own Christian ex- 
 
 * See the section relating to the Sacraments in 
 the history of the Cultus (or worship,) Section 11. 
 
DOCTRINES OF THE CHURCH. — BAPTISM. 
 
 401 
 
 perience; but the relation of this Divine 
 matter to the outward token was not so 
 clear to them, and with most of them the 
 Spiritual and tlie Sensuous easily glided 
 into each other. 
 
 At first, as far as Bnpli.wi is concerned 
 the predominant idea with most of them 
 Avas this — the idea of a spiritual and sen- 
 suous communion with the whole Christ, 
 for the salvation of the whole spiritual 
 and sensuous nature of man. " As out 
 of the dry wheat," says lrena;us, " neither 
 one mass of dough, nor one mass of 
 bread could be made without moisture, so 
 neither could we all become One in Christ 
 without the water, which is from heaven. 
 And as the dry earth brings fortii no fruit, 
 if it receives no moisture ; so neither 
 could we, wlio are at first dry wood, ever 
 bring forth the fruit of Life, without the 
 rain, which sheds itself freely from 
 heaven, for our bodies by Baptism, hut 
 our souls through the Spirit, have received 
 that connnunion with the incorruptible 
 Being.* Tertullian says, beautifully, in 
 respect to the operation of Baptism,]" "If 
 the soul comes to faith, and is formed 
 again by regeneration from the water and 
 the power from above, tliere she beholds, 
 after the scales of the old corruption are 
 removed, her whole light. Slie is re- 
 ceived into the communion of the Holy 
 Spirit, and the soul which unites itself 
 with the Holy Spirit, is followed by the 
 body, which is no longer the servant of 
 the soul, but the servant of the Spirit." 
 But even Tertullian here was unable 
 rightly to distinguish between the Inward 
 and the Outward. While he defends the 
 necessity of outward Baptism against the 
 sect of Caians (see Sect. II.,) he ascribes 
 to the water a supernatural sanctifying 
 power. And yet, even in the case of Ter- 
 tullian, we seethe pure evangelical idea 
 making its way through the midst of this 
 confusion of the Inward and the Outward, 
 and standing forth in contradiction to it 
 — when he says, that Faith receives the 
 forgiveness of sin in Baptism, and when 
 he says, while combating against haste in 
 Baptism, that, where a right faith is pre- 
 sent, that faith is sure of salvation.;{: 
 
 We have observed already in the his- 
 tory of the Christian worship [Cullus,] 
 the practically injurious consequences of 
 
 * Iren. iii. 17. The Divine principle of Life, 
 soul and body in Christ, the tvaxr/f jt^oc for 
 
 i De Anima, c. 41. Compare the passage 
 above cited on the corruption of human nature. 
 % Fides iategra eecura de salute. 
 51 
 
 ; that confusion between the Inward and 
 the Outward in Baptism. Wiiile a con- 
 j fusion between l)aj)lism and rcgeneralion, 
 regeneration was considered as a magical 
 I thing completed at once, and while a 
 magical purification and abolition of sin 
 was supposed to take place at Baptism, it 
 ^ became usual to refer tiie forgiveness of 
 sins obtained through Christ, only rsjjc- 
 cially to sins commilted before baptism, 
 instead of maintaining, as they ought to 
 have done, that, as that which is olijeclive 
 in baptism retains its power dining the 
 whole life of man ; so also, the subjective 
 I appropriation of it, by means of penitence 
 I and faith, must, as well as regeneration, 
 [ continue to develope itself more and mure 
 through the whole life, until the Objciuive, 
 and the Subjective, justification and sauc- 
 tilication have become wholly blended 
 ■ into each other (which does not happen 
 i in our life below.) But according to that 
 false conception, ^nce it could not fail to 
 j be remarked that even in Christians the 
 1 old corrupt nature preserved its power, 
 i the question woidd necessarily arise: 
 Whence do we obtain forgiveness of sins 
 committed after baptism ? And the answer 
 was: 'Since we have once for all ob- 
 tained a satisfaction for the sins committed 
 I before baptism, in the merit of Christ, so 
 j in order to obtain satisfaction for those 
 after baptism, voluntary penances [exer- 
 cises of repentance,] and good works 
 ' must be added."* This point of view is 
 ; clearly presented to us iu the following 
 words of Cyprian :t " When the Lord 
 came and iiealed tlie wounds of Adam, he 
 gave to the convalescent a law, and he 
 commanded him to sin no more, lest 
 something worse should befall him. By 
 j the condition of innocence being pre- 
 
 • See Tertullian's Book dc Pocnitentia. Tiiis 
 
 ! writer introduced the expression, satinfudio, into 
 the doctrine of repentance from his system of ju- 
 
 I risprudence ; but we must not on that account 
 ascribe so great an influence in the formation of the 
 
 , Church doctrinal notions on this point, to his mode 
 of representing the doctrine derived from his juris- 
 prudence — nor indeed, generally ought we [to as- 
 
 I cribe so great influence] to the idea of any indi- 
 vidual — for when once the T^arTi» -ItuJo: was in 
 existence, all the consecjucnres conlaine«l in it 
 would necessarily, of their own accord, devciopn 
 themselves ; and more especially, as these conse- 
 
 I quences find so many jwints in human nature, on 
 which to attach themselves. 
 
 I j- Dc Opere et Eleemosynis. [This passage 
 is found, though not quite continuously, in 
 the first two pages of the Treatise. To judge, 
 however, quite accurately of the force of this 
 passage we must compare it with tlic context, 
 — U.JK.] 
 
 2l2 
 
402 
 
 DOCTRINE OP THE LORd's SUPPER. 
 
 scribed to us, we were limited to a nar- 
 row range ; and the infirmity of human 
 weakness knew not what it should (]o, if 
 the grace of God had not come again to 
 its assistance, and showing to it the works 
 of mercy, had opened to it a way for the 
 preservation of its health, so that we 
 might hereafter cleanse ourselves by alms 
 from all the uncleanness that afterwards 
 cleaved to us. Since the forgiveness of 
 sins has once been bestowed in baptism ; 
 so also, by the constant performance of 
 good, which is like the renovation of 
 baptism, man obtains anew for himself 
 the Divine forgiveness." 
 
 With regard to the Doctrine of the 
 Lorcfs Supper^ upon the whole, the same 
 remark may be made, as those made 
 above upon the doctrine of Baptism, only 
 with the difference, that here, in reference 
 to the relation between the thing repre- 
 sented and the outward sign, three dif- 
 ferent gradations may be observed in the 
 representations made of it. The most 
 predominant representation was that, 
 which we find as early as the time of 
 Ignatius of Antioch, as well as in Justin 
 M., and in Irena;us ; namely, that of a 
 supernatural penetration of the bread and 
 wine, by the body and blood of Christ, 
 in virtue of which those who partook of 
 the Lord's Supper were penetrated by the 
 Divine principle-of-life of Christ in their 
 whole nature, so that their body even 
 then, became thereby even now, a par- 
 taker of the power of an imperishable 
 life, and hence was prepared for the 
 resurrection.* In the North African 
 Church, on the contrary, in Tertul- 
 lian and Cyprian we find no representa- 
 tion at all implying such a penetra- 
 tion. Bread and wine are represented 
 rather as the symbols of the body and 
 blood of Christ, but not as symbols with- 
 out efficacy ; a spiritual communion witli 
 Christ in the holy Supper of the Lord is 
 brought forward, and at the same time a 
 certain sanctifying association with the 
 body of Christ is also supposed-f The 
 practice also of the North African Church 
 proves that the belief in a supernatural 
 
 * Therefore, in Ignatius, Ep. ad. Ephes. c. 20, 
 the Holy Supper is called, <;)*§ju<jtcv ifiwao-z^, 
 ('vT/iTorcv t:i/ yotx u7rc6:tvttv, iXKtt ^ifi» b 'iiiirou Xg»irT4> 
 
 JtXTrCVTCC. 
 
 -j- T<TtulI. c. Marcion. iv. 40, corpus mcum, 
 i. c. lis;ura corporis mei. De Res. Cam. c. 8, 
 anima de Deo Kac;inatur, De orat. c. 6. The 
 perpctuitas in Christo, is a constant spiritual 
 communion with him, and ir.dividuitas a cor- 
 pore ejus. 
 
 sanctifying power in the outward tokens 
 of the Holy Supper prevailed in it, and 
 hence came the daily communion,* and 
 hence also, together with infant baptism, 
 came infant communion.f While Joh. vi. 
 5.3, was improperly understood, of the 
 outward [sinnlich, corporeal, or sen- 
 suous,] participation in the Holy Supper, 
 it was concluded that no one could attain 
 to salvation without such a participation 
 in it.J just as it had been concluded from 
 a misunderstanding of Joh. iii. 5, that no 
 one could be saved without outward 
 baptism. 
 
 Among the Alexandrians, and espe- 
 cially in Origen, the distinction is brought 
 forward, even in his doctrine about the 
 Sacraments, as well as in his whole sys- 
 tem of doctrine, between the inward 
 Divine thing, the invisible spiritual ope- 
 ration of the Logos,§ and the sensuous 
 signil which represents it. "Just as the 
 miracles of Christ," says Origen, ''•as far 
 as their highest object is concerned, re- 
 present the healing power of the Logos, 
 which operates invisibly, but also at the 
 same time an utility was annexed to the 
 outward deeds as such, because they led 
 men to believe : so also is outward bap- 
 tism, in regard to its highest object, a 
 symbol of the inward purification of the 
 soul through the Divine power of the 
 Logos, which is the preparation for the 
 general restoration ; by the beginning of 
 that in enigmas, and in a mirror, which 
 will be perfected face to face ; but at the 
 same time, in virtue of the words of con- 
 secration then uttered, there is united 
 with the whole transaction of baptism, 
 a supernatural healing; it is the begin- 
 ning of the operations of grace, which 
 are bestowed upon believers ; but never- 
 theless, this is only for those who through 
 their disposition of heart are capable of 
 receiving such operations. "IT 
 
 The same distinction he also makes in 
 respect to the Lord's Supper. He distin- 
 guishes between that which in a metapho- 
 rical sense is called the body of Clirist,** 
 and the true spiritual eating of the Lo- 
 gos ;'("| between the more Divine promise 
 and the more common understanding of 
 
 * See page 213. 
 
 ■j- See Cyprian, Sermo de Lapsis. 
 i See Cyprian lil). iii. testinion. c. 25. 
 § Compare what is said above of the i7rtf;,fxi* 
 (r6»T«, and the jtJh^/* vo«t». 
 II The HUTCv, or Trvm^u-niKov, and the rt'ioS'T-y. 
 1 See in Joh. vi. c. 17, and Matt. xv. c. 23. 
 ** TO irce/jiA Xg/iTTou tutik-jV ku (ru/Jiio\iH.oy. 
 ff The uAiifi/.K 0^a<ri; t<.v Aoj^ot. 
 
DOCTRINE AS TO THE LORD S SUPPER. -103 
 
 the Lord's Supper, as it was suited to the I signification and efTicacy wliatever of the 
 more simple.* The first bears reference outward token, even such an one as that 
 to the spiritual participation in the Logos \ which was received in the North African 
 
 that became flesh, who is the true hea- 
 venly bread of the soul. The outward 
 
 Church.* 
 
 As the Old Testament contains a fore- 
 
 supper of the Lord can be enjoyed by cast of the tilings of the New, so Chris- 
 the unworthy and the worthy, hut not tianity also gives hints of a higher con- 
 that true heavenly bread, for it could not dition of things, which is to be prepared 
 
 otherwise have been said, that he who 
 eats that bread will live eternally. Ori- 
 gen, therefore, says, that Christ in the true 
 sense has designated as his flesh and 
 blood the word which proceeds from the 
 Word, and the bread from the heavenly 
 bread, the living word of truth, through 
 which he communicates himself to the 
 soul, just as the breaking of the bread 
 and the division of the wine is a symbol 
 of the midtiplication of the word, through 
 which the Logos communicates itself to 
 the soul. Even in tlie outward supper 
 of the Lord, as well as in the outward 
 baptism, he supposes a higher sanctifying 
 efficacy in virtue of the words of conse- 
 cration then uttered, but in such a man- 
 ner that with the earthly elements con- 
 sidered by themselves nothing Divine can 
 unite itself; and, as in baptism, no one 
 without the inward capability of heart 
 can become partaker of this higher ef- 
 ficacy. As it is not that which enters 
 into the mouth, that can defile a man, 
 although it might be held to be unclean 
 by the Jews, so also nothing, which en- 
 ters into the mouth, sanctifips the man, 
 although by the simple the bread of the 
 Lord, as it is called, is held to be some- 
 thing that sanctifies. Nor, indeed, con- 
 sidered by itself is any thing wanting to 
 lis by the not eating the bread conse- 
 crated by prayer, and yet by the mere 
 eating it, considered by itself, we have 
 somewhat more; but the cause of our 
 receiving less is the evil heart of each 
 individual [partaker,] and the cause of 
 his receiving more is his good heart and 
 disposition. The earthly bread, in itself, 
 is nothing difl^erent from all other food. 
 Origen was, however, desirous only of 
 contradicting in particular the fanciful no- 
 tions of some magical advantage in the 
 Lord's Supper, independent on the heart of 
 the recipient, which also the other Church- 
 teachers were far from mainiaiiiitig ; and 
 yet his contradiction touches every re- 
 presentation which supposes any higher 
 
 ♦ The x.'.n:Tfg-j. viej t»c j'/;^:*^/tt/*c tKtx» '^"c 
 aTrXova-Ti^cic, and that x-yT-t t«/ SacTs^^v ir'y)t\it7, 
 which correspond to the two conditions of yveori; 
 and ■/na-TK. 
 
 by means of Christianity itself; but faith 
 must necessarily be inferior to actual 
 knowledge and perception of that condi- 
 tion. The Divine revehitions permit us 
 only to catch some isolated glimpses of 
 that higher state of things, wtiich do not 
 present a complete picture of it. As pro- 
 phecy is always obscure before its fulfil- 
 ment, so also the last prophecies of 
 Christ about the fate of his Church must 
 be obscure, until the introduction of that 
 higher condition of the world. Although 
 so many indications vvere made by our 
 Saviour as to the gradual activity and ef- 
 ficacy of Christianity in penetrating hu- 
 man nature, yet these could not be un- 
 derstood by the first Christians. They 
 had no presentiment of the difl'crent kinds 
 of contests, which the Cliurch had yet to 
 encounter, before it could attain to iUs 
 victorious completion. They were ac- 
 customed to consider the church only in 
 ils opposition to the heathen state, and it 
 was far from entering llieir thoughts, that 
 by the natural development of circum- 
 stances under the guidance of Providence, 
 this opposition should hereafter cease. 
 They believed that the struggle of the 
 Christian Church with the Heathen slate 
 would continue on, until the victory 
 should be conceded to it through the im- 
 mediate interposition of God, and through 
 the return of Christ. It was natural enough 
 that the Christians should willingly em- 
 ploy tiieir thoughts on the prospect ol' 
 this victory, during the seasons of perse- 
 cution. It was thus that many formed a 
 picture to themselves, which had come 
 to them from the Jew.«, and which suited 
 with their then condition. This was the 
 idea of a willennial rri^n, which the 
 Messiah should establish on earth as the 
 close of the whole career of the world, 
 during which all the saint.s of all ages 
 were to live together in holy comnninion 
 with each other. As the world wa.s 
 created in six davs. and according to Ps. 
 xc. 4, a thousand years in the sight of 
 God is but as one day, so the world was 
 
 • The passiiRos in Origen are found in t. xi. 
 Matt. c. 14; L 32, Joh. c. 16. In MatL 698. 
 V. iii. 0pp. 
 
CHILIASM — PAPIAS. 
 
 404 
 
 supposed to endure six thousand years ] 
 in its present condition ; and as the Sab- 
 bathday was the day of rest, so this mil- , 
 lennial reign was to form the seventh 
 thousand-year period of the world's ex- 
 istence at the close of the whole tem- 
 poral dispensation connected with the 
 world. In the midst of persecution it 
 was an attractive thought for the Chris- 
 tians to look to a period when their 
 Church, purified and perfected, should 
 be tiiumphant even on earth, the theatre 
 of their present sufferings. In the manner 
 in which this notion was conceived by 
 many there was nothing unchristian in 
 it. They imagined the happiness of this 
 period in a spiritual manner, and one that 
 corresponded well with the real nature 
 of Christianity ; for they conceived under 
 that notion only the general dominion of 
 God's will, the undisturbed and blessed 
 union and intercourse of the whole com- 
 munion of saints, and the restoration of 
 harmony between man as sanctified, and 
 all nature as refined and ennobled.* But 
 the gross images, which the carnal sense 
 of the Jews had made to itself of the 
 delights of the millennial reign, were 
 transferred in part also to the Christians. 
 Phrygia, the dwelling-place of a spirit,| 
 which took a fanciful turn, and would 
 embody religious ideas in sensuous 
 images, was also inclined to the propa- 
 gation of this gross Chiliasm. In that 
 region, in the first half of the second cen- 
 tury, Papias was living, as the bishop of 
 the Church at Hierapolis, a man of plain 
 piety, but, as the fragments of his writings 
 and historical notices tend to prove, of a 
 very limited mind, and a very uncritical 
 credulity. He collected together, out of 
 oral traditions, certain notices about the 
 lives and sayings of Christ and the apos- 
 tles ;'| and among these he received much 
 which was misunderstood and false, and 
 thus he was the means of propagating 
 many unfounded notions about the enjoy- 
 ments of the millennial reign. The in- 
 jurious consequence of this was, that a 
 relish for sensual enjoyment, which was 
 in contradiction to the Gospel, was far- 
 thered, and that much prejudice against 
 Cluistianity might be engendered by it 
 among educated and civilized heathens.§ 
 
 • So Bamabous, c. 15. 
 
 f [Lit. ' of a religious-sensuous fanciful spirit:' 
 where fanciful is used for indulgence in the dreams 
 of an uncurbed imagina.tion—Schwarmcriscfie. 
 H. J. R.] 
 
 + In liis book entitled Kcya\i Kv^ictiutv i^tiywui;. 
 
 \ See Orig. Select, in 4. p. 570, vol. ii. 
 
 In the mean time we must also be very 
 careful not to pronounce sentence about 
 the Divine life itself from such isolated 
 representations, which are, perhaps, no- 
 thing but isolated admixtures of the carnal 
 and sensuous mind, not thoroughly pe- 
 netrated and ennobled by the hidden 
 Divine life. If we find in an Irenseus 
 vital Christianity, and an elevated idea of 
 blessedness, which he made to consist in 
 communion with God, notwithstanding 
 the accompaniment of those rash and 
 speculative representations, we must con- 
 clude that such sensuous representations 
 might very well exist in conjunction with, 
 and be engrafted upon, an essentially 
 Christian habit of thought in those times, 
 when the new creation of Christianity 
 had not yet been able thoroughly to pe- 
 netrate and imbue all things. With Ire- 
 ncBUS the millennial kingdom was only a 
 stage of preparation for the saints, who 
 were thus to be adapted gradually to a 
 higher state of heavenly existence, and to 
 the perfect revelation of the Divine glory.* 
 It was also exactly under this form that 
 Christianity might be able to find access 
 to a class of sensuous men, whose habits 
 of religious thought would afterwards 
 gradually continue to be more and more 
 spiritualized, by the practical influence of 
 the Gospel, and the inward change con- 
 stantly produce in them its outward 
 efl^ects. 
 
 If we find, that Millenarianism [Chili- 
 asmus] was then extensively propagated, 
 and are able to explain this by the cir- 
 cumstances of that period ; yet, we are 
 not to understand by this, that it ever be- 
 longed to the universal doctrines of the 
 Church. We have too scanty documents 
 from different parts of the Church in those 
 times, to be able to speak with certainty 
 and distinctness on that point. When we 
 find Chiliasm in Papias, Irenajus, J. Mar- 
 tyr, all this indicates that it arose from 
 one source, and was propagated from one 
 spot. The case is somewhat different 
 with those Churches which had — as for 
 instance, the Romish Church (see above) 
 — an anti-Jewish origin. We find, after- 
 wards an antimillenarian feeling in 
 Rome; and might not this feeling have 
 existed from the very first, and only been 
 called into greater publicity in the oppo- 
 sition which was made against Mon- 
 
 * Iren. v. 35. Crescentes ex visione Domini, 
 et per ipsum assuescent capere gloriam Dei et cum 
 Sanctis Angelis conversationem — ^Paullatim as- 
 suescent capere Deum. cap. 32. 
 
SENSUOrS CHILI 4 SM IN EGYPT. 
 
 '105 
 
 tanism ? The same may also be said of 
 an antimillcnarian feeling, which Ire- 
 n.Teus conihats, and which he expressly 
 distinguishes from the common antimil- 
 lenarian feelings of Gnosticism. But it 
 was natural enough that the zealots for 
 
 in which thoy understood evrrv thing 
 quite literally. And besides this, the al- 
 legorical interpretation of Scripture in 
 vogue among the Alexandrian school, 
 was in general very widely opposed to 
 the literal and sensuous interpretation 
 
 niillenarianism should at first be willing of the Chiliasts. The more moderate 
 to represent every opposition to it as a Alexandrians, who were not inclined to 
 Gnostic feeling.* extreme opinions in criticism, did not re- 
 
 Two causes co-operated together in ject the Apocalypse at once, as altogether 
 causing a more general repression of mil- an unchristian book, in order to take 
 lenarianism ; on the one hand, the oppo- away this support from the ChiliasUs; but 
 sition to Montanism, and on the other, ' they only combated the literal iuterpreta- 
 the influence of the spirit, which pro- [ tion of it. At the same time, it was natural 
 ceeded from the Alexandrian school. As that the spirit of the Alexandrian school 
 the Montanists laid much stress on Mil- should not extend itself very easily from 
 lenarian expectations, and, although they Alexandria into the other regions of 
 did not entirely conceive them after a F-gypt, which were so far behind thi.s 
 gross and sensuous manner,! s^^'ll propa- flourishing seat of learning, as to spi- 
 gated in accordance with their fanciful ritual advancement and culture. A pious 
 dreams, many extravagant representa- ' bishop of the Arsenoite Nomos, in Egypt, 
 tionsj of what should take place during named JVcpos, was a zealous partisan of 
 
 the sensuous niillenarianism, and he 
 wrote a defence of it against the Alexan- 
 drian school, under the tide, ' a Kefuta- 
 
 the millennium, the whole doctrine of 
 Chiliasm lost all respect and authority. 
 An antimillenarian party, which had been 
 
 in existence considerably earlier, obtained | lion of the Allegorists' {i>^tyx' 
 an opportunity by this means of attacking 
 Chiliasm more violently ; and the most 
 vehement opponents of Montanism appear 
 to have combated millenarianism as one 
 of the Montanistic doctrines. The Pres- 
 byter Caius, at Rome, in his treatise 
 against the Montanist Proclus, endea- 
 voured to brand Chdiasm as an heretical 
 doctrine, propagated by the abominable 
 Gnostic, Cerinthus; and it is not impro- 
 bable, although not quite certain, that he 
 declared the Apocalypse to be a book 
 forged by Cerinthus for the promotion of 
 that doctrine. 
 
 The more spiritual and more learned 
 character of the Alexandrian school, which 
 had so great a general influence on the 
 spiritualization of the doctrines of our happens, by their zeal for such favourite 
 faith, would also tend to farther the I opinions, which had no connection with 
 spiritualization of the ideas about the the true nature of the Gospel, men became 
 kingdom of God and Christ. Origen led away very far from that which is the 
 was a peculiarlv zealous opponent of the chief business of practic.il Chnstiamly; 
 
 yoaia-run-,) in which he appears to have 
 thrown out a theory of Chiliasm, accord- 
 ing to his own anti-allegorical mode of 
 deciphering the Apocalypse. This book 
 appears to have been very popular among 
 the clergy and laity of this region as it 
 usually happens that men are better 
 pleased to apply themselves to things 
 which busy and charm the powers of the 
 imagination, than to those, which sanctify, 
 warm, and animate die heart, and take 
 the will into their government. They 
 expected to find here great mysteries, and 
 explanations relative to the future, and 
 many occupied themselves more with the 
 book and theory of Nepos, than with the 
 Bible and ifs doctrines. As it usually 
 
 sensuous representations of the mil- 
 lennial kingdom, and endeavoured to 
 give a different meaning to the passages 
 of the Old and of the New Testa- 
 ment, on which the Chiliasts relied, and 
 
 Iren. v. 
 
 that is, the Spirit of Love. Those who 
 would not enter into these opinions, were 
 denounced as heretics, and things went 
 so far, that whole regions separated 
 themselves from communion with the 
 mother church of Alexandria. After the 
 2. Transfemntur quorundam sen- ' death of Nepos, Korakion, the pastor of 
 
 tentise ah hscreticis serrnonibus. I a country place stood at the head of th 
 
 nartv. If Dionysius, the bishop of Ale) 
 
 lonysius, me uisiiop oi .•Mex- 
 1 now chosen to exert his ec- 
 
 f TertulUan at least places the happiness of the I party, 
 millenariaii kingdom in the enjoyment of all spiri- j^,^j| 'jjj 
 
 ^ISlSriliauir-l^l^llian. of the wonderful I clesias;ical a.uhority, and condemned 
 city, tt heavenly Jerusalem which was todescend , these erroneous doctrines Ivy an author.ta- 
 from heaven. ' tive decree, the seed of a lasting sclusm 
 
406 
 
 DOCTRINE OF THE RESURRECTION. 
 
 would Imvebeen sown, and theChiliasm, 
 which they hoped to subdue by decrees, 
 wouhl probably have become only more 
 wild and fanatical in consequence of such 
 a proceeding. But Dionysius, the worthy 
 disciple of the great Origen, showed here, 
 how charity, moderation, and true free- 
 dom of spirit, which cannot consist except 
 with charity, may attain, what cannot be 
 effected by any power, or any law what- 
 ever. As he did not, like others, forget 
 the Christian in the bishop, his love for 
 souls induced him to repair in person to 
 those Churches, and to call the clergy, 
 who defended the opinions of Nepos, 
 together to a conference, and he permit- 
 ted all the laity of those Churches, who 
 were desirous of instruction in these sub- 
 jects, to be present at the conference. 
 The book of Nepos was laid before them, 
 and the bishop discussed its contents 
 with those clergy for three days, from 
 morning to evening; he listened quietly 
 to all their objections, endeavouring to 
 answer them out of Scripture, and con- 
 ducting the discussion by quoting fully 
 irom Scripture on every point ; and the 
 consequence was a result which seldom, 
 indeed, proceeds from theological disputes ; 
 namely, that the clergy were thankful for 
 the instruction they had received, and 
 Korakion himself, in the presence of them 
 all, honestly retracted his former opinions, 
 and declared himself persuaded of the 
 truth of the contrary to them, A. D. 255.* 
 After Dionysius had thus restored unity 
 of faitli among his Churches, he wrote 
 his work about the Promises (tte^* sTray- 
 yiMuv^) for the confirmation of those, 
 who had been persuaded by his argu- 
 ments, and for the instruction of others, 
 who still held the opinions of Nepos. 
 Here also the Christian mildness and mo- 
 deration with which he speaks of Nepos 
 deserves to be remarked. He says, " In 
 many other respects I reverence and love 
 Nepos, for his faith, his diligence, his in- 
 timate acquaintance with Holy Scripture, 
 and on account of the many hymns com- 
 posed by him, in which many of the 
 brethren still delight,t and I honour the 
 man the more, because he is already 
 
 entered into his rest. But the truth 
 is dearer and of more value to me than 
 aught besides : we must praise him, 
 and agree with him, when he says any 
 thing which is right ; but we must ex- 
 amine and set him right, when he writes 
 what does not appear to be true." 
 
 In respect to the doctrine of the resur- 
 rect'um, the teachers of the Church had 
 to defend this doctrine especially against 
 the Gnostics, who, in part, explained the 
 passages of Holy Scripture relating to it 
 in a very arbitrary manner, and made 
 them mean only the spiritual renovation 
 effected by Christianity. In this contro- 
 versy they felt strongly how essentially 
 this doctrine was bound up with Chris- 
 tianity, inasmuch as Christianity brought 
 with it, not the annihilation, but the en- 
 nobling and the glorifying of that which 
 peculiarly belongs to human nature ; and 
 the de-humanizing idealism of the Gnos- 
 tics was wholly incompatible with this 
 fundamental principle of Christianity. But 
 the opposition between these two often 
 seduced them into conceiving this doc- 
 trine of the resurrection after too carnal a 
 manner, and into making to themselves 
 ! too confined a representation of the 
 identity between the body after the resur- 
 rection, and the earthly body. Origen 
 endeavoured here also to find out a middle 
 way between these two opposite tenden- 
 cies, by making more use of what St. Paul 
 (1 Cor. XV-) says of the relation between 
 the earthly and the glorified body, and 
 by distinguishing the proper essential 
 substance of the body [das eigentliche 
 Grundwesen des Korpers,] which re- 
 mains the same during all the changes 
 of earthly life, and is not annihi- 
 lated even in death, from the changeable 
 form under which it appears at different 
 times. This essential substance of the 
 body was to be awakened again by the 
 influence of Divine Omnipotence to a new 
 and glorified form, such as would be an- 
 swerable to the glorified quality of the 
 soul ; so that, as the soul had communi- 
 cated its own peculiar impress to the 
 earthly body, it should communicate it 
 to the glorified one also.* 
 
 » Euseb. vii. 24. 
 
 ciJjA^av h^v/jL'.uM'x-iii. This passage may be taken 
 in two ways ; cither as it has been translated 
 above, which suits well with the custom of those 
 times (see Part II.) or else it may be translateJ, 
 " in consequence of the constant custom of 
 Psalmody diligently introduced by him into the 
 Churches,' &c.; the first appears the most natural. 
 
 • The siVoc ;^«5ajtT)igt^iv in the (rctfA*. Tmufxt- 
 TM'.v, as in the trcuu ^u)(^i>cov. In part, he here 
 made use of his doctrine of an Ckm [or substance ; 
 matter] which, undeterminate [as to form and 
 qualities, &c. Transl.] of itself, was capal)le of 
 receiving higher or lower qualities through the 
 fashioning power of God : and in part he makes 
 use of the doctrine of a dynamical essential sub- 
 stance of the body, a Myo! TTriffAi-riKo; (ratio ea 
 
APOSTOLICAL FATHERS. 40? 
 
 Tt follows from what we have said above The lime of the first extraordinary ope- 
 of the doctrine of the Alexandrians about ! rations of the Holy Spirit was followed 
 the Divine justice that the Alexandrian ' by the time of the free development of 
 Gnos<is must have considered, as the final " 
 aim of all things, a final general redemp- 
 tion, tlie removal of all evil, and a general 
 
 human nature in Christianity; and here, 
 as elsewhere, the operations ()f Chris- 
 tianity must necessarily be confined, be- 
 fore it could penetrate farther, and appro- 
 priate to itself the higher intellectual 
 powers of man. 
 
 The writings of the so-called apostolic 
 Fathers are, alas ! come down to us, for 
 
 return to the original unity of the Divine 
 Life, from which all proceeded. (This 
 would be the general a.iroy.a.Taa-T'xa-K;.) 
 ButOrigen, in consequence of his theory 
 about the necessary changeableness of the 
 will in created beings, was seduced into the nuist part in a very uncertain condi- 
 ?upposing, that evil, which is forever sow- tion ; partly, because in early limes writ- 
 ing new seeds, would render necessary ings were counterfeited under the name 
 new processes of purification, and new of these venerable men of the Church, in 
 worlds destined for the purification of order to propagate certain oj)inions or 
 fallen beings, until all shall have re- ' principles ; partly, because those writings 
 turned again from multiplicity to unity; 'which they had really published 
 
 and thus, that there would be a continual 
 alteration between fall and redemption, 
 unity and multiplicitv. To such a com- 
 fortless system did a notion, carried to the 
 extreine, lead this profound man ! This 
 doctrine he has expressed with confidence 
 in his work Tn^t u^x'^t ; but still it is 
 open to question, whether this be not one 
 of the subjects on which he afterwards 
 changed his views ; but still there are 
 even in his later writings traces of this 
 opinion, though not, perhaps, any which 
 are altosether certain and definite.* 
 
 § III. 
 
 Tlie history of the most celebrated 
 Fathers. 
 
 The next ecclesiastical writers who 
 come after the apostles, are the so-called 
 apostolical Fathers (Patres Apostolici,) 
 who come from the apostolic age, and 
 must have been the disciples of the apos 
 
 adulterated, and especially so to serve a 
 Judcco-hierarchical party, which would 
 fain crush the free evangelical spirit. 
 
 We should here iu the first place, have 
 to name Barnabas, the well known fellow 
 traveller of St. Paul, if a letter, which 
 was first known in the second century in 
 the Alexandrian Church under his name, 
 and which bore the inscription of a Ca- 
 tholic Epistle,* was really his composi- 
 tion. But it is impossible that we should 
 acknowledge this epistle to belong to that 
 Barnabas, who was worthy to be the 
 companion of the apostolic labours of St. 
 Paul, and had received his name from the 
 power of his aniinated discourses in the 
 Churches.| We find a difierent spirit 
 breathing throughout it, than that of such 
 an apostolic man. We perceive in it a 
 Jew of Alexandrian education, who had 
 embraced Christianity, who was prepared 
 
 ties. The remarkable diflerence betvveen | by his Alexandrian education for a spi 
 the writings of the apostles and those of ritual conception of Christianity ; but who 
 
 the apostolical Fathers, who are yet so 
 close upon the former in point of time, is 
 
 set loo high a value on his Alexandrian 
 and Jewish Gnosis, who looked for 
 
 a remarkable phenomenon of its kind, j especial wisdom in a mystical and fancifulj 
 While in other cases such a transition is | interpretation of the Old Testament, more 
 usually quite gradual, in this case we find resembling the spirit ol Philo than that of 
 a sudden one. Here there is no gradual j St. Paul, or even that of the Epistle to 
 transition, but a sudden spring ; a remark, 
 which is calculated to lead us to a recoir- 
 nition of the peculiar activity of the Di- 
 vine Spirit in the souls of the apostles. 
 
 quae substantiatn continet corporalem, qua semper 
 ill subsUntia corporis salva est.) See ^rt^i oe^x- '• 
 ii. c. 10, c. Ccl3. iv. 57. 
 
 * Origen, -n-. i^. I. ii. c. 3, c. Cela. iv. c. 69, 
 He savs merely, (i //«t» rcr at>xnrf^'.i tuc Ktiux( 
 
 ycuuim X'.ya: ti Tcttjr* iitrurb>mTiu. There is 
 an obscure expression in MaU. f. 402. to this ef- 
 fect, "After the aT-.K^rx^TiTK is fulfilled in certain 
 JEoas, TTsLKn oaax d^X"" 
 
 the Hebrews, and who indulged himsell m 
 such interpretations in a silly manner. 
 We cannot at all find in this epistle that 
 view of the Mosaic ceremonial law, as a 
 means of religious education for man in 
 
 • 'F.TiTroKx Kii'Mitx, that is to say, an epistle 
 ijeneral in its (lesiinntioii and contents, an horta- 
 tory piece, destined for many Churches; a de- 
 scription, which corresponds to the conleiils of lliis 
 letter. 
 
 I oiic TaptuXjirier: w«:c 7rg!><j>«TU<f. 
 
 i [ypielendein, lileriilly. play in? ; a mode of in- 
 terpretation, which cauchi at fancilul rosi'tnblaacos, 
 (Sec, and plays on words &c. — H. J. R.] 
 
408 
 
 LETTER OP BARNABAS, NOT GENUINE. 
 
 a certain stage of his development, which 
 we perceive in Paul ; but such a view, as 
 gives evidence altogether of an Alex- 
 andrian turn of mind, such a view as 
 does not meet us again in the later Fa- 
 thers, and which proceeds from the most 
 extravagant idealists among the Alexan- 
 drian Jews ;* " Moses spoke every thing 
 Iti -rrvivf^ocTtf that is to say, he has only 
 enveloped general spiritual truths in a 
 symbolical form ; but the carnal-minded 
 Jews, instead of penetrating into the 
 meaning of the symbols, had understood 
 every thing literally, and believed that 
 they must obey it to the letter; and thus 
 the whole ceremonial religion had pro- 
 ceeded from a misconception of the car- 
 nal-minded multitude." It is said,| that 
 an evil angel guided them to this misun- 
 derstanding, just as we find in the Cle- 
 mentine, and other similar writings, the 
 supposition that the original Judaism 
 had been adulterated by foreign admix- 
 tures, introduced by evil spirits. The 
 writer of the epistle will not allow it to 
 be true, that circumcision is a seal, or 
 token of a covenant; because, he says, on 
 the contrary, it is found among the Ara- 
 bians, the Syrians, and an idolatrous 
 priesthood (in Egypt.) But he argues 
 that Abraham, by the circumcision of 318 
 men, (Gen. xvii., and xiv. 14,) had pre- 
 figured the crucifixion of Jesus, and makes 
 it out thus, — IH (18) the beginning of 
 the name of Jesus, and T (300,) which 
 stands as the token of the Cross ; — an ex- 
 planation founded on Greek letters and 
 numerals, which can only suit some Alex- 
 andrian Jew, unaccustomed to, perhaps, 
 unacquainted with, the Hebrew language, 
 who was only at home in the Alexandrian 
 translation, but certainly cannot suit Bar- 
 nabas, who assuredly was not such a 
 stranger to the Hebrew lanffuatre, even if 
 
 is directed against carnal Judaism, and 
 carnal Judaism in Christianity. We re- 
 cognise a controversy against the latter, 
 which had extended its doctrinal influence 
 even to the views entertained of the per- 
 son of Christ, when in chap. xii. it is par- 
 ticularly insisted upon, that Christ is not 
 only the son of Man, and tlie son of 
 David, but also the Son of God. 
 
 We find also nothing to induce us to 
 believe, that the author of the epistle was 
 desirous of being considered Barnabas. 
 But since its spirit and its mode of con- 
 ception corresponded to the Alexandrian 
 taste, it may have happened, that as the 
 author's name was unknown, and persons 
 were desirous of giving it authority, a re- 
 port was spread abroad in Alexandria, that 
 Barnabas was its author. 
 
 After Barnabas, we come to Clement, 
 perhaps, the same whom Paul mentions, 
 (Phil. iv. 3;) he was at the end of the 
 first century bishop of Rome. Under 
 his name we have one epistle to the 
 Church of Corinth, and the fragment of 
 another. The first was read in the first 
 centuries aloud at divine service in many 
 Churches, even with the writings of the 
 New Testament; it contains an exhorta- 
 tion to unity, interwoven with examples 
 and general reflections, addressed to the 
 Church at Corinth, which was shaken by 
 divisions. This letter, although, on the 
 whole, genuine, is, nevertheless, not free 
 from important interpolations ; e. g. a. 
 contradiction is apparent, since through- 
 out the whole epistle we perceive the 
 simple relations of the earliest forms of a 
 Christian Church, as the bisliops and 
 presbyters are always put upon an 
 equality, and yet in one passage (§ 40 
 and following) the whole system of t!ie 
 Jewish priesthood is transferred to the 
 Christian Church. The second epistle. 
 
 o . <r>""o^-> -•■-" '• ^ -"• ' ■■" 
 
 we could attribute such a spiritless play as it is called, is evidently only the frag- 
 
 on words to him. And yet the man, 
 who could fall intu such trifling, held it 
 for something extraordinary, and he adds 
 these pompous words, which are charac- 
 teristic of the mystery-mongering of the 
 Jewish Alexandrian Gnosis: "No one 
 hath received a more authentic doctrine 
 from me, but I know that ye are worthy 
 of it."J 
 
 The prevailing tendency of the epistle 
 
 * See page 34. -f- c. 9. 
 
 otin Iti l^ioi ta-Ti iifAw. [On the subject of this 
 intorpretatian of the number .318, the reader is re- 
 ferred to the Tvev. S. R. Maitland's "Letter to a 
 friend on the Tract for the Times, No. 89," 1841.] 
 
 ment of a homily. 
 
 Under the name of this Clement, Ivo 
 letters have besides been preserved in the 
 Syrian Church, and they were published 
 by Wetstein in an appendix to liis edition 
 of the New Testament. Tliey are two 
 circulars, especially addressed to Chris- 
 tian men and women living in celibacy. 
 It cannot be adduced as a proof against 
 the Clementine origin of these epistles, 
 that this state of life is held in special es- 
 teem in them, because this iiigli estima- 
 tion of celibacy found admittance in early 
 time.* The high antiquity of these epis- 
 
 See Part 11. 
 
CLEMENTINE CONSTITUTIONS. 
 
 409 
 
 ties is in some degree testified by the 
 nonappearance of any endeavour to sup- 
 port tfie pretensions of the hierarchical 
 party ; and by tiie circumstances, that the 
 ideas of the priesthood belonging to the 
 Old Testament are not here introduced 
 into the Christian Church, as is the case 
 in similar writings of this kind ; that 
 neither the separation of the priesthood 
 from the laity, nor the distinction of 
 bishops and presbyters occurs here ; and 
 that the gift of healing the sick, and 
 especially demoniacs, is considered as a 
 free gift, and not as a gift belonging to 
 one peculiar office. And yet this is no 
 certain proof of the high antiquity of the 
 epistles ; because, even if it were of 
 later origin, all this might be explained 
 iioin the idiosyncrasy of certain regions 
 of the East. 
 
 As these epistles must have been ad- 
 mirably suited to the ascetic disposition 
 of the western Churches, especially the 
 North African, and as in similar writings 
 of practical import (against similar abuses 
 to those which are censured in these 
 epistles) occasion to make use of them 
 must often have arisen, it is the more re- 
 markable that they were never quoted be- 
 fore the fourth century,* which certainly 
 must create a suspicion against their 
 geiniineness. 
 
 These epistles altogether bear the cha- 
 racter of havinij been counterfeited in the 
 
 Stitutions (JiaTa^nf, or iiara'/a* 'AjroaTo- 
 >iixai,) and the xaiofj 'A7ro<7TcAiKOi. 
 
 Tlie siune thing may have occurred in 
 regard to the origin of these two collec- 
 tions, as took place with regard to the 
 origin of the Apostles' Creed, as it is 
 called. As it was usual originally to 
 speak of an apostolical tradition, without 
 its being supposed, that the apostles iiad 
 published a confession of faith ; so in 
 the same manner, in regard to the con- 
 stitution and customs of the Church, 
 an apostolical tradition was spoken of, 
 without its beihg thought that tiie apos- 
 tles had given laws in writing on the 
 subject. And when people had once 
 become used to the expressions, "• Apos- 
 tolical traditions," " Apostolical ordi- 
 nances," the pretence, or the belief, at 
 last attached itself to them, that the 
 apostles had written down a collection 
 of ecclesiastical laws, as they had a con- 
 fession of faith. And hence, under the 
 influence of dillerent interests, different 
 collections of this kind may have existed, 
 as those which Epiphanius quotes in 
 many places, are evidently not identical 
 with our Apostolical Constitutions. These 
 latter appear to have arisen gradually in 
 the Oriental Church, out of difli'rent 
 pieces, whose ages extend from the latter 
 part of the second to the fourth century. 
 
 Hennas would follow here, if he, as 
 many of the ancients thought, were tlu 
 
 latter years of the second, or in the third same with the Ilermas mentioned in the 
 
 century, partly in order to enhance the 
 value of celibacy, partly in order to 
 counteract the abuses which rose up 
 under the cover of a life of celibacy, 
 especially the introduction of the avma-- 
 axroi.j- (See above.) 
 
 Many writings were counterfeited under 
 the name of this Clement, to serve a 
 hierarchical or a doctrinal purpose; such, 
 for instance, are the writings which relate 
 the history of Clement himself, who is 
 supposed there to be converted by the 
 
 16lh cliaptcr of the epistle of the Apostle 
 Paid to the Romans. We have a work 
 under his name, which bears the title of 
 the Sliepherd (7ro»/A»)»,) so called, because 
 in the second book, an angel is repre- 
 sented as a shepherd, to whose guidance 
 Hermas is entrusted. 
 
 It cannot be ascertained with certainty, 
 whether the antlior really believed that 
 he had the visions, which he represents, 
 or whether he suppo.-;ed them, in order to 
 gain a more readv entrance for the doc- 
 
 Apostle Peter, and meets again with his ■ trines, especially those of a practical 
 fatlier, whom he had lost,;^: — the Clemen- \ kind, inculcated by him. The work was 
 tine, the peculiar Ebionitish cliaracter | originally written in Greek, but it is pre- 
 of which we have before remarked, — as j served to us in great measure, only in a 
 wellas the collection of the Apostolic Con- Latin translation; and it was held in 
 
 - great reverence by Greek writers of the 
 second centurv, to which the name of 
 Hernias and the renowned visions may 
 have deeply contributed. Irenams quotes 
 the book under the name of " the Scrip- 
 ture :" and vet there are strong reasons 
 to doubt of its being derived from that 
 Apostolic IlermaH, although thf other 
 tradition, (supported by the poenj against 
 
 * The first traces of them are in Epiphanius 
 and .leroine. 
 
 j Tfiis almse had spread it-stlf in the Antiochian 
 Church, as well as in the North African. See the 
 Synodal P>pistle against Paul of Samosata. Eu- 
 scb. vii. 30. 
 
 :f Hence comes the name of the edition of this 
 work, preserved to us in the translalion of Kuf- 
 finus, — uvuyvit^ii-fy.oi, Kecognitioncs. 
 
410 APOLOGISTS. — aUADRATUS, ARISTIDES, JUSTIN MARTYR. 
 
 Marcion nscribed to Tertullian, and the I against it by false reports, and they used 
 fragment on the canon of the New Tes- 1 their comprehensive and scientific educa- 
 tament published by Miiratori,)* that the j tion and knowledge in order to represent 
 brother of the Roman Bishop Pius, who] the Christian doctrine to the more ciilti- 
 obtained this office about the year 1-56, | vated heathens in a point of view more 
 was the author, is also very doubtful, be- [ agreeable to their turn of mind, 
 cause we cannot determine what credit is | Among these we must first name Qua- 
 due to these two writings, and because ! dratus, who was known as an evangelist,* 
 
 the high reverence entertained for the 
 book in the time of an Irenoeus and a 
 Clement of Alexandria, can hardly be re- 
 conciled with so late an origin of the 
 work.t 
 
 Ignatius, bishop of the Church at 
 Aniioch, in the time of the Emperor 
 Trajan, it would appear, was carried as 
 prisoner to Rome, where he expected to 
 be exposed to wild beasts. On the jour- 
 ney, it would seem he wrote seven epis- 
 tles, six to the Churches of Asia Minor, 
 and one to Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna. 
 Certainly, these epistles contain passages 
 which at least bear completely upon 
 them the character of antiquity. This is 
 particularly the case with the passages 
 directed against Judaism and Docetism ; 
 but even the shorter and more trust- 
 worthy edition is very much interpolated. 
 
 The epistle to Polycarp, the bishop of 
 Smyrna, appears the most like a diligent 
 compilation ; and that to the Church of 
 Rome bears, the most, the stamp of indi- 
 viduality upon it. 
 
 We have already spoken before of Po- 
 lycarp, bishop of Smyrna. An epistle to 
 the Church at Philippi is ascribed to him, 
 the genuineness of which there are no 
 sufficient grounds to deny. 
 
 We shall now, after considering the 
 apostolic Fathers, notice the Apologists, 
 who follow immediately after them in 
 chronological order. The defence of 
 Christianity against the heathens first led 
 the way to an union between Christianity 
 and the knowledge and cultivation of 
 those days. As ur.der the government of 
 Hadrian, Christianity began to extend 
 itself more among the more cultivated 
 classes, as heathens of a certain philo- 
 sophical and literary character came over L 
 
 to the Christian Church, they felt them- I * We must understand this word in a sense 
 selves obliged to defend their faith aaainst' agreeable to the New Testament, i. e. a teacher, 
 the accusations whicli were spread abroad : not appointed to one particular Church, but 
 
 I a missionary travelling for the purpose of propa- 
 
 and celebrated for his prophetic gifts. We 
 must not confound him, as Jerome has 
 done, with a Quadratus who was bishop 
 of a Church at Athens in the days of 
 Marcus Aurelius. His Apology, alas! has 
 not reached us, and Eusebius has pre- 
 served to us only the following remark- 
 able words: "The works of our Saviour 
 were always present, because they Avere 
 real and true ; those who were healed by 
 him ; those, who were raised from the 
 dead, who were to be seen, not only when 
 they were being healed and raised, but 
 constantly ; not only during the lifetime 
 of our Saviour, but after his departure 
 they were present a considerable time, so 
 that some of them have reached even to 
 our time."f 
 
 The second Apologist, Aristides, even 
 as a Christian, still retained the gown of 
 the philosopher, (tjjj/3«i/,) in order to be 
 able to represent Christianity to the 
 educated classes as the new heavenly 
 philosophy.'^ 
 
 Justin Martyr is remarkable, as the first 
 among these apologists whose writings 
 have reached us, and as the first of those 
 better known to us, who became a teacher 
 of the Christian Church, in whom we ob- 
 serve an approximation between Chris- 
 tianity and the Grecian, but especially the 
 Platonic philosophy ; and in this respect 
 he may be considered as the precursor of 
 the Alexandrian Fathers. We can obtain, 
 for the most part, only from his own 
 writings any account of his life aiul edu- 
 cation \ and here also we feel most cer- 
 tainty at first, by restricting ourselves to 
 his two Apologies, because these are the 
 undoubted work of Justin, and bear upon 
 them the stamp of a peculiar character of 
 mind which cannot be mistaken : and the 
 
 Murat. Antiq. Ital. Jud. ^vi, 
 •}■ It may be the case, that the Roman Bishop 
 
 gating the Gospel. 
 
 ■}- Euscb. iii. 37; iv. 3; v. 17. 
 
 \ Hieronym. dc Vir. lUust. c. 20. Ep. 83, ad Mag. 
 
 rius really had a brother of this name; and tbat | num: apologeticum context um phikmphoruui 
 
 destroy the fev " ■■—•■'■ 
 
 very purpose 
 
 those, who wished to destroy the feveretice paid 1 sentcntiis. The traveller de la Guilletiere says, 
 to this work, lor that very purpose assigned to [ that in a convent about six miles from Athens 
 
 it so late an author. 
 
 they profess to have a copy of this Apology. 
 
JUSTIN MARTYR. 
 
 rest of his writings, on the contrary, must | 
 in the first place prove their genuineness ] 
 by a comparison with these. I 
 
 Fliivius Justiiius was born in the town 
 Flavia Neapolis, formerly Siciiem, in ] 
 Samaria; it was then a Roman-Greek co- i 
 lony, in wfiich tlie Greek hmguftge pre- i 
 vailed. It was, probably, not a pretlomi- I 
 nantly speculative character of mind, | 
 which was not the case with him, but an 
 endeavour after a satisfactory religious 
 persuasion, which led him, as well as so 
 many others of those days, to the study 
 of philosophy; and for this very reason, 
 the Platonic philosophy would have pe- 
 culiar attractions for him. Since it was 
 rather a religious than a speculative 
 interest which led him on, it is possible, 
 although some isolated and elevated Pla- j 
 tonic notions, like those of the relation- j 
 ship of the human soul to God, and of j 
 the intuition of Divine tilings, animated i 
 him, tiiat he was not so taken by the sys- 
 tem of the school, that his heart should : 
 thence become incapable of those higher | 
 impressions, which passed the bounds of [ 
 the empire of this system. How he be- 
 came a Christian he relates himself:* 
 " While I still found my delight in the 
 doctrines of Plato, and heard the Chris- 
 tians calumniated, but yet saw them fear- 
 less towards death, and all that men 
 account fearful ; I learned tliat it was im- 
 possible, tliat they should live in sin and 
 lust.t I despised the opinion of the 
 niuliitude; I was proud of being a Chris- 
 tian, and 1 endeavoured with all my 
 powers to remain one." 
 
 Justin retained as a Christian, the phi- 
 losopher's cloak.J which he had borne as 
 a lieathen philosopher and ascetic ; and 
 he used this garb and mode of life, in 
 order easily to be al)le to introduce con- 
 versations on religions and piiilosophical 
 subjects, and thus to prepare a passage 
 for the Gospel into the hearts of men ; 
 and he was, as it were, a travelling 
 evangelist in the philosophic garb.^ It 
 lias been unsoundly concluded|| that he 
 
 * Apolog. i. p. 50-1. 
 
 t See Part I. i See Part II. 
 
 § Even if the Diahn^us cum Tnjplume were 
 not genuine, we might, nevertheless, use the ac- 
 count given in it; for we iriight presuppose that 
 the author of it had an accurate knowledge of 
 Justin's life. 
 
 |l By Tillemont, ['i'he conclusion of Tille- 
 mont may be unwarranted by the expression of 
 Justin, but surely at that time there was a separa- 
 tion of clergy and laity. See note, p. 102. — H. 
 J. fi.] 
 
 411 
 
 was ordained to the priesthood, from hij 
 own language in iiis representation of llie 
 Christian laith in the second Apology, 
 »■' We conduct the convert, after we have 
 baptized him, to the assembled brethren." 
 There was at that time no such separation 
 of the clergy from the laity, tiiat Justin 
 migiit not have been al)le to say this from 
 his position, as sharing the priesthood 
 common to all Christians. But whetiier 
 he was solemnly ordained to the calling 
 of an evangelist in the name of the 
 Church or not — an inquiry of no import- 
 ance — it is hardly to be supposed that his 
 gifts were left idle, whether for the propa- 
 gation of the Gospel among the heathen, 
 or for the instruction of the Churches 
 themselves. Jf the account of the mar- 
 tyrdom of Justin were worthy of credit, 
 it would prove, that when he was resident 
 in Rome, a part of the Ciiurch, which 
 understood the Greek language, used to 
 assemble in his house, in order to hear 
 his discourses. 
 
 We observed in the first part of this 
 history,* that after the death of the Em- 
 peror Hadrian, persecutions arose against 
 the Christians in the beginning of tlie 
 reign of Antoninus Pius. Thereby Justin, 
 who was then resident at Home, was in- 
 duced to address a writing in defence of 
 the interests of the Christians to the em- 
 peror. Since, however, in the superscrip- 
 tion of this work, he does not give the 
 title of C.Bsar to .M. Aurelius, it is probably 
 to be inferred, that it was written before 
 his adoption into that dignity, which took 
 place A. D. 139.t 
 
 • Sec page 60. 
 
 ■\ The superscription is AiT-,Kg<Tcg/ T<t» Wkx* 
 'Ai^tnvui 'AvT6v<irai Eia-s^u lijiirrm KMnp x.-u O'j-m 
 fi77iuui ulai <^tK(/T'j^oi X.-JJ Aii/Jtw .^/xo3";jai (according 
 to Euscbius <fiKCT;^yj) KaiJ-<g->: <fi/5-ti ulte Kti Hv7f- 
 
 Sn/Ate TavTi 'Vuujuui- The first n imed is Augustus 
 Antoninus Pius, who had then entered on his 
 reign, the second M. Antuninus, [)hilosi)phus, to 
 whom the Emperor Hadrian (in coni()liance with 
 whose wishes Antoniims Pius adopted him) had 
 given the name Annius Vcrissimus, the third is 
 Lueius Verus Antoninus, afterwards the associate 
 of M. Aurelius in the government, the son of 
 Lucius -Elius Verus, whom Il.idrian had adopted 
 and nominated as Cxsar ; after the early death of 
 the latter, he (the son.) as Hadrian wished, was 
 ado|)tcd in the same manner by .Antoninus Pius, 
 who had stepped into the place of 4iis father, 'i'he 
 reading found in Eusebius is most likely the trus 
 one, for it is hardly to be supposed that Lucius 
 Verus should have had two epithets. The name 
 of Philosopher is utterly out of character for a boy 
 of nine years of age, who might yet very well bo 
 called f§i3-Tv mtiu-Ji':. It is more likely liiat the 
 nauio oi Philosopher should have been given to 
 
412 
 
 THE FIRST APOLOGY. 
 
 There are greater difficulties in the de- 
 termination of the time, at which the first 
 Apology, as it is called, was written. 
 The occasion, which moved him to write 
 for the Christians (an occasion full of in- 
 struction, with regard both to the history 
 of tiie active efficacy of Christianity, and 
 to that of the persecutions) was this, — a 
 woman in Rome, who had led a vicious 
 life with her husband, was converted, and 
 refusing any longer to share the vices of 
 her husband endeavoured to bring about 
 his reformation. As, however, she was 
 unable to efl'ect this, and was unable, 
 if she remained any longer in union 
 with her husband, to withdraw herself 
 from participation in his sins, and as 
 she had, according to the doctrines of 
 our Lord, grounds sufficient to justify a 
 .separation, she separated herself from 
 him. In order to revenge himself, the 
 divorced husband accused her as a Chris- 
 tian. The accused woman presented a 
 petition to the emperor, that she might be 
 allowed first to arrange her family con- 
 cerns, and then she was willing to under- 
 go her judicial trial. When her husband 
 found his revenge against his wife thus 
 delayed, he turned his rage against her 
 instructor in Christianity, named Ptole- 
 niffius. He was arrested by a centurion, 
 and carried before the Procfectus urbis. 
 As he openly declared before him, that he 
 was a Christian, he was condemned to 
 death. Another Christian, by name Lu- 
 cius, who heard this sentence, said to the 
 Prrefect, " Wherefore have you sentenced 
 to death this man, who has committed 
 no murder, no theft, no adultery; but 
 only because he is a Christian .' You are 
 acting in a manner, which is not becoming 
 either to the pious emperor, or the philo- 
 sopher tiie son of the emperor.''* The 
 Prefect concluded from this declaration 
 that he was a Christian, and when he 
 confirmed this, the Prefect sentenced him 
 in like manner to death. A third person 
 shared the same fate. 
 
 The question is, therefore, Whether 
 this event suits best with the reign of 
 Antoninus Pius, or that of M. Aurelius? 
 We find here nothing that would be ahi^o- 
 lulchj inconsistent with the former; for, 
 
 iElius Verus, who was dead, whom Spartianus 
 calls " eruditus in Uteris." 
 
 (according to Eiischius the common rcadinir is 
 <|!iA'.3-cocu.) [N. B. This expression is ambiguous, 
 — the meaning is, that Eusebius reads (fixc<rc^a>, 
 and the common editions of Justin read !t>iM3-i<fov. 
 •Sec the note of Valesius. — H. J. R.] 
 
 as Ave remarked,* the law of Trajan was 
 by no means abolished by the rescripts 
 of Hadrian and of Antoninus Pius, ia 
 accordance with which law, the open 
 avowal of Christianity might be punished 
 with death, although the mildness of the 
 
 emperor permitted a governor favourably I 
 
 disposed to Christians, to pass over a 
 great deal. But is it probable that a 
 Christian should have spoken thus to the 
 Praifect, if the reigning emperor had him- 
 self issued a severe law against the Chris- 
 tians, as Christians .? Even in the Apology 
 itself, there is no trace of the existence 
 of a new law against the Christians, for 
 the abolition of which Justin entreated 
 the emperor. It may be said, that it suits 
 only the time of M. Aurelius; for Justin 
 says, that confessions had been extorted 
 from the servants, women, and children 
 of the Christians, by which the popular 
 reports about unnatural practices in the 
 assemblies of Christians were declared to 
 be true. It is certainlyj" in the reign of 
 M. Aurelius that we first find examples 
 of such conduct towards the Christians 
 quoted ; but as popular fanaticism had, ever 
 since the reign of Nero, spread abroad 
 such reports against the Christians, that 
 fanaticism may easily have found at an 
 earlier time many magistrates who gave 
 credit to it, and ministered to it. Even 
 in the Apology, which according to the 
 common supposition is placed in the time 
 of Antoninus Pius, Justin at Uiat time is 
 anxious, that people would only not give 
 credit to tlie blind reports of the people 
 against Christians. But he says, that the 
 same things which happened at Rome un- 
 der Urbicus, commonly took place else- 
 where also; that the other Governors 
 acted as unreasonably ; that every wiiere, 
 if any one was improved by Christianity, 
 one of his nearest relations or friends 
 came forward as his accuser; and this 
 seems to agree better with the general 
 persecutions under W. Aurelius. But 
 even in the time of Antoninus Pius, many 
 violent popular assaults liad taken place 
 against the Christians, which moved him 
 to issue the rescript, which was calculated 
 to allay the irritations of men's minds. 
 This is also still farther remarkable iu 
 the above quoted designation of the reign- 
 ing princes through Lucius, that the title 
 of philosopher, peculiarly appropriated to 
 M. Aurelius, is not bestowed upon him, 
 but transferred to Verus, whom it does 
 not suit, and to whom it is not elsewhere 
 
 See Section I. 
 
 ■f See Section I. 
 
VIEWS ON THE LOGOS. 
 
 413 
 
 attributed, while the title of Antoninus 
 Pius is bestowed upon M. Aurelius, who 
 is no where spoken of during his lifetime 
 by this name. Even if we throw away 
 the reading of Eusebius we have quoted, 
 the dithculty is not removed, for the same 
 titles are attributed at the end of the 
 Apology to both the emperors.* These 
 grounds are an argument to place this 
 Apology, not according to the common 
 belief, which has, however, great names, 
 e. g. Pagi, Tillemont, Mosheim, in its 
 favour, but with Valesius and Longuerue 
 in the time of Antoninus Pius. 
 
 It is also a striking circumstance,| that 
 Justin, twicet in this Apology, appeals to 
 thai, which he has before said., which yet 
 does not occur in this Apology, but in 
 the first. He uses the same formula, ij 
 7rpoi!p»i,u,£», which he uses in other places, 
 wiiere he quotes passages out of the same 
 writing. 
 
 We do not, however, wish to deny, 
 that the authority of Eusebius is opposed 
 to our supposition, because he certainly 
 appears to consider the first mentioned 
 Apology as written in the reign of Anto- 
 ninus Pius, and to place the second in 
 that of .M. Aurelius ;§ but still the authority 
 of this historian is not decisive here, for 
 the proper relation of the second Apology, 
 as it is called, to the first, might be lost 
 and forgotten in the time of Eusebius. 
 
 An idea, which afterwards re-appears 
 among the Alexandrians, is altogether 
 peculiar to these two treatises; namely, 
 that in Christianity there is to be found 
 the unclouded and unbroken revelation 
 of Divine truth, while on the contrary, in 
 all human systems, there are only to be 
 found fragments of a revelation of truth, 
 clouded through the partial views of man. 
 What Clement says of the revelation of 
 
 • Ew ouv X.CU iifj^a-t ii^ictii vj^i^uii; kh '^i\(,T'j<pi!t! Tat 
 SiK-xiA 'uTTi^ iMjTm KpivAi. That in the beginning of 
 the Apology of Athenagoras the title ^/xctj^oc is 
 attributed, whether it be to L. Verus, or to Corn- 
 modus, cannot be alleged to remove thisdiflicuity, 
 because it is easy to understand that the titles, 
 properly belonging only to one emperor, should 
 be attributed to two in common, as is the case 
 here. 
 
 f As the Benedictine Editor has already ob- 
 served. 
 
 i In the Benedictine Edition, § 4, where he 
 speaks of the enmity with God ; § G, where he 
 speaks of the incarnation of the Logos ; and § 8 
 where he speaks of lleraclitus. 
 
 § If we compare ii. 13, and iv. 16, (for iy. II, 
 is somewhat otiscure,) and ch. 17, with the pre- 
 ceding, we cannot doubt, that either the reading 
 TreoTipx is faulty, or that Eusebius himself has 
 only written thus from some oversight. 
 
 ' the Logos, torn in pieces like the body 
 of Dionysius (see above.) had already 
 been said by Justin in other words, llo 
 j supf)osL's that there is in human nature 
 something akin* to the Divine Logos, 
 ! that universal and absolute Divine rca- 
 , son, from wliicli the partial recognition 
 I of religious and moral truth in the hea- 
 then philosophers proceeded. The reve- 
 lation, however, of truth, wiiich iiere is 
 in broken fragments, and is disturbed by 
 the intermi.xture of what is human, was 
 ! first shown in its clearness and perfection, 
 j by the appearance of the Logos itself in 
 human nature. The same relation which 
 exists between it and the clouded, partial 
 reason of man, exists also between Chris- 
 I tianity and all other systems of religious 
 I truth. Certainly, this was an idea, ex- 
 ! tremely calculated to seek for points in 
 the common religious conscience of man, 
 for Christianity to attach itself upon, as 
 well as to set forth the elevation of the 
 Gospel above all previous systems con- 
 taining religious matter. He hence says,f 
 that all good, which has ever been spoken 
 by any, belongs to Christianity. He 
 hence concludes, that in all times those 
 who have followed the inward revelation 
 of the Logos, and lived in accordance 
 with it, were Christians; although they 
 were called Atheists, as Abraham and So- 
 crates, and that such men were always 
 persecuted by the enemies of the Logos 
 (those who live without reason.) We 
 certainly need not suppose that Justin 
 delivered these notions at Alexandria, and 
 that they have passed from him to the 
 Alexandrian Fathers, or on the other 
 hand, that Justin has borrowed them from 
 a previously-existing Alexandrian theo- 
 logy. For certainly, every Platonist, — ac- 
 customed to the ideas of the relation of 
 the iroigo> in man to the supreme tout, — 
 I who was converted to Christianity, while 
 I he was seeking for some medium between 
 ' his former Platonic notions and his newly 
 I acquired Christian ones, might easily be 
 led to these notions. 
 
 But it is, indeed, remarkable, that in the 
 other writings of Justin, we find no trace 
 of the notions, which prevail so com- 
 pletely in the Apologies, as to the relation 
 between that which is divine in man to 
 the self-revelation of the Divine Logos, 
 
 • The cntpudLT'.u yryM, OT the xc^ec anfudLTuux. 
 
 \ Apolog. li. (commonly called i.) 'Orx tm* 
 TTifTt kx^m: fi^xTi/, ></itay Toi» X^iTTHtat Wrt. [In 
 Grabe's Edition [Oxford. 8vo. 1700—1703,] this 
 is printed as the second .\pology.] 
 2M2 
 
414 
 
 Aoyoj fffo? EXXtjm?. 
 
 and the notions that are connected with 
 these ; namely, in regard to the relation 
 between tlie scattered traces of truth 
 found amongthe heathen and Christianity. 
 It may, indeed, be said, that he has attri- 
 buted these notions to himself only in 
 furtherance of his object, that by this 
 means he might dispose the philosophical 
 emperor to be favourable to his propo- 
 sals ; but this is, nevertheless, not a 
 natural supposition. We may especially 
 remark, that judging of Justin from his 
 writings, we can hardly give him credit 
 for the adroitness of moving so freely in 
 a circle of ideas, taken up by him in ap- 
 pearance only. And besides, in his Apo- 
 logies he makes no scruple of blaming 
 the religious doctrines of the Stoics, al- 
 though the stoicism of M. Aurelius was 
 well known. We may thence conclude, 
 that he pretended also to no milder 
 opinion of the Grecian philosophy in 
 general, than he really held. And in other 
 writings also, intended to facilitate the 
 conversion of the heathen, he might just 
 as well have used this method, as in the 
 Apologies. Why, therefore, does he never 
 use it in those other writings ? This cir- 
 cumstance would be still more striking, 
 if we suppose, according to the common 
 view of the matter, that Justin wrote these 
 Apologies at such different times. 
 
 We have under the name of Justin a 
 treatise, with the title of "An exhortation 
 to the heathen" {'n-et^ainTiKoq Trfo? 'E^^*J- 
 *«s,) the object of which is, to persuade 
 the heathen of the unsatisfactory nature 
 of their popular religion, and their philo- 
 sophical doctrines of religion, as well as 
 of the necessity of some higher and Divine 
 instruction. It is, most probably, the same 
 writing as that which is quoted by Euse- 
 bius and Pliotius, under the tide of "The 
 Confutation" {i>,£yx,o<;^) which suits its 
 contents well enough. 
 
 In this treatise we find no trace of that 
 mild and liberal thought, which we re- 
 mark in the Apologies, and no trace of 
 that peculiar circle of ideas, but far rather 
 a contrary mode of thinking. All know- 
 ledge of God is here deduced from out- 
 ward revelation only; but there were 
 many misunderstood accordances with 
 truth, recognised among the heathen; but 
 these are all deduced from a misunder- 
 stood and (dlsified tradition, according to 
 the Jndaeo-Alexandi-ian notion, that a 
 knowledge of the doctrines communicated 
 to the Jews by Divine revelation, was 
 conveyed to the Greeks from Egypt. 
 
 ledged to have existed among the heathen, 
 who, following the revelation of the Xoyo<; 
 o-TTff/xaTtxo;, were witnesses of the truth 
 before the appearance of Christianity; 
 here, on the contrary, it is said : " Your 
 teachers also are compelled to say much 
 for us about Divine Providence, even 
 against their will, and especially those 
 who dwelt in Egypt, and have received 
 benefit from the religion of Moses and his 
 ancestors."* 
 
 It is impossible to suppose, that this 
 treatise can have proceeded from the same 
 cast of thought, as the two Apologies of 
 Justin. But if it is determined to attribute 
 it to him, then we must at least not con- 
 sider it, in accordance with the common 
 supposition, as the first of his writings 
 after his conversion ; but far rather as 
 one of the later. We must suppose that 
 his original more liberal and milder habits 
 of thought had latterly become narrower 
 and harsher, that the views which ori- 
 ginally prevailed with him, and proceeded 
 from his own disposition, those views of 
 the connection between the revelations of 
 the A070? c-'jreffjt.a.Tiy.oi to the revelation of 
 the absolute Xoyo(;, which we find as the 
 predominant views in the Apologies, were 
 latterly entirely driven into the back- 
 ground by the views imparted to him by 
 the Alexandrian Jews, of outward Reve- 
 lation as the source [of this knowledge 
 among the heathen.]| Such a change is 
 no doubt possible, and examples of such 
 changes are certainly to be found, but one 
 is led to inquire whether this treatise con- 
 tains sufficient evidence of the authorship 
 of Justin, to drive us to this explanation. 
 We have also under the name of Justin 
 a short address to the heathens (A070? w^o? 
 'EXArjuac) which none of the treatises 
 enumerated in the list of Justin's writings 
 among the ancients suits, but whicli,even 
 if it does not proceed from him, as the 
 style is somewhat more rhetorical than 
 his, yet bears the stamp of that time upon 
 
 » Cohortat. p. 15. 
 
 I It cannot be denied, that this view occurs 
 even in the Apologies, only that it is more in the 
 background, while the other is the predominant 
 view. Apol. ii. p. 81. " All which philosophers 
 and poets have said of the immortality of the soul, 
 of the contemplation of Divine things, or of doc- 
 trines like these, they may have learnt and deve- 
 loped, while they received the first hints from the 
 prophets. ' There seems, therefore, to be among 
 all a Sun of truth, and it is clear, that they havo 
 not understood it properly, because they contradict 
 themselves." - _. . . . 
 
 So also, p. 92, Plato s doctrine of 
 While in the Apologies men are acknow- I the Creation is deduced from Moses. 
 
DIALOnUS COM TRYPHONR. 
 
 415 
 
 it. It is a rhetorical exposition of the j 
 untenableness of the heathen doctrines 
 about the gods, in which the most beau- 
 tiful part is the conclusion : "The power j 
 of the Logos makes neither poets nor j 
 philosophers, nor accomplished orators; 
 but, wliile it forms us. it turns mortal men i 
 into immortal, mortal men into gods. It 
 lifts us from the earth above the bounds I 
 of Olympus. Come, suffer yourselves to 
 be formed. Become as I am, for I was 
 also like you ; for this, even the divine j 
 nature of the doctrines, the power of the j 
 Logos, has overcome me ; for as a skilful j 
 serpent-cliarmer entices and frightens 
 away the terrible animal from its lurking- 
 place, so the Word banishes tlie terrible 
 passions of sensuality out of the most 
 hidden corners of the soul. And after the 
 desires are banished, the soul becomes 
 tranquil and cheerful, and turns back to 
 its Creator, freed from the evil that ad- 
 hered to it." 
 
 We have also under the name of Justin 
 a treatise on the unity of God (Trepj /xovap- 
 X,i»<;) containing, for the most part, pas- 
 sages collected from the ancient literature 
 of the Greeks, especially from the poets. 
 The object of the treatise is to convert 
 the heathen by means of their own litera- 
 ture. This writing is, perliaps, only the 
 fragment of a larger work, as the work 
 which Eusebius knew by this name con- 
 tained more, and consisted of arguments 
 for the unity of God, taken partly from 
 the Holy Scriptures, and partly from 
 Greek literature. 
 
 Tlie greatest and most important work 
 of Justin's which we possess, after his 
 JipoJogies^ is his Dialogne with Trypho 
 the Jew, the business of which is to prove, 
 that Jesus is the Messiah promised in the 
 Old Testament, and to confute the then 
 usual accusations of the Jews against 
 Christianity. Justin meets, apparently at 
 Ephesus, with Trypho a Jew, whom the 
 war, undertaken by Barcliochab, had 
 driven out of Palestine, and who was 
 travelling about in Greece, and had there 
 studied the Grecian philosophy, and was 
 much beloved. The garb of the philo- 
 sopher, worn by Justin, induces Trypho 
 to address him in a retired walk, and a 
 conversation arises between them about 
 the knowledge of God, which conversa- 
 tion Justin turns to Christianity, and the 
 treatise consists of this conversation set 
 down in writing. 
 
 The concor(h\nt testimony of antiquity 
 assigns this piece to Justin ; tlie author 
 eives himself out as Justin, who wrote 
 
 the Apologies, for he quotes a passage 
 from the second (as it is called,) as coming 
 from himself.* The author describes 
 himself in the Introthiction, as one who 
 had left Platonism for Christianity, which 
 exacdv suits Justin. No unprejudiced 
 man can denv that the treatise unist have 
 been written bva contemporary of Justin, 
 or at least by a man, the time of whose 
 life approached nearly to that age ; now 
 one cannot imagine any reasonai)le cause, 
 why a man, who could bear so much 
 weight by his own personal qualities, as 
 Justin could, if we judge of him from this 
 book, instead of writing it in his own 
 name, should have allowed this book to 
 appear under the mask of a contemporary. 
 Besides, we find in this book no trace of 
 the endeavour, elsewhere so apparent in 
 such counterfeited pieces, to bring certain 
 favourite notions into vogue. Its princi- 
 pal feature is controversy against the Jews 
 and Judaists, and this coidd obtain no 
 new support with either party by the 
 name of the heathen from Samaria, the 
 former Platonist.f 
 
 The same circumstance will, perhaps, 
 strike us here, as in the above mentioned 
 controversial treatise against the heathen ; 
 but the case is altered here. We saw there 
 that Justin was endeavouring to show 
 on the one hand, the aflinity between 
 Christianity and the best of Grecian phi- 
 losophy; and on the other, the unsatis- 
 factoriness of the latter in regard to reli- 
 gion. If, therefore, the former point of 
 view was likely to be most prominent in 
 the Apologies addressed to the philo- 
 sopher M. Aurelius, it would on the con- 
 trary, be wholly suppressed in a treatise 
 directed against the Jews, who souirht in 
 Grecian philosophy a completion of the 
 religious instruction of the Old Testa- 
 ment. There appears also, nevertheless, 
 an affinity of ideas between the Dialogue 
 and the Apologies, even in the favourite 
 
 • S. Simon Magus in Dial. Tryph. 349. 
 
 ■j- The reasons against the genuineness of this 
 work are given by Wetstein, Prolegomrna in 
 Nov. Test. ; and Scmlcr in his FMilion of VWu 
 stein, 1764. p. ITi, (sec an answer to Iheir argu- 
 ments from the mode in which the Alexandrian 
 version is cited, in iStroth Ke[>ertoriuni lur hihl. 
 und Morgenhnd. Literatur. Bd. ii. ^ 74.) and 
 I Koch in his Justini Martyris dial, cum Tryjihonc 
 secundum regulas criticas examinat et riK/rt»: 
 convietus, 1700 (a work winch I h.ivo never 
 seen;) and Lange in the first tmok of his History 
 of Ojiinions. There is an admirable confutation 
 of them by Munschcr. See (JommenUtiones 
 'J'heolojica;, Ed. Rosenmallcr, Fuldncr and 
 Maurer, t i. pt. ii. 
 
RELATION OF THE DIALOGUE WITH OTHER BOOKS. 
 
 416 
 
 notion of the Apologies, that of the Xoye.<; 
 a-vtpjji.oc.riy.ot;. As he says in the first 
 Apology, that men would have been able 
 to excuse themselves in tlieir sins, if the 
 Auyoq had revealed himself to human na- 
 ture, for the first time, only an liundred 
 and fifty years ago, and if he had not 
 bf;en in operation in all ages by means 
 of the Xoyo; crvs^fji.a.rn'.oi; he says the 
 same tfiing here in regard to the natural 
 ideas ((pva-iKxi Iwomt) inseparable from 
 liuman nature, which compelled man uni- 
 versally to acknowledge sins as sins; and 
 which might have been extinguished and 
 overwhelmed rather than annihilated by 
 the operations of the evil spirit, and by 
 bad education, customs, and laws. What 
 lie here says of that, which has revealed 
 itself in all ages, and in accordance with 
 its own nature, as Good, by which alone 
 men could please God, is said in opposi- 
 tion to the Ceremonial Law, which was 
 only calculated as a means of discipline 
 and education for the hardheartedness of 
 the Jews; or as a system of typical pro- 
 phecy.* This leads us to the idea of that 
 ^eyo? cTTTEffAaTJxoj, through which a moral 
 conscience was given to all mankind. 
 
 There is, indeed, in the Apologies no 
 trace of Chiliasm (Millenarianism,) but 
 the spiritual ideas of eternal life, and of 
 the reign of Christ, which shine forth in 
 the Apologies, are by no means contra- 
 dictory to this doctrine (see above ;) but 
 we must certainly consider, that the Chil- 
 liasts themselves, only considered the 
 reign of a thousand years as a point of 
 transition to a higher grade of life. It 
 may easily be explained, why he should 
 not quote this doctrine, which was pecu- 
 liarly ofl'ensive to the heathens; because, 
 although important in his estimation, it 
 did not belong to the chief and funda- 
 mental doctrines of Christianity, which 
 latter he certainly brought forward with- 
 out disguise, even when they were of- 
 fensive to the heathens. In a dialogue, 
 intended to justify the doctrines of Chris- 
 tianity against the reproaches of the Jews, 
 he had, on the contrary, particular occa- 
 sion to bring forward this doctrine, in 
 order to show that Christians were ortho- 
 dox, even in this point, according to the 
 Jewish notions. In both these works an 
 anti-Gnostic and anti-Marcionitish spirit 
 is prominent, on whicii Chiliasm would 
 in those times easily be engrafted. 
 
 In the doctrine of the Logos, and the 
 
 xou S^ytQx. See § ? p. 247, 264, 320. 
 
 Holy Spirit, (see above,) there is a striking 
 similarity between the Dialogue and the 
 two Apologies. There are exhibited be- 
 sides in thoughts and expressions, which 
 occur in both works, even more signifi- 
 cant marks of the identity of the author.* 
 
 We cannot at all determine with cer- 
 tainty whether Justin really held such a 
 disputation with a Jew named Trypho; 
 but at least it is most probable, that many 
 disputations with Jews gave him an op- 
 portunity of writing such a dialogue, as 
 he would by that means have acquired 
 such an acquaintance with the Jewish 
 theology of that day. He was always 
 ready to give a reason of his failh, both 
 to Jews and to heathens. As we cannot 
 ascertain what is mere ornament, and 
 what is real fact in this dialogue, we can- 
 not find any sufficient marks in it for a 
 chronological decision ; but it is certain, 
 by the quotation from the first Apology, 
 that this dialogue was written later than 
 that work, and apparently, from what we 
 have above said, than both the Apologies. 
 
 Justin in this dialogue speaks of the 
 power of the Gospel from his own expe- 
 rience, as he does in the Apologies : 
 " I found in the doctrines of Christ," he 
 says, " the only sure and saving phi- 
 losophy, for it has in itself a power 
 which commands reverence, which re- 
 strains those, who depart from the riglit 
 path, and the sweetest tranquillity is the 
 lot of those who practise it. It is clear 
 that this doctrine is sweeter than honey, 
 because we who have been formed by it, 
 even to death, never deny his name." 
 
 We have to lament the loss of a work 
 of Justin against all the heretical sects of 
 
 * See the mystical explanation of the Mes- 
 sianic passage, Gen. xlix. 11, in Apol. ii. 74. "to 
 
 j,ctg TTAuvci'v Tuv a-TiXnv cLVTiv iv stl/ua,rt a-Td^uKu;" 
 
 KilCZ-UfXlVII 
 
 vTra Tou 
 
 fis-cy 
 
 TnvjfxajxK 
 
 Six 
 
 TCW TT^d^llTM 
 
 a-roKn, a TTKr'rsuovTtt uutu) iia-iv uvSga'^rc/, h cU i'lK-t 
 
 TO TTel^ct Tt'V ©EiV <T?rie^fJ.X, KOyCi, T3 Si llgh/U'VOV 
 
 cUfxA T»c (TTX^uKvii, (r«/aavTw:v tcm ej^eiii fAii u'l/uet 
 
 i.XK' ix. 6iixc (Tyva^oef. Compare with this the 
 passage in Dial. Tryph. 273, which betrays the 
 same author, who only in that passage made use 
 of such expressions, which were rather borrowed 
 from the language of the Platonic philosophy, as 
 his object required, ro tu aifxtTi xbr-.o i\7ro7rkuyii* 
 fxiKKm 'Tov; '7rt<TTeuovTa.; ai/TW iS>ih.cu- cttixxv y:!^ ctu- 
 Tcv tK«A.ws TO ayi'-jV Trnv/xu, tod; St xjrcu uifi^if u^«g- 
 riuv A«/S:vTsty h ci; oa Svvity.it ytf TTdtfiari K*t 
 i]ixfyai(: Si ?ri-i^i^Tou h tii Sstn^ct aiircu tth^ouo-i*' 
 TO Si oi'ifju. <rTii^u\»f tlTav Tov \c.ycv, SsJuKoiKiy, on 
 
TATIAN. 
 
 417 
 
 his own day, as well as of his work | 
 against Marcion. It is a matter of very | 
 great doubt, whether the fragment of a { 
 work on the resuneclion, which John of 
 Damascus, in the eighth century, has im- 
 parled to lis imder tlie name of Justin, 
 really belongs to him; Ensebius, Jerome, I 
 and Pholius knew nothing of such a 
 work by him. 
 
 Among the most beautiful remains of 
 Christian antiquity, is a letter which is 
 found among the works of Justin, on the 
 characteristics of Christian worship in 
 relation to heathenism and Christianity. 
 It contains that splendid portraiture of 
 the Christian life, from which we liave 
 already quoted some passages. Its lan- 
 guage and thoughts, as well as the silence , 
 of the ancients, prove that the letter does I 
 not proceed from Justin. But the Chris- j 
 tian simplicity which reigns in this letter j 
 bespeaks its high antiquity, which is I 
 farther supported by tliis circumstance, 
 that the author classes Judaism and hea- 
 thenism together, and does not appear to 
 deduce the Jewish cultus from a Divine 
 origin, and yet there is nothing properly 
 Gnostic in the treatise, — a phenomenon 
 which could only exist in a very early age. 
 
 We cannot, however, from the author's 
 speaking of the sacrifices of the Jews as 
 an existing thing, show that he lived 
 before the destruction of the Temple in 
 Jerusalem ; for in a lively description he 
 might very well present in such a manner 
 what really did not exist any longer. 
 Nor does his calling himself the disciple 
 of the apostles, give us any sure chrono- 
 logical mark, because he might name 
 himself thus as a follower of their 
 writings and doctrines; even if this pas- 
 sage in the beginning of § 11 really be- 
 longs to the genuine letter. 
 
 The part which follows it is clearly 
 from another hand ; that which is there 
 said of the Jewish people, of the Divine 
 authority of the Old Testament, and of 
 orthodoxy, which fixes itself on the de- 
 terminations of the Fathers, by no means 
 corresponds with the character of mind 
 and thought, which prevail in this letter. 
 
 Justin, as he himself says in tlie last 
 quoted Apology, expected that his death 
 would be compassed by a person, from 
 one of the then notorious classes of 
 hypocritical professors of holiness, — a 
 Cynic, as he was called, named Crescens, 
 who was much esteemed by tiie people, 
 and excited them against the Christians ; 
 for he had peculiarly attracted the hatred 
 of this man to himself by exposing 
 53 
 
 his hypocrisy. According to Eusebius, 
 Crescens really accomplished the pur- 
 pose, with which he had threatened 
 Justin; but Eusebius in support of tiiis 
 quotes a passage from Talian,* the scho- 
 lar of Justin, which can by no means be 
 used to prove it; for Tatian there says 
 only, that Crescens had endeavoured to 
 compass the death of Justin, from which 
 it does not follow, that he succeeded in 
 that endeavour.f 
 
 Eusebius may, however, be quite right 
 in alhrming, that Justin sullered martyr- 
 dom during the reign of M. Aurelius. 
 This account is in accordance with the 
 relation of the martyrdom of Justin and 
 his fellow-traveller, which, although it 
 does not come from a souice entitled to 
 our confidence,;^ yet bears upon it many 
 internal marks, which speak more in 
 favour of, than against its authenticity.^ 
 
 The next to Justin in order of time is 
 Tatian of Assyria, his disciple, of whom 
 we have already spoken in the history of 
 the Gnostic sects.il He himself in the 
 only writing which we have of his, 
 which we are about to mention, gives an 
 explanation of the progress of his reli- 
 gious development. lie was brought up 
 in heathenism ; and frequent travels gave 
 him an opportunity of learning the mul- 
 tifarious sorts of heathen worship, which 
 at that time were existing together in the 
 Roman empire. None, among them all, 
 could recommeml itself to him as reason- 
 able : not only did he observe how reli- 
 gion in them was used to the service of 
 sin ; but even the highly wrought allego- 
 rical interpretations of the ancient myths, 
 as symbols of a speculative system of 
 natural philosophy, could not satisfy 
 him, and it appeared to him a dishonour- 
 able proceeding for a man to attach him- 
 self to the popular religion, who did not 
 partake in the common religious belief. and 
 who saw nothing in its doctrines about 
 the gods, but symbols of the elements 
 and powers of nature. The mysteries 
 
 * ^ 19 orat. contra GrjBcos. 
 
 t In the colfcction of .Symeon .MeUphrastcs. 
 
 § These marks and (grounds arc the following: 
 that it contains no miraculous tales, anil nothing 
 exaggerated, nothing that contradicts the siiiiplo 
 circumstances of Christian Churches in those 
 days, and that one reads nothing at all ahout Cre- 
 scens in it; for one would expect a Gmculus, who 
 invented the history of such a martyrdom, setting 
 out from the supposition, that Crescens comp.issed 
 the death of Justin, would have made him an im- 
 portant personage, and told many tales about him. 
 
 1 See page 285. 
 
418 
 
 into which he sufTered himself to be ini- ] 
 tiated, appeared to him also in the same 
 manner, not to correspond to the expecta- 
 tions, which they awakened, and the con- 
 tradictory systems of the philosophers ] 
 offered him no sure grounds of religious | 
 faith. He was rendered mistrustful of 
 them, by the contradiction which he 
 often observed in those, who gave them- 
 selves out as philosophers, between the 
 seriousness which they exhibited for the 
 sake of appearances in their dress, mein, 
 and language, and the levity of their con- 
 duct. While he was in this condition, 
 he came to the Old Testament, to which 
 his attention was drawn by what he had 
 heard of the high antiquity of these writ- 
 ings, in comparison of the Hellenic reli- 
 gions, as might easily be the case with a 
 Syrian. He himself says of the impres- 
 sion which the reading of this book 
 made upon him : " These writings found 
 acceptance with me because of the sim- 
 plicity of their language, the unstudied- 
 ness of the writer, the intelligible history 
 of the creation, because of the prediction 
 of the future, because of the vvholesome- 
 ness of their precepts, and because of the 
 doctrine of the One God which prevails 
 throughout them."* The impression 
 which the study of the Old Testament 
 made upon him, would appear from this 
 to have been with him the preparation for 
 a belief in the Gospel.^ Coming in this 
 state of mind to Rome, he was con- 
 verted to Christianity by Justin, of whom 
 he speaks with great reverence. 
 
 After the death of the latter, he wrote 
 his " Address to the Heathen," in which 
 he defends the (ptXoa-c(pia. tuv QoL^^a^uv 
 against the contempt of the Greeks, who 
 had, nevertheless, received the seeds of 
 all knowledge and arts originally from the 
 Barbarians. In his view of the relation 
 of the philosophy as well as the religion 
 of the Greeks to Christianity, we recog- 
 nise far more the later than the earlier 
 Justin. We have already observed (page 
 285,) that even as early as in this treatise, 
 the seeds of a speculative and ascetic 
 turn of thought are to be seen, which he 
 probably brought from Syria with him, 
 
 TATIAN — ATHENAGORAS. 
 
 • Tatian had already learned the untenable- 
 ncss of Polytheism, and was already come to the 
 persuasion that none but a Monotheistic religion 
 eould be a true one. 
 
 I It would in this case be remarkable, that Ta- 
 tian should afterwards have become an anti- 
 Jewish Gnostic; but we have remarked above, 
 that we are by no means justified in this supposi- 
 tion- See page 286. 
 
 as also its obscure style betrays the Sy- 
 rian. He says to the Heathen : " Where- 
 fore will ye excite your state religion to 
 battle against us .' And wherefore should 
 I be hated as the most godless of men, 
 because I will not follow the laws of 
 your religion } The Emperor commands 
 taxes to be paid, I am ready to pay them. 
 The Lord commands me to serve him ; 
 I know how I have to serve him, for we 
 must honour men as becomes men, but 
 fear God alone, who can be seen by no 
 human eye, and comprehended by no 
 human art. It is only when I am com- 
 manded to deny him, that I refuse to 
 obey, but prefer to die, that I may not 
 appear ungrateful and a liar." 
 
 Next to Tatian comes Athenagoras, 
 who addressed his Apology (7r§£<r/3£n» 
 Tre^i X^io-Tiava)»,) to the Empcror M. 
 Aurelius, and his son Commodus.* We 
 have no distinct account of this mati''s 
 personal history. Only two among the 
 ancients mention him, Methodius and 
 Philip of Sida, who was the last president 
 of the school of Catechists at Alexandria, 
 the only person who relates any thing of 
 the history of the life of Athenagoras ;")" 
 which, however, deserves no credit at all, 
 because this writer is 'known to be unde- 
 serving of our confidence, and because it 
 contradicts other creditable documents, 
 and because of the suspicious circum- 
 stances under which the fragment from 
 him has come down to us. Neither 
 what Athenagoras (see above,) says of a 
 second marriage, nor what he says of the 
 ecstacy of the prophets, who served as 
 the unconscious instruments of the opera- 
 tions of the Holy Spirit, suffices to prove 
 him a Montanist; because, as we re- 
 marked above, the Montanists in this case 
 said nothing altogether new, but only car- 
 riefl an already existing mode of thought on 
 religious and moral matters to the extreme. 
 
 We have also a writing in Defence 
 of the Resurrection^ by the same Athe- 
 nagoras. 
 
 Together with the Apologists we may 
 mention a writer who is not otherwise 
 known to us, Hermias, who wrotea short 
 treatise in ridicide of the heathen philo- 
 sophers (^lao-u^it/toj Tiov i^u (piAo7o(p«v.) 
 
 * See the Essay of Mosheim on the time at 
 which this Apology was written, in the first part 
 of his Commentationes ad hist, eccles. pertinentes. 
 
 f Published by Dodwell, (Dissertt. in Irenmum.) 
 He relates that Athenagoras lived in the time of 
 Adrian and Antoninus Pius, to whom he presented 
 his Apology, and that he was Catcchist at Alex 
 andria, before Clement. 
 
ATHENAGORAS. 419 
 
 He seeks to collect together a miiltitiide | During the course of the second cen- 
 of foolish and mutually contradictory opi- tury a peculiar turn of mind in theolojry 
 nioiis of tlie Grecian philosophers, without I was formed in the Cliurch of Asia Minor, 
 advancing any thing positive himself, — a It was here that the anti-Gnostic, prac- 
 procecding, which could scarcely be of tical and realistic spirit (which we have 
 any utility ; for in order to persuade those described in the general introduction to 
 who had received a philosophical educa- I this section,) first took a definite form, 
 tion, more would be required than this j The practical Christian spirit, which had 
 declamation, and with the ignorant there resulted from the lono- activity of the 
 was no need either of such a caution Apostle John in these regions, often al- 
 against the errors of the philosophers, or \ loyed here, we freely confess with a mix- 
 of such a negative preparation for the i tnre of a carnal tendency, opposed itself 
 Gospel. We see in this Hcrmias, an ex- I to the speculative caprice and license of 
 ample of one of those passionate enemies the Gnostic sects and schools, whicli 
 of the Grecian philosophy, against whom made especial progress in these places. 
 Clement of Alcxaiuh-ia contends, (see A firm dependence on the doctrines and 
 above,) who in accordance with Jewish declarations, which the oldest of tlie 
 fables, deduced the Grecian philosophy, i leaders of the Church remembered to have 
 from the conmuinications of fallen angels, heard from tlie mouth of St. John himself, 
 This Hermias is called a philosopher in opposed a counterbalancing weight to 
 the superscription of his book; it may i Gnosticism ; and these men, of simple 
 be the case, that before his conversion he spirit and childlike piety, performed tiiis 
 
 went about in the garb of the pliilosopher 
 and then after his conversion he passed 
 over from enthusiasm for the Grecian 
 philosophy to passionate hatred against 
 it. According to the dilTerent constitu- 
 tion of men's minds, on a change of 
 opinions, their new habits of thought may 
 be engrafted on their former, as in the 
 case of Justin and Clement of Alexandria, 
 or they may produce a violent and harsh 
 abomination of their former sentiments. 
 
 The Church in the great metropolis 
 of the Eastern part of Roman Asia — a 
 flourishing seat of literature — could not 
 
 service towards the development of the 
 Church, that through them tlie extension 
 of the pure fundamental principles of the 
 Gospel was secured, and the practical 
 spirit of Christianity preserved unalloyed, 
 although from the impure source of tra- 
 dition, in which the Divine and the Hu- 
 man were often mingled together, they 
 received and attached importance to many 
 accompaniments which were foreign to 
 the essential nature of Christianity. But 
 then, if only the fundamental doctrines 
 of Christianity, and the genuine docu- 
 ments of the original, pure commtinica- 
 
 be at a loss for teachers giflcd loilh a \ tion of the word of God, were propa- 
 learned educaiion^ and their intercourse I gated, provision was by that means made, 
 with well educated heathens and Gnostics I that Christianitv should be able to cleanse 
 
 would evidently spur on their activity as 
 authors. Theophilus was bishop of this 
 Ciiurch in the time of 31. Aurelius. 
 After the death of this Emperor, he 
 wrote, during the reign of Commodus, 
 an apologetic work in three books, ad- 
 dressed to Aulolycus, a heathen, through 
 whose reproaches against Christianity he 
 Avas induced to write this work, in which 
 he shows himself a thinking man, and 
 full of knowledge. We have already 
 quoted some parts of this work. It is 
 remarkable that this Theophilus, who 
 wrote against 3Iarcion and llermogenes, 
 composed also a commentary on the Holy 
 Scripture. We see here the seed of that 
 exegetic disposition of the Antiochian 
 Church, of w^hich we shall speak again 
 at the end of this section.* 
 
 itself by its inward divine power from 
 such dross, as in the stream of its tem- 
 poral development it must constantly 
 
 * Jerome c. 26. de vir. ill. quotes a com 
 mentary of his in evangelium, (which may de- 1 itself in the work lirst quoted. 
 
 note the whole corpus evangeliorum,) and on tho 
 Proverbs, but he adds : " qui mihi cum supcrio- 
 rum voluminum eleffantia et phrasi non vidcntur 
 congrucre." But in his preface to his Commen- 
 tary on St. Matthew, he distinctly quotes Com- 
 mentiiries of Theopiiilus ; and in liis leltei to 
 Algasia, t. iv. p. 197, lie quotes, as it appears, an 
 explanatory harmony, or synopsis of the Gos|>els 
 l)y him (qui quatnor Evangciistarum in unum opus 
 dicta compingens.) All this may certiinly be 
 only notices of the sam'' work. We have no- 
 thing more of his (as tho Latin fraemenLs nndor 
 the name of Theophilus do not lyclong to him.) 
 unless the Catena; contain fragment.-* of his. 'J'iie 
 specimen which Jerome gives of his mode of in- 
 terpretation is far from the spirit of the late An- 
 tiochian school, for it shows a fanciful mode of 
 allegorizing, which might suit well enough with 
 the Alexandrian cast of mind, which betrays 
 
420 
 
 HEGESIPPUS — HIS ECCLESIASTICAL VIEWS. 
 
 contract. But could the spirit of Gnos- 
 ticism have obtained the victory; then, 
 inasmuch as it destroys tlie essential 
 foundations of Christianity, the collection 
 of tlie holy original documents would 
 have been sacrificed to caprice, and the 
 possibility of such a process of purifica- 
 tion would thus have been cut off. 
 
 It was the endeavour of these teachers of 
 the Church to oppose to the caprice of 
 the Gnostics the concordant tradition of 
 the Christian Churches, especially of those 
 of apostolical origin. From this en- 
 deavour, apparently proceeded the first 
 beginning of an Ecclesiastical History, 
 the work of Hegesippns, a Jew of Asia 
 Minor, converted to Christianity, who 
 lived during the reigns of Hadrian and 
 the Antonines, and who, perhaps, in order 
 to reconcile differences between the usages 
 of the .Jewish and heathen churches, or 
 to persuade himself by ocular demon- 
 stration of the harmony of all old Churches 
 in the essentials of Christianity, under- 
 took a journey to Rome in the days of 
 Antoninus Pius, and remained there for a 
 season. The result of his inquiries and 
 collections was his " Five Books of Ec- 
 clesiastical Events" (tte^ts viroixtnixuTo. Ix- 
 xXr,aia,a-TiKu» w^a^^uv.) He may, perhaps, 
 here have inserted much impure tradition 
 of Jewish origin, and have been influ- 
 enced by many errors, proceeding from a 
 Judaeo-Christian carnal mode of thought. 
 The picture of James, who was called the 
 brother of the Lord, is painted by him 
 entirely in the taste of the Ebionites.* 
 From a quotation, however, made by Ste- 
 phanus Gobarus,! a monophysite writer 
 of the latter part of the sixth century, it 
 may be concluded, that he was, as a proper 
 Ebionite,an opponent of the Apostle Paul; 
 for in the fifth book of his Ecclesiastical 
 History, after citing the words of 1 Cor. 
 ii. 9, '' That Avhich no eye hath seen, no 
 ear heard, nor hath it entered into the 
 heart of any man ;■■ he says that this is 
 false, and that those wiio said such things 
 belied the Holy Scriptures and the Lord, 
 who said, " Blessed are your eyes, for they 
 see, and your ears, for they hear." Matt. 
 xiii. 16.J If we refer these words of 
 Hegesippns to the above cited passage 
 of St. Paul, it appears to follow, that lie 
 accused him of false doctrine ; nay, ac- 
 
 cused him of having quoted something 
 under the name of Scripture, which is not 
 to be found there. But the contentment of 
 Hegesippns with the general tradition of 
 the CImrch, and his connection with tlie 
 Church of Rome, oppose this supposition. 
 According to this supposition, he must 
 have been an opponent of both. As far 
 as we can judge, (without knowing the 
 context that belongs to these words of 
 Hegesippns,) we should, therefore, far 
 rather conjecture, that he said this not in 
 opposition to St. Paul, but in his angry 
 zeal against the opponents of carnal Chi- 
 liasm, who might probably enough quote 
 the above passage of St. Paul, and similar 
 ones in order to oppose sensual repre- 
 sentations of the happiness of tlie world 
 to come. 
 
 The contests ahont the time of Easter, 
 (see above,) and concerning the Monta- 
 nistic spirit of prophecy, gave afterwards, 
 as well as the controversies against the 
 Gnostics, and the Apologies against the 
 heathens, another circumstance to exer- 
 cise the activity of these Church-teachers, 
 as authors. The list of the writings of 
 Melito, bishop of Sardis, whom we have 
 already mentioned as the author of an 
 Apology addressed to the Emperor M. 
 Aurelius, shows with what matters the 
 Church-teachers of Asia Minor then oc- 
 cupied themselves. We find among them 
 the following treatises : on Right Con- 
 duct^ on the Prophets, of Prophecy, of the 
 Church, of tlie Revelation of St. John 
 (which writings may collectively refer to 
 the circumstances of the Montanistic con- 
 troversy,) the Key (i x^eki) (perhaps this 
 also refers to the keys of the Church,* 
 in reference to the controversies about 
 penitence,) a treatise on Sunday (perhaps 
 in reference to the controversies between 
 the Jewish and heathen Christians about 
 the festival of the Sabbath, or Sunday,) 
 on the Corporeality of God, a defence of 
 that sensnous anti-Gnostic conception.^ 
 The contents of the following treatises 
 may also refer to the controversies against 
 Gnosticism : on the JYature of Man, on 
 
 * Euseb. ii. 23. 
 
 •\ In Photius, Cod. 235. 
 
 -rawTa <pst^£vwj Tail' Te flaaiir y^xt^um x«; tcu Ki/p/iu 
 
 * [The Power of the Kci/.t is the more usual 
 English phrase, liut this would include more than 
 the subject of Penitence. — TI. J. R.] 
 
 f TTipi tv(j-m/ji.ctTi:v Qi'M, These words might be 
 taken to mean, concerning the appearance of God 
 in ike flesh ,- or, concerning the incarnation of 
 God. But a comparison with the account of the 
 trustworthy Origen, on the contents of the book, 
 (fragment. Commentar. in Gen. vol. ii. 0pp. 
 fol. 25,) compels us to the explanation we have 
 given. 
 
IREN^US — NOT A MONTANIST. 
 
 421 
 
 the Creation of the SohZ, or on tlie Body^ 
 or on the Spirit, on the Birth of Christ, 
 on Truth, on Faith, on the Setises of the 
 obedience of Faith* Tlie importance of 
 the subjects, and their deep hohl upon 
 tlie life of the Church in those times,! 
 make us regret the more the loss of these j 
 writings. I 
 
 Claudius Apollinaris, whom we men- 1 
 lioned above, bishop of Ilierapolis, in I 
 Phrygiu, was a contemporary of. Mel ito; his 
 writings, although not so numerous, were 
 occupied with several similar matters.f 
 
 From the school of these Church- 
 teachers of Asia Elinor, proceeded Ire- 
 naeus ; who, after the martyrdom of Po- 
 thinus, became bishop of the Church of 
 Lyons and Vienne (see above.) lie re- 
 membered, even in his advanced age, 
 
 * The list of writings is to be found in Euse- 
 bius, iv. 26. [Tlie expression in Neander is, 
 "ro« den Sinnen des glaubigen Gehorsams .•" 
 which appears to me to be only capable of the 
 above translation, or of this, " about the senses of 
 faithful obedience ;" i. e. about the senses, by which 
 we perceive and accede to the doctrines of the faith ; , 
 meaning:, perhaps, our inward means of perception, 
 &c. On referring, however, to Eusebius, I see that 
 the title of the work is. I Tipi Jtxx-.oc tittio); xi'Ait- 
 Txptaiv, on which in Heinichen's edition, I find j 
 the following note extracted (I believe) from Va- 
 lesius. "O Trift Cttuxm;, &c. Apud Nicephorum le- 
 gitur Triii i/TTiKMC Trir-TiUK' h:u Trift a.lo'SxTitptaiv, 
 ut duo fuerint Mclitoiiis libri; alter de obedientia 
 fidei, alter de sensibus, idque confirmant Hierony- 
 mus et Rufinus. In omnibus tamen nostris codi- 
 cibus legitur kxi o -rai Crix.',»; Trtcruex oufiuTupiaiv 
 absque distinctione, quam R. Stcplianus post 
 ' vocem TTKntte; addidit. Fuit igitur hie Melitonis 
 liber ita inscriptus. De obedientia sensuum fidei, 
 seu quod idem est, de obedientia fidei, qux fit 
 a sensibus. Quiilam enim hxretici aiebant, 
 animales quidem seu psychicos sensuum opera, 
 spiritales vero per rationem. Ita Heracleo expli- 
 cabat locum ilium ex Joannis evangelio: Nisi 
 signa et piodigia vidmtis, mn credctis. Qua; 
 Christi verba aiebat Heracleo dici proprie ad eos, 
 qui per opera et sensus naturam hal>eant obedi- 
 endi, non autem credendi per rationem. Refert 
 hfecOrigines enarrationum in Joannis Evangelium 
 tomo xiii., ubi id refuUt, docct(iue Uim spiritales 
 quam animales non pos.se nisi per sensum cre- 
 dere." This title is, therefore, differently under- 
 stood by others, and made to mean on the acceptance 
 of the faith Ijy means of the senses. On Hera- 
 cleon, see Grabe Spicil. vol. ii. p. 80, N.B. The 
 titles of the works are altogether uncertain, from 
 the vaiious lections in this passage. — H. J. R.] 
 
 -j- If in the Catenae, especially in the Catena of 
 Niccpharus on the Octulcuc/ius, published at 
 Leipzig, 1772, the fragments which belong to this 
 Apollinaris were pro[)erly separated from those 
 which belong to .\pollinaris of Laodicea, and the 
 fragments in Eusebius, and the Chronicon Pas- 
 chale Alexandrinum, were compared with them, 
 the character of this Church-teacher might be 
 drawn more definitely. 
 
 what he had heard in his youth from 
 the mouth of Polycarp, about the life and 
 doctrine of Christ and the apostles. I:i a 
 piece addressed to Florinus, an heretical 
 teacher, with whom he had been in his 
 youth with Polycarj), he says, '•'These 
 doctrines, the Elders, who preceded us, 
 and were in habits of intercourse with 
 the apostles, have not delivered to you • 
 for when I was a boy, I saw you* with 
 Polycarp in Asia .Minor, for I remember 
 what then happened better than things of 
 the present day; wliat we have learnt in 
 childhood grows up with the soul, and 
 becomes one with it, so that I could de- 
 scribe the place in which the holy Poly- 
 carp used to sit and talk, his outgoing 
 and his incoming, his mode of life, his 
 personal appearance, the discourses he 
 addressed to the multitude, and his own 
 account of his intercourse with John, as 
 well as with the rest of those who had 
 seen the Lord ; and how he remembered 
 their conversations, and the account they 
 gave of the Lord's miracles and doctrines. 
 VVhile he related all from the accounts of 
 eyewitnesses of his life, he related it in 
 entire accordance with the Scripture. 
 This I heard at that time with earnest- 
 ness by reason of the grace of God im- 
 parted to me, writing it down, not on 
 paper, but on mv heart, and I am able by 
 the grace of God, constantly to brinsf it 
 with freshness into my memory. I can 
 also testify before God, that if that blessed 
 and apostolic Presbyter had heard any 
 such thing, he would have cried out at 
 once, and stopped his ears, and have said, 
 according to his custom, 'O! good God! 
 for what a time hast thou preserved me, 
 that I should endure this !' and he would 
 have left the place, where he was sitting 
 or standing, when he heard such lan- 
 guage."! '1^'iP spirit, which here speaks 
 out, was inherited by Irenacus. We have 
 already spoken of his peculiar prac- 
 tical disposition in his conception and 
 mode of handling tiie doctrine of Paiih, 
 his zeal for the essentials of Christianity, 
 and his moderation and liberality in con- 
 troversies about external, nonessential 
 things. We oliserved above (see p. o3-5,) 
 that he apparently came forward as a 
 peacemaker between the Montanists and 
 their most violent adver.'jaries. This sup- 
 position suits best with the spiVit df bis 
 writings; for his having many opinions 
 
 • [Neander has here omitted n part of the sen- 
 tence. Kx/Ar/M: vftrrcfTaL i» th Rtrt/JK* x'jXx, ku 
 ■mpmutioi liji'Mfjtui -raf aurit. — H. J. R.] 
 
 + Euseb. V. 20. 
 
 2N 
 
422 
 
 and dispositions, which agreed with the 
 spirit of IMontaiiism, and which would, 
 therefore, contribute particularly to en- 
 dear him to a Tertullian, cannot, after 
 the observations we made above, about 
 the relations of Montanism and the opi- 
 nions of the Church, at all serve as a 
 proof that he was a Montanist. Had he 
 been a zealous Montanist, whenever he 
 touched upon a darling theme of Mon- 
 tanism, he could scarcely have omitted 
 to appeal to the new explanations com- 
 municated by the Paraclete; but lie al- 
 ways appeals only to Scripture, or to the 
 traditions of those elders of Asia Minor. 
 But we cannot possibly suppose, that 
 Avhere he speaks of the condemnation of 
 false prophets, he means by that the 
 Montanistic prophets, for he was probably 
 too favourable to the Montanists for this ; 
 but as a zealous Montanist, he would 
 hardly have omitted to mention, with 
 the false prophets, also the opponents of 
 the true prophets ; because he is here 
 reckoning up every thing deserving of 
 condemnation. Instead of this, a passage 
 follows, which far more characterizes the 
 peace-loving spirit of Irenasus, which en- 
 deavoured to prevent a schism between 
 the Montanistic and other Churches, as it 
 made peace in the controversies about 
 Easter: "The Lord will also judge those, 
 who create schisms, who have not the 
 love of God, and seek their own advan- 
 tage, not the unity of the Church ; who, 
 for slight reasons, cut in pieces the great 
 and glorious body of Christ, and, as much 
 as in them lies, destroy it, who really do 
 strain out a gnat and swallow a camel. 
 But no advantage which they can ofler, 
 can counterbalance the evil of schism."* 
 These were the principles on wiiich he 
 acted also in the controversies about 
 Easter (see above. )| 
 
 The chief work of Iren?eus, which for 
 the most part has only descended to us 
 in the old literal Latin translation, with 
 important fragments of the original Greek, 
 is his Confutation of the Gnostic Sys- 
 tems, in five books, which has preserved 
 to us the most graphic picture of his 
 mind. 
 
 Many of the writings of Iren^us we 
 know only by name. He himself cites 
 
 CHIEF WORK OP IREN^US. 
 
 a writing in which he has treated of a 
 matter, which seems to be quite foreign 
 to the Father's turn of mind ; viz. of the 
 peculiarities of St. PauPs style, the hy- 
 perbata which so often occur in his 
 writings.* It is probable that this treatise 
 was not expressly upon the peculiar lan- 
 guage of this apostle, but that Irenaeus 
 incidentanlly touches upon this subject, 
 while he is combating the capricious 
 nature of the Gnostic exegesis, which, no 
 doubt, despised with theosophic contempt 
 (see above) the simple rules of all just 
 interpretation. He justly observes, tliat 
 the origin of this peculiarity in St. Paul's 
 style lies in the overwhelming press of 
 thoughts that arise in his ardent spirit -,1 
 a remark which, as it presupposes a re- 
 cognition of the natural peculiarities of 
 man's character while under the influence 
 of the Holy Spirit, is founded upon a 
 more liberal and just conception of inspi- 
 ration, although Irenaeus may not have 
 been aware of it. 
 
 It will besides, be seen by this example, 
 as we have before observed, that the op- 
 position to Gnosticism promoted the 
 growth of sound hermeneutical principles, 
 although they were not always justly 
 used, but their application was sometimes 
 led astray to serve the purpose of a mo- 
 ment in regard to some doctrinal contro- 
 versy, as was the case with Irenaeus in 
 the passage we have quoted. 
 
 Among the writings of this Father, 
 which we find named by the ancients, 
 we shall only mention two letters, which 
 have an historical importance in conse- 
 quence of their subject, because schisms 
 in the Romish Church were to be healed 
 up by them. One is addressed to Blastus, 
 who was probably a presbyter of the 
 Romish Church. The account in the ad- 
 ditions to Tertullian de PraiscriptioneJ is 
 likely enough to be true, viz. that Blastus 
 had introduced a schism into the Romish 
 Church by his adherence to the usage of 
 Asia Minor in regard to the time of the 
 Paschal festival. This suits perfectly well 
 with the time of Victor, bishop of Rome; 
 and perhaps, also many other Jewish no- 
 tions were interwoven with this opinion 
 about Easter. 
 
 The other letter was addressed to a 
 
 • L. iv. c. 33, § 6. [L. iv. c. 62. Ed. Bill, and 
 Teuard. Paris, 167.5.] 
 
 •j- It may be concluded, also, from the manner 
 in which Tertullian adv. Valentinian, c. 5, speaks 
 of Irciifcus, that he was no Montanist, for other- 
 wise he would have called him " noster " as he 
 does call Proculus immediately after. 
 
 * L. III. c. 7. quemadmodum de [ex al. edit. 
 II. .1. R.] multis et alibi ostendimus cum utentem. 
 
 I Propter velocitatcm scrmonum suorum et 
 propter impetum, qui in ipso est, sjiiritus. 
 
 i [Ita Neander. I find the passage he alludes 
 to in the addition found in the MS. of Agobardus to 
 the treatise de Prffiscriptione Hsereticorum, ^ liii.] 
 
nippoLYTus. 423 
 
 presbyter, named Florinus, M-ilh whom : ters of the first half of the third century; 
 Irenaeusin early yoiith had lived with the but unfortunately only a very small por- 
 aged Polycarp ; and who, it would seem, tion of his works has remained to us. 
 carried Monarchianism, or the doctrine Tlie testimony, however, of Photius, 
 of one God, as tlie Creator of all Being, ' taken by itself, is not sufficient to esla- 
 to such an extreme, that he made God the j Wish tlie account that he was a disciple 
 origin of evil.* .of Iienajus; but since, as appears from 
 
 Hippolytus is named as a disciple of j his quotation, expressions of llippolytus 
 Irenajus by Photius,! and took a promi- | himself about his connection with Ire- 
 nent place among the ecclesiastical wri- i najus lay before his eyes, and since in the 
 
 'turn of mind of Hippolytus, so far as we 
 
 • It is difficult to juJse from the title of the can judge of it from the fra-mients aud 
 book, as It ,s quoted by Eu.ehiu. v 26, in what I j^i^^ „j- j^j^ ,vorks, . in as Air as these give 
 the pecuUaritv ot the opinions of Florinus con- r i ■ . • " 
 
 sisted. The 'title is te^, ju:,^^'*, « ^, rci, ^;, ' "^ ""X '"^«"S ot drawing conclusions as 
 »i».i r:v 0«-,y tmt>,v km'^^v. The first part of j ^o their Contents, and the tendency of his 
 this title may be taken to moan that Florinus, as exertions as an author,) there is nothing 
 a Gnostic Dualist, had denied the doctrine of the to oppose such a supposition, but rather, 
 f^ov:>r^ix;hat then this will not suit the second | on the contrary, much to favour it, we 
 part, lor this cannot be understood as if Florinus i r • i • i ■ . i • 
 
 had maintained the existence of an ahsolufe evil '"^y/^"- >' g'^e credit to this account. 
 principle [I.e. an i7idcpendent07ie.—li.LU.]0T Hippolytus was a bishop. But since 
 
 neither Eusebius nor Jerome was able to 
 indicate the city in which he was bishop, 
 we cannot state any thing definite on tiie 
 subject, nor do the later accounts, which 
 
 also that Florinus had made God the creator 
 of evil, whether it was in accordance with a doc- 
 
 a Deiniurgos, as the author of an imperfect uni- 
 verse, for in this case the title must have run thus, 
 Tnpi TM /jL>i tivAt Qav tcv ts/dtji:' KtKuiv.* It can, 
 therefore, only be understood to mean, that 
 
 Irenaeus wished to show how we must maintain „i„„„ i • „„ ■ » i • * .1 .1 
 
 the doctrine of the Unity (the Monarchia,) with- P'^^^, *"^ '^^. '" ^'i^'^'^' . \^' ^'»; ''^\^'':! 
 out makin- the ^,* .px" the cp^n rm k^^,, and "'"'*=" P'^ce It in the neighbourhood ot 
 
 Rome,| deserve consideration. Certainly 
 there is much to prove that the sphere of 
 trine of absolute predestination, which many un- j his exertions was in the East, and much, 
 informed Christians had imagined from passages J ^.j ^jie contrary, to fix it in the West. 
 01 the Old 1 fstament, which they understood too r> .1 .1 •'• 1 1 i u 
 
 lUov.u / r ,^ n,- » TJi;:i„„ 1 „ ; r, i-r I Both these points may be reconciled bv 
 literally, (according to Urigen, rhilocal.c.i. p. 17. . , . r j ,. ,„. 
 
 Tw:«/T« J,T.A*«5.vcvTt; n^i t:. er.v,i^'A^ ci/s t::; | ""roducuig the Supposition ol diflerent 
 i^cT^tTCB H.U i-iiKurxrcu uvS^MTcy, forming such j times ; and this very circumstance, that he 
 opinions of God as they would not of the most j was occupied at dilferent times in dillerent 
 unjust and cruel of men.) or whether it was, that countries, may have given rise to the iiulis- 
 he made God the creator of an absolute evil \ Unciness of the ancient accounts of him. 
 principle, whether a conscious or an inconscious | i.r , , • ,. . , ,- 
 
 one (an kC..) But farther, had Florinus only I . ^^<^ !"^>' «'^/a'" ^ P^'''^*^' catalogue ot 
 held one of the common Gnostic doctrines about [ "/s writings, by comparing together the 
 the origin of evil, Irensus would not have said, citations of Eusebius and Jerome, the 
 that no heretic even had ventured to bring forward specification of his works found upon the 
 such a doctrine. SinceEuscbius says, that Florinus marble statuet to his memory, which was 
 aftervvards allowed himself to be carried away by j ^^ ^ ^,^ ^,^g ,.^^,, ^^ .p,^.^^,; 
 
 the Valentinian doctrines, and that lrena;us was . ,-w ', --, ,, . ,- «, . i 
 
 in consequence induced to write his book r../ :>- [ A" ^- ^p'^^ ^'^e account ol PI»otius, and 
 i-.uJo, against him (see above in the account of the | the caUilogue of Ebed|esii,§ the Nesloriail 
 Gnostic systems,) it would seem to follow from ; writer of the thirteenth century. We see 
 this, that the earlier doctrines of Florinus wrre nr> from these indications, that he wrote 
 Gnostic doctrines. One is inclined, therefore, to \ various exegetical, doctrinal, polemico- 
 
 think that, while Florinus acknowledged the un- | ' 
 
 tenableness of a theorj', which placed the cause [ ' ~ ~ ; T 
 
 of evil in God, he fell into the opposite extreme, ' According to one supposition it was Tortus 
 
 and supposed a self-existent indei)endent principle Romanus, or .\den, m .\ral.ia, to which report, 
 of evil out of God. perhaps, only a misunderstanding of tlie pas-sage 
 
 Eusehius, vi. 20, may have given rise. 
 
 [See Middleion on the Greek Article, p. 50, 
 the edition of 1833, by my late brother. This 
 
 ■j- Portus Romaiius — Ostia. 
 
 i In which he is represented as silting on his 
 
 is only in accordance with the well known rule. Episcopal scat, xa^j/j* or 6p:r:,-, and underneath 
 thai in such propositions the subject has the arti- him is the sixteen-year Cycle of Easter, prepared 
 cle, and the predicate has not. ^ The translation by him, kuvu* tKnaJumrxf^iv.:, of which there in a 
 of the first title would be on the Unity of (iod, or an f^n investigali.m in the 'second ])art of Ideler's 
 essay to show that God is not ll,e creator „/ evil. H^ndbuch der Chronologic, p. 2U, &c. 'I'ho 
 Of the second it y"'/^^^*^-'"/''";^, '''»'''"-' monument iUs..|f is puhlished in the first part of 
 creator of evi (1. e. the Demiurgos, or whosoever , ... , 1.^ 1 • • r .1 1 r u- 
 
 It may be irho.oe existence is assumed as creator of the edition, by I abr.cms, of the works of Hip- 
 evil) is not God.— H. J. R.] ! polytus. .„.,,, ^. ,. ... . 
 
 t Cod. 121. 1 § In Assemani Dibliotheca Qncntalu,t.ui.p. I. 
 
HIPPOLYTIiS ON THE WRITINGS OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 424 
 
 doctrinal and chronological works, and 
 homilies. 
 
 We shall mention only those of his 
 writings, the subject of which gives them 
 an historical importance. In regard to 
 Exegesis, Jerome hints that he preceded 
 Origen in giving an example of an ac- 
 complished interpretation of Scripture, 
 and that Ambrosius, (see below,) the 
 friend of Origen, had urged him to fol- 
 low this example. He must somewhere, 
 whether it was at Alexandria, in Pales- 
 tine, or in Arabia, have met with Origen, 
 because Jerome cites a homily by Hip- 
 poly tus in praise of our Saviour, which he 
 had delivered in the presence of Origen.* 
 Hia Exegesis, judging from the few frag- 
 ments that remain, was of the allegorizing 
 kind. 
 
 In the enumeration of his writings on 
 that old monument, a work occurs v-n-i^ 
 
 rov xuroc. loictvyriv ttia,yyt7\iav Kcci cciro- 
 
 y.ahvi^iui;. This can hardly be a com- 
 mentary on these two books of the Bible, 
 although Jerome seems to quote a com- 
 mentary of Hippolytus on the Revela- 
 tions ; but this title would far more indi- 
 cate a piece written in defence of those 
 two books. This is also in accordance 
 Avith the title, which Ebedjesu gives to 
 this work. We must, therefore, suppose 
 it a defence of the genuineness of these 
 scriptural books, and a justification of 
 them from the reproaches of the Alogi. 
 If Hippolytus in this appears as an oppo- 
 nent of the Ultra anti-Montanists, this 
 agrees with the fact, that he wrote a book 
 on the Charismata.t We may here refer 
 to the circumstance that Stephanus Go- 
 barus, in Photius, 1. c, opposes to each 
 other the opinions of Hippolytus and 
 Gregory of Nyssa, about the Montanists, 
 from which we may conclude, that the 
 former belonged to the defenders of the 
 Montanists. We have no means of de- 
 termining with certainty whether the 
 y.t(pa,Xxicc ir^o<i Tatoi', which Ebedjesu as- 
 cribes to him, are to be brought into the ac- 
 count in this matter. (If, in fact, this Caius 
 ■was the violent opponent of Montanism.) 
 A work of Hippolytus is quoted against 
 the, two and thirty heresies^ which (ac- 
 
 * Had this discourse been preserved, it would 
 perhaps, have given us a great deal of information 
 on the history of the festivals of the Epiphany 
 and Christmas. 
 
 ■\ It cannot be entirely ascertained with cer- 
 tainty whether this work bore the title cltcut'-xikii 
 v:t^uJ':a-if Tri^t ^a.fiTy.-jLTm)i, or whether the work 
 on the Charismata, and the exposition of the 
 Apostolical Tradition, were two separate works. 
 
 cording to Photius,) closed with the 
 heresy of Noetus. He declares, as Pho- 
 tius has quoted him, that he has in this 
 work made use of the contents of a se- 
 ries of discourses by Irenaeus against 
 these heresies.* We have already quoted 
 his writing against Noetus, which is still 
 preserved, which probably formed the 
 conclusion of this work. 
 
 We have also an unimportant piece by 
 him on the Antichrist^ which was also 
 known to Photius. The same writer 
 mentions a commentary on Daniel by 
 him, out of which he quotes the re- 
 markable circumstance,! that he placed 
 the end of the world at 500 years at\er 
 the birth of Christ. His placing this 
 event later than it was usual to represent 
 it in the earliest ages of the Church, may 
 be attributed to the season of tranquillity, 
 which the Church was then enjoying, 
 under Alexander Severus. 
 
 In the list of the writings of Hippolytus 
 on the monument, a tt^ot^etttiko* ■s-fo? 
 le/Jij^iifav occurs. It is hardly to be 
 doubted that this is the very treatise, from 
 which Theodoret, in his s^«hj-t»jc, quotes 
 several passages under the title of a Letter 
 to the Queen or Empress (w^o? BaaXtSa.,) 
 which Fabricius has collected in his edi- 
 tion of Hippolytus. Its contents answer 
 to the title, which the writing mentioned 
 in the monument bote; it is a discussion 
 of the doctrines of the Christian faith, 
 for the advantage of a heathen woman. 
 That Severina must also have been a 
 queen or an empress. But the name 
 Severina can hardly be correct ; it must 
 be Severa, and it is in the highest 
 degree probable to suppose it addressed 
 to Severa, who was wife of the emperor 
 Philippus Arabs. (See above.) 
 
 An entirely peculiar character marks 
 the theological development of the JYorth 
 African Churchy whose theological spirit 
 was constantly taking a more definite 
 form from the time of Tertullian to that of 
 St. Augustine, and afterwards obtained the 
 greatest influence over the whole Western 
 Church by means of St. Augustine. 
 
 Tertullian is a writer of peculiar iin- 
 portance, both as the first representative 
 of the theological character of the North 
 African Cliurch,an(l as the representative 
 of the Montanistic opinions. He was a 
 
 * The words of Photius are as follows : t^u- 
 f Cod. 202. 
 
SKETCH OP TERTULLIAN. 
 
 425 
 
 man of ardent mind, warm disposition, and 
 deeply serious character,* accustomed 
 to give iiimself up with all his soul and 
 strength to tlie object of his love, and 
 hauglitily to reject all whicli was uncon- 
 genial to tliat object. lie had a fund of 
 great and multifarious knowledge, but it 
 was confusedly heaped up in his mind, 
 without scientilic arrangement. His depth 
 of thought was not united witii logical 
 clearness and judgment: a warm un- 
 governed imagination, that dwelt in sen- 
 suous images, was his ruling power. 
 His impetuous and haughty disposition, 
 and his early education as an advocate or 
 a rhetorician, were prone to carry him, 
 especially in controversy, to rhetorical 
 exaggerations. When he defends a thing, 
 of the truth of which he is persuaded, 
 one often sees in him the advocate who 
 only collects together all the arguments 
 by which his cause may be advanced, 
 both just arguments and sophisms, that 
 deceive by a mere dazzling appearance; 
 his very richness of fancy at times leads 
 him astray from the perception of the 
 simple truth. The circumstance which 
 renders this man a phenomenon of so 
 much importance to the Christian his- 
 torian, is this, that Christianity is the 
 soul of his life and thought, that by 
 Christianity there was opened to him an 
 entirely new and fertile interior world, 
 but not until the leaven of Christianity 
 could wholly penetrate and ennoble his 
 ardent, powerful, and somewhat rugged 
 nature ; we find the new wine in an old 
 cask ; so that the taste, which it has re- 
 ceived in that cask, might easily tleceive 
 one that is not a connoisseur. Tertul- 
 lian had often more within him, than he 
 could express ; an adequate form was 
 wanting to the overflowing spirit. He 
 was compelled first to create a language 
 for the new spiritual matter (and that, too, 
 out of the rough Punic Latin,) without 
 the advantage of a logical and gram- 
 matical training, and to create it just as 
 he was carried on in his ardour by the 
 stream of his thoughts and feelings. 
 Hence come the diniculties and obscuri- 
 ties to be found in his mode of writing, 
 but hence also come its originality and 
 liveliness. Hence, this great Father, who 
 united great gifts with great faults, has 
 been often misunderstood by those who 
 could not acquaint themselves with his 
 spirit through the rough and uncultivated, 
 
 • [Literally, of a fiery and deep spirit, of a 
 warm and deep disposition. — H. J. It.] 
 54 
 
 unassisted form in which it is presented 
 to us. 
 
 I Quintus Septimius Florens Terlullianus 
 was born in the latter years of the se- 
 cond century, probably at Carthage, and 
 I was the son of a centurion iu the service 
 of the Proconsul at Carthage. He was 
 at first an advocate or a rhetorician, and 
 arrived at manhood before he was con- 
 verted to Clirisiianity ; and he then ob- 
 I tained, if the account given l)y Jerome is 
 correct, the ofllce of a Presbyter. It is 
 , doubtful, however, whether it was at 
 1 Rome or Carthage. The latter is, in 
 I itself, the most probable ; because in dif- 
 j fereiit writings, composed at different 
 times, he speaks as if he were settled at 
 i Carthage; although* the accounts of 
 I Eusebius and Jerome may be taken to 
 I favour the former supposition. The ac- 
 I cession of TertuUian to Moiitanism mav 
 I be sufficiently explained from its affmity 
 j to the early character of his mind and 
 j disposition. His writings relate to the 
 I most varied points of Christian doctrine 
 j and of Christian lile : it is here a matter 
 of great importance, to separate those 
 ! among them, which bear the stamp of 
 [ Montanism, from those which contain no 
 I trace of it.+ 
 
 • The words of Euseliius, ii. 2. ra,v /urtKimt 
 I in 'PetjUh; xt/j.7r^m, do not exactly assert, tliat as a 
 Christian he oMained an important place in the 
 Roman Church, but taken in conjunction with 
 the context they may very well imply, that l>oforc 
 ! his conversion to Christianity he was in prcat es- 
 I limation at Kome, as a juris-consultus (for the 
 I arbitrary translation of Kufinus, ' inter nostros 
 I scrijitores admodum clarus,' must at all events be 
 I rejected ;) but we mij^ht then also conclude, that 
 I if Tcrtullian lived at Rome as a heathen, and 
 I was so much esteemed, it is also probable that he 
 I was there also lirst invested with a spiritual oHicc. 
 ! Jerome says that the jealousy and injuries of the 
 I Romish clergy moved him to chatipe to jMon- 
 tanism. But such stories, which the ancient 
 I Church-teachers used to set about, are always 
 I very suspicious, l)ecause men were universally too 
 j much inclined to altriliute to external causes a 
 j conversion from the Roman Church to heretical 
 ' O{»inions, — and Jerome in ytarticidar, althouc;h he 
 ' reverenced the Caiheda I'eiri in the Roman 
 Church, was notwithslandini; inclined to s|)eak 
 I evil of the Roman cleri^y, who did him so nmch 
 , injury during his residence at l{ome, cnj)ecially 
 I after the death of Uamasus, and to accuse them, 
 ! in particular, of jealousy against ^rcat tJilenL-*. 
 j i I have given n more elalwral*' investigation 
 ' of this subject in my treatise on 'J'crtnllian. 
 ' [anti-(inostikua, Cieist des 'I'ertullian. lierlin, 
 ! 1825. — H. J. R.] I shall here only add somc- 
 [ thing in regard to the ol»jertioiiK made by Dr. 
 ^. Ciilln to my conclusions. He linds a mark of 
 I .Mont;uiism in wiiat TertuUian says, do I'atienlia 
 1 c L " bonurum ^uorundam, siculi ct lualorum 
 2 .\ 2 
 
LIFE OF TERTULLIAN. 
 
 426 
 
 It is difficult to decitle the question, 
 whether TerluUian remained always in 
 the same connection with the Montanistic 
 party ; or whether he afterwards again 
 inclined more to the Catholic Church, 
 and endeavoured to form a middle way 
 between the two parties. The narratives 
 
 intolerabilis magmtudo est, ut aJ capienda et praes- 
 tanda ea, sola gratia divinae inspirationis opcratur." 
 I must here certainly retract the declaration made 
 in my Tertullian, p. 161, that there is nothing 
 contained in this pasaage but the common Chris- 
 tian doctrine, which attributes to the Holy Spirit 
 the operation of all good in believers. The fol- 
 lowing is the idea contained in the passage : ' But 
 for all good, we need not only human exertions, 
 but the communication of the Holy Spirit. The 
 higher the grade of goodness is, the more man 
 needs the operation of the Holy Spirit. But there 
 are grades of goodness so exalted, qualities and gifts 
 of such elevation, that man can do nothing what- 
 ever towards attaining them. They are entirely the 
 free gift of the Holy Spirit, and man in these 
 cases is only passive, in regard to the work of the 
 Holy Spirit. Such are the Charismata, which are 
 to be separated from the common Christian vir- 
 tues.' I acknowledge that there is something 
 here besides the doctrine, which every Christian 
 must deduce from the Bible; but it need not, 
 therefore, be called Montanistic. Such a view 
 might proceed from the original character of Ter- 
 tullian's mind. We have already observed above, 
 that the Montanistic notion of certain operations 
 of the Holy Spirit, under which man is only pas- 
 sive, was by no means a new view ; but that it 
 engrafted itself on a mode of representation which 
 had long been'in existence. 
 
 The passage about fasts and abstinence cannot 
 in any way be looked upon as a proof of Mon- 
 tanism, for a voluntary uo-^witk had already found 
 acceptance with many, who were no Montanists, 
 (see above.) 'J'he words, 'jejuiiia conjungere,' 
 might indeed, although not necessarily, be under- 
 stood of a S'.iperpositio, by no means Montanistic 
 (superpositio is a continuation of the f^riday's 
 fast to Saturday, on which day no Montanist 
 fasted. See above, page 188.) And besides, 
 the whole manner in which penance is here 
 treated, the whole spirit of mildness which 
 breathes here, is not Montanistic. 
 
 As far also as regards the work de Prccscrip- 
 tione, I find myself i)y no means induced to 
 cliange my opinion of its non-Montanistic origin. 
 The words ' alius libcUus hunc gradum sustinebit,' 
 contr. Marcion. 1. i. c. 2, might be used by Ter- 
 tullian of a piece already written, whether by 
 himself or another, by representing it (the book,) 
 personified as a defender. It does not at all fol- 
 low, from his particularly bringing forward the 
 doctrine of a creation out of nothing, in his quota- 
 tion of the Creed, c. 13, that he had already had 
 to sustain a contest with Hermogencs ; because 
 even in the controversy against the Gnostics this 
 definition must have been brought forward ; and 
 the connection in which these words there stand, 
 far more favours the sup[)osition that he was 
 thinking of the Gnostics, than that he had Her- 
 mogenes in his thoughts. It is, indeed, quite 
 certain, from c. 30, that before Tertullian wrote 
 
 of Atignstine,* and of Praedestinatus,! as 
 well as the account given by the latter^ 
 of a IVIontanistic work of Tertullian, in 
 which he endeavours to lessen the num- 
 ber of points of diflerence between tlie 
 two parties, are favourable to the latter 
 notion, and on this supposition, many of 
 the writings of Tertullian, which are 
 moderately Montanistic, or border upon 
 Montanism, might be assigned to a dif- 
 ferent epoch. But these accounts are not 
 sufficient to challenge our belief in tliem. 
 From the disposition of Tertullian one is 
 led to think, that he was not unlikely to 
 keep to his opinions, when they were 
 once formed, and when opposed, con- 
 stantly the more to harden himself in 
 them. The peculiar sect of the Tertul- 
 Uanists^ which is found at Cartilage in the 
 fifth century, is no proof of the supposi- 
 tion we have mentioned ; because it is 
 possible, that this sect, which adhered 
 closely to the peculiar opinions of Ter- 
 tullian, was first formed in later times, 
 when it was cut off from communication 
 with the Montanistic Churches in Asia. 
 
 The study of the writings of Tertul- 
 lian had plainly a peculiar influence on 
 the doctrinal development of Cyprian. 
 Jerome relates, after a tradition, supposed 
 to come from the secretary of Cyprian, 
 that he daily read some part of Tertul- 
 lian's writings, and was accustomed to call 
 him by no other name than that of Master.^ 
 
 this book, Hermogenes had brought forv^'ard his 
 peculiar views ; but it cannot at all be proved, 
 that Hermogenes had not already published his 
 doctrines a long time before Tertullian wrote 
 his book against him. From the very cursory 
 manner in which Tertullian mentions him in the 
 treatise de Prajscriptione, we might be inclined to 
 suspect, that Hermogencs vias, at that time, by 
 no means a person of such importance in his 
 eyes, and that it was his additional interest in the 
 matter as a Montanist in later times, which moved 
 him to enter into an elaborate refutation of the 
 doctrines of Hermogencs. The manner in which 
 he speaks of the emanation of the Logos, cannot 
 be called Montanistic, for he represents it in the 
 ' same manner in the Apologeticus, c. 5J1, — a 
 1 treatise acknowledged not to be Montanistic. 
 j [Those who are desirous of seeing a condensed 
 I statement of iVcander's views on Tertullian's 
 i writings may consult the able i)reface to Bp. 
 Kaye's work on Tertullian, 2d edition, 1826. 
 — H. .1. K.] 
 
 • Hieres. 86. f Hicres. 86. ^ Haercs. 26. 
 § He would say to his secretary. Da mihi ma- 
 gistrum. Hieron. de Viris illustribus, c. 53. In 
 order to see how he used the writings of Tertul- 
 lian, the treatises of Cyprian de Orutione Domi- 
 nica, and dc Patimtia, in particular should be 
 compared with those of Tertullian on the same 
 subjects, and that de Idoloruin vanitate with the 
 Apologeticus. 
 
CVPRIAN HIS LIBRI TESTIMONIORUM 
 
 427 
 
 We have already spoken sufilciently in 
 various places of the character, the ac- 
 tivity, and the most important writings of 
 Cyprian. We shall liere mention only 
 one more remarkable writing of Cyprian, 
 his three bocks of Testimonia, a collec- 
 tion of the most important passages of 
 Scripture, to prove, that Jesns is the Mes- 
 siah promised in the Old Testament, and 
 to iorm the foundation of Christian faith 
 and morals. The collection was destined 
 for a certain Qnirinus, who had entreated 
 the bishop to make him such an abridg- 
 ment of the essential contents of llie 
 Bible in regard to faith and morals, for 
 his daily use and for the assistance of his 
 memory. Since Cyprian addresses him 
 as ''• my son," he cannot have been a 
 bishop or a presbyter, for whom Cyprian 
 thiew together this collection in order to 
 assist him in communicating religious in- 
 struction.* By comparing the introduc- 
 tion to the second and third books, it will 
 appear extremely probable, that the per- 
 son, to whom Cyprian wrote, was a lay- 
 man belonging to his Church, to whom 
 he wished to give the means of making 
 his own the important practical truths, 
 ami the most important rules for all the 
 cliief relations of Christian life.f This 
 colleclion then will give us a proof of 
 the intimate union subsisting between the 
 bishop and the members of his Church, 
 who were troubled about tlie salvation of 
 tlieir souls, and show how much he had 
 it at heart, to lead every individual to an 
 intimate acquaintance with the Divine 
 Word. — a wish, which peculiarly breaks 
 forth in the beautiful words with which 
 he closes the preface to the first book : 
 "^ More strength will be granted to thee, 
 and the view of the understanding will 
 constantly be more and more fully form- 
 ed, if thou searchest more perfectly the 
 Old and the New Testament, and runnest 
 
 * It might he concluded that this was the case, 
 from the words at the he^inning : ijnihus non tarn 
 tractassp, quam tractantibus niatcriam prahuisse 
 videamur. We could then only suppose, that he 
 had composed this hook as an aid to a deacon, or 
 a catechist, a doctor audientium. But the words 
 which follow show, that the collection was also 
 intended to infix upon the memory the chief pas- 
 sa;jes and doctrines of the 15ihle, hy constantly 
 readini? them over. The collection must, there- 
 fore, in this case have been intended at the same 
 time as a guide for the teachers of religion, and a 
 book, of aid for the Catechumens ; but the view 
 taken above is more natural. 
 
 -j- Quffi esse facilia et utilia legentibus possunt, 
 dum in breviarium pauca digesta et velociter per- 
 Icguntur et frequenter iterantur. 
 
 through every part of the Holy Scripture ; 
 for I liave only j)oured out a little to thee 
 from the Divine foimlains, in order to 
 satisfy thee for a time. Thon canst drink 
 more plentifully and satisfy thyself, if 
 thou also comest with us to llie same 
 fountains of the Divine fidness, in order 
 to drink as we do." 
 
 The particular rides, which Cyprian 
 brings forward and sup[)orls by passages 
 from the Bible, show how an.vious he 
 1 was to counteract the notion, that a mere 
 j outward confession, and a compliance 
 I with the forms of Cliristian worship, 
 would satisfy the demands of the Cii>si)cl, 
 and serve to obtain salvation ; but at the 
 same time, we freely acknowledge tliat 
 they show also, how important he thought 
 it, to impress upon the laity a veneration 
 for the priestliood, according to the no- 
 ! tions of the Old Testament. 
 , We must here cursorily mention a 
 person, who is of importance in many 
 respects for the history of Cliristian mo- 
 rals and worship ; particularly in the 
 Norlli African Church, that is to say 
 Commodianus, wlio is known by his 
 " instructions adapted for heatliens, and 
 all classes of Christians," (Instructiones. 
 Exhortations and lieproofs,") and written 
 I in verse. He was born of Christian pa- 
 rents, who troubled themselves but little 
 ' about giving him a Christian education, 
 and hence he joined in the heathen wor- 
 ship, without their being aware of it, 
 until he was led away from heathenism, 
 and to Christianity, by means of reading 
 the Bible,, (^'^^ similiter crravi tempore 
 multo I Fana prosequendo, parentibus 
 insciis ipsis | .^bstuli me tamen inile, 
 legendo de lege.) This passage would, 
 I no doubt, bear another interpretation, if 
 we were to put a stop after prosequendo, 
 ! and connecting the words immedialely 
 j after it witii what follows ; but this is 
 I not so natural a supposition as the other. 
 I In his Christian notions, and the picture 
 I of manners painted by him, as well as in 
 his latiniiy, we recognise a North African 
 ' who lived not long after the time of 
 Cvprian. The Ciiristians at that time, 
 after some persecutions had taken place, 
 (apparently under Deciusand Valerianus,) 
 j were enjoying a state of outward pros- 
 I perity under Gallienus; but outward 
 prosperity had also exercised again a 
 prejudicial inlluence on the inward life, 
 both among the clerjjy and laity. The 
 Christians participated in the pleasures of 
 the heathens, and many teachers of the 
 Church gave in too much to them, being 
 
428 
 
 ARNOBIUS — HIS CONVERSION. 
 
 influenced by presents, or by fear of 
 giving personal offence. (57. Si quidam 
 doctores, dum expectant niunera vestra j 
 Aut tinient personas, laxant singula vobis.) 
 
 Comniodian shows great zeal for the 
 strictness of Christian morals, and he 
 speaks against the delusion of a false 
 estimation of martyrdom, as of an opus 
 operatum; he declares, on the contrary, 
 that every man might become a martyr, 
 even in a season of peace, by genuine 
 Christian virtue ; and that on the con- 
 trary, many who were proud of having 
 vanquished Satan by their blood, and did 
 not remember that Satan is always Satan 
 — had afterwards suffered themselves to 
 be conquered by him. But with all this, 
 Conimodian held a very gross system of 
 Chiliasm, which bears upon it the colour- 
 ing of carnal Judaism. The chiefest 
 princes of the world were, in the first 
 place, to become the slaves of the pious 
 in the kingdom of the Millennium ; and all 
 the vanity of the world under the influ- 
 ence of an unchristian imagination is 
 transferred to that kingdom. (See In- 
 struct. 80.) 
 
 We have here also to mention Arno- 
 bius, as belonging to the same Church, 
 although he showed a more peculiar doc- 
 trinal turn of mind, and the spirit of the 
 North African Church appears, at least in 
 the time that he came forward as a Chris- 
 tian writer, to have exerted no influence 
 upon him, — a fact which is apparent, 
 from the liberal and independent manner 
 in which he seems to have come to Chris- 
 tianity through the reading of the New 
 Testament, especially the Gospels. He 
 was a rhetorician at Sikka, in Numidia, 
 during the reign of the Emperor Dio- 
 cletiau.* His writings give testimony to 
 the literary acquirements, which a rheto- 
 rician in so respectable a town would be j 
 required to have. Jerome, in his Chro- 
 nicle, relates that Arnobius, who had 
 previously always opposed Christianity, 
 was moved by dreams to a faith in it, but 
 that tlie bishop, to whom he applied, did 
 not trust him, because he knew his former 
 enmity against Christianity; and that 
 Arnobius, in order to prove the sincerity 
 of his intentions, wrote his Apologetic 
 work, (the septem libros disputationum 
 contra gontes.) This narrative has been 
 suspected of being a mere interpolation 
 by another liand, — for it is, at all events, 
 not in its proper place ; it is an evident 
 anachronism to suppose that all this 
 
 Hieronymus de vir. illustr. c. 79. 
 
 should have taken place in the twentieth 
 year of Constantine, A. D. 326. And 
 farther, Arnobius appears to have been a 
 man who would be led to believe by 
 a detailed examination, and not one who 
 would have been thus influenced by the 
 sudden impression made by dreams. In 
 his work, we recognise, not the novice 
 who was still a Catechumen, but the 
 man already matured in his conviction, 
 although not one who was orthodox 
 in the sense the Church would aflix to 
 that word. 
 
 And yet one is not led by these argu- 
 ments entirely to reject the narrative. 
 We have already observed (p. 264, et 
 seq.,) how the conversion of many was 
 facilitated by such impressions ; but in 
 saying this, it is not declared, that his 
 whole conversion proceeded from these 
 impressions, for his work would certainly 
 contradict such a supposition. But if Ar- 
 nobius, as will clearly appear from a pas- 
 sage we are about to quote, Avas devoted 
 to blind heathenish superstition, it is on 
 that account less unlikely that many more 
 outward impressions were needed, to 
 lead the zealous heathen to an inquiry 
 into Christianity. It may, indeed, have 
 been the case, that he had been convinced 
 some time before he offered himself for 
 baptism, which is easily to be explained 
 by the circumstances of those times. His 
 Apologetic work, however, appears cer- 
 tainl}^ to have been written in compliance 
 with some inward impulse, and not in 
 consequence of any external excitement. 
 But it may also be the case, that his de- 
 termination to make a public confession 
 of Christianity, and to come forward as a 
 public defender of it, were formed at the 
 same time in his soul — and that he then 
 went with this resolution to the bishop. 
 In after times, the bishops were often in- 
 clined to be too little suspicious towards 
 those, who became Christians from ex- 
 ternal motives. But it is by no means so 
 improbable, that a bishop in these un- 
 happy times of the Church, M'hen he saw 
 before him a man who had been so vio- 
 lent an enemy to Christianity, should 
 fear in him an evil-minded informer. 
 And then, in order to destroy his doubts 
 at once, Arnobius shows him his writing 
 in defence of Christianity. He himself 
 thus speaks of the change that Avas ef- 
 fected in him by Christianity :* " Oh, 
 blindness ! it is not long ago, that I wor- 
 shipped even the images that came from 
 
 • Lib. i. c. 39. 
 
ROMISH CHURCH. 429 
 
 the forje, tlie goils that were made on it was the very accusation which had oc- 
 the anvil and by the liammer; when I casioncd the perserulions under Diorle- 
 saw a stone that had been polished and ^ lian ; namelv, the public calamities \s liich 
 besmeared with oil, I testified my venera- ; took place, because tlie reverence for the 
 tion, I addressed it as if a living power i gods had been supplanted by Chiis- 
 had been there, and I begged for benefits i tianity, and hence protection and aiil 
 for myself from the insentient stone, and were no longer afTonled by these gods. 
 I even did the gods, whom I took to be Arnobius justiy says in reply to this 
 gods, the injury of believing them to be charge : " If men, instead of trusting to 
 wood, or stone, or bones, or I thought : their own wisdom and following their 
 that they dwelt in such things. Now, own opinion, would only endeavour to 
 as I have been led on the way of truth follow the doctrines of Christ, which 
 by so great a teacher, I know what all ^ bring salvation and peace, how soon 
 that is."" j would the form of the world be changed, 
 
 As far as relates to the period, at which and iron, instead of being required for 
 Arnobius wrote his book, he himself de- war, would be used in peaceful works !" 
 termines it, when he says,* that Rome 
 
 had been built 1050 years, or not much However important the Roman Church 
 less. According to the (era Varroniana, became by its outward ecclesiastical influ- 
 then in vogue, (Rome built, 753,) this ence, and by the influence of the element 
 would tally with the year A. D. 297. of the Roman political spirit upon llie pro- 
 But this is not entirely satisfactory, be- [ gress of the Church, it was proportionably 
 cause there are in the work evident traces poor from the beginning in regard to theo- 
 of those persecutions under Diocletian, ' logical attainments. The anxiety for the 
 Avhich did not break out (see above) be- , outward existence of the Church, which 
 fore the year A. D. 303. We must, there- predominated here, appears early to have 
 fore, suppose, either that Arnobius has i depressed the scale of theological know- 
 made use of an era different from the j ledge. Only two distinguisiied writers 
 usual one of that day, or that the exact ; appear among the Roman clergy, neither 
 number did not occur to him,t or that he of whom, perhaps, can be compared with 
 wrote the work at different times. He a Tertullian, a Clement, or an Origen ; 
 says to the heathen :t " If a pious zeal | they are the Presbyter Caius, whom we 
 for your religion animated you, you Avould have already named as an opponent of 
 far rather have long ago burnt those writ- ^ the Montanists, and the Presbyter Nova- 
 ings, and destroyed those theatres, in tian, also mentioned before. Of the writ- 
 which the disgrace of the gods is daily i ings of the first, nothing has been pre- 
 published in scandalous plays. For, [ served to us ; of the second, we have 
 wherefore have our writings deserved to | only short expositions of the essential 
 be delivered up to the fire ? wherefore : meaning of the Christian doctrmes ; es- 
 have our assembling houses deserved to ' pecially of the doctrines of the Divinity 
 be destroyed, in which the Supreme God , of Christ, and of the Trinity. According 
 is adored, peace and grace are implored for I to Jerome, § 70, this work was an ex- 
 governors, for the armies, for the emperors, j tract from a greater one of Tertullian. 
 —joy and peace are implored for the living {But at all events, this writer was some- 
 and for those freed from the fetters of the j tiling more than a mere copyist of an- 
 body, — in which nothing is ever heard, j other man's mind, we should far rather 
 but 'what tends to make men humane, ; say that he showed a character of his 
 mild, discreet, modest, generous in giving | own ; he had not the power and depth of 
 of their own, and akin to all those, whom Tertullian, but a more spiritual disposi- 
 the one bond of brotherhood embraces .'" | tion.* 
 
 The objection also of the heathen We have also a treatise by him on the 
 against Christianity, which moved Arno- I Jewish Imcs about, fnod^ a paronomastic 
 bius to write (as he himself says,) indi- I allegorical interpretation of them, intend- 
 cates the time at which he wrote; forced to show, that they are no longer 
 
 • Lib. ii. c. 71. 
 
 j- This is the most natural supposition, for the 
 chronolo<^ of Arnobius is certainly not very 
 exact; lor in I. i. c. 13, he says: trecenti surit 
 anni ferme, minus vel plus aliquid, ex quo ccepi- 
 mus esse Chrintiani. 
 
 t Lib. iv. c. 36. 
 
 • Novalian's opponent, (Cornelius, the bishop 
 of Rome, appears evidently (in Euscb. vi. 43.) to 
 alluJc to this treatise, when he calls Novalinn, o 
 
 m:rn,(;. This is certainly a hint, that .«uch a phc- 
 nomenon was not common among the lio/nan 
 clergy. 
 
430 
 
 CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA. 
 
 binding upon Christians* We see from 
 this treatise, that it was written by a 
 bishop separated from his Church by the 
 persecution, who maintained a constant 
 interchange of letters with this Church, 
 and endeavoured to preserve it from the 
 seductions offered to it by heathens, Jews, 
 and heretics : every thing about it an- 
 swers well to a Roman Church, for many 
 Jews dwelt at Rome. Only then, this 
 treatise can hardly have proceeded from a 
 Presbyter; the author speaks, as only a 
 bishop could have spoken at that time to 
 his Church. And we know also from the 
 letter of Cornelius, that Novatian did not 
 remove from Rome during the persecution 
 under Decius. We must, therefore, call 
 to mind the relation between Novatian 
 and the Church which recognised him as 
 its bishop, and we shall naturally sup- 
 pose that this piece was written under 
 the first persecution of Valerius, (see 
 above,) during which so many bishops 
 were separated from their Churches. 
 
 There belonged also to the Roman 
 Church a man, who deserves a conspi- 
 cuous place among the Apologists of this 
 age for his sensible, ingenious, and 
 graphic dialogue, animated throughout by 
 genuine Christian feeling, and taken from 
 the life, — I mean Minucius Felix, who, 
 according to Jerome, was celebrated as 
 an advocate at Rome, before his conver- 
 sion to Christianity ; he lived apparently 
 in the first half of the third century, but 
 before Cyprian^ who made use of his 
 writings. We have already quoted some 
 portion of this Apologetic dialogue under 
 the name of Octavius. 
 
 We now pass to the teachers of the 
 Alexandrian school, of whose influence 
 over the progress of the development of 
 the Church we have already spoken. 
 We have no written monument of him, 
 who is named to us as the first teacher 
 of this school who was held in much es- 
 timation, Pantfenus (nai-TaiKj?,) the Phi- 
 losopher, wlio was converted to Chris- 
 tianity. We know him oidy through his 
 s^cholar, Clement. 
 
 Titus Flavins Clemens was arrived at 
 the age of manhood before he became a 
 Christian ; for he numbers himself among 
 
 * Jerome mentions this as one of hh writings, 
 as well as two others, on the Sabbath and on 
 Circumcision, which Novatian quotes as two let- 
 ters, that had preceded tliis letter to his Church, in 
 which he had hccn desirous of showing qua; sit 
 vera circumcisio, et quod vcrum sabbatum. 
 
 those who came from the service of sin 
 in heathenism to the Redeemer, and re- 
 ceived from him forgiveness of their sins.* 
 He persuaded himself of the truth of 
 Christianity by a free inquiry, as he was 
 one who had attained a great knowledge 
 of all the systems of religion and philo- 
 sophy about Divine matters, that were 
 known to the more cultivated world of 
 his days.f This free spirit of inquiry, 
 which had brought him to Christianity, 
 impelled him also, after he became a 
 Christian, to seek out distinguished Chris- 
 tian teachers of different characters of 
 mind in different countries. He himself 
 says,J that he had several distinguished 
 men for his teachers ; in Greece an 
 Ionian ; in Magna Grajcia (the lower part 
 of Italy,) one from Coelesyria, and an- 
 other from Egypt; in the east of Asia 
 (probably Syria,) an Assyrian, and in Pa- 
 lestine a person of Jewish origin. He 
 remained at last in Egypt, where he found 
 the greatest Gnostic* who had penetrated 
 most deeply into the spirit of Scripture. 
 This last was no other than Panta;nus. 
 Eusebius does not confine himself to this 
 statement, but be appeals§ to a passage 
 also in the Hypotvposeis of Clement, 
 where he calls him his teacher. Perhaps, 
 when Pantfenus entered upon the mis- 
 sionary journey mentioned above, Cle- 
 mei\t followed him in the character of a 
 catechist, and at the same time, or later, 
 was a presbyter in the Alexandrian 
 Church. The persecution under Sep- 
 timius Severus, A. D. 202, probably com- 
 pelled him to absent himself from Alex- 
 andria.lt But great obscurity envelopes 
 the history of his life, and tlie place of 
 his abode at this period. We only know, 
 that in the beginning' of the reign of the 
 Emperor Caracalla he was at Jerusalem, 
 whither at that time many Christians, 
 especially clergy, had been accustomed 
 to betake themselves, partly in order to 
 become eye-witnesses of places sanctified 
 by religious remembrances, and partly in 
 order to make use of a more accurate 
 knowledge of these places for the better 
 undersLinding of Scripture. Alexander, 
 tlie bishop of Jerusalem, who was then 
 imprisoned for the faith, commen(kHl him 
 to the Church at Antioch, whither he was 
 travelling, by a letter, in which he called 
 
 • Pa;dagog. 1. ii. c. 8. p. 176. [Pott. 205. 
 Sylb.76.] • 
 
 ■j" TravTav S'tt TTit^xi; i\Baiv ^vwg. Euscl). Prae- 
 parat. Evangel. 1. ii.'c. 2. 
 
 + Stromat. 1. i. 274. [Pott. 323. Sylb. 118.] 
 
 § vi. 13. i Euseb, vi. c. 3. 
 
Tr^uy-xra — 
 
 him a virtuous and approved man, and 
 took it for granted, that he was already 
 known to the Antiochians.* 
 
 We have three u'orks written hy him, 
 and dependent in some sort on each 
 oilier; because he sets out from the idea, 
 tliat the instructor of mankind, tlie Logos, 
 first leads the rude heathens, sunk in sin 
 and idolatry, to believe, (hen continually 
 improves their lives by moral precepts, 
 and lastly, elevates those who had been 
 purified in morals to a deeper knowledge 
 of Divine matters, i. e. to Gnosis. Thus 
 the Logos appears, at first exhorting the 
 sinner to repentance and converting the 
 heathens, (Tr^oT/jjTTTif.o;,) next as forming 
 by his discipline the conduct of the con- 
 verted, (w«»^«7W7o,-,) and then as the 
 teacher of the Gnosis to the purified."!" 
 His tliree works, which we still have, are 
 formed on this fundamental notion, the 
 Apologetic work, the Protrepticos, next 
 the ethical work, the Pa;dagogus, and 
 then the work containing the. elements of 
 Gnosis, the ST^wfA«T£K {'ZTpuiiJt.a.Tci.)^ Cle- 
 ment was not a man of a systematic 
 mind ; many multifarious elements of 
 mind and ideas, which he had received 
 from his intercourse with minds of varied 
 character, were heaped up in him, as one 
 sees at times in his Stromata, and as must 
 have been shown still more strongly in his 
 Hypotyposeis, which we shall have to 
 mention hereafter, if Photius has under- 
 stood him properly. It is beyond doubt 
 that by isolated flashes of mind he must 
 have exercised an animating influence on 
 his disciples and his readers, as we see 
 particularly shown in the case of Origen. 
 Many ideas unconnectedly thrown out by 
 him, in a manner full of the loftiest con- 
 ceptions, — ideas which contain the germ 
 of a complete and systematic theological 
 course of thought, are found in him scat- 
 tered among a multitude of insignificant 
 discussions. 
 
 As far as regards his ZT§«/AaT«, it was 
 here, nevertheless, his intention, as he 
 testifies in many places, to place togetlier 
 confusedly truth and error from the 
 Greek philosopliers and the systems of 
 Christian sects, as well as fragments of 
 the true Gnosis. Every one was to find 
 out that which was adapted to himself; 
 
 "i-TfcnvTrm/Tn;. 
 
 431 
 
 ♦ Euseb. vi. c. 11. 
 
 •Ivynv fuvxy.tiM ^(TfirTdu my dTroxaxu^/i' r:v A'.y.u. 
 Paediigog. 1. i.e. 1. 
 
 t Just like the xta-roc, a word of similar import, 
 which was commonly used to denote a work of 
 mixed contents. 
 
 he wished rather to excite than to teach, 
 and often pmposcly only to give a liiiit in 
 those cases wliere he might fear to give 
 oflence to the vria-Tixoi, who were as yet 
 unable to comprehend these ideas. Tlie 
 eighth book of this work is lost; for the 
 fragment of (halectic investigations, which 
 now goes under the name of the eighth 
 book of the Stromata, evidently does not 
 belong to this work, hideed, the eighth 
 book was lost as early as the time of 
 Photius.* 
 
 AVe have to regret the loss of the 
 'T'7roTV'!ru<7n;i of Clement, in which appa- 
 rently he gave doctrinal and excLn-iiral 
 investigations and views on tlie ])riiiriph^8 
 of the Alexandrian Gnosis. Fragments 
 from this work, tfie short explanations of 
 some of the Catholic Epistles, wliich 
 have descended to us in the Latin trans- 
 ]ation,Jan(l perhaps, also, the frairment of 
 the fKX«ya» fK Tuv VfotpririKiLt^ belong to 
 this class. The fact is, that people made 
 for themselves extracts out of the larger 
 work for common use on difll'ient parts 
 of Scripture, and some of these extnicts 
 have been preserved to us, while this verv 
 custom may have contributed to eflect the 
 loss of the whole work. 
 
 Obscure as it is in its nature, the 
 fragment of the extracts from the writings 
 of Theodotns and of the StSxcxct>.t(x utx- 
 ToXix»), (that is, of the Theosopliic doc- 
 trines of Eastern Asia,) which has 
 remained to us among the works of 
 Clement, is of the highest importance for 
 the knowledge of the Gnostic systems. 
 It is, perhaps, a fragment of a critical 
 collection, which Clement had made 
 during his sojourn in Syria. We have 
 already spoken of the treatise of Cle- 
 ment on the time of Easter,§ and of his 
 work TK a-ul^outtoi; nrXova-KJi;, which is of 
 itnportance in regard to the history of 
 Christian Ethics. 
 
 Clement, in his Stromata. || intimates 
 his intention of writing a work, vifi itfo- 
 iptjTiia?, in which he would treat of the 
 nature of the Holy Spirit, and on the 
 mode of his comnnmiration, as well as 
 of the proper judgment to be made about 
 
 • See Cod. 111. 
 
 ■|- This word wonld prolulily Im l>est traiislatod 
 thus: sketches, shadows, Rfncral outlines, ivu- 
 firius trans!iil»^s it, adumhralionps. 
 
 \ See the second volume of Potter's edilion. 
 
 § The writiiii? also which Euseliius quotes 
 under the title, Kifav i«jtX)i«<TT5c i! Tjsf TMt 
 'iwSaj^ivTtf. was on a similar Huhjeel. 
 
 II L. iv. 511. [Pott, 605. Sylb. UIO.] v. 591. 
 [Pott. 699. Sylb. 252. 
 
432 
 
 ORIGEN — HIS EDUCATION. 
 
 the Montanistic prophets. As the subject 
 of this work involves so important and 
 interesting a portion of the doctrinal con- 
 troversies of his day, and as we might 
 expect from Clement a more unpreju- 
 diced and moderate judgment of the 
 Montanists than from any other man of 
 those times, we have liad a very great 
 loss in losing this work, if he really car- 
 ried into execution his intention of 
 writing it..* 
 
 Origen, who bore also the additional 
 name of J]damantios,i was born at Alex- 
 andria, A. D. 185. It is of importance, 
 in regard to his ethication, to remark, that 
 his lather Leonides, a pious Christian, 
 and probably a rhetorician, was in cir- 
 cumstances to give him a good literary, 
 as well as a Christian and pious educa- 
 tion. Both had an abiding influence on 
 the disposition of his interior life, the 
 development of his intellect and of his 
 heart went side by side with him, and 
 progressed together, and the longing after 
 truth and holiness remained as the influ- 
 ential dispositions of his life. We have 
 before observed, that the Bible then M'as 
 not reserved exclusively for the study of 
 the clergy, but that it was used also as a 
 book for family edification ; and we see 
 in the case of Origen, that a judicious 
 use was made of it also in education, as 
 well as the wholesome consequences of 
 such a custom. Leonides taught his son 
 daily to learn by heart a portion of the 
 Holy Scriptures. The boy took great 
 pleasure in this, and his deeply inquiring 
 spirit soon showed itself. Not contented 
 with the explanation of the literal mean- 
 ing, which his father gave him, he de- 
 sired to have his inquiries about the 
 intention of the passages he learnt by 
 heart resolved ; so that his father often 
 found himself in difficulties from this 
 cause. He blamed, however, his curiosity, 
 and advised him to content himself, as it 
 became his age, with the literal sense ; 
 
 * If vi. 681, a, [Pott. 808. Sylb. 289.] Six w 
 
 TiK'.v Uiujua., he compared with iv. 591, it might 
 be concluded, although not with certainty, that 
 Clement, in the work which is lost, denied the 
 personality of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 •j- If this name was given to him after his death, 
 yet we must not follow the forced interpretation 
 of it in Photius, c. 118, 'because fhe proofs of 
 Origen were like bonds of adamant' but far 
 rather that of Jerome, that it was given to him 
 from his iron industry, as we often say,' und 
 thence he was also named juvnx.TK, and ^AkMy- 
 T-egcc. Eusebius, however, appears to -quote this 
 name as one which Origen bore from his birth. 
 
 but in secret he delighted himself with 
 the promising abilities of his son, and 
 thanked God with a grateful heart, tliat 
 he had given him such a son. Often, 
 when his son lay asleep Avith his bosom 
 bare, would he kiss that breast, as a 
 teiuple in which the Holy Ghost was 
 wilHng to prepare himself an habitation, 
 and he tliought himself happy to possess 
 such a son. 
 
 The trait, which we have mentioned, 
 of the early life of Origen, teaches us to 
 recognise in him, even at that age, the 
 mind that sought the overpowering spirit 
 in tlie earthly guise, — a mind which after- 
 wards plainly showed itself in his allego- 
 rical mode of Scripture interpretation, and 
 which, had it been accompanied by sound 
 and well informed judgment, and been an 
 enlivening spirit grafted on a grammatical 
 education, might have made of him a 
 well-grounded and profound interpreter 
 of Scripture. This mind was rather re- 
 pressed than encouraged by his father. 
 But if Origen had been early determined 
 by the influence of the theological school 
 of Alexandria in regard to his intellectual 
 and spiritual character, this mind must 
 soon have found encouragement, and 
 have completed its own formation. As 
 we afterwards learn to know Origen from 
 his own writings, the influence M'hich 
 Clement had exerted on his theological 
 development is undeniably shown most 
 conspicuously; we find in him the pre- 
 dominant ideas of the latter systematically 
 developed. Now it is certain* that, as a 
 boy, he was at least a scholar of Clement 
 as a Catechist.f But a youthful impa- 
 tience in Origen (on which we shall here- 
 after touch,) proceeding from a carnal and 
 
 * According to Eusebius, vi. 6. — Alexander, 
 the bishop of Jerusalem, who either originally 
 came from Alexandria, or had been thither in his 
 youth, in order to receive the instruction of the 
 Catechists there, appears in his letter to Origen to 
 hint that he had been in the habit of intercourse 
 with Pantanus, although he does not directly say 
 that he was his disciple . " We acknowledge as 
 our Fathers those blessed men, who have gone 
 before us, Pantfcnus and Clement, who was my 
 master, and was of service to me, and who be- 
 longs to these men, through ivhoin I became ac- 
 quainted with you." Euscb. vi. 14. Unfortu- 
 nately, however,' there is an obscurity spread over 
 the early influence of these men on the formation 
 of Origcn's character, which, from a deficiency of 
 documents, we cannot remove. 
 
 + We may conclude from this passage of Euse- 
 bius, that the Alexandrian Catechists not only 
 gave private instruction in religion to licathen 
 adults, but also public religious instruction to 
 Christian children. 
 
CONDUCT OF ORIGEN 1\ PERSECUTION. 
 
 433 
 
 literal interpretation of Scripture, shows i Leonides sudered martvrdoin ; and his 
 that in his youth he was yet far from j properly being conliscated, lie lefi ht liiiul 
 that, liis later theological turn of mind; I him a helpless widow with six children, 
 
 and he himself says of himself, while he none of whom, except Origen, were grown 
 
 "up. He found a friendly reception in the 
 
 calls to mind this fault of his youtti, '^ 1 
 who once knew Christ, the Divine Logos 
 only after tiie flesh and the letter, now 
 know him no longer in this way."* It is 
 clear from lliis, that the education of his 
 father had more influence on the first 
 religious character of Origen, than the 
 
 house of a rich and well-esteemed Chris- 
 tian lady of Alexandria. A characteristic 
 trait here showed his firmness in that 
 which he acknowledged as the true faith, 
 and how he prized it above all besides, 
 lis patroness had devoted herself to one 
 
 instruction of Clement; and that tlic in- Of those Gnostics, who came so com- 
 fluence of the Alexandrian theological monly out of Syria to Alexandria, and 
 spirit on him belongs to a later period of there propagated their systems, dressed 
 his life, when his character was more de- , up after the Alexandrian fashion, — one 
 veloped. We freely confess, that in the Paulus of Antioch. She had received 
 history of the formation of his mind iiiin as a son, and allowed him to deliver 
 there is much obscurity, which we are lectures in her house, which were fre- 
 unable entirely to dissipate, from want of quented not only by the friends of Gnos- 
 historical documents. The religion of ticism in Alexandria, but also by those 
 the heart was at iirst the predominant | of the orthodox, who were constantly 
 one with Origen. desirous of learning something new. The 
 
 The persecution which raged against | young Origen, however, did not allow 
 the Christians in Egypt, under the em- i respect for his patroness to withhold him 
 peror Septimius Severus (see above,) gave from speaking out freely his abhorrence 
 an opportunity to him, then a stripling I of the Gnostic doctrines, and nothing 
 of sixteen, of showing his faith and zeal, j could induce him to frequent these as- 
 The example of the martyrs carried him \ semblies, because he would tlien have 
 
 away, and induced him to wish to declare 
 himself a Christian before the heathen 
 governor, and thus expose himself to 
 death. Such was the feeling of the high- 
 spirited and ardent young Christian ; but 
 the reasonable and soundly-informed man, 
 who better understood the spirit of Chris- 
 tianity, and the doctrines and example of 
 Christ, judged otherwise.! " A tempta- 
 
 been obliged to join in the prayers of this 
 Gnostic, and thus to testify his concur- 
 rence with him in matters of faith. 
 
 He was soon able to release himself 
 from this state of dependence; his know- 
 ledge of the Greek language and litera- 
 ture, which he had improved still more 
 after the death of his father, put him into 
 a condition at Alexandria, wliere such 
 
 tion, which comes upon us without our . knowledge was peculiaily prized, to gain 
 own co-operation," he says, in touching I his livelihood by instruction in these 
 on this matter, " we must sustain with subjects. 
 
 courage and with patience, but it is use- As he had made himself known even 
 less, when we can avoid it, not to do so." among the heathens by his knowledge 
 As the father of Origen was thrown into and intellectual endowments, by his zeal 
 prison, the son felt himself still more for the things of the Gospel, and by his 
 strongly urged to join his father in death.J ; pure and strict life, and as the oflice of a 
 As all arguments and entreaties had proved Catcchist was vacant at Alexandria in con- 
 fruitless, his mother was unable to retain j sequence of the persecution, many hea- 
 liim in any other way than by hiding his thens who were desirous of instruction in 
 clothes. The love of Christ now so com- , Christianity applied to him, and by this 
 pletely overwhelmed all other feelings stripling those were brought to Chris- 
 within him, that when he found himself tianity, who afterwards distinguished 
 prevented in his first intention, of sharing themselves as martyrs, or as teachers of 
 the imprisonment and death of his father, the Church. By this activity of his in 
 he wrote to him thus: "Take care that the propagation of Christianity, he must 
 thou changest not thy mind for our have constantly attracted to himself more 
 sakes." and more the hatred of the fanatical mul- 
 
 titude, especially as he, without regarding 
 
 his own danger, showed such sympathy 
 towards those who were imprisoned for 
 faith, that he not only visited them fre- 
 quently in their dungeons, but accorapa- 
 20 
 
 Matth. 
 
 TCKA'.7c: 
 
 Ed. Huct. f. 369. HjutK St 
 
 * T. XV. 
 
 j He appeals to MaUh. xiv. 13; x. 23. 
 t InMalth. f. 23J. 
 
 55 
 
434 
 
 nied them to execution, and even in the 
 face of death encouraged them by the 
 strength of his faith and his love. Provi- 
 dence often saved him from imminent 
 danger of his life, when sokliers had sur- 
 rounded the house in which he was 
 dwelling, and he was obliged to betake 
 himself secretly from one house to an- 
 other. Once a crowd of heathens seized 
 him, put upon him the dress of a heathen 
 priest of Serapis, and led him in this dress 
 to the steps of the temple, and then 
 gave him palm-branches, that he might 
 distribute them, after the usual manner, 
 to those who were entering into the 
 temple. Origen said to those, to whom 
 he offered the palm-branches, " Receive, 
 not the palm of the heathen gods, but the 
 palm of Christ."* 
 
 These effective exertions of Origen in 
 the communication of religious instruc- 
 tion called the attention of Demetrius, 
 bishop of Alexandria, to him, and moved 
 him to bestow on Origen the office of a 
 Catechist in the Alexandrian Church. At 
 that time, however, no salary was at- 
 tached to this office^ and as he now 
 ■wished to be able to devote himself en- 
 tirely to the duties of his spiritual calling, 
 and his theological studies, without being 
 interrupted and called away by other em- 
 ployments, and as he was nevertheless 
 desirous that he should be dependent on 
 no one for his support, he sold a collec- 
 tion of beautiful manuscripts of old au- 
 thors, which he had been at much pains 
 to make for himself, to a lover of litera- 
 ture, who was to pay him for this library 
 four oboli daily for many years. This 
 must have been sufficient for the very 
 limited personal wants of Origen, for he 
 led the same kind of life as the strictest 
 among the ascetics. He was, as we be- 
 fore observed, then devoted to a literal 
 interpretation of Scripture; and, as he 
 was actuated by a serious and sacred zeal 
 to act up to the ideal of holiness set forth 
 by our Saviour, and endeavoured with 
 conscientious fidelity to apply to himself 
 all the words of that Saviour, he must, in 
 
 ORIGEN AN ASCETIC. 
 
 * See Epiphan. H. 64. This narrative may 
 certainly, taken by itself, appear to he iniprolnihle, 
 when we remember how such an adilress must 
 have excitetl the fanatical rage of the Alexandrian 
 multitude, and when we take into account the 
 untrustvvorthinoss of E})i[ihanius. But the first of 
 these circumstances, althoujih it may excite a 
 doubt, is no decisive arj^ument, and Epiphanius is 
 entitled to more credit when he repeats any thing 
 which tells to the advantage of one reputed to be 
 a heretic 
 
 the warmth of his youthful ascetic zeal, 
 which was not accompanied by a sound 
 and judicious interpretation of Scripture, 
 have been led into many practical errors, 
 where he understood literally the figura- 
 tive expressions of Christ, or maintained 
 as applicable to all times and circum- 
 stances, tliat which Christ had said only 
 in reference to particular circumstances. 
 The most remarkable error of this kind, 
 which afterwards attracted much odium 
 to him, was that he was induced, by a 
 literal interpretation of the passage in 
 Matth. xix. ]2, to practise in his own 
 case what he believed prescribed by these 
 words to those, who wished to be quite 
 certain of admission into the kingdom of 
 heaven. It was a mistake which might 
 easily arise from the partial views of 
 asceticism, and from this kind of scrip- 
 tural interpretation, and which was en- 
 couraged by many writings then in cir- 
 culation.* But through this error there 
 still shines forth conspicuously the earnest 
 desire of this young man, so ardent in his 
 zeal for holiness, as well as his intimate 
 love for the Redeemer, whose every hint 
 he wished to follow so literally. Although, 
 however, such an error, proceeding as it 
 did from that which is most holy in man, 
 ought always to be judged most mildly; 
 yet there are at all times many, wiio, 
 having only one measure for all things, 
 judge all eccentric excesses of this kind 
 the more harshly, the farther that prin- 
 ciple, from which alone such entliusiastic 
 exaggeration could proceed, lies from 
 their own carnal feelings, or their own 
 sobriety of intellect. Origen speaks from 
 his own experience when he speaks of 
 those, who by such mistakes and errors 
 have got to themselves shame and re- 
 proaches, not only among unbelievers, 
 
 * Philo, 0pp. f. 186. f^ivvm^itrSiivcti lijuiivov, » 
 TT^OC iruvoiKriU-i: ikvo/awi; Xutthv. Again, One of the 
 sentences (Gnomai) of 25|toc then very current 
 among the Alexandrian Christians, No. 12, (ac- 
 cording to the translation of Kufinus,) omne mem- 
 brum corporis, quod suadet tc contra pudicitiam 
 agerc, abjicicndum. These Gnoniie certainly are 
 neither the production of a Roman Bishop Sixtus 
 (neither the first nor the second,) as Kufinus 
 thought them, nor, as .lerome believed, (v. ep. ad 
 Ctesiphon.) of a heathen Pythagorean, but they 
 are the work of some person, who out of the Pla- 
 tonic and (Jnostic sentiments, and by putting to- 
 gether detached passages of Scripture, had formed 
 his own moriil code, the highest aim of which was 
 d7r«St(5t. A moral code interpenetrated by the 
 essential principles of the Gospel is not to be 
 found ill them; — they consist of many elevated 
 sentiments, joined with many distorted notions. 
 
THEOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT OP ORIGE.V. 
 
 435 
 
 but. with those wlio would pardon every' T(?rtc/<»^r" of philosophical sciences, with 
 
 thing human, rather than such errors as 
 proceed from a misinformed fear of God, 
 and an immoderate desire after holiness.* 
 Wlien the Bishop Demetrius was first 
 made acquainted WMth this circumstance, 
 he honoured the intention even in the 
 error, but he afterwards used this false 
 step of Origen to his prejudice. 
 
 whom Ileracias. a convert made by Origen, 
 had passed five years. As he here indi- 
 cates the person, wiio was commonly 
 known at Aiexanthia by the name of 
 "the Teacher of Philosophy," chrono- 
 lojTy naturally leads us to think of the 
 ceh'brated Ammonius Saccas, through 
 whose means the chaotic neo-plalonic 
 
 It would be of sfreat importance if we eclecticism, formed out of a mixture of 
 
 could accurately determine /Af /jwie iMen, Greek and oriental elements, obtained a 
 
 and the mode in tchich, (to use the Ian- more defined and sctiied form. — the nias- 
 
 guage of the Alexandrian school) the ter of the decp-tliinking Pjotinus. We 
 
 point of transition from vtyrn; to yvwe-i? may add, that Porphyry, in his work 
 
 was effected in Origen. 
 what we have above remarked on the 
 peculiar character of Clement's mind, we 
 cannot doubt that if Origen had been a 
 scholar of Clement himself, as a Theolo- 
 
 According to against Christianity, expressly calls Ori- 
 gen a scholar of this Ammonius.* 
 
 From this time the srreat cliange in the 
 
 theological character of Origen unfolded 
 
 itself. It was now his endeavour to seek 
 
 gian, he w^ould have been incited by him out the traces of truth in all human sys- 
 
 from the first to make himself accurately 
 acquainted with the systems of the Hel- 
 lenic philosophers, and of the different 
 heretics, as the liberal spirit of Alexan- 
 drian theology w^ould require. But ap- 
 
 tems, to investigate every thing, in order 
 universally to distinguish falsehood from 
 truth. His life at Alexandria, where so 
 many sects of various kinds met together, 
 his journey to Rome (A. D. 211,) his 
 
 parently Origen had originally a far more journeys to Palestine and about it, to 
 uncouth and a narrower turn. A literary Achaia, and Cappadocia, g-ave him an op- 
 education indeed accompanied his ascetic portunity, as he himself says,t every 
 zeal and his inward Christian life, but it where to seek out those who pretended 
 was unconnected with that which was to any peculiar knowledge, and to altxiin a 
 the animating principle of that Christian knowledge of their doctrines, and a means 
 life. He himself says, that he was first ; of investigating them. It became hi 
 
 principle, not to allow himself to be go- 
 verned bv the traditional opinion of the 
 multitude, but to hold fast as truth that 
 only, which he found to be truth after an 
 impartial investigation. He expresses this 
 in the following manner, in a practical ap- 
 plication of Matt. xxii. 19, 20. " We 
 
 induced by an outward necessity to busy 
 himself with the Platonic philosophy, and 
 generally to acquaint himself more accu- 
 rately with the systems of those who dif- 
 fered from him, namely, because heretics 
 and philosophically educated heathens, 
 attracted by his reputation, sought him 
 for the purpose of conversation on reli- | 
 gious subjects, and he was compelled to j , p^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^ ^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^ p^ ^ .^ 
 give them a reason of his faith, and to re- ^useb. vi. 19, speaks of no otner than this Am- 
 fule their objections to it. He expresses nonius Saccas, although Euscliius confoun.ls him 
 himself on the subject in the following | with Ammonius, teacher of the Church, who wrote 
 manner in a letter, in which he justifies a harmony of the Gospels, which has bt>en pre- 
 
 served, and a book on the Agreement between 
 iMoses and Jesus. At nearly the same period 
 there were in Alexandria a hcat/irn Ammonius, 
 
 himself for being occupied with the 
 
 Grecian philosophy: " VVhen I had en- ^ ^^^ ^ ^ _^ ,..^^,...„ 
 
 tirely devoted myself to the preaching of j\'^t7n^u4]^^e7amor?'tb^^ 
 
 the Divine doctrines, and the reputation ' ,/wm(H.s and Or/^';;i. When Porphvrv elsewhere 
 
 of my ability in these things had extended 
 itself widely, — and sometimes heretics, 
 sometimes persons who had pursued the 
 Hellenic sciences, and especially men 
 from the philosophical schools, came to 
 me, — then it seemed necessary for me to 
 investigate the doctrinal opinions of he- 
 retics, and what the philosophers pre- 
 tended to know of truth." He adds, that 
 he then frequented the lectures of " //te 
 
 T. XV. Matth. § 367. 
 
 says of Orii^en : 'E\>^i t» 'Ekk>,-ti -rjjJt/iu: >.i-yoi:, 
 rrsiiz TO ^t^&%^:i jfajtsiAi TiKfxxfxa. (he bccjimo a 
 renei-ado, and joined the religion of the Uarba- 
 rians,) one part alone of this account is true, 
 namely, ih.it Origen had, from the first, an educa- 
 tion in Hellenic litcrnture ; but Porphyry is wrong 
 in stating farther that he was brought up in lica- 
 l/ieiiism, which is notoriously false. We CJinnot 
 suppose that Porphyry, who knew both the per- 
 sons who bore the name of Origen should have 
 made a confusion between the two. 
 
 -(■ C. Cels. vi. 34. t:\a;u: iK^t^tt>.ft'.fn: 
 Txc yx: Kii Totfc T*tritp(M/ trx-^yiKKf.iut/o-jt ti 
 ^>iT>i<ra.m;. 
 
 TJJTWC 
 
 iiitreu 
 
436 
 
 HIS LIBERALITy AND MODERATION. 
 
 learn here from our Saviour not to stand 
 under a pretence of piely upon that which 
 is said by the multitude, and is lield, there- 
 fore, in great esteem, but upon that which 
 proceeds from investigation, and from the 
 internal connection of truth ; for we must 
 remark, that when he was asked whether 
 it was lawful to give tribute to Caesar or 
 not, he did not simply express his opinion, 
 but saying, ' Show me the tribute-money,' 
 he inquired ' whose the image and super- 
 scription was ;' and when they said that 
 ' they were Caesar's,' he answered, that 
 they must render unto Cajsar the things 
 that are Cffisar's, and not defraud him, 
 under the pretence of piety, of that which 
 was his due.' "* Hence comes the mild- 
 ness with which he could judge of those 
 who are in error, as he expresses himself 
 in this beautiful remark on St. John xiii. 
 8. " It is clear that, although Peter said 
 this with a good and reverential feeling 
 towards the Master, he said it still to his 
 own shame. Life is full of this kind of 
 sins, which happen to those who wish 
 indeed to be right in their faith, but out 
 of ignorance say, or even do, that which 
 leads to the very contrary. Such are 
 those who say ' touch not, taste not, han- 
 dle not't Coloss. ii. 21, 22 
 
 But what shall we say of those, who in 
 sects are driven about by every wind of 
 doctrine, who call that which is destruc- 
 tive holy, and who make to themselves 
 false representations of the person of 
 Jesus, in order, as they think, to honour 
 him ?"J 
 
 By means of this liberality Origen suc- 
 ceeded in bringing back many heretics, 
 whom he met at Alexandria, especially 
 Gnostics, to the simple doctrines of the 
 Gospel. A remarkable instance of this is 
 lurnished by the case of Ambrose, a rich 
 man at Alexandria, who being dissatisfied 
 by the manner in which Christianity was 
 presented to him in tlie ordinary exposi- 
 tions of the doctrines of the Church, had 
 sought and fancied that he had found 
 a more spiritual conception of Christianity 
 among the Gnostics, until he was unde- 
 ceived by the influence of Origen, and re- 
 joiced to find in that teacher the true 
 Gnosis joined with failh.§ He became 
 now the most zealous friend of Origen, 
 
 * c. Matt. f. 4 S3. 
 
 I [There is an omission here of two cr three 
 lines of the original — H. J. K.] 
 
 ■i In Joh. xxxii. § 5. [vol. ii. p. 380, 381. Ed. 
 Iluet.] 
 
 § See the words addressed to Ainbrosius, I'om. 
 Evang. Joh. p. 99, as cited above. 
 
 and endeavoured particularly to forward 
 his literary labours for the advantage of 
 the Church. 
 
 If Origen, after having learnt from his 
 own experience the errors of a carnal and 
 literal interpretation of Scripture, and the 
 disadvantageous consequences resulting- 
 from it, passed over to the other error of 
 an arbitrary allegorizing mode of expla- 
 nation, he deserves on that account the 
 greater esteem for his earnest and consci- 
 entious endeavours to use all the means 
 of assistance, which could serve to re- 
 store the letter of Holy Writ to its ori- 
 ginal condition, and to understand it accu- 
 rately. For this purpose, after arriving 
 at the years of manhood, he learnt the 
 Hebrew language, which must have been 
 difficult to a Greek ; he undertook a cor- 
 rection of the MSS. of the Bible by 
 means of a collation of them ; and he is 
 the founder of a learned and scientific 
 study of the Bible among Christians, al- 
 though his arbitrary hermeneutical prin- 
 ciples do not allow all the fruits, which 
 otherwise might have been produced, to 
 arise from it. 
 
 As now the number of those who sought 
 religious instruction at his hands vvas con- 
 stantly increasing, and at the same time 
 his labours in biblical literature which 
 became continually more extensive, laid 
 more and more heavy demands upon him, 
 in order to obtain more time, he shared 
 his office of catechist with his friend He- 
 raclas ; he transferred to him the duty of 
 giving the preparatory instruction in reli- 
 gion, and reserved for himself the more 
 accurate instruction of those who were 
 further advanced,* apparently with respect 
 to both the classes of catechumens men- 
 tioned above. (See above.f) 
 
 The division of the duties of his office 
 in this manner enabled him to enlarge the 
 sphere of his exertions in public teaching 
 with advantage to the Church. Persuaded 
 of the utility of a thorough education in 
 general knowledge for the right under- 
 standing of the Scriptures, and the right 
 application of their contents, and per- 
 suaded also that this enlarged education 
 would be the best and most efficacious 
 antidote, as well to a too sensuous belief, 
 as to the too capricious and fantastic 
 theosophy of the Gnostics, he endea- 
 voured to spread such an education 
 
 * Euseb. vi. 15. 
 
 ■\ [I apprehend Neander here alludes to a note a 
 few passages back. The two classes of catechu- 
 mens are adult heathen converts, and Christian 
 children._H. J. R.] 
 
ORIGEN BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION'. 
 
 437 
 
 among the young men who joined them- learned labours, and Origcn used to c:ill 
 selves to him. He delivered lectures as i him his task-master. Not onlv did he, 
 well on that which the Greeks called En- by his inquiries and demands, drive him 
 cyclopaedic education, as on phUosophy. i to many investigations, but he made use 
 He explained to his scholars all the old of his own largo fortune, in order to buy 
 philosophers, in whom there were moral ; for his friend the meaus of pursuing manv 
 and religious principles ; and he endea- of them that were expensive ; as, for in'- 
 voured to form them to that freedom of | sUince, in those where the purchase and 
 
 mind, which should enable them every 
 where to separate truth from the admix- 
 ture of falsehood, and to preserve them 
 also from becoming the slaves of a school 
 or a system.* And in all that he did his 
 ultimate aim was to point out to his 
 scholars how they ought to use every 
 thing to the service of Christianity, and 
 
 comparison of manuscripts was neces- 
 sary. He gave him seven rapid writers, 
 who were to take turns with each other 
 in writing down from his dictation, and 
 making a clear cop)- of all that was writ- 
 ten. Origen, in a letter, says of this 
 friend,* " He who gave me credit for great 
 diligence and thirst after the Divine word. 
 
 consider every thing with reference to that I has, by his own diligence and love of holy 
 which is Divine ; and he endeavoured to learning, convinced himself of the con- 
 
 instil into them the mind to do this. By 
 these means he did great service towards 
 promoting a more free and enlightened 
 Christian education, as tiie school which 
 originated from him will prove. He suc- 
 ceeded also in leading many, whom the 
 love of learning alone had first broujjlu 
 
 trary.T He has so completely surpassed 
 me, that I am in danger of being unable 
 to meet his demands. The comparison 
 of manuscripts leaves me no time to eat, 
 and after my meals I cannot go out, nor 
 rest myself, but even at that lime I am 
 compelled to institute philological i:iqui- 
 
 to him, more and more to faith in the ries, and correct manuscripts. Even the 
 
 Gospel, by first raising up in them a long- 
 ing after divine things, then proving to i 
 them the incompetence of the Greek sys- 
 tems of philosophy to satisfy the religious 
 wants of man, and by presenting to them 1 
 last of all the doctrines of Scripture ! 
 about divine matters, and comparing; 
 these with the doctrines of the old philo- j 
 sophers. The completion of his instruc- i 
 tion was thus his lectures on the expla- j 
 nation of Scripture, with which in his , 
 
 night is not allowed me for sleep, but my 
 philological inquiries occupy a consider- 
 able portion of it. 1 will not mention 
 the time from early in the morning till 
 the nintli, and sometimes even the tenth 
 hour,J because all who have pleasure in 
 such employments use this time for the 
 study of the Divine word and reading." 
 Ambrose urged Origen, by making 
 known his theological lal)ours, to extend 
 their utility to the whole Church, and 
 
 case, the whole range of theology, and l thus to counteract the Gnostics, who had 
 all Christian philosophy, all, in short, at first excited deeper inquiries after 
 which he understood under the name of Divine things among the Christians, and 
 Gnosis, was connected; by which means! then were enabled, under the pretext of 
 we must allow, although he awakened in a more profound interpretation of Scrip- 
 his scholars, reverence and love to that ! ture, to introduce their pliilosophy into 
 which is Divine in Scripture, and pre- j the Holy Scriptures by means of arbi- 
 
 served them from a mere dead knowledge 
 of Scripture, he introduced much foreign 
 matter into Scripture, and in part led his 
 hearers away from its proper, simple, and 
 at the same time profound, meaning 
 
 trary and allegorizing explanations. Ori- 
 gen himself attributes this latter ol^ject 
 to his labours in the end of tlio fifth 
 tomus of his Commentary on tlie Gospel 
 of St. John, which was in part directed 
 
 ...ther than conducted them to it. Many i against the Gnostic Ileracleon. "As 
 of those whom Origen was able to lead j now," he says," the heterodox under the 
 thus gradually to the knowledge and the ' pretence of Gnosis, rise up against the 
 love of Scripture, afterwards became zea- holy Church, and propagate works con- 
 
 lous and successful teachers in the Church. 
 
 Aml)rose, the above named friend of 
 
 Origen, took peculiar interest in his 
 
 • His scholar, Gregory Thaumaturgus, has 
 painted to us, in this point of view, the method 
 of instruction pursued by Origen in an oration of 
 his to be quoted hereafter. 
 
 sisting of many books, which promise 
 explanations of the evangelic and apos- 
 
 • T. i. Opp. Ed. de la R. f. .1. 
 
 ■\ [This is not quite an exact traniiliition of the 
 originnl, which ratiu-r moans. ' has put me to 
 shame, )A»)^«. co»rpuit nie.' — H. J. K.] 
 
 i 'I'ill three or four o'clock in the afternoon, 
 acording to our reckoning. 
 
438 
 
 JEALOUSY OF DEMETRIUS. 
 
 tolic writings, they will, if we are silent, 
 arfd set fortli no true and sound doctrines, 
 get dominion over the hungry souls, who, 
 for want of wholesome food, run to that 
 which is forbidden." 
 
 He finished at Alexandria his Com- 
 mentaries on Genesis, the Psalms, the 
 Lamentations of Jeremiah (of which writ- 
 ings only fragments have been preserved,) 
 his five first Tomi [i. e. sections,] on the 
 Gospel of St. John, his Treatise on the 
 Resurrection, his Stromata, and his work 
 wE^i a.^yu'''! ^' ^- pi'ohably not about the 
 fundamental principles of the Christian 
 laith, but about the oi'igin of all Being,* 
 a subject of which the controversies with 
 the Gnostics particularly treated. The 
 last-mentioned work became of especial 
 importance by the struggles between op- 
 posite theological dispositions which it 
 set on foot, and by the influence which it 
 exerted over the fate of Origen and of 
 his school. At that time, even more than 
 at a later season, Platonic philosophy and 
 the doctrines of the Christian faith were 
 in Iiim intermingled together; his caprice 
 of speculation was afterwards more mode- 
 rated by the influence of the Christian 
 spirit, and many notions which he 
 (although more in a problematic than a 
 decisive manner,) had thrown out, he 
 afterwards retracted, although the prin- 
 ciples of his system remained always the 
 same. He himself afterwards declared, in 
 a letter to Fabianus, the Bishop of Rome, 
 to whom his system had probably been 
 denounced as heretical, that in this book 
 he had brought forward much, which he 
 now no longer considered true, and that 
 his friend Ambrose had made the book 
 known against his will.f 
 
 And yet, as it often happens, the dis- 
 pute between Origen and the party of 
 the Church zealots would not have come 
 to an open rupture so soon, without an 
 external occasion, and without the acces- 
 sion of personal and improper passions, 
 especially as Origen was far from having 
 the pride^ which commonly so easily at- 
 taches itself to a theological turn of mind 
 like his, and as he always shows so much 
 tenderness towards those whose religious 
 and theological views and condition are 
 different from his own. The authority 
 of his Bishop Demetrius was a great sup- 
 
 I port to him ; but this man, who was ani- 
 j mated by the hierarchical pride, which we 
 ' find subsisting at this age, especially 
 among the Bishops of the great Metropo- 
 litan sees, was excited to jealousy against 
 him, by the great reputation of Origen, 
 and the honour which he obtained on 
 particular occasions. 
 
 One especial cause of this jealousy was 
 the honour showed to Origen by his two 
 friends, Alexander, the Bishop of Jeru- 
 salem, the friend of his youth, and Theoc- 
 tistus, the Bishop of Caesarea, in Pales- 
 tine. It had already much embittered the 
 proud Demetrius against them, that they 
 had permitted Origen, as a layman, to 
 preach in their Churches. (See Part 1.*) 
 As, however, in obedience to the call of 
 his bishop, he returned to Alexandria, he 
 was enabled to renew his former friendly 
 relations with him. But in the year 228 
 it happened that he travelled into Hellas,t 
 on account of some ecclesiastical matters, 
 of which we have no exact statement. 
 On this journey he visited his friends in 
 Palestine, — and they ordained him a pres- 
 byter at Caisarea, in the year 228. 
 
 Demetrius could not forgive the two 
 bishops and Origen for this transaction. 
 After the return of Origen, he assembled 
 a synod, consisting of the presbyters of 
 hisdiocess, and of other Egyptian bishops, 
 in which he used against Origen that ex- 
 travagant act of his youth, by which he 
 was, undoubtedly, according to the letter 
 of the laws of the Church, excluded 
 from the clerical profession.^ But they 
 
 * h'.yo; Si^^iKX, in the language of Clement, 
 means a discourse which relates, to th« doctrine 
 of the r^;^«/. 8ee Strom. 1. iv. .510, a. [Pott. Sylb.] 
 
 -[■ Siee Hieronym. ep. 41. t. iv. opp. ed. 
 Martianay. 
 
 * There were apparently, in the year 216, hos- 
 tile incursions upon Alexandria (according to 
 Euseb. vi. 19,) which made then an abode there 
 no longer safe for him — perliaps, when the fanci- 
 ful Caracalla, departing for the Parthian war, 
 gave up this town to plunder and to slaughter at 
 the mercy of his soldiers (.^1. Spartian. vi. 6 ;) 
 and one is inclined to think, that the rage of the 
 heathen soldiers would peculiarly attack the Chris- 
 tians. Origen then betook himself to Palestine, 
 to visit his old friends; and, as he himself says 
 (Joh. t. vi. 24,) to investigate the spots which hail 
 been trodden by Jesus, by his apostles, and by the 
 prophets. Qvi ic-Togtity tchv *;^i'«v 'Itia-M h-jli Tmv 
 
 fAH^HTOiV a/JT'jV Hit Tm ^(>(3<^J)TaiC.) 
 
 f Perhaps he was called into these parts in 
 order to dispute witli the Gnostics who were 
 spread about there, because it was known how 
 much he was an adept in this business. His dis- 
 putation with Candidus, the Valentinian, the Acts 
 of which Jerome quotes, might lead us to this 
 conclusion. 
 
 t It is in Che highest degree probable that the 
 ecclesiastical regulation which we find in xvii. of 
 the Canoncs Apostolici, was then in existence. It 
 was there, however, by no means unconditionally 
 forbidden, in accordance with the law of the Old 
 
TWO SYNODS AGAINST ORIGEX. 
 
 439 
 
 ought to have considered, that he had 
 become a diflereut man since that time, 
 and that he had loin^ condemned lite shj), 
 to which his yoiilhlul enthusiasm had led 
 him. And yet he was for this deposed 
 from the dignity of presbyter, whicli liad 
 been conferred upon him, and the admi- 
 
 nicated Origen, as a heretic, and the svnod 
 sent forth a violent decree against him. 
 It is in reference to this, that wlicn he 
 began again at Cicsarea to continue liis 
 commentary on the Gospel of St. John, 
 Origen says, that ''God, who once led his 
 people out of Kgypt, had saved him also 
 
 nislralion of the otlice of public teacliing out of Egypt; but that his enemy had 
 
 assailed him with the utmost bitterness 
 
 in the Alexandrian Church was forbidden 
 to him.* After he had once so strongly 
 attracted to himself the jealousy and 
 haired of the pharisaical bishop, he 
 could no longer find any peace in Alex- 
 andria. Demetrius did not content him- 
 self with this single attack, upon him 
 
 by his recent letter, so utterly o])posed U 
 the Gospel, and tliat he had raised up all 
 the pestilential winds of evil in Egypt 
 against him.* 
 
 I • We are without connected and trustworthy 
 
 but he began to cast the imputation of "'='^''""!^ ""^ ,^^^^ important transactions. We 
 V ^ .1 1 . • r r^ - . ' can only endeavour, bv mrans of comlniiinjr uar- 
 
 resy on the doctrmes of Ongen ; to jj,,,,,,,^ ,„ ,^^^^ ,h, ,;^, p^^^,^^.^^ ,,f ^^^^ ^;J^^ 
 
 he 
 
 which imputation, perhaps, the expres- 
 sions of tlie latter in his disputes with the 
 
 From the indications which Eusebius gives, and 
 from the alwve-quotcd words of Origen about the 
 
 Gnostics had given some new occasion.! i ^^^ '"^' ^^ ^'* youth, it is certain, that this was 
 Yet that which animated him, gave him \ ^l^*^" ""'^'^ "gainst him ; but it could have been 
 ♦;,,:^i. i.;„ I ^^^'^ ^ ^ ground only tor excluding him from the 
 clerical otnce. The other proceedings against 
 him must have arisen from another accusation 
 against him. Photius, who had read the Apology 
 of Pamphilus for Origen, says. Cod. 118. that De- 
 
 .•. '& . . 
 
 tranquillity of mind enough to rinisli his I 
 fifth tonius on tlie Gospel of St. John, 
 amidst the storms of Alexandria, (for, as 
 he says,;!; Jesus commanded the storms 
 
 and waves of the sea,) until at last metrius made it a matter of reproach to him, that 
 he thought it advisable to leave Alex- 
 andria, and to betake himself to his 
 friends at Csesarea, in Palestine. But 
 Demetrius pursued him even thither with 
 his persecutions ; and he laid hold of a 
 matter as a pretext, wherein he could 
 easilv fiiul associate: 
 
 he had travelled to Athens without his j)crmission, 
 and during this journey, undertaken without his 
 pennission, had allowed himself to be ordained, 
 which would certainly on the part of Origen, as 
 well as of the bishop who ordained him, have 
 been a violation of the laws of the Church. But 
 supposing that Demetrius did make this accusation 
 
 both in FtfVDt and ' "o^'"*'^ Origen. we have still to inquire, whether 
 ^ . . , .,."/'. , he had the right to do so. We see from the quo- 
 
 out ot It, smce the prevailmg doctrmai 
 
 righi 10 uo so. we see irom me quo- 
 I tation of Jerome de Vir. illustr. c. G2, that Alex- 
 spirit in many parts of the Church was i ander, the bishop of Jerusalem, in reply to Ueme- 
 altogether hostile to the idealistic ten- trius, might allege, that he had ordained Origen 
 dency of the school of Origen, and since ' on the strength of an epistola formata, brought by 
 tlie book ,r£Pi upyu,, was calculated to ^''"^ f^o"» ^^i^ own bishop. The laws of the 
 ^ ^^ ^ p j Church about these circumstances were then, per- 
 
 give occasion to so many accusation.- 
 
 haps, so indefinite, that Alexander might l)elieve 
 
 lieresy. In a more numerous synod of j ^^.^^^^^i- f^^ny ju^tiV,ed i„ ordaining a man, who 
 Egyptian bishops, Demetrius excommu- | was recommended to a foreign Church, and yet 
 
 that Demetrius might see in this an inv;ision of 
 the rights of his episcopal office. Bo Uiis as it 
 may, even this could not be a sufficient ground for 
 excommunicating Origen. The sympathy, which 
 the attack upon him found in other Churches — 
 the accusations of heresy against Origen which 
 continued after his death — what he said afterwards 
 in his own justification to Fabianus, the bishop of 
 Koine, in the letter we have already cited, (as he 
 had also written to other bishops in defence of 
 his orthodoxy. See Eusebius, vi. 36.) all thin 
 points out, that his opinions [seine Dogmatik,] 
 were the cause of his excommunication. We 
 see also from what Jerome (I. ii. adv. Uufin. f. 
 411,) quotes out of the letter of Origen against 
 Demetrius, that errors in the doctrines of the 
 faith had In-eu charged against him, as he defends 
 himself against the accusation that he had main- 
 tained, that even Satan would hereafter 1m- in 
 
 Testament, Deut. xxii., that any eunuch should 
 enter into the clerical profession, but it was ex- 
 ])ressly appointed that one, whom such a misfor- 
 tune might have Iwfallen without his own instru- 
 mentality, might be allowed, if he was in other 
 respects worthy, to become a clergyman ; it was 
 only iturcv i-jcja-Dt^iao-stf /u» j/vKr&a KKi^fut:(. It 
 was only to put a stop to such ascetic enthusiasm. 
 * Photius, however, says that this synod had 
 already forbidden Origen, not only to exercise the 
 office of a teacher, but even to remain at Alexan- 
 dria. And yet it is difficult to see, how a bishop 
 at that time could ell'ect the latter of these two 
 things. He could only exclude him fiom the 
 communion of the Church, and it was not until 
 the srfond synod that this was done. Nor does 
 the language of Origen appear to hint, that he 
 was compelled to leave Alexandria. 
 
 •j- As we may conclude from the disputation bliss; although one cannot well percei\ 
 
 ^ h.; 
 
 with Candidus the Valentinian 
 Rufin. f. 414, vol. iv. 
 t T. vi, Joh. § 1. 
 
 Hieronym. adv. could deny this conclusion, which is groundrd by 
 j a necessary consequence on his system. Kul'inus 
 < quotes passagea out of a defence of Origcn's, ad- 
 
440 
 
 TWO SYNODS AGAINST ORIGEN. 
 
 This personal contest became now a 
 contest between the opposite opinions of 
 two parties. The Churches in Palestine, 
 in Arabia, Phoenicia and Achaia declared 
 themselves for Origen, while the Roman 
 Church declared herself against him.* 
 The judgment which Origen himself 
 formed of those who branded him with 
 the name of heretic, will be seen from 
 his expression in the following passage,! 
 where after quoting 1 Cor. i. 25, he says, 
 '' Had I said, ' the foolishness of God,' 
 how Avould those who love to accuse 
 men of heresy,^ have accused me ! how 
 should I, who had said a thousand things, 
 which they themselves approve of, have 
 been assailed for having said this one 
 thing, ' the foolishness of God P " In 
 his defence against the synod, which had 
 excommunicated him, he quotes the de- 
 nunciations of the prophets against wicked 
 priests and rulers, and then says, " We 
 must pity them rather than hate them, 
 pray for them rather than curse them, for 
 we are created for blessing, and not for 
 cursing."§ 
 
 dressed to his friends at Alexandria, from which 
 we see that a falsified report [protokoll] of a dis- 
 putation held between him and the heretics, had 
 excited astonishment in Palestine, even among his 
 friends, at the opinions he expressed. They had 
 sent a messenger to him at Athens, and begged 
 him to send them the genuine original report. 
 Even at Kome these adulterated copies had been 
 propagated. See Rufin. de Adulteratione Librorum 
 Origenis, in opp. Hieronym. t. v. ed. Martianay, 
 f. 251. Even if Rufinus is not really a faithful 
 translator, this cannot have been wholly invented 
 by him. The disputes with the Gnostics would 
 easily give an opportunity of bringing forward 
 the peculiar religious opinions of Origen, and to 
 those who had in him so powerful an antagonist, 
 an opportunity of rendering his orthodoxy suspi- 
 cious in his own Church, would be welcome 
 enough. 
 
 * Hieronym, ep. 29, ad Paulam. Damnatus a 
 Demetrio episcopo, exceptis Palestine, et Arabia;, 
 et Phceniciffi, atque Achaia; sacerdotibus. He 
 certainly adds, non propter dogmatum novitatem: 
 non propter hreresin, scd quia gloriam eloquentia; 
 ejus et scientiffi ferre non poterant. But this is 
 not a fact, it is only a subjective interpretation of 
 motives, according to the bias which Jerome was 
 under at that time. Compare also the remark 
 made on the case of Tertullian. 
 
 f Hom. viii. in Jerem. § 8. 
 
 i: (A <flK!UTHI. 
 
 § See I. c. Hieronym. iv. f. 411. Compare 
 what Origen nays against the importance [i. c. 
 validity, the German is Bcdeutung. — H. J. R.] 
 of unjust excommunication. See above, page 
 136. Comp. also on .\Tatt. f. 445, where Ori- 
 gen, applying the passage in Matt. xxi. 16, to 
 the bisliops of his own time, says : " As these 
 priests and scribes are blamable according to the 
 
 The enemies of Origen were destined 
 to contribute to the farther extension of 
 the sphere of his exertions ; his change 
 of residence to Palestine was assuredly 
 followed by important consequences; be- 
 cause an opportunity was thus afforded 
 to him, of effecting also from that point 
 the propagation of a liberal and enlight- 
 ened spn-it in the Church ; and the traces 
 of his exertions are to be found for a long 
 time in these regions. Here also he col- 
 lected a body of young men around him, 
 who educated themselves for theologians 
 and teachers of the Church under his 
 influence ; among whom was Gregory, 
 who afterwards became so remarkably 
 active in the preaching of the Gospel. 
 (Of him we shall afterwards speak more 
 particularly.) He continued here also his 
 literary labours. Among other works he 
 composed here his already mentioned 
 treatise on the use of prayer and on the 
 explanation of the Lord's Prayer, which 
 he addressed to his friend Ambrose. He 
 was here in a personal communication 
 with the most distinguished teachers of 
 Cappadocia, Palestine, and Arabia, and 
 was constantly called upon to give his 
 advice in deliberations on any novel cir- 
 cumstances in the Church. 
 
 As, under the persecution of Maximinus 
 
 letter of this history, so according to spiritual 
 application, are also many high priests worthy of 
 blame, who adorn not the name of the episcopal 
 rank by their lives, and have not clothed them- 
 selves with light and truth. (Exod. xxviii.) These, 
 while they behold the wonders of God, despise 
 the little ones and babes in the Church, who praise 
 God and his Christ, and they are angry at their 
 advances in godliness, and they accuse them to 
 Jesus, as doing wrong, while they really do no 
 wrong; and they say to him, Hearcst thou what 
 these say 1 And we shall understand this the 
 better, if we consider, how it often happens that 
 men of an ardent spirit, who brave imprisonment 
 by their bold confession of faith before the 
 heathen, who despise danger, and resolutely lead 
 a strict life of abstinence and celibacy ; how it 
 happens that such men, being rude in speech* 
 {Ihuroit T>) K^ii,) are calumniated by the blame- 
 worthy high priests as disorderly, and how they 
 are accused by them before Jesus, as if iheir own 
 conduct was better than that of these zealous and 
 simple children! But Jesus gives his testimony to 
 the children, and, on the contrary, accuses the 
 high priests of ignorance, when he says, Have ye 
 not read this, 'out of the mouth of babes and 
 sucklings thou hast prepared praise ]"'yj Well 
 might Origen here set before his mind the image 
 of Demetrius, and other bishops like him, who 
 were inclined 'to judge the errors of a pious en- 
 thusiasm with extreme severity. 
 
 * [In Uteris vero ignari. Lul. Translator — U. 
 J. R.] 
 
ACTIVITY OF ORIGEN IN PALESTINE. 
 
 441 
 
 Thrax, the friends of Oriofen, the Pres- 
 byter Prototectus of Caesaroa himself, and 
 Ambrose, had much to suffer; he ad- 
 dressed to these men, wlio were as con- 
 fessors, in prison awaiting tlie termination 
 of their suilerings, his treatise on JMarhjr- 
 dom, in which he exiiorts them to stead- 
 fastness in their confession, and endea- 
 vours to liold them up by the promises 
 of Scripture, and to refute the sophistry 
 of which many Gnostics, as well as hea- 
 thens, who considered religion as an 
 affair of state, made use in order to per- 
 suade the Christians that, without any 
 prejudice to their belief, which no man 
 wished to take from them, they might 
 satisfy the demands of the laws of the 
 state, in regard to the external things of 
 religion. But in this book the prevalent 
 tone is at times more the spirit of that 
 philosophically ascetic, and dehumanizing 
 morality, than the spirit of that evangeli- 
 cal morality, which sanctions all that is 
 pure in human nature, and unites the 
 consciousness of God's quickening power 
 with the feeling of human weakness ;* 
 and we find also in the same work the 
 false notions of the opus operatum of 
 martyrdom, to which we have before al- 
 luded ; and yet with all this the force of 
 his faithful confidence and his evangelic 
 zeal for the faith is beautifully expressed 
 in it. He says to the two confessors :t 
 " I desired also, that, during the whole of 
 the present struggle, you should rejoice 
 and be glad, wjien you remember the 
 great recompense, which is laid up in 
 heaven for those who suffer persecution 
 and shame for righteousness' sake, and 
 for the sake of the Son of ]Man, as the 
 apostles of old rejoiced, that they wore 
 counted worthy to suffer shame for the 
 name of Christ. But if at any time you 
 feel anxiety in your soul, let the Spirit of 
 Christ, that dwells in you, speak to it 
 thus, when she for her part would trouble 
 him, ' VVMiy art thou cast down, O my 
 soul! and art so disquieted within mc ? 
 Trust in God, for I will give thanks to 
 him, forasmuch as he helps me witii his 
 countenance,' Ps.xlii. 6. . . Let it [never] 
 be troubled ! but even before the tribunal 
 
 * In proof of this assertion we may particularly , 
 appeal to the manner, in which Orii^en explained • 
 so artificially the simple sense of liiose words of | 
 Christ, which he spoke in his agony, and which i 
 the spirit we allude to would not allow him to con- , 
 ceive in their natural meanincj, § 29. [|)p. 18!) — ' 
 191. in Wetsteiii's Edition of the Dial. cont. Mar- ! 
 cion. et alia opuscuia. Basilcrc, IG73. — H. J. K.] , 
 
 + § 4. [p. 165. Ed. Wetstein.] | 
 
 56 
 
 itself, and while tlie naked sword imiicnds 
 over the neck, let it be guarded by the 
 peace of God, which passeih all under- 
 sumding."* He says to tliem in aiiDiher 
 passage,! ''Since the Word of God is 
 lively and powerful, and shar])(T than any 
 two-edged sword, and penetrates even to 
 the dividing asuiuler soul and spirit, mar- 
 row and bone, and is a judge over the 
 thoughts and the faculties of the heart, 
 Ileb. iv. 12 ; this Divine Word now 
 bestows on our souls the peace which 
 passeth all understandino, which it once 
 shed over the souls of apostles, but it has 
 thrown the sword between the earthly 
 and the heavenly form within us, in order 
 that, for the present, it may take our 
 heavenly man to itself; and hereafter, 
 when we are so far advanced, as to need 
 no farther dividing,^ it may make us al- 
 together heavenly. And he is come, also, 
 to brinsr not only a sword on earth, but 
 the fire also, of which he -'^ays, '• I would 
 that it were already kindled," Luke xii. 
 49. Let then this lire be kindled also in 
 you, and let it consume all your earthly 
 thoughts, and be ye baptized with tfie 
 baptism, whereof Jesus spoke.^ And 
 thou also! (.Ambrose) who hast both 
 wife and children, and bretlu-en and sis- 
 ters, remember the words of the Lord : 
 ' if any man cometh to me, and hateih 
 not father, mother, wife, children, breth- 
 ren, sisters, he cannot be my disciple.' 
 But both of you remember also the 
 words, ' If any man cometh to me antl 
 hateth ilot also his own life, he caimot be 
 my disciple.'" 
 
 It was, perhaps, this very persecution, 
 which moved Origen to leave for a time 
 the place, which hitherto had been his 
 abode. Since the persecution, as we have 
 before remarked, was only local, it was 
 easy to obviate it by a flight to regions 
 where trancjuillitv at that moment pre- 
 vailed. Origen betook himself to Ca'sarea 
 in Cappadocia, to his frientl, the iii.-hop 
 Firmilianus, with whom he was in the 
 habit of communicaling on subjects of 
 theological learn ing.|| 
 
 But, probably, exactly al)()Ut the time 
 that he had settle<l there, the above-men- 
 titmed persecution (see above) in Cappa- 
 docia broke out, and he was induced by 
 
 • ^ 37. [p. 201. Ed. WeUtcin.] 
 
 j- He a[iplies this passage to the Logos. 
 
 t No separation of iiolinexs from ungodUness. 
 
 ^ Luke xii. ."JO. 
 
 II 'J'hey used somctimen to visit each other, in 
 order to converse on theological sutijccU. Euscb. 
 vi. 27. 
 
JUHTJS AFRICANUS. 
 
 442 
 
 it, to withdraw into the house of Juliana, 
 a Christian lady, who for two years kept 
 him hidden in her house, and maintained 
 him. He there made a discovery of great 
 importance to his literary undertakings. 
 For some years he had already busied 
 himself with a work, the object of which 
 was, as well to correct the text of the 
 Alexandrian version of the Old Testament 
 (which was then the translation prevalent 
 in the Church, and was looked upon by 
 many Christians, in consequence of the 
 old Jewish legend, as inspired, and the 
 MSS. of which diflered very much from 
 each other in their readings,) as also to 
 promote the improvement of the transla- 
 tion itself, by comparing it with other old 
 translations, and with the Hebrew original. 
 Origen, who constantly disputed much 
 on religious subjects with heathens and 
 Jews, had learnt, as he himself says, how 
 necessary a knowledge of the original 
 text of the Old Testament was, in order 
 not to give openings to the Jews, for they 
 were in the habit of ridiculing the igno- 
 rance of the heathen converts, who dis- 
 puted with them, when they quoted such 
 passages from the Alexandrian version, as 
 did not exist in the Hebrew, or when 
 they knew nothing of those, which were 
 only to be found in the Hebrew.* He 
 had therefore made use of the fortune of 
 his friend Ambrose, and of his own fre- 
 quent journeys, in order to collect differ- 
 ent manuscripts of the Alexandrian ver- 
 sion and other old translations, wherever 
 he could find them. He had for instance, 
 in rummaging every where, found at Jeri- 
 cho in a barrel, an old translation of some 
 books of the Old Testament, which was 
 elsewhere unknown. Now it happened 
 that his protectress Juliana had inherited 
 the writings of the Ebionite Symmachus, 
 who possibly lived about tlie beginning 
 of that century, and he found in her 
 house a commentary by this writer on 
 the ii»yyiXto» x«o' ^ESfXiovi.J and a trans- 
 
 lation made by him also of the Old Tes- 
 tament.* He was now enabled to com- 
 plete his great work of a collection of tlie 
 then existing translations of the Old 
 Testament, and a comparison of them 
 witli the Hebrew text.f 
 
 After the murder of the Emperor Maxi- 
 minus, Origen was able under Gordianus, 
 A. D. 238, to return again to Ciesarea, and 
 there again to begin his former course of 
 activity. 
 
 As he had once before, on account of 
 
 * Origen. Ep. ad African. § .3. rcuvm; oh^m i/xmy 
 
 o-'.vTtv, oi.'(J" ij sSic A'JTCK, ■y'ckiU'^V'TU.i rcu: i^a-o toiv 
 iSvm TriorTij-.VTUc, 1; t' HKiifix HSU Tatg' adiTu; avxyt- 
 y^'JLUfj.ax a.yvij'MiTi.c. 
 
 \ 'J'hc following words of Eusebius, vi. 17, on 
 the work of Symmaclius (whicli he aflerwaids 
 reckons among his s^^>iva«c si? t:<; ^ga<})!tc) " sv d<; 
 i.\iii TTg^oi; TO HUrx Muri-xicv uTroTttvcjUivo; ij-j.y^iKtov 
 
 from the context can hardly he taken to moan, as 
 A'alcsius makes them, that Symmachus endea- 
 voured to maintain the El)ionitish doctrines (i<rain.st 
 the Gospel of St. Matthew; but they must be un- 
 derstood to mean, that he wrote a commentary on 
 
 the Gospel according to St. Matthew (that is to 
 say, probably, on the t-j^yyixt'.v x-^b' 'F./i^^tcv; which 
 resembled St. Matthew's) from which he endea- 
 voured to establish the Ebionitish doctrines. 
 
 * Palladius (in the beginning of the fifth cen- 
 tury) relates in his history of Monachism (h*u- 
 cr/axi,) ch. 147, that he had found in an old 
 manuscript which had descended from Origen, 
 the words written by Origen himself, in which he 
 narrated the circumstance mentioned in the text. 
 This Palladius, however, in consequence of his 
 credulousness, is a very suspicious witness, but in 
 the present case we have no grounds to suspect 
 his evidence, especially since it harmonizes well 
 with the account given in Eusebius, vi. 17. 
 
 -)- The Hexapla. It would be foreign to our 
 purpose to enlarge on this and similar works of 
 Origen, for information on which we must refer 
 to the Introductions to the Old Testament. M'e 
 only quote here the words of Origen himself on 
 the comparison instituted by him between the 
 Alexandrian version and the other old translations 
 of the Old Testament. After he has spoken 
 (Comment, in Matth. f. 381. Ed. Huet.) of the 
 differences between the copies of the New Testa- 
 ment, which had arisen, partly from the negli- 
 gence of transcribers, and partly from their bold- 
 ness in assuming a critical liberty of correcting 
 the text, he adds the following words: " As far as 
 relates to the difference between the copies of the 
 Old Testament, we have found by God's assist- 
 ance a mode of remedying this inconvenience, by 
 using the other translations as a criterion. Wher- 
 ever any thing was doubtful in the version of the 
 LXX. by reason of a difference in the manuscripts, 
 wc have constantly retained that which agreed 
 with the rest of the translations, and we have 
 marked a great deal, which was not found in the 
 Hebrew, with an obelus (the critical mark to de- 
 note an omission) because we did not venture to 
 leave it out entirely. We have added also some 
 passages with the mark of an asterisk, to denote, 
 that we have added these passages, which are not 
 found in the LXX., from the other translations, in 
 accordance with the Hebrew, and that he who is 
 inclined to do so, may receive tlieni into the text 
 (I think we must read 7r^o7iriii*) but he, who is 
 offended at them, may receive them or not, just as 
 he pleases." [Comp. Ep. ad African, p. 226, Ed. 
 Wetstein. — H. J. R.] From these latter words 
 we see how much Origen had to fear those, who 
 were ready to charge every one, who deviated 
 from that which had been received, with falsifica- 
 tion of the Holy Scriptures. 
 
 * [The common reading is Tr^onrttt. — IL J. R.] 
 
IMPROVEMENT OF THE SEPTUAGINT. 
 
 some ecrlesiastical afliiirs, been sent for 
 from Alexandria by the Churches of 
 Greece, which esteemed him most highly, 
 the same thingapparenlly took place ajrain. 
 His way led him ihrouuh Nicomedia in 
 Biihyiiia, where he staved some days with 
 his old friend, Ambrose ; who, if the ac- 
 count of Jerome is correct, had in the mean 
 time become a deacon, although it does 
 not appear whether Ambrose had em- 
 ployment in the Church of thiit city, or 
 had only come thither in order to meet 
 Origen. He there received a letter from 
 one of his friends' Julius Africanus,* one 
 among the distinguished Cliristian men of 
 learning of this period. It appears that 
 Origen, at a conversation which took 
 
 • He was a man far advanced in years, as will 
 appear immediately from his beinsj able to address 
 Driven, at that time a person of lifty years of age, 
 by the title of' my son.' He seems to have fixed 
 his usual residence in the old decayed town of 
 Emmaus, or JN'icopoli, in Palestine (as it was after- 
 wards called by the Romans, in order to distin- 
 guish it from the Emmaus of the iS'cw Testament, 
 it being more distant from Jerusalem than the 
 latter; namely, about 176 stadia.) The inhabi- 
 tants of this decayed place chose him as their de- 
 legate to the Emperor Heliogabalus, to etlect the 
 restoration of their town by this emperor, which 
 he obtained for them. Hieronym. de Vir. Illustr. 
 c. 63. He is known as the first Christian compiler 
 of a history of the world (his ;^/p.v:^g«?/* in five 
 books, see Eusebius, vi. 31.) 'I'his work which 
 is only known to us by the quotations of other 
 writers, and fragments, proceeded from an inten- 
 tion to compose something of an apologetic nature. 
 He is known also to us, by his letter to Aristides 
 on the solution of the difference between the ge- 
 nealogies of Jesus as given by 8t. Matthew and 
 St. Luke, of which a portion is preserved by Eu- 
 sebius, Hist. i. 7. Another remarkable fragment 
 of this letter has been published by Kouth, Keli- 
 quise Sacra;, vol. ii. p. 115. In that he combats 
 those, who maintained that these ditferent genea- 
 logies were given, \n order to show clearly in this 
 wav the truth, that Jesus is both a King and a 
 High priest, as being descended from a royal and a 
 priestly race. He here also declares himself ex- 
 pressly against the theory of a fraus pia. " May 
 such an opinion never prevail in the Church of 
 Christ that a falsehood has been invented for the 
 glory of Christ!" /xx Sx K^tr'.oi tu'.ut<,( x-)j:, tv 
 tKx.Kiia-1% Xg/TTcy, OT/ -{^h: ruyxUTXl fie niv-.v kj.i 
 i'.'fiK'-yni .Kf.s-Tit/. Eusebius ascribes a work to 
 htm, which, under the name of xtrT-.u, contains a 
 kind of literary miscellany, according to the then 
 mode of unscientifically mingling together a variety 
 of historical materials. .\iid yet among the frag- 
 ments of this work, which are ascribed to him, 
 there is much which does not suit the views and 
 principles, which we are accustomed to ascribe to 
 this man, from what we learn of him elsewhere. 
 The most natural supposition is, that he wrote 
 that work before his habiu of thought had become 
 decidedly Christian. 
 
 443 
 
 place in the presence of .Africanus, had 
 cited the history of Susannah on the 
 authority of the Sepluagiiit version, as a 
 genuine piece belougintj to Daniel. -\l'ri- 
 camis expressed to him iiis .surprise at 
 this in a letter, distinguished alike by the 
 moderate, delicate, and learned tone of i\a 
 argument, and by its unprejudiced criti- 
 cism, ami he begged hiui to enter into a 
 f;irthcr discussion of the sul)ject. Oris^en 
 , answered him from Nicomedia, in a very 
 elaborate writing. Not so unprejudiced 
 as .Africauus, he endeavoured to delVnd 
 the autliority of the Alexandrian version 
 and collection of the Holy Scriptures. It 
 is remarkable to observe how the free, 
 inquiring spirit of Origen, from a mistaken 
 pietv, and perhaps also from being made 
 I fearful in consequence of the troubles 
 ; which he had involuntarily caused in the 
 Church, fell back upon the authority of 
 a Church traditioti, which was supposed 
 I to be under tiie guidance of God ; he 
 says,* •■' But hath not that Providence, 
 I which has given edification in the Holy 
 Scripture to all the Churches of Christ, 
 taken care also for those who have been 
 ! bought with a price, for whom Christ 
 I died, whom [i. e. Christ] though he was 
 I his own Son, God, being love itself, 
 spared not; but gave him up for us all, 
 that with him he might give us all things.! 
 
 ; • C. 4. [p. 227. Ed. Wet-stein.] 
 
 ' -(■ These are arguments by which a free inves- 
 tigation of the canon of Scripture, — an iti()uiry, I 
 freely grant, which ought, like all theological in- 
 quiries, to be animated by a spirit of piety, — has 
 often been opposed. But the argunionts of Origen 
 only prove that God, who revealed in ('hrist his 
 unspeakable love to man, without doubt must 
 have provided for all the wants implanted by him- 
 self in human nature. Bui tin- mode, in which 
 he has provided for them, must not be determined 
 n priori in accordance with the prejudices of any 
 existing system of opinions (einer stehenden dog- 
 matik.) nor according to the measure of the limited 
 faculties, the little faith, or the duliiess of man. 
 Nay, after all, a mode by which truth comes forth 
 victorious from the contest with error, after a free 
 inquiry, m.iy be the mode most consonant to hu- 
 man nature itself. It may l)e the plan of Provi- 
 dence, that Faith should fight the battle out her- 
 self witiiout any external su]iport, by means of iu 
 own inward and Divine power, by means of iU 
 own attractive power over the inmost heart of 
 man. Tlu- incorrect conclusion, drawn from these 
 correct premises, would, if consist»'ntly cjirri«^ out, 
 lead to the supposition of an outward visible 
 Theocracy constantly guiding mankind, a.s in a 
 state of infancy, as alas ! in after times the con- 
 
 I elusion was pushed to this point. But it is far 
 rather true that human nature, in conseijuencc of 
 
 I having had every thing given to it in Christ, has 
 
OTHER WRITINGS OF ORIGEN. 
 
 444 
 
 Consider, therefore, whether it is not 
 good to remember these words, ' Remove 
 not the boundaries which thy fathers 
 have made.' "* (Prov. xxii. 28.) He says 
 then, " that although he has not neglected 
 the other old translations, he has yet be- 
 stowed his chief industry upon the Alex- 
 andrian version, in order that it might not 
 seem as if he wished to introduce a 
 spurious innovation into the Church, and 
 in order that he might give no handle to 
 those who sought for opportunities, and 
 who desired to calumniate those men, 
 who were well known, and had obtained 
 stations of eminence in the Church."'t 
 Athens was the point to which the 
 journey of Origen tended ; he stayed there 
 some time, finished his commentary on 
 Ezekiel, and began that on the Song of 
 Solomon.;}: 
 
 Till the end of his life he busied him- 
 self in theological labours ; and during 
 the reign of Philip the Arabian, with 
 whose family he was connected, he wrote 
 the work against Celsus, which we have 
 already mentioned, his Commentary on 
 St. Matthew, &c. He now permitted for 
 the first time, being sixty years of age, 
 his sermons to be taken down by short 
 hand writers, hi what reverence he was 
 held we may see clearly from the fact, 
 that he was called into council by synods 
 of bishops in weighty ecclesiastical afiairs, 
 on which people could not come to a 
 decision ; and we have already spoken of 
 the manner in which Beryllus, the Bishop 
 of Bostra, in Arabia, received instruction 
 at his hand. We must, however, still 
 mention, that among the Christians of 
 Arabia at that time a party had caused a 
 controversy, by maintaining that the souls 
 died with the body, and that they would 
 
 grown up to the maturity of the years of man- 
 hood. 
 
 * These words, which, taken as an uncondi- 
 tional and unlimited rule of life, have so often 
 since those times been used in support of old errors 
 to the prejudice of pure evangelical truths, contain 
 the same principle, which the religio a, majoribus 
 tradita of the heathen at first opposed to the new 
 Gospel. See the First Part of this work. The 
 truth victorious through her Divine jwwer — the 
 answer, that could not be refused, to inquiries 
 based on the iiitnost being of human nature, — the 
 satisfaction of undeniable wants, required by 
 human nature itself, — this needed no prejudice 
 for its support, no prejudicium, no prajscriptio an- 
 tiquitatis. 
 
 ■]■ ivu fjih Tt ^ag«^«g«TTaii t(,)i:>iiifji(v t-m; vtto rev 
 cl/pavov \x.KKno-tai; k.*1 Trpo^ttrm hS'ieuw tc/c ^unva-iv 
 
 d<*Cg^aC, ibiACU^t TCWC iv jUiJ-Oli 171/X.O'^UV'TiiV K.%t Tm ii'Xr 
 
 + Euseb. vi. 32.' 
 
 be raised again only at the general resur- 
 rection at the same time with the bodies. 
 It was an old Jewish notion (see above,) 
 that immortality was not founded upon 
 the nature of the soul, but a peculiar gift 
 of Divine grace ; a representation which 
 had been transferred from Judaism to 
 Christianity, traces of which we find in 
 the theory of the Gnostics about the na- 
 ture of the Psychici, in the doctrine of 
 the Clementine, and in the opinions of 
 Justin and Tatian. Perhaps also in this 
 district, the position of which placed it 
 in close connexion with Jews, it was no 
 new doctrine, but the predominant one 
 from ancient times ; and perhaps the in- 
 fluence of Origen (in whose system the 
 doctrine of the natural immortality of the 
 soul necessarily obtained a place,) first 
 effected the change that this latter should 
 obtain universal acceptance among the 
 Church-teachers of that district ; and that 
 the small party, which still maintained 
 the old opinion, should appear heretical^ 
 although the predominant opinion had 
 previously really pronounced itself against 
 it* [the new opinion.] Hence we may 
 understand, how the convocation of a 
 Great Synod was considered necessary, 
 in order to allay these controversies. 
 When they were unable to agree, Origen 
 was invited by the Synod, and his influ- 
 ence prevailed upon the opposers of the 
 doctrine of the natural immortality of the 
 soul to acknowledge their error, and re- 
 nounce it. 
 
 Origen, who on account of his indi- 
 vidual opinions was considered as an 
 heretical opposer of the evangelical doc- 
 trines of the Christian faith, was destined 
 in the last days of a life, consecrated to 
 labouring and struggling for that which 
 he believed to be the cause of Christ, to 
 confute by facts the accusations of his 
 enemies, and to show how he w-as ready 
 to sacrifice every thing to his faith, and 
 how he belonged to those who are ready 
 to hate even their own lives for the sake 
 of the Lord. 
 
 As the fury of the enemies of Chris- 
 tianity in the Decian persecution fell 
 chiefly upon those perso7is, who were dis- 
 tinguished among the Christians by their 
 oflices, their virtues, or their knowledge, 
 
 * Eusebius (vi. 37,) may perhaps judge the 
 controversies of this period too much according 
 to his own subjective doctrinal system, and ac- 
 cording to the Church-orthodoxy of his own 
 times, when he represents the maintainers of this 
 opinion as generally acknowledged teachers of 
 heresy, and propagators of a new opinion. 
 
DEATH OP ORIGEN. 445 
 
 and their activity in tlie propagation of j the Onjrenislic school. Tlie contePt be- 
 the faith,* so it was natural that a man tween tliese opposing principles is the 
 like Oiigcn, should be especially a murk source of the most marking phenon)ena 
 for fanatical cruelty. After a steadfast A)r the theological development of the lat- 
 igeon, ter portion of tliis period. We shall iicre 
 to the first throw a glance upon tlie Cliurch. 
 
 confession he was thrown into a dungeon 
 
 and it was endeavoin-ed, accordin 
 
 plan pursued in tlie Decian persecution,' which was the original' scene of the 
 
 to triumph over the weakness of age by j tivity of Origen, namely, the Jilcxan- 
 
 refined and gradually increasing tortures, i drian and tlie R^i/plian Cliunli. 
 
 n 
 I) 
 
 But the faith, which he bore in liis heart, 
 supported the feebleness of his a<re, and 
 
 Origen had left behind him disciples 
 this district who continued to work on 
 
 enabled him to bear all the trials to which his spirit, although with a greater degree 
 they put him. After he had endured so j of speculative moderation, Tiie bishop 
 much,t he wrote from his prison a letter' Demetrius, as is shown by what precedes, 
 full of comfort and encouragement for , was rather a personal enemy to Origen 
 others. The circumstances already re- i than an enemy to his theological opinions, 
 lated, (see above,) which in part softened The opposition made by him to these 
 this persecution, and in part entirely put was, apparently, in his case, only a pre- 
 an end to it, obtained at last for Origen i text, lie, therefore, allowed the disciples 
 also freedom and tranquillity. And yet of Origen to continue their operations un- 
 perhaps, disturbed, and he h 
 
 the sufferings undergone by him 
 
 contributed to hasten his death. He died I the break 
 
 about the year 254, aged sixty-nine.;j: 
 
 The influence of Origen on the forma- 
 tion of a theological system did not con- 
 tinue bound up in his own person, but 
 remained and developed itself indepen- 
 dently of him, by means of his writings 
 and his disciples, but not without a con- 
 tinuing contest with the opposite dispo- 
 sitions of tlie human mind. The friends 
 of Chiliasm, of the carnal and literal in- 
 terpretation of Scripture, and the anthro- 
 pomorpliical and anthropopathical mode 
 of representing Divine things connected 
 with such a system of interpretation, and 
 the zealots for the letter of the doctrinal 
 tradition of the Church, were enemies of 
 
 ♦ The personsB insignes. 
 
 j- Euseb. vi. 39. 
 
 i Euseb. vii. 2. According to Photius, cod. 
 118, there were two accounts of the death of 
 Origen, which difTered both as to its circumstances, 
 and the time of its occurrence. Pamphilius and | manner all writinsrs of the lieretfcs, and 
 
 imself died soon alter 
 out of these controversies 
 in the same year, 231. 
 
 Heraclas, the friend and scholar of 
 Origen already mentioned, who after his 
 [Origen's] departure had become the head 
 of the Catechetical school, was made 
 successor to Demetrius in the Episcopal 
 office. In the year 247, Heraclas was 
 succeeded in his office of Catechist, and 
 afterwards as bishop, by Dionysius, an- 
 other worthy disciple of Origen, who 
 constantly retained his love and reverence 
 for his master, to whom when in prison, 
 (see above,) during the Decian persecu- 
 tion, he wrote a letter of consolation. 
 This man, as he himself says, had come 
 to a belief in the Gospel through the 
 method of free invesligalion^ by giving 
 an unprejudiced and tliorough exami- 
 nation to all systems ; and hence he re- 
 mained true to this principle, even as 
 a Christian and a Church-teacher. He 
 read and examined in an unprejudiced 
 
 rejected their systems only after having 
 learned to know them accurately, and 
 
 many others, who had been personally acquainted I 
 
 with Origen, related that he died at Csesarea as a I 
 
 martyr in the Decian persecution. Others related 
 
 that he lived to' the times of Gallus and Volu- a't^^'" having placed hiinsell in a condition 
 
 .sianus, and then died at Tyre, and was buried I to confute them on just grounds. A 
 
 there; and the truth of this latter account was ^ presbyter of his Church warned him 
 
 testified by the letters written by Origen after the 
 persecution, of the genuineness of which, how- 
 ever, Photius was not decidedly convinced. But 
 after that, which Eusebius, who certainly followed 
 the account of his friend and instructer Pamphi- j 
 lius, says in the above cited jiassagc of his Church 
 History, it can hardly be supposed that Pamphi- [ 
 lius really gave the account alluded to by Photius. 1 
 Perhaps Photius may have misunderstood Pam- ' 
 
 philius, when by the term Martyrdom he meant , , i • i 
 
 only a confession under torture, or when he j X^" arc al)le to judge, and to examine 
 
 against the evil, which might happen to 
 his soul from his employing himself so 
 repeatedly with these godless writings. 
 But the Spirit of God gave liim con- 
 fidence enough not to allow himself to 
 be frightened at tliis danger. He believed 
 that he heard a voire which said to him. 
 Read all that falls into your hands, for 
 
 ipoke of the consequences of those sufferings as 
 all'ecting Origen. 
 
 every thing, and this has brcn to you from 
 
 the very beginning a source of faith." 
 
 2F 
 
446 
 
 HIERACAS AND DIONYSIUS. 
 
 Dionj^siiis was strengthened by this en- 
 couragement in his resolution, and he 
 thouorht it corresponded with that precept 
 of the Lord to those who are strong, 
 which is found in an Apocryphal Gospel, 
 '"Be ye able money-ciiangers :" (yma^B 
 coKiuoi T^acTT-'^iTai,) that is to say, be ca- 
 pable of distinguishing genuine from 
 counterfeit coins.* 
 
 We have already on different occasions 
 
 Afterwards also, in the last period of 
 the third century, Pierius and Theognos- 
 tus distinguished themselves as teachers 
 of the Alexandrian Church, hi the frag- 
 ments of their works, (preserved in Pho- 
 tius,) we recognise the peculiar doc- 
 trines of Origen. 
 
 We have already remarked, that in 
 Egypt itself an opposition existed between 
 an Origenistic and an anti-Origemstlc 
 
 iven examples of the liberal mind and | party. We find this opposition in the 
 
 moderation of this man, and of the blessed 
 effects produced by it. His Christian 
 moderation and mildness are shown also 
 in his letter to an Egyptian bishop, named 
 Basilides, which contains answers to in- 
 quiries concerning circumstances relative 
 to the discipline, and the rites of the 
 Church.| The letter of Dionysius to 
 this bishop, who was subordinate to him, 
 concludes thus : " Thou hast not laid 
 these inquiries before me, as if thou wert 
 ignorant in the matter, but in order to do 
 me honour, and that I might be of the 
 same mind with you, as indeed I am. I 
 have stated and explained my opinion to 
 you not as a teacher, but in all the open- 
 ness with which we must speak to each 
 other. But it is now your business to judge 
 about the matter ; and write to me then 
 what seems to you better, or whether you 
 are yourself satisfied that this is right."t 
 
 * Dionysius, in his letter to the Romish Bishop 
 Philemon, (Euseb. vii. 7,) appeals to a heavenly 
 vision and to a heavenly voice. He speaks of the 
 thing so simply, and betrays so little design, that 
 we should do him an injustice to charge him with 
 what is called a fraus pia, although the some- 
 what lax principles of the Alexandrian school in 
 this respect (a laxity which is connected with 
 their distinction between two different conditions 
 with regard to religion) might favour such an 
 accusation ; but we must here take into the 
 account also, that these pious men certainly were 
 better guided by the Christian spirit which ani- 
 mated them, than by their theoretical principles. 
 It may easily be explained in a psychological 
 way, by supposing that the truth, which the Spirit 
 of God caused him to acknowledge, presented 
 itself again to his imagination in this form, 
 perhaps in a dream. The manner in which he 
 speaks of it seems, however, to indicate that 
 he himself was not so firmly convinced of the 
 Divine nature of the vision, as of the truth of its 
 purport, and of the declaration of Christ, his 
 words being these: o.7r-Ji^-j./u>iv to c'^^^a, ic utrotr- 
 TsACH <pa>vyi ^uvr^iT(_cv, t» Ktycuj-yi, «Stc. 
 
 f Which letter maintains, in the Greek Church, 
 a lawful reverence as an in-i<rro>,>i k*6'Mk>u The 
 fragments which remain of it were last published 
 by Kouth, Reliquirc Sacrre, vol. ii. 
 
 i A larger fragment of the work of this Diony- 
 sius " On Nature," in which he defends faith in 
 Providence against the Atomic theory of the 
 
 fourth century, especially among the 
 Egyptian monks, occurring again, and the 
 I parties named Anthropomorphites and 
 Orlgenists. Perhaps also this opposition 
 among the Egyptian monks is to be de- 
 rived from the time of which we have 
 just been speaking. There were, indeed, 
 at this time no monks ; but as early as 
 the end of the third century there were 
 in Egypt assemblies of ascetics, who 
 lived in the country.* Among these 
 Egyptian ascetics there appeared a man 
 at the end of this period, by name Hie- 
 racas, who was reckoned among the he- 
 retics in the times that followed, because 
 men jndged of him from the position as- 
 sumed by the Church system of doctrine, 
 as this had forined itself in the fourth cen- 
 tury, but who, during his lifetime, would 
 hardly have been considered as a he- 
 retic.f As far as we can become ac- 
 quainted with his turn of mind, and his 
 doctrines, from the fragmentary accounts 
 preserved of him, for which we are ciiiefly 
 indebted to Epiphanius,'^ he had in his 
 peculiar views much that was akin to the 
 Origenistic school, and it may be the case 
 that he himself was originally of that 
 school ; but we nevertheless find no such 
 similarity of doctrines, that it cannot be 
 explained any other way. Views similar 
 to these might easily be formed also in 
 other parts of Egypt. 
 
 Hieracas lived in the town of Leonto- 
 polis§ in Egypt, as an ascetic ; and, ac- 
 cording to the practice of ascetics, he 
 procured for himself what was necessary 
 for his livelihood, and means for the ex- 
 
 F.picureans, is preserved to us by Eusebius in the 
 xivth Book of his Prceparatio Evangelica, and it 
 is printed in Routh, 1. c. vol. iv. 
 
 * As we may perceive from ths Life of Antony 
 in Athanasius. More will be said on this subject 
 in the following period. 
 
 •j- On this account — as in this work we can con- 
 ceive the notion of heresy only in its historical 
 signification, we have not reckoned Hieracas 
 among the heretics, as is usually done. 
 
 i Ha;res. 67. 
 
 § Unless, perhaps, he was at the head of an 
 ascetic body in the neighbourhood of that town. 
 
HIERACAS.* 
 
 447 
 
 ercise of his benevolence, by an art wliich 
 was much prized, and much used in 
 Egypt, that of fine pcnmcmship, in wiiich 
 he was skilful, both as regarded tlie 
 Greek and the Coptic character. He must 
 have lived to beyond the age of ninety 
 years, which may easily be explained 
 from his simple mode of life, and to his 
 very end was in possession of his facul- 
 ties, and, therefore, was able to exercise 
 liis art to the latest hours of his life. He 
 was equally acquainted with the Greek 
 and the Coptic literature; and from this 
 
 the last subject, he may verv possibly 
 have iield that the soul would become 
 enveloped with a higher organ of ethereal 
 matter (a crwy.a. wfvuxrty.oy.) And this 
 opinion also he miglil dress up in such a 
 manner that he could not be .said exactly 
 to reject the doctrine of u resurrection of 
 the botly, but only to exjjlain it afier iiis 
 own views. 
 
 As far as regards the first point, he 
 pronounced that an unmarried life of con- 
 tinence was an essential element in true 
 Christian perfection. In the reconnnen- 
 
 very cause it may have happened, that dation of celibacy he placed the elm 
 
 lie mingled with Christianity many ele- 
 ments foreign to it, drawn from both those 
 classes of literature. He wrote commen- 
 taries on the Bible both in the Coptic and 
 the Greek language, and composed many 
 hymns for the Church 
 
 teristic difFerence between the monil 
 position of the Old and of the New Tes- 
 tament. Hieracas discovers the traces of 
 those false views of the nature of 
 morality, and of the requirements of the 
 moral law from human nature, (^according 
 
 He was addicted to the allegorizing in- to which it might be supposed that this 
 terpretation of Scripture, which was closely moral law could be so easily fullllled, 
 connected with a certain theosophical dis- and men could do even more than it re- 
 position. Like Origen he explained the ! quired, viz. the opera supererogationis.) 
 
 thing, 
 
 account of Paradise in an allegorical man- 
 ner, and denied 
 
 sensuous] Paradise. Probably, like Ori 
 sen, he considered Paradise as the svm- 
 
 when he inquire.s. "' What new 
 material [sinnliches, ' then, has the doctrine of the only-begot- 
 ten One introduced ? what new good 
 hath he planted in mankind ? The Old 
 
 bol of a higher world of spirits, from Testament has already treated of the fear 
 which the heavenly Spirit sunk down I of God, of envy, of covetousness, he. 
 through an inclination for earthly matter. | What new thing then remains, if it be 
 But as men were by no means of one } not the introduction of celibacy .'" This 
 mind as to what was to be understood 
 symbolically in that narrative, and what 
 
 mquu'V, we must 
 that Hieracas had 
 
 acknowledge, snows 
 no riirht conception 
 
 literally, and also as nothing had been j either of the requirements of the moral 
 finally settled (see above) in the prevail- 
 ing doctrine of the Church on the origin 
 of souls, and, besides, as the peculiar 
 
 opinions of Origen had at that time in 
 the Egyptian Church many considerable 
 advocates, he could not have been gene- 
 rally set down as a heretic on that ac- 
 count. 
 
 From that theory of his concerning the 
 incorporation of the heavenly Spirit, 
 which sunk down to a union with mat- 
 ter, it may easily be explained how 
 Hieracas must have despised the earthly 
 material body, and have made its renun- 
 ciation and mortification* the chief busi- 
 ness of Christian morality, and how he 
 must have contended against the doctrine 
 that the soul once freed, should again at 
 the Resurrection become enclosed in this 
 prison-house of the body. In regard to 
 
 [* Enfausserung. Perhaps astronj^er phrase 
 would more nearly translate Ncaniicr's word. It 
 seems to express such a system of sclf-deiiial as 
 would almost free us from the body, even while 
 we are in it. — H. J. R.] 
 
 Law, or, which is closely connected with 
 it, of that which Christ is as the Re- 
 deemer of mankind, and of the nature of 
 redemption. From the view of human 
 nature, and of the requirements of the 
 moral Law upon it, wliich we find here 
 set forth, a doctrine might easily be de- 
 duced, according to which man has no 
 need of a Redeemer. But it would be 
 unjust on that account to ascribe to Hie- 
 racas the doctrine that Christ was only 
 the founder of a more perfect moral sys- 
 tem, and not the Redeemer of mankind. 
 A zealoils Mf)ntanist might have said 
 something similar to wliat Hietacas ad- 
 vanced. And traces of these false ethical 
 and anthropological views, are besides 
 found also at this season, and particularly 
 among the .Mexandrians. 
 
 By means of pas.^ajes, detached from 
 their context, in the 7lh chapter of the 
 first Epistle to the Corinthians, he en- 
 deavoured to prove that St. Paul had per- 
 mitted marriage only out of a reirard for 
 the weakness of men, and only to avoid 
 a worse evil in the case of those who 
 
448 HIERACAS. 
 
 were weak. In the parable of the virgins, 
 Matt. XXV., lie neglected the rule of inter- 
 pretation, which indicates that we are not 
 to seek a resemblance in every particular, 
 but only in the points of comparison; 
 and he concluded from tliat parable that 
 here virgins only were named, and 
 that only unmarried persons could attain 
 to a participation in the kingdom of 
 heaven. In his application of the passage. 
 in which it is said, that " without holiness 
 no man can see God," Heb. xii. 14, he sets 
 out from his presumption that the nature 
 of holiness consists in a life of celibacy. 
 As Hieracas himself admits that St. 
 Paul permitted marriage to those who are , 
 we^k, it follows, that he by no means un- [ 
 conditionally condemned married Chris- ■ 
 tians and excluded them from the number 
 of Christians. It may be the case, that per- 
 sons drew too large conclusions from 
 many of his exaggerations in his recom- 
 mendation of celibacy. Or else, when he 
 said that only those who lived in celibacy 
 could attain to the kingdom of heaven, 
 he must by that expression have under- 
 stood not the blessedness of heaven 
 generally, but only the highest grade of 
 it; which doctrinal expression, as pe- 
 culiar to himself, appears likely to have 
 been thus used, from what we are now 
 about to observe. 
 
 In virtue of his ascetic disposition 
 Hieracas laid particular stress on this 
 point, viz. every one Avas to obtain for 
 himself a participation in the kingdom of 
 heaven by his own moral endeavours, 
 and his own ascetic strictness. This 
 point, the laying particular stress on 
 man's own endeavours, was also alto- 
 gether in accordance with the Alexan- 
 drian views. Now Hieracas, setting out 
 from the principle : " that participation 
 in the kingdom of heaven being only the 
 recompense of a combat, he who has 
 never fought, cannot attain the victor's 
 crown," came to this conclusion, "chil- 
 dren who die before they attain to know- 
 ledge and consciousness, do not enter 
 into the kingdom of heaven." He could 
 hardly have intended thus to express an 
 unconditional sentence of condemnation 
 tipon them, but only to exclude them 
 from the highest grade of blessedness, 
 which proceeds from communion with 
 God, and from the ennoblement of human 
 nature by its union with God in Christ : 
 for the particij)ation in this is only to be 
 attained by man through his own moral 
 endeavours, when he does more than tlie 
 Law requires. He supposed a middle 
 
 state for these children, as was afterward 
 supposed in the case of unbaptized chil- 
 dren by many Orientals and by Pelagius. 
 U Hieracas maintained this with regard 
 to all children, even those that were bap- 
 tized, it follows from this that he denied 
 a supernatural operation^ as existing in 
 inlant baptism. Perhaps also in accord- 
 ance with this principle he opposed 
 infant baptism itself, and pronounced it 
 to be a rite of a later origin, which was 
 contrary to the intention of baptism and 
 the nature of Christianity. What we 
 have here observed, serves also to the 
 confirmation of what we have said above, 
 that Hieracas by no means reverenced 
 Christ merely as a moral teacher ; it is 
 clear from it, that he recognised him as 
 an ennobler of human nature, the ob- 
 tainer of the highest grade of blessedness, 
 to which men could not have attained by 
 their own powers. 
 
 In the view of orthodoxy maintained 
 by the Church in later days, errors would 
 be charged on Hieracas in regard to the 
 doctrines of the Trinity. He must have 
 used the comparison that the Son of God 
 emanated from the Father, as the light of 
 a lamp is kindled from another lamp, or 
 as a torch is divided into two.* Such 
 sensuous comparisons were, it must be 
 granted, contrary to the spiritual disposi- 
 tion of Origen ; but the older Church- 
 teachers, Justin and Tatian, had been fond 
 of them. He maintained further, that 
 the Holy Ghost xvas represented under 
 the image of Melchisedec, for he [the 
 Spirit,] is set forth both as the advocate 
 for men, Rom. viii. 26, and as a priest. 
 He represents the image of the Son, sub- 
 ordinate indeed to him, but the most like 
 to him among all beings, which repre- 
 sentation was entirely conformable to the 
 Origenistic theory of subordination, which 
 maintained itself for a long time in the 
 Oriental Church.f 
 
 Arius ad Alexandr. apud Epiphan. Hscres. 69. 
 § 7. Athanas. t. i. p. ii. 68. 
 
 •j- He appeals to a passage of an Apocryphal 
 writing, which is of importance for the illustra- 
 tion of the doctrinal history of the earliest times, 
 the u)a/3*T;xtv 'Ha-^r.u ; that is, the narrative of the 
 ascension of Isaiah into different regions of the 
 heaven, and of what he saw there. After the 
 accompanying angel has shown Isaiah the Son of 
 God, who stands at the right hand of God, the 
 uy-^Tnnc;, Isaiah inquires kcu Tic itrrtv o axxoc o 
 o/u.crj( ctwTM i^ igiuTiedii sx8a)V ; nM iiTi <rv ynaiTnat 
 tout' itTTi TO ayloy "mvjfxrt TO Kaxcuv iv crot ««/ ty roK 
 7rpo<p>ir!tt( Kit «» <|'»a"/ iy.oicy to) oyxTrinu- 'I'he pas- 
 sa'gc is found in this work which has now beea 
 
GREGORIUS THAUMATURC.US. 
 
 449 
 
 The influence of Ori^en extended itself witli ^reat facility put in exeriition his 
 through the influence of his friends and plan of studying Roman law, hy going 
 scholars from Palestine, as far as Cappa- from Cacsarea lo the celebrated neigh- 
 docia and Pontus, as the three great bonring school of Roman jurisprudence 
 Church-teachers of Cappadocia give tes- at Berytus in Phenicia. Theodorus ac- 
 timony to it even in the fourth century, cepted the ofl'er; but this journey was at- 
 We must here mention particularly his tended by consequences difll-rent from 
 great scholar Gregori/, on whom the ve- ' those which he had expected. He be- 
 neration of Cliristians has conferred the came acipiainted widiOriL'en at Ca?sarea ; 
 name of wonder-worker {QuvixaTov^yo^.) Origen soon remarked tlie powers of the 
 His original name was Theodorus. He young man, and endeavoured to win them 
 was descended from a respectable and to the service of something higher than 
 wealthy family at Neo-Ca;sarea in Pon- that which then animated him. Theodo- 
 tus ; his father, a zealous heathen, edu- rus felt himself attracted by Origen, as he 
 cated him in the principles of heathenism, worked upon his .spirit and his heart, ex- 
 But when he was fourteen years of age citing, warming, and encouraging them, 
 he lost his father, and now he was first In spite of his own will he felt liimself 
 gained to the cause of Christianity, as it detained there ; he forgot Rome and 
 often happened (see above) that the Gos- Berytus, and the study of the law. Ori- 
 pel first found entrance into families by gen led him to perceive the nothingness 
 means of children and women. He, how- of his former endeavours and pursuits, 
 ever, still knew Christianity only from he lighted in the soul of the young man 
 the tradition of others, he still remained ; the holy fire of love to truth and to god- 
 unacquainted with Holy Scripture, his in- j liness [lit. the Divine.] The noblest 
 terest in religion was still a subordinate j effort of Origen, as Theodorus himself 
 feeling, and the endeavour after a splen- ! represents it in his farewell address, was 
 did career in the world was of more ' to excite in him a spiritual activity of his 
 value in his eyes. His mother used every own, and an unprejudiced spirit of in- 
 means in her power to enable him to learn quiry and examination. After he had 
 whatever in those days would serve to i allowed him to seek for the scattered 
 promote the object of his wishes in this j beams of Truth in the systems of Greek 
 respect. He therefore received a good philosophy he sliowed him the higher 
 rhetorical education, so as to be able to j thing which Revelation bestowed on him ; 
 advance himself, either as a rhetorician ; he led him now to the study of Holy 
 or an advocate; and he also learned Latin, ' Scripture and explained it to him. Theo- 
 the language both of the governing I dorus says of Origen's exposition of 
 power and of the courts of law. His in- Scripture; ^' I think he spoke this in 
 structer in the Roman language showed no other way than by the communion of 
 him how very necessary to him a know- j the Holy Spirit, for to be a prophet and to 
 
 the self- 
 same power. And none of the prophets 
 can understand it, to whom the Spirit 
 himself, from whom the prophecies come, 
 
 ledge of the Roman law would he for the 1 understand a prophet requires 
 attainment of the object he had in view.' 
 He began this study, and had already ' 
 formed a scheme to visit Rome, in order ' 
 
 to increase his acquaintance with the , has not given the understanding of his 
 Roman jurisprudence. But Providence ' words. This man has received the 
 had selected him for an instrument in a greatest gift of God, to he the interpreter 
 work of higher importance, and as he for Jiicn, of the words of God, tc) under- 
 himself remarks, in his portraiture of the stand the word of God, as God speaks 
 events of his life, without his own desire [ it, and so to preach it lo men that they 
 or will, he was prepared for that w<irk. | can understand it. 
 
 His brother-in-law had been called to 
 Cicsarea as law-adviser (assessor,) to 
 Pra:;ses, of the province of Palestine. He 
 had left his wife at Neo-Ca;sarea, but she 
 was now lo follow him. They requested 
 his brother-in-law, the young Theodorus, 
 to conduct her to him, as he might then 
 
 published in a complete manner from the old 
 Ethiopic translation, by R. Laurence, Oxfi/rd, 
 1819, pp. 58, 59, V. 32— 36. 
 57 
 
 After he had passed eipht years with 
 the I Origen, and apparently received baptism 
 also at Caj.«arca, and assumed also here 
 the name of Gretrorim, he returned to 
 his own country. It was with sorrow 
 that he loft his instructer, on whom his 
 whole soul hung: he compared the bond 
 which knitted him to Origen, with the 
 bond of friendship between a David and 
 
 Panegyric, in Grig, c 15. 
 2 p2 
 
HIERACAS — HIS CONVERSION. 
 
 430 
 
 a Jonathan. He testified his thankfulness 
 to Origen, and to Providence, which had 
 conducted him to Origen without his 
 knowledge or will, in his farewell oration, 
 in which he describes the events of his 
 life, and the methods of instruction and 
 edification employed by Origen.* 
 
 While he tears himself away with pain 
 from intercourse with his dear instiucter, 
 and from unmixed employment about 
 godly things, and with sorrow and fear 
 prepares to meet the occupations of so 
 different a character, to which he must 
 devote himself in his own country, he 
 speaks thus : — " But why should 1 lament 
 this? We have, we know, a Saviour for 
 all, even for those who are half-dead, and 
 fallen into the hands of robbers. One 
 who cares for all, and is a physician for 
 all, the watchful protector of all men. 
 We have also the seed wilkin us^ of which, 
 as bearing it about within us, we become 
 conscious through thee (Origen,) and the 
 seed which ive have received from thee, 
 those glorious doctrines. With this seed 
 we depart, in tears indeed, because we 
 are leaving thee, but taking this seed with 
 us. Perhaps the heavenly Protector will 
 join himself to our company, and save 
 us, but perhaps we shall return to thee, 
 and bring to thee also from that seed 
 fruits and grain, — not ripe ones, indeed, 
 (for how can that be ?) but such as can 
 grow up amidst civil employments." And 
 turning himself to Origen, he addresses 
 him tlius : But thou, dear head ! stand 
 up! and dismiss us with thy prayer; as 
 thou hast led usf to salvation by thy 
 holy doctrines, while we were with thee, 
 so lead us, now that we are departing 
 from thee, to salvation by tliy prayer. 
 And transfer us and commend us, or 
 rather only give us back again to God, 
 who led us to you. Thank him for that 
 
 * We have followed this oration, as the most 
 IrusUvorthy source, for the history of the early life 
 and education of Gregory. The accounts given 
 by Gregory of Nyssa, in his life of this Gregory, 
 are in open contradiction to the narrative of this 
 Gregory himself; and as Gregory of Nyssa dressed 
 up rhetorically what he had taken from imauthcn- 
 tic inaccurate accounts, it would be a useless 
 trouble to endeavour to reconcile the contradictory 
 narratives with each other. The Panegyricus of 
 Cucgory may be found in the fourth volume of the 
 works of Origen, by rfe la Rue, and in the third 
 volume of the Biblioihecn Patruin of Galland. 
 
 \ He speaks herein the plural number, because 
 he probably had in his mind at the same time his 
 brother Athenodorus, who came with him to 
 Origen, and also afterwards became Bishop of the 
 tyhurch of Pontus. See Euseb. vi. 30. 
 
 which he has hitherto done for us, but 
 call upon him also, that he may engraft 
 his commands upon our Spirit, that he 
 may pour upon us the fear of God, and 
 that this may serve as our best corrector. 
 For at a distance we can no longer 
 hearken to him with that freedom, with 
 which we have done so. as long as we 
 have been with you. Pray to him to 
 send us a good angel to accompany us, 
 as a consolation for our separation Irom 
 you. But entreat him also to conduct us 
 back to you, for this alone will be our 
 chief consolation." 
 
 After his departure also Origen retained 
 him in his heart. We have still a letter 
 full of fatherly love, which he addressed to 
 him. (Philocal.c.13.) He here .says to him, 
 that his distinguished qualities might 
 make him an able Roman jurisconsult or 
 a respected teacher of one of the cele- 
 brated philosophical schools ; but he 
 wished that Gregory should propose to 
 himself Christianity alone as his aim and 
 object, and use his talents only as means 
 to the one great end. According to his 
 principles, which we have before detailed, 
 as to the relation of different departments 
 of knowledge, and especially of Philoso- 
 phy, to Christianity, he incites him to 
 appropriate to himself from the whole 
 circle of human knowledge, \lit. from the 
 Encyclopeedical sciences] and from philo- 
 sophy, every thing, which he migiit be 
 able to use for the advantage of Chris- 
 tianity. By many beautiful allegorical 
 explanations of the narratives of the Old 
 Testament he endeavours to make it clear 
 to him, that we must use every thing to the 
 service of godliness [lit. the Divine,] and 
 sanctify every thing else by referring it to 
 that ; but not, as often happens, forget god- 
 liness itself amidst these elements which 
 are foreign to it, and thus desecrate it by 
 the admixture. He then addresses him 
 thus : — ••' Do thou tlien, my son ! above 
 every thing study the Holy Scriptures ; 
 but let it be a serious study to thee, for 
 Scripture requires a very serious study, in 
 order that we may not too hastily pro- 
 nounce or judge any thing out of it. 
 And if with a believing heart, and a mind 
 well pleasing to God, and j)re-occupied 
 with him,* thou studiest the Scripture, 
 
 * The Greek »-§ox«4/c can hardly be rendered 
 into German, for the German, "vorurtheil" [pre- 
 judice,] according to the usage of our language, is 
 generally taken in a bad sense. We should rather 
 use the word voraussetzung [presumption, or pre- 
 supposition.] Origen means that the reader of 
 tScriptuie ought beforehand to be filled with the 
 
INTERCOURSE WITH ORIGEN. 
 
 451 
 
 then knock, where anything in it is shut 
 up to you, and it will be opened to you 
 by tlie porter, of whom Jesus speaks, 
 John X. 3, ' To him shall the doorkeeper 
 open.' Seek with immovable faith in 
 God, the sense of Holy Scripture which 
 is hidden from the multitude. But let it 
 not be enough to thee to knock and to 
 seek, for prayer is especially necessary for 
 the understanding of holv things, in ex- 
 citing us to wiiich the Saviour has not 
 only said, 'Knock, and it shall be opened 
 to you,' and 'seek, and ye shall fmd,' 
 but also, ' pray, and it shall be given to 
 you.' " 
 
 He answered the expectations of his 
 great teacher. While he found in his 
 native city, of which he became bishop, 
 seventeen Christians, the major part of the 
 inhabitants was converted by him, and 
 Christianity extended far into Ponius. It 
 is a matter of regret, that we have no 
 more accurate and authentic accounts of 
 the etliciency of this remarkable man, 
 than the fabulous and rhetorical life writ- 
 ten by Gregory of Nyssa, a century after- 
 wards. Perhaps, while he followed the 
 principles of the Alexandrian school in 
 regard to the condescension to the weak- 
 ness of the many, and to the gradation in 
 religious education, he was nevertheless 
 too yielding, in order to convert the hea- 
 then in greater numbers ; perhaps he 
 thought, that if once they only belonged 
 to the Christian Church, the spirit of the 
 Gospel and the increasing activity of their 
 teachers might gradually carry them far- | 
 ther on. As he observed that many of j 
 the people, out of attachment to their 
 former festivities, which were interwoven 
 Avith heathenism, remained fettered to the 
 religion of their ancestors, he wished to 
 give the newly-converted something to 
 supply their place. After the Decian 
 persecution, during which many in this 
 region had died as martyrs, he appointed 
 a general festival in honour of the martyrs, 
 and sufiered the rugged multitude to cele- 
 brate this witii the same sort of feasts as 
 those which were usual at the heathen 
 commemorations of the dead (Parentalia,) 
 and other heathen festivals. lie thought 
 that thus one obstacle to conversion 
 would be removed, and that if they had 
 once become members of the Christian 
 Church, they would by degrees volun- 
 tarily renounce sensuous indulgences, 
 
 persuasion, that the Holy Scripture is cmbucd 
 with a Divine spirit, and cannot lead him astray, 
 even when in sinu;Ic passages it.s Divine nature 
 does aot make itself apparent to bim. 
 
 after their minds should have become 
 spiritualized through Christianity.* But 
 he forgot what an intermixture t)f heathen 
 and Christian views and riles might arise 
 from this acquiescence in heathen cus- 
 toms, as really did happen afterwards, 
 and how dilllcult it is for Ciirisiianily to 
 penetrate properly into the life, when it 
 is debased from the beginning with such 
 an admixture.! 
 
 We have a simple and clearly writtea 
 paraphrase of the Preacher of Solomon^ 
 [i. e. Ecclesiastes,] by Gregory. A con- 
 fession of fai'.ii in regard to the' Trinity, 
 which he Mas supposed to have \vritteii 
 in consequence of a special revelation, 
 was used in opposition to the Arians in 
 the fourth century. The circumstance 
 that it was to be foimd in the Church of 
 Neo-Civsareain his own hand-writing, was 
 appealed to in proof of it.s genuineness. 
 But although the first part of the con- 
 fession, in which the peculiar characteris- 
 tics of the Origenian doctrines appear, 
 might be genuine, yet the second part is 
 clearly a later addition, for it contains 
 decisions, which were tlioronghly foreign 
 to the school of Origen, and which first 
 proceeded from the controversies with 
 the Arians in the fourth century. 
 
 Among the violent opponents of the 
 Origenistic school we have already men- 
 tioned Methodius, at first bishop of 
 Olympus in Lycia, and afterwards of 
 Tyre, a martyr in the persecution of Dio- 
 clesian; but still he appears not to have 
 conducted himself towards that school 
 always in the same manner. Eusebius 
 of Caesarea, in his continuation of the 
 Apology of Pamphilius, was able to ap- 
 peal to the circumstance, that Metliodius 
 contradicted what he had formerly said 
 in praise of Origen.;}: The ecclesiastical 
 historian, Socrates, on the contrary, says,§ 
 that 3Iethodius, who had formerly de- 
 clared against Origen, in his dialogue, en- 
 
 • Vita Gregor. c. 27. 
 
 j The canonical letter, which we have, of this 
 Gregory, shows well that in the conversion of 
 lame mas.ses of people mucli may have \yccn 
 merely .something external; for he speaks here of 
 persons, who made u.se of the confusion which 
 arose from the devastations of the Goths in the 
 regions of Pontus, in order to reap advanta(?o 
 from the general calamity, and even to jilunder 
 their own countrymen. Tiiis letter at the same 
 time gives evidence of Gregory's watchful zeal for 
 morality. 
 
 i Apud Hicronym, I. i. Kufin. Hieron. opp. 
 Ed. Marlianay, t. iv. f. 3.^)9. Ciuomodo ansus mt 
 Methodius nunc contra Origencm scriU'rc, qui 
 ha3c et h.Tc de Origenis loquulua est dogiualibus ? 
 
 § Lib. iv. c. 13. 
 
452 
 
 titled Sekuv, had revoked it all, and had 
 testified his admiration of him. There 
 must be some foundation in truth for this 
 twofold story. Eusebius and Socrates 
 deduced their judgment about Methodius 
 from his own expressions ; but their 
 chronological determinations in regard 
 to these writings apparently did not rest 
 on historical facts, but they here followed 
 only their subjective notions, and in such 
 matters the ancients were not accurate. 
 In the Symposion of Methodius, which 
 we are just about to mention, he appears 
 by no means an adherent of the letter of 
 the Church doctrine, but there is shown 
 in that work an inclination to theoso- 
 phical views, and a predominant affection 
 for the allegorical interpretation of the 
 Bible, and there appears also much that 
 is congenial to the turn of Origen's 
 mind ; there are certainly expressions 
 which at least favour the doctrine of the 
 pre-existence of souls.* Much also ap- 
 pears, which is altogether at variance 
 with the doctrines of Origen ; as, for ex- 
 ample, a certain Chiliasm.f It may easily 
 be imagined, that Methodius, a man of 
 no systematic habit of thought, was at- 
 tracted at first by many of the views and 
 the writings of Origen, which corre- 
 sponded to his own favourite opinions and 
 to his own taste, but was afterwards on 
 that very account, the more shocked by 
 that, which in the system of Origen was 
 contrary to his oivn disposition and his 
 own doctrinal principles. 
 
 The most important and the most au- 
 thentic written monument of this Me- 
 thodius is his Feast of the ten Virgins, 
 in eleven dialogues, containing a com- 
 mendation of single life, which is often 
 highly exaggerated. 
 
 That treatise, however, which we have 
 under the name of Methodius on the 
 freedom of the tcilJ, [tti^i uvre^ovaiov,) 
 belongs rather to the Christian teacher 
 Maximus, who lived in the time of Scp- 
 timius Scverus,J than to Methodius ;§ it 
 is an attack on the Gnostic dualism. 
 
 The presbyter Pamphilus, a man of 
 Cscsarea in Palestine, distinguished by his 
 zeal for piety and knowledge, came for- 
 ward as a defender of Origen against the 
 charges of heresy brought against him 
 
 INTERCOURSE "WITH ORIGEN. 
 
 by Methodius. He founded at Csesarea 
 an Ecclesiastical library, vvliich, as late as 
 the fourth century, contributed much to 
 the promotion of learned studies. Every 
 friend of knowledge, and especially every 
 one to whom the thorough and funda- 
 mental study of the Bible was an object, 
 found with him every kind of assistance, 
 and he endeavoured to multiply,* to ex- 
 tend, and correct the manuscripts of the 
 Bible. He made presents of many Bibles, 
 even to women, whom he saw much 
 busied in the reading of Scripture.! He 
 established a theological school.f in which 
 the study of Scripture was carried on 
 with great earnestness. § The learned 
 Eusebius, who was indebted for every 
 thing to Pamphilus, and looked upon 
 him as friend, and almost as a father, 
 probably came forth from this school. 
 Pamphilus imparted to his scholars his 
 own veneration for Origen, as the pro- 
 moter of Christian knowledge; and he 
 endeavoured to oppose the narrow-mind- 
 ed spirit, which proceeded from those 
 who branded Origen with the name of 
 heretic. While the blind zeal of these 
 people, as Pamphilus says, went so far 
 that they pronounced sentence of condem- 
 nation at once on every one, who only so 
 much as busied himself with the writings 
 of Origen, Pamphilus during his impri- 
 sonment in the persecution of Diocletian 
 in the year 309,|| wrote in common with 
 
 • Orat. ii. Theophil. § 5. f Orat. ix. § 5. 
 
 i Euseb. V. 27. Hieronym. de Vir. Ilhist. c. 
 47. This Maximus can hardly be the same as 
 the bishop of Jerusalem of the same name men- 
 tioned ill Euseli. V. 12. 
 
 4 See on this subject my "Genetic Develop- 
 ment of the Gnostic Systems," p. 206. 
 
 * See Montfaucon. Catalog. MSS. Bibliothec. 
 Coislinian. p. 261. 
 
 ■f Eusebius says of him in his life of him, ap. 
 Hieronym. adv. Rufinum, 1. i. p. 358-9, vol. iv.: 
 " Quis studiosorum amicus non fuit Pamphili 1 
 si quos videbat ad victum necessariis indigere, 
 prrebebat large quce poterat. Scripturas quoque 
 sanctas non ad legendum tantum ; sed ct ad 
 habendum tribuebat promptissime. Nee solum 
 viris, sed et feminis, quas vidisset lectioni deditas. 
 Unde et multos codices prajparabat, ut, quum 
 nccessitas poscisset, volcntibus largiretur. 
 
 t Euseb. vii. 32, cruvia-TucrttTo t//-/T§/y2w. 
 
 § Eus. de Martyr. Palaestinfe, c. 4. 
 
 II A proof of the influence of Pamphilus on the 
 neighbourhood around him is given by the case of 
 his slave Porphyrius, a young man of eighteen 
 years of age, whom he educated witli parental 
 afl'ection, and for whose religious, moral, and 
 spiritual edification he provided in every way ; 
 and he had communicated to him an ardent love 
 for the Redeemer. When Porphyrius heard the 
 sentence of death pronounced against his beloved 
 master, he prayed that it might be conceded 
 to him to show the last proof of love to him, by 
 burying his corpse after the execution of the sen- 
 tence had taken place. This request at once ex- 
 cited the wrath of the fanatical governor. And 
 as he now steadfastly avowed, that he was a 
 Christian, and waa anxioas to sacrifice himself, he 
 
CONCLUSION. 453 
 
 his scholar Eusebius,*a work destined to j lanced between the opposite extremes of 
 the defence of Origen, and this defence a carnal and literal, and a capricious and 
 was addressed to tlie confessors con- allcirorizinsr, interpretation of the IJible. 
 demned to labour in the mines. After Learned Presbyters in the Anliochian 
 the martyrdom of Pamphilus, Eusebius j Church, who busied themselves willi par- 
 added a sixth book to the five already ex- ticular zeal in the study of liiblical in- 
 isting of the uncompleted work. The ! terpretalion, may be looked upon as the 
 first book of tliis Apology, with the ex- j first promoters of this school, especially 
 
 ception of some Greek fragments, we hav 
 in the free translation of Rufinus.t 
 
 The example of Pamphilus shows us, 
 how, from one like Origen, who embraced 
 and united so much together, not only a 
 
 Dorotheus and Lucian, of whom the lat- 
 ter sutTcred martyrdom in the persecution 
 of Diocletian, early in A. D. 312.* 
 
 Thus we see here, as the result of the 
 historical development of this period, the 
 
 speculative spirit in doctrinal matters pro- | formation, the transition into one another, 
 ceeded, but also a profound study of the j and the oppositions of dilfercnt theologi- 
 Bible and a careful treatment of the letter i cal dispositions, from the co-operation 
 of the word, however much this letter and opposition of which with each other, 
 may appear to be opposed to his licentious i the further development of the Christian 
 method of allegorizing. Apparently also, j doctrine, as the leaven for the whole na- 
 the instance of the Egyptian bishop He- j turc of man^ was destined to proceed ; a 
 sychius is to be traced to the same source, development and purifying process which 
 
 who set on foot a new and corrected re- 
 cension of the text of the Alexandrian 
 version, the prevalent one in Egypt,J and 
 who suirered§ martyrdom, probably in the 
 persecution of Diocletian, A. D. 310, or 
 311; and lastly, in part also to the in- 
 fluence of Origen was owing the seed of 
 a new theological school at Antioch, 
 which received its full development only 
 in the course of the fourth century, from 
 which is derived the sound hermeneuti- 
 cal and exegetical direction properly ba- 
 
 was most cruelly tortured, and at last, with his 
 flesh entirely torn from his bones, he was led to the 
 stake. He bore every thins^ with firmness, after he 
 had only once, when the fire touched him for the 
 first time, called to Jesus, the Son of God, for help. 
 Euseb. de Martyr. Palsestinas, c. ii. p. 338. 
 
 * The accusation of the passionate Jerome, 
 that Rufmus falsely attributes such a work to 
 Pamphilus, deserves no credit. 
 
 •j- The loss of the Biography of Pamphilus by 
 Eusebius is deeply to be lamented. [N. B. The 
 
 German word here translated 'free,' is willkUrlich by ter, tantum in Scripiurarum studio lalwravit, 
 — arbitrary, or capricious. — H. J. R.] ut us<jue nunc quicdam eicmplaria Scriptururum 
 
 % Hieronym. adv. Rufin. 1. ii. 42.5. Lucianeanunrupcntur. This treatise isalsocitod 
 
 § Euseb. Hist. Eccles. 1. viii. c. 13. f. 308. j as Hicron. de Vir. lUustribus.— H. J. K.] 
 
 passes on from one generation to another, 
 and which can be brought to its destined 
 end by nothing but the everlasting wis- 
 dom, which alone searches the depths of 
 the free spirit, and which alone the free 
 spirit follows without prejudice to its 
 freedom. 
 
 * Lucian made a new recension of the cor- 
 reeled text of the Alexandrian version, and appa- 
 rently also of the INew Testament. The manu- 
 scripts prepared according to this text are called 
 AwKa«vs/a. Euseb. [Hieronym.?] de Vir. Illustr. 
 77. adv. Rufin. 1. ii. 425. vol. iv. We are un- 
 able to determine with certainty what is to be l>e- 
 lieved about the early connection between Lucian 
 and Paul of Samosata, as the account of it which 
 we have, Theodoret. Hist. Eccles. 1. i. c. 4. from 
 Alexander, hishoj) of .Mexandria, is suspicious on 
 account of party-prejudices from controversial mo- 
 tives. [In regard to Lucian, I find in the edition of 
 Jerome by Victorius the following passage, vol. i. 
 p. 373, in the Catalogus Script. Eccles. : — Lucia- 
 nus, vir disertissimus, Antiochenas ecclesia- prcs- 
 
 THE END. 
 
ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION 
 AND CHURCH DURING THE FIRST THREE 
 CENTURIES. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 General view of the reliifious state of the 
 Roman, Grecian, and Jewish world, at 
 the time of the first appearance and early 
 diffusion of Christianity . page () 
 
 Christianity «)nstantly mauitaiiis the same rela- 
 tion to human nature; a leaven destined to 
 penetrate the whole mass — It showed itself 
 peculiarly such at the season of its first ap- 
 pearance ...... 9 
 
 Religious condition of the heathen world in 
 Rome and Greece . . 9 — 25 
 
 The idolatry of nature in heathenism — No reli- 
 gion for mankind in general in heathenism, 
 only state-religions and religions adapted to 
 particular nations . . . . 10 
 
 Esoteric and exoteric religion — Fraus Pia, Poly- 
 bius, Strabo, Plutarch, Seneca . . 11 
 
 Unbelief — ScotHng — Scepticism — Deism — Pan- 
 theism — Pliny the elder, the representative of 
 the latter 14 
 
 Desire after some definite faith; this points to- 
 wards Christianity — Errors through fanati- 
 cism 15 
 
 Transition from unbelief to superstition, painted 
 by Plutarch 17 
 
 Cold, stoic resignation generates pride — desire 
 after an eternal life reasoned away by the 
 Stoics 18 
 
 Platonic philosophy — Spiritualization of Poly- 
 theism — It prepares the way, as it often did, for 
 the appearance of Christianity . . 19 
 
 The popular religions, however, still unimproved ; 
 hence superstition and enthusiasm — .Mexander 
 of Abonoteichos and Apollonius of Tyana 22 
 
 The inquiring Clement, who sought and found 23 
 
 It is the Gospel alone which can triumph over un- 
 belief, superstition, and enthusiasm . 24 
 
 Religious condition of the Jews 25 — 39 
 
 Judaism objectively a Divine religion, but yet 
 only adapted to one stage of human develoj)- 
 ment 2.5 
 
 •Adherence to the Utter without a iK'netration into 
 the spirit of the old religion ; hence carnal pride 
 and a carnal view of freedom — Judas (iali- 
 locus — Intermixture of worldly and spiritual ; 
 source of wild fanaticism ... 25 
 
 Lifeless orthodoxy— Pharisees; False illumina- 
 tion — Sadducces; Mysticism — Essencs 26 
 
 Peculiar character of the Jewish schools of 
 Alexandria ..... 29 — 31 
 
 Hellenizing, Jewish scoffer in Philo's works — He 
 himself calls the Jews prophets and priesU for 
 all mankind 30 
 
 The endeavour to defend was seduced into a false 
 hermeneutic — Philo's own conU'mplative cha- 
 racter in religious things . . / 31 
 
 Idealism despises the grammatical inteq)rctation 
 of Scripture, and thus creates arbitrary dog- 
 matism in interpretation . , . .32 
 
 This is opposed by anlhropopathism . 3:{ 
 
 Philo's distinction l)etween the humanizing and 
 the not-humanizing schools, and hence also be- 
 tween esoteric and exoteric doctrines . 34 
 
 The same contemplative spirit crealcsTheosophicrv 
 ascetic societies — The Therapeutjc not a branch 
 of the Essenes .... 3;') 
 
 General result . . . 3G — 37 
 
 Carnal mind of the Jews always at variance with 
 Christianity on the one hand ; and on the other, 
 a capability of receiving the Gospel, more to Iks 
 found in Phariseeism and Essenism than in 
 Sadduceeism 3fi 
 
 The Alexandrian Jews have their kind of Gnosis, 
 but they are always wanting in poorness of 
 spirit 38 
 
 Extension of Judaism among the Greeks 
 and Romans. 
 
 The Jews make proselytes of Righteousness and 
 of the Gate among the heathen ; the latter sort 
 better disposed towards Christianity . 39 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 THE RELATION OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 
 TO THE UNCHRISTIAN WORLD 40 102 
 
 I. Propagation of Christianity 40 — 'lO 
 
 [»4.] On the Propagation of Christianity in 
 general, the obstacles which opposed it, 
 the means and causes hy which it was 
 furthered .... 40 — 1(1 
 
 Christianity, attaching itself to every thing that 
 is pure in human nature, is a sword of the 
 Spirit to the ungodly ; and hence its varied 
 contentions with prevailing manners and stale- 
 religions — The Gospel a religion for the poor in 
 spirit, not for the proud . . . 40 
 
 Goeta; oppose Christianity — Miracles pave the 
 way for the inward power of the Divine 
 word 41 
 
 Effects of grace among the Christians, related by 
 Justin Martyr, Ireiupus, ami Origen . 43 
 
 Inward Divine power of Christianity l)eaming 
 through their conduct — The most powerful 
 means of conversion . . . * 44 
 
 Women, hoys, and slave* cause the light of the 
 Gos|>el to hhirie — Christianity is able to let 
 itself down to all capacities — A leaven which 
 is to reform all human nature . . 45 
 
 [B.] Propagation of Christianity in par- 
 ticular districts . . . ' 4(3 — 50 
 
 In .\sia— Christianity first preached in cities — 
 
456 
 
 ANALYTICAL TAfeLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 Story of Abgarus of EJessa ; improbable — First 
 certain trace of Christianity there under Abgar 
 BarManu, A. D. 170 . . . 46 
 
 The Gospel spread in Arabia by St. Paul, perhaps 
 also by Bartholomew; and in the second and 
 third centuries by PantiEnus and Origen 47 
 
 St. 'J^'homas reported to have preached in the East 
 Indies 48 
 
 In Africa — An old tradition makes St. Mark the 
 founder of the Church in Alexandria; thence 
 the Gospel reached Cyrene, perhaps also ^^thi- 
 opia; afterwards Carthage, and all proconsular 
 Africa 48 
 
 In Europe — Rome, Lyons, Vienne, (A. D. 177) — 
 Chief quarters for the spreading of the Gospel 
 in Gaul — Saturninus hence to Germany — In 
 Spain perhaps from St. Paul — In Britain from 
 Asia Minor 49 
 
 II. Persecution of Christianity 50 — 102 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 First upon the causes of this persecu- 
 tion 50 — 54 
 
 Notions of Roman toleration to be limited — Ge- 
 neral rights of man first acknowledged by 
 Christianity — The prevailing political views, 
 based on the state-religion, suspect political 
 machinations under Christianity, as being a 
 "religio nova, illicita," and without any old 
 form of worship . • . . 50 
 
 On the other hand, the Christians are accused of 
 not taking sufficient interest in the state, of not 
 offering worship to the emperors, of refusing to 
 sen'e in the army, and hence they are called 
 "hostes Caisarum, hostes populi Romani, in- 
 fructuosi in negotio" ... 52 
 
 Christians also the victims of popular fury ; aris- 
 ing from blind prejudice — "Non pluit Deus, 
 due ad Christianos," but fomented by priests, 
 Goetffi, &c .' 53 
 
 [A.} Persecution by the hand of power. — 
 Varied condition of the Christian Church 
 under different emperors . 54 — 93 
 
 Tertullian's story of a proposal to the senate by 
 Tiberius, in regard to Christ and the Christians, 
 cannot be true ..... 54 
 
 Christians often confounded with Jews, and hence 
 banished from Rome by Claudius, A. D. 53, 
 together with the Jews, according to Suetonius, 
 "impulsore Christo," &c. ... 55 
 
 Cruel persecution under Nero, A. D. 64 ; its pro- 
 bable origin — The fire at Rome . . 55 
 
 Under Domitian, from A. D. 81, the accusation 
 of conversion to Christianity joined with the 
 "ciimrn majestatis" .... 56 
 
 The justice-loving Nerva, A. D. 96, forbids slaves 
 to accuse their masters ... 56 
 
 Trajan's law against tTnt^mi used against Chris- 
 tians — Pliny the younger, the governor, with 
 all his love of investigation, only a narrow- 
 minded politician after all ; his report, A. D. 
 I'iO — Hence the unhappy condition of the 
 Christians 57 
 
 Hadrian forbids tumultuous attacks, but favours 
 legal prosecutions against Christians, merely 
 for being Christians; Christianity still a "leligio 
 illicita" — During this reign Barchochab perse- 
 cutes the Christians in Palestine . 58 
 
 Wretched condition from A. D. 138 — The En> 
 peror Antoninus Pius mildly disposed towards 
 
 Christians, but the rescript tt^i; to Konzv txc 
 'AsT/otf cannot come from him . . 60 
 
 Persecution of the Christians under M. Aurelius, 
 who in his honest endeavour after deep self- 
 knowledge, was always stopped by his stoic 
 fatalism, as well as through a certain fanaticism 
 of mind — Courage of the Christian faith 60 
 
 (a.) Persecution in Smyrna, A. D. 167 — Poly- 
 carp on the funeral pile of his martyrdom 
 praises the Lord — The rage of the people a 
 little cooled 63 
 
 (h.) At Lyons, A. D. 177 — Bishop Pothinus dies 
 as a martyr in prison — The Divine power of 
 faith efficacious even in tender and weak ves- 
 sels, like PonticusandBlandina — Humilitypre- 
 serves the martyrs at Lyons, as only disciples — 
 They decline being called martyrs, but call them- 
 selves only weak confessors . , 65 
 
 Symphorianus dies as a martyr at Autun, and is 
 cheered on to death by his mother . 68 
 
 The '• legio fulminea," A. D. 174, not a fiction — 
 Examination of it . . . . 68 ' 
 
 The wicked Comniodus, from A. D. 180, rendered 
 favourable to the Christians by Marcia — The po- 
 pular fury subsides, and persecutions cease 69 
 
 The fury of the populace again awakened after the 
 murder of Commodus — Persecutions under 
 Septimius Severus and Caracalla . 70 
 
 Single characteristic traits of Christian faith shown 
 forth in Speratus, and in the firmness of two 
 women, Perpetua and Felicitas . . 71 
 
 Repose of the Christians under Heliogabalus and 
 Severus (from A.D. 219— 235)— Julia Mam- 
 msea and Origen .... 73 
 
 Christianity still a " religio illicita" . 74 
 
 Wretched condition under Maximinus Thrax, till 
 A. D. 244 — Fury of the populace . 74 
 
 Repose under the mild Philip, the Arabian (from 
 A. D. 244,) but this emperor no Christian — 
 Origen's view of the persecution and his insight 
 into futurity 74 
 
 His prophecies verified — Persecution of Decius, 
 A. D. 250, proves an excitement to the dormant 
 activity of the Church during its long repose — 
 " Libellatici, acta facientes" — Glorious traits of 
 Christian courage — Numidicus at Carthage 75 
 
 Cyprian of Carthage and other bishops withdraw 
 themselves at first from their Churches, not 
 from cowardice ; but they take care of them 
 even while absent — The persecution gradually 
 increases till A.D. 251 ... 78 
 
 After a short respite, a pestilence again awakens 
 the fury of the people under Gallus, A. D. 252 — 
 The bishops Cornelius and Lucius at Rome give 
 testimony to the faith and are martyred 79 
 
 New persecution under Valerianus,from A.D. 257 
 — Sintus, bishop of Rome, and Cyprian of Car- 
 thage, seal their fidelity with their blood — The 
 last words of Cyprian, " God be thanked" 8(J 
 
 The edict of Gallienus, A. D. 259, recognises the 
 Christian Church as a legally existing corpora- 
 tion, and Christianity as a " religio licita" — 
 First promulged in the East and in Egypt, A. 
 D. 261 — His superstitious successor, Aurelian, 
 prevented by this from persecuting — His mur- 
 der, A.D 275 82 
 
 Repose and increase of the Church during forty 
 years — Diocletian, sole emperor from 284 and 
 286, in conjunction with Maximus, shows him- 
 self at first favourable to Christianity — His edict 
 against the Manichees, A. D. 296 . 83 
 
ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 457 
 
 Galcrius, the slave of blinil superstition, seeks for 
 accusations against the. Christians ; A. D. 298, 
 he obtains a decree that all soldiers must offer sa- 
 criiice — Many Christians give up their military' 
 rank. — Tlie Centurion Marcellus, on account of 
 the " militia Cliristi," refuses the " militia impe- 
 ratorum," and is sentenced to death 85 
 
 Galerius at last, A. D. 303, persuades Diocletian 
 to issue a general edict against the Christians 
 — The splendid church of IS'icomcdia, in Bi- 
 thynia, plundered — The intended annihilation 
 of the Scriptures defeated liy the power of God 
 — Humane oflicers act mildly in the execution 
 of the edict 87 
 
 Traditores among the Christians — Enthusiastic 
 zeal of faith — The union of simplicity and pru- 
 dence unjustly stigmatised as cowardice 88 
 
 Individual traits of courage — The young Victoria 
 and the hoy Hilarianus ... 89 
 
 A fire in ISicomedia — Its origin uncertain — Cru- 
 elty against the Christians inflamed by political 
 jealousy — Fury against the clergy in particular, 
 A. D. 304 — Edict that all the Christians should 
 sacrifice-^Heathenism appears to triumph, but 
 this triumph is soon lost again . . 90 
 
 Constantius Chlorus favourable to the Christians 
 — Particularly active from A. D. 305, when 
 Diocletian and Herculius resigned . 91 
 
 Maximinus, on the contrary, fanatical and cruel — 
 From A. D. 308, a new season of repose — A 
 new, severe edict soon makes its appearance, in 
 order to uphold the heathen superstition in its 
 whole compass — Thirty-nine confessors are ex- 
 ecuted in the mines of Palestine — This was the 
 last blood shed in this persecution — Galerius 
 being brought to a proper sense of the matter 
 by severe illness, A. D.311, issues a remarkable 
 edict, by which this last bloody struggle of the 
 (.Christian Church in the Roman empire is con- 
 cluded 92 
 
 [^] Opposition to Christianity by heathen 
 writings .... 93 — 102 
 
 The worshijiping of God in spirit and in truth al- 
 ways a stumbling block to superstition and to 
 light-n)inded unbelief .... 93 
 
 The self-righteous Stoics see in Christianity only 
 a religion for the people — The religious idealism 
 of Plato brings men of profoundness nearer to 
 the Gospel, but it calls forth a still more vio- 
 lent opposition to it with those who have not 
 self-denial enough to renounce their philosophi- 
 cal superiority in religion ... 9-1 
 
 The superficial Platonist, Celsus, apparently con- 
 temporary with M. Aurelius, attacks Chris- 
 tianity in his Ac>oc '^kyi'ix;, a sarcastic work, 
 abounding in self-contradiction — How he mis- 
 takes all Christianity, and especially Christian 
 humility — Christianity alone can unite the two 
 opposilcs, self-abasement and elevation in 
 God . • 95 
 
 Another more profound opponent of Christianity 
 in Porphyry, the Phoenician, about the begin- 
 ning of the third century — One of his works 
 was, " A System of Theology, deduced from 
 the old (si)urious) Oracles," Iljg/ 'nit ix K'.yimi 
 c'>i^s"'-?'ac — He, however, contradicts himself, 
 sometimes wishing to appear a philosopher in 
 religion, while at others he is quite devoted to 
 blind superstitious idolatry — The oracles rela- 
 tive to Christ 99 
 
 58 
 
 Hierocles, governor of Bilhynia, the last writer 
 in opposition to Christianity of this jHiriod, in 
 his book entitled, A-.-^-.t oiKtMihu; tt^-.; t<.ui 
 \eiirrirti'^:, "The Discourse of a Lover of 
 Truth, addressed to the (Christians" — It id a 
 pity he did not speak the truth, and did not 
 refrain from telling the most shamelesit lies 
 of Christ and the apostles, witljout examina- 
 tion 101 
 
 Concludinfj remark on the manner in which 
 the apologies of the Christians were ge- 
 nerally conduct^'d. 
 The heathen attacks on Christianity wore answer- 
 ed from the time of Hadrian, by defensive 
 treatises on the part of the Christians (Apolo- 
 gies.) These consisted partly of general and 
 extensive developments of Christian doctrines, 
 I partly of particular defences, addressed to Con- 
 j sules, Prajsides, &c. — Tliese had but little efl'ect 
 j in general — Christianity being at variance with 
 ' the " disciplina Romana," always ap|teared to 
 Roman statesmen a feverish and dangerous cn- 
 ' thusiasm 10 1 
 
 I SECTION 11. 
 
 HISTORY OF THE FORMATION OF THE CHl'RCH, 
 I CHIRCH DISCIPLINE, AND CHURCH DIVI- 
 
 I sioNs .... 10-2— 143 
 
 I. The history of the formation of the 
 Church .... 102—127 
 j 1.) The history of the formation of con- 
 j gregations in general . 102 — 1 1(5 
 
 I Two periods are to be distinguished, (1) The 
 I epoch of their formation in the time of the 
 i apostles; (2) Their progress to the end of this 
 
 j period 102 
 
 I [c/5] The first foundation of the constitution 
 of Christian Churches in the apostolic 
 
 age 10-2—109 
 
 The Gospel conducting all men to the same com- 
 munion with God through (.'hrist, excludes, by 
 its very nature, any peculiar caste of priests^— 
 One High-priest, one Mediator for all — Many 
 gifts, one Spirit . . . . 102 
 Elevating form of the original constitution of the 
 Church in the Epistle of St. Paul to the Corin- 
 thians 104 
 
 Outward form is necessary, hut no one definite 
 I form, and least of all, the monarchical — The 
 monarchical form of Church constitution con- 
 ] tradicts the spirit of Christianity, which admits 
 of only one monarch, Christ — The Go8i»cl con- 
 I stantly points to the feeling of mutual waiiU 105 
 '. Form naturally grafted on the Jewish and nither 
 j aristocraticai constitution of congregation ; 
 ! D'^pT' T5«5/2vT!g!!«, elders; VD^*!©' h"'/^'' 
 j »'.<, Tf;srT»Ts; 'rui uitK<^c»i, »Tr9-«3.TM, presidents, 
 
 I bishops 106 
 
 j \u^iiT/jtx iiJ%TKiXiM, and KuStprna^ieiK, talent for 
 teaching and for governing in the Church, not 
 equal in all men . • . . 106 
 
 Deacons and deaconesnes — The latter partic\ilarly 
 I useful in the East for the purjiosc of intro- 
 ducing Christianity into the interior of fami- 
 
 I lies 107 
 
 j Election to Church-oflices maile by the presbytera 
 after gathciiiig the congregation together 107 
 
 ' 2R 
 
458 
 
 [B] The changes which took place in the 
 constitution of the Christian Church after 
 the apostohc age . . 109 — 116 
 
 The chief changes relate to three points; (1) the 
 development of the Monarchico-episcopal form 
 of Church-government; (2) the formation of 
 an unevangellc caste of priests; (3) the mul- 
 tiplication of Church offices . . 109 
 
 fl) The presbyter, who presided in the college of 
 presbyters, has exclusively the name iTmrKCTro;, 
 out always remains only the "primus inter 
 pares" . . . . . . 110 
 
 The episcopal system unfolds itself gradually, and 
 maintains itself during the persecutions — Cy- 
 prian, in this respect, acts quite in accordance 
 with tho spirit of his times — The episcopal 
 system had great advantages and also great dis- 
 advantages, for . . . . 110 
 
 b) It farthered the rise of a separate class of 
 priests in the Christian Church — the cause of 
 this; Selfishness — the source of all Popery, 
 and the confusion between the Jewish and 
 Christian economy — TertuUian calls the bishop 
 "summus sacerdos" . . . Ill 
 
 The names "ordo, plebs," x\;ipoc, kkx^uoi, of 
 themselves naturally introduce unevangellc 
 relations — Opposition of the evangelic con- 
 science , 111 
 
 The clergy at first maintained themselves by 
 their trades — By degrees they were removed 
 from worldly business, but not from worldly 
 thoughts ]13 
 
 Election to Church offices, as well as all Church 
 affairs, conducted in conjunction with the con- 
 gregation — "Seniores plebis," not clergy, but 
 " persona ecclesiasticce" — a remnant of the freer 
 spirit of the apostolic constitution, which is a 
 model for all times . . . . 114 
 
 c) Multiplication of Church offices ; Subdeacons, 
 " lectores," (uvaj-vaiffTa*,) aiccxcuQoi, (acoluthi,) 
 " exorcistar ;" Bu^cu^ci, ttvxw^ci, " ostiarii" 116 
 
 2) The means of Connection between sepa- 
 rate Churches one with the other 1 16 — 120 
 
 The subordination system does not proceed from 
 a pure evangelic spirit, which would rather 
 point to a system of sisterly equality — The 
 ^w^iTii-n'^Troi, suffragans, or country bishops, of 
 the fourth century, must have come down from 
 the earliest times, at first independent, after- 
 wards subjected to, the bishop of the city — 
 Daughter-churches also formed in cities — Me- 
 tropolitans 117 
 
 " Ecclcsiffi, sedes apostolicse, matrices ecclesiffi," 
 Antioch, Alexandria, E[)hesus, Corinth, but 
 especially Rome . . . . 118 
 
 Communication by means of Church letters — 
 "Literae formataj," jgs^^stT* TtruTrcejuivu, ne- 
 cessary for many causes • . . 119 
 
 Provincial synods first in Greece, after the model 
 of the Amphictionic assemblies — gradually be- 
 come general — Useful, if they are carried on in 
 a real spirit of Christian humility ; hurtful, as 
 soon as hierarchical and arbitrary notions enter 
 into them, and wish to prescribe laws for the 
 Church for ever, without the co-operation of the 
 congregations 119 
 
 3) The union of the whole Church into one 
 wliole, compactly joined together in all its 
 pans, tho outward unity of the Catholic 
 Church, and its representation 120 — 127 
 
 ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 Blessed unity of the Church, a manifestation of 
 the unity of the kingdom of God — Yet the 
 confusion between the visible and the invisible 
 Church, between the form and the substance, 
 leads to an overvalue for the outward unity of 
 the Church — This is most distinctly laid down 
 in his book " De Unitate Ecclesife," in which 
 there is much truth mixed with some false no- 
 tions 120 
 
 The error of thinking a visible unity of the 
 Church necessarily leads to the notion of the 
 necessity for that visible representation of that 
 unity — this is founded in the pretended apos. 
 tolic primacy of St. Peter, which, however, is 
 entirely in contradiction with a sound interpre- 
 tation of Scripture and the history of Christian 
 antiquity, and especially with the whole spirit 
 of the New Testament economy — This cer- 
 tainly knew nothing of a " Cathedra Petri" 123 
 
 This notion soon becomes still more noxious — 
 The pretended primacy of St. Peter now be- 
 comes transferred to the "Ecclesia Romana" 
 and its bishops for ever — Roman ambition puts 
 on a spiritual garb . . . . 125 
 
 Romish bishops call themselves "Episcopi Epis- 
 coporum;" Victor, A. D. 190 — Stephanus re- 
 ceives appeals from Spain — Opposition made 
 by Irenaeus — •' Dissonantia jejuni! non solvit 
 consonantium fidei" — Cyprian and Firmi- 
 lianus 125 
 
 II. Church discipline — Excommunication 
 from the visible Church and re-admission 
 into it .... 127—132 
 
 The visible Church is not merely meant to reveal 
 the kingdom of God, but to instruct and pre- 
 pare men for it; hence, in the visible Church, 
 there must always be a mixture of genuine and 
 false Christians — To human judgment, in this 
 respect, no decision was entrusted, but St. Paul 
 himself entrusts it, with a wholesome discipline, 
 for the Church — " Excommunicatio, poeni- 
 tentio, absolutio;" expulsion, penitence, and 
 re-admission 127 
 
 Distinction made by the teachers of the Church 
 between the absolution of the priest and the 
 forgiveness of sins by God himself . 129 
 
 Alas! how soon does human fancy confound the 
 outward with the inward ! How soon does a 
 foolish misunderstanding of the power to bind 
 and loose lead men into the belief in a wretched 
 " opus operatum'' — The Lord gives the power 
 of the keys to every true preacher of the Gos- 
 pel 129 
 
 Distinction (from 1 John) between " peccata ve- 
 nialia" and " peccata mortalia," or " ad mor- 
 tem:" pardonable sins and mortal sins — 
 Contentions between the stricter and laxer 
 patties 132 
 
 III. The history of divisions in the Church, 
 or Schisms . . . 132—148 
 
 Distinction between schisms and heresies pro- 
 perly so called — The latter arise from diflerences 
 in doctrine^ the former from differences in out- 
 ward things 132 
 
 a) Schism of Felicissimus, which arose in 
 the North African Church 132 — 141 
 
 The election of Cyprian as bishop awakens the 
 opposition of a party, headed by five presby- 
 ters 132 
 
ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 459 
 
 Cyprian, faithful as he was in his pastoral capa- a) Novatian's principles on the subject misropre- 
 city, was yet not sulficiently on his guard scnted by his enemicH. but his moral error 
 against the suggestions of spiritual pride; in I powerfully opposed by Cyprian • 145 
 
 the bishop, appointed by God, he forgot the And yet even Cyprian waH unable to oppose the 
 man, weak and liable to sin . . 133 i principles of Novatian elfectually. l)ecau»e ho 
 
 Novatus, apparently one of the five anti-Cyprian himself had not a clear i)erieiition of the only 
 presbyters, ordains Felicissimus deacon by his j real objective ground of confidence in the for- 
 own authority — This person now becomes his ! givencss of sins, namely, in the application of 
 partisan 133 j the merits of Christ . . . 146 
 
 Cyprian's withdrawal from his Church, and his b) Novatian on the idea of the Church — "Tho 
 severity towards the " lapsi" (fallen brethren) Church ceases to be a tnie Church, when it 
 during the Decian persecution, give his enemies i sullcrs those who have violated their baptismal 
 
 an opportunity of scheming against him still 
 more actively . . . . . 134 1 
 
 The " lapsi," supported by the confessors (con- I 
 fessores) who give them letters of peace or , 
 communion (libellos pacis) — Cyprian's proper 
 zeal against the extravagant reverence paid to 
 the martyrs: "The Gospel makes the martyrs, 
 not the martyrs the Gospel . . 136 
 
 But Cyprian still is not firm and consistent 
 enough, he allows at last the " libelli pacis" of 
 the " confessores" . . . . 138 
 
 How injurious is any compromise with a prevail- 
 ing prejudice! — The Romish Church declares 
 itself for the milder party, pointing to the one 
 source of forgiveness of sins . . 138 
 
 Cyprian appears at last to conquer, but his hopes 
 are deceived by his exercising his episcopal 
 power, in ordering a visitation to be held — Feli- 
 cissimus collects all the " lapsi" into his Church 
 (perhaps in monte,) and gives them the com- 
 munion — This conduct very injurious to disci- 
 pline and good order . . . 133 
 
 The North Alrican Synod, A. D. 251, at length 
 puts down this schism, by devising a happy 
 middle path in regard to the " lapsi ;" but still 
 the rebellious party choose Fortunatus for bishop 
 of Carthage, and look for help from Rome, but 
 all their schemes are frustrated by the concord 
 of Cornelius and Cyprian . . 140 
 
 I) The schism of Novatian, which arose in 
 the bosom of Romish Church 141 — 148 
 
 This schism, as well as that of Felicissimus, arose 
 from a dilTerence of views on penance, only 
 that was set on foot by the laxer party, this by 
 the stricter — The controversy about the no- 
 tion of the true Church also entered into this 
 
 schism • ^41 
 
 Novatian's personal character, and iU influence, 
 on his part, in the controversies — The ascetic. 
 
 covenant by gross sins, to remain in it, or re- 
 ceives them again." Hence the Novatianista 
 call themselves c't kiS^u, the Pure — this is 
 beautifully answered in a practical manner by 
 Cv])rian : " The Lord alone has the sieve in his 
 
 hind" 147 
 
 And yet, from their dogmatical indefiniteness as 
 to the notions of the visible and invisible 
 Churches, the opponents of Novatian were 
 unable to combat his fundamental error, which 
 was deeply rooted in the confusion of those 
 idea*, with suflicient power and clearness — The 
 Catholic Church system comes forth triumphant 
 at last from these struggles . . 148 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 CHRISTIAN LIFE AND WORSHIP \^A — 214 
 
 I. Christian Life . . 1') 1—180 
 
 Christianity a sanctifying power — Cyprian — Jus- 
 tin Martyr — Origen . . . 151 
 
 Contrast between the Christian and the heathen 
 life — This was often very prominent, and yet 
 false Christianity, dangerous self-delusion, false 
 self-elevation, &c. — Tertullian, Origen, and 
 Cyprian, against representations of the magical 
 eltects of baptism . . . • 15'- 
 
 Gradual efficacy of Christianity— Carnal Chris- 
 tianity— Defects in the visible Church— Point 
 of view from which we ought to look at these 
 first times 152 
 
 Mutual names of the Christians — The brotherly 
 kis3— Care for the stranger, the sick, and the 
 poor; for old men, widows, and orphans — Vo- 
 luntary Church contributious— Peculiar activity 
 of the Christian mistress of a family— Collec- 
 tions for foreign Churches—Examples— Cyprian 
 — Dionysius of Alexatnlria— Christian benevo- 
 lence in public calamities . . * 156 
 
 serious, and learned Novatian, no stoic, having j ,p^^ Christians, with regard to the laws of tho 
 
 received, after many internal struggles, merely 
 the " baptismus clinicorum," the baptism of the 
 sick by sprinkling— Is ordained a presbyter by 
 Fahianus — He espouses the side of the stricter 
 party as to penitence ; this excites the opposi- 
 tion of Cornelius; at first only a contest of 
 principles — Novatian guided by none but pure 
 motives . . ' • • ' ■ , 
 
 Novatus, an advocate at Carthage of the milder 
 principles, here joins the stricter party, at 
 the head of which Novatian was placed as 
 bishop • . 143 
 
 Cornelius is accused by Novatian of being a 
 " libellaticus" (one that had received a cer- 
 tificate of having sacrificed)— The mildness of 
 
 State — Their obedience to existing mslitulions 
 
 Collision between civil and religious duties — 
 
 Uilferent views of Christians upon this sulv 
 ject ...... •5'J 
 
 Fori)idden trades — Forbidden to visit the shows 
 of glatliators, and combaU of wild I)east3— For- 
 bidden to be present at panlominui.'*, plays, 
 circus, Ac— Sophistry of Celsus— Tertullian 
 on true spiritual joys-^No one who fre.juent.'.l 
 plays was to remain in Church communion 1 fi 1 
 
 Dionysius 
 
 which Novatian was placed as I Qhristianity in regard to slavery— The tru^ 
 
 highest freedom may be united with Inxlily 
 
 slavery ...'"•'^ 
 
 Christian administer a civil or miliUry 
 
 lividetl — One party nKainut 
 
 the Stale 
 
 Two points in controversy, penance 
 the notion of the true Church 145- 
 
 May 
 
 I office? — Opinion 
 l"*"^ 1 pui)lic duties — Ojjposilion U 
 and and Christianity— Tertullian and Celsun on tins 
 -15ul point—. \noUier parly Jrrc for serving public 
 
ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 460 
 
 offices — Grounds for and against a Christian 
 becoming a soldier . . . . 167 
 New relation of the whole Christian life — Con- 
 trast of the thoughtless indulgence and moody 
 seriousness of heathenism with the holy serious- 
 ness and joy in the Holy Spirit in Christianity 
 — The idea of monkery quite foreign to the 
 notions of Christians of those days — Self- 
 chosen days of penance, prayer, and fasting — 
 'As-xwTst/, ru?6sv:< — Origin and effects of asceti- 
 cism — Notion of a true Christian Ascetic — 
 Alcibiades the Ascetic . . . 169 
 Vanity of dress among Christians, in opposition 
 to a partial asceticism — Germ of clerical celi- 
 bacy — Ivmtfdix.'rrji — Voices raised against this 
 disposition — Pastor Hermae — Clemens: th o 
 «ra)^5//ivsc TrMvTta;; spirit of evangelical free- 
 dom, particularly against the Montanists, and 
 their fast ordinances . . • 173 
 Christian family life — Marriage — Christian har- 
 mony — Mixed marriages — Sanction of the 
 Church to conchide a marriage . 175 
 Prayer, the soul of the Christian life — Effects — 
 Kind of Prayer — Times of Prayer — Assem- 
 blies for Prayer — Postures in prayer . 177 
 Christian instruction of a family . 180 
 2.) The Christian worship. (Public and ge- 
 neral worship of God) . , 180 
 o) Nature of the Christian Avorship in ge- 
 neral 180 
 
 Spiritual worship — Contrast between Judaism and 
 heathenism, especially in regard to visiting the 
 
 Church 181 
 
 h) Places of congregation for the Chris- 
 tians 182 
 
 At first in private houses, afterwards their proper 
 houses of assembly — Churches — originally no 
 images used—Hatred of art — Its cause — Images 
 in domestic life— Sensible forms — Images in 
 churches—Sign of the cross . . 182 
 
 c) Times of Divine service, and festi- 
 vals 184 
 
 Consecrated times — New view of them in Chris- 
 tianity—Rise of festivals— Confusion of Old 
 and New Testament . . . 184 
 
 Weekly and yearly festivals — Sunday — The "dies 
 stationum" — Sabbath — Fasts — Yearly festival 
 — Passover — Jewish and heathen converts 
 differ 185 
 
 Anicetus and Poly carp — Later repetition of same 
 controversies — Victor — Irenmus . 188 
 
 Quadragesimal fast — Easier — Whitsuntide — 
 Christmas — 'EopTw Tm iTri^sLviaiy — Origin of the 
 latter festival ". . . . . 190 
 
 d) Single acts of Christian worship 191 
 Character of spiritual worship the essential mark 
 
 of Christian service — Reading the Scriptures 
 — Early translations— Interpretation — Preach- 
 ing — Singing — Hymns — Sacraments 191 
 On the sacraments in particular. 
 ^ Baptism. 
 Preparation — li^Tn^cu/Aivct — Church office of Ca- 
 techists — Creed — Different application of it — 
 Learnt by heart — Public confession of it — 
 Form of renunciation, afterwards exorcism — 
 Outward Form of Baptism — Formula—Immer- 
 sion — Clinici — Infant baptism — General recog- 
 
 nition of it (A. D. 250)— Late baptism— God- 
 fathers (Sponsores) — Symbolic customs at bap- 
 tism — Anointing — Xu^cdsTiu — Confirmation — 
 Rise of confirmation — Privilege of the bishops 
 — Symbol of childhood in a new life — Bro- 
 therly kiss — Baptism of heretics — Controversy 
 on this — Stephanus — (Cyprian — Dionysius of 
 Alexandria — Romish Church on the subject — 
 North African Church ... 193 
 
 ^ Supper of the Lord. 
 General Remarks. 
 
 View of its foundation by the Redeemer — Its aim 
 — Original connection with a general meal — 
 'Ayct^M — Degeneration of these Agapce — 
 Abuses — Judgment of the Fathers thereon 207 
 Particular remarks on the Lord's Supper. 
 
 Prayer of praise and thanks — Original idea of an 
 offering of thanksgiving — Oblationes — The 
 idea of a sacrifice at first only symbolic — False 
 notion of a sacrifice — Use of common bread — 
 Daily communion — Communion every Sun- 
 day — Strangers, sick, and prisoners, receive 
 consecrated bread and wine — First trace of 
 communion under one kind — Infant commu- 
 nion 210 
 
 Connection of the Lord's Supper with the con- 
 clusion of a marriage, and the commemoration 
 of the dead — Unevangelic dispositions — " Sa- 
 crificia pro martyribus" — Festivals of the mar 
 tyrs — Extravagant honour to them — Overvalue 
 for what is human . . . . 213 
 
 The Translator's Preface . . 215 
 SECTION IV. 
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE CONCEPTION AND 
 DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIANITV AS A SYS- 
 TEM OF DOCTRINES. 
 
 1. General Introductory Remarks 229—230 
 Chrisianity not a dead letter, but a life-giving 
 spirit — Different instruments for the One Truth 
 — Internal Unity of Christianity — Develop- 
 ment of Christianity by means of controversies 
 and contentions . • . , 229 
 2. History of Sects. 
 Two chief divisions of the religious Spirit. 
 
 a) The Judaizing Sects . 230—238 
 Jewish and heathen Christians — Peter and James 
 
 — Paul — Four parties ; a) Pseudo-Petrians ; 
 /2) Genuine apostolical Jewish (Christians; y) 
 Pseudo-Pauline Christians; J) Genuine apos- 
 tolical Heathen Christians (Justin Martyr.) 
 New Church at .-Elia Capitolina . 230 
 Ebionites — Their names — Different kinds of 
 Ebionites — Difference between them — (Origen 
 on this subject) — Representation of them by 
 Epiphanius — Difference in their Christology — 
 The Clementine on this subject — Their ac- 
 ceptance of a simple original religion — The 
 theory of revelation according to the Clemen- 
 tine — ^^Relation of Christianity to the original 
 religion — Relation of Mosaism and the Gospel 
 — The asceticism of the Ebionites — The Na- 
 zarenes mentioned by Jerome . . 233 
 
 b) The Sects which arose from the mixture 
 of the Oriental Theosophy with Chris- 
 tianity 238 
 
ANALYTICAL TABLE OF COXTENTS. 461 
 
 I. The Gnostic Sects. , Detached consiJenitions on the relijjioiis and 
 
 a) General introductory remarks on the j moral ideas of the School of Basihdes—U 
 origin, character, and differences of these '""•^ "^ t'^'th-Ethics of Basilidea-His p 
 
 Sects .... 238—254 
 
 •yyacTK in Christianity — Contrast between the 
 TTrejjuuTiK'.i and the ^^^t'*'-' (=tc>.Xo() — Eso- 
 teric — Exoteric Religion — From the mixture 
 of old-oriental views of Religion with those of 
 Neo-Platonism a 'i'hcosophic Christ is formeil 
 — The then condition of the Roman Empire 
 considered in reference to its influence on the 
 formation of these systems . . 238 
 
 Genetic formation of Gnosis — a peculiar, ani- 
 mating principle in it — Key-note of this sys- 
 tem — Suhject-maltcr of the ideas in (inostic 
 speculation — Relation of Christian faith to this 
 speculation — Idea of Emanation — Doctrine of 
 the iEons — Theory of Evil — Dualism 242 
 
 Alexandrian and Syrian Gnosis (the latter modi- 
 fied by Parsism) — Relation of both these ten- 
 dencies to each other — Zabians , 244 
 
 Essential differences between the various Gnostic 
 systems — The points of agrc<'ment in all Gnos- 
 tics — ATaker of the world (Axfju'.u^ce) — Their 
 views of the Theocracy of carnal and spiritual 
 Judaism. Anti-Jewish Gnostics — Their views 
 relating to the Demiurgos and to Judaism, in 
 which they departed from the Jewish Gnostics 
 — between the JNew and the Old Testament — 
 Contrast 247 
 
 Ethical differences — Antinomians — Special dif- 
 ferences — Concerning Marriage — Concerning 
 the person of the Redeemer (Docetism) 249 
 
 Classification of the Gnostics in consequence of 
 these differences — into the "sects which en- 
 graft themselves on Judaism, and those which 
 oppose themselves to it" . . . 251 
 
 Exegesis of the Gnostics — Arbitrary criticism — 
 Their theory of accommodation in an exege- 
 tical point of view — They wish to found Chris- 
 tian mysteries 2.51 
 
 Means by which Gnosticism was advanced — They 
 were called forth by opposition against a rude 
 conception of Divine things — Proper mode of 
 considering Gnostics in history . . 2.'J3 
 
 B) The Individual Sects. 
 1. The Sects whose system was enan'afted 
 on Judaism . '. . 254—280 
 
 a) Cerinthus. 
 Contradictory accounts of him — His doctrines — 
 
 His view of the baptism of Jesus — His Chris- 
 tology — His views on Judaism — His Chi- 
 liasm 254 
 
 b) Basilides. 
 
 Sphere of his operations — Foundation of his sys- 
 tem — Doctrine of the Divine powers — O^doad 
 — o^^i^-M — Theory of Emanation— Dualism — 
 Parallel members in the opposition established 
 throughout the whole cycle of the world— Ge- 
 neral process of purification — Metemjisychosis 
 —Development of Life in Nature — His ^t^x."'' 
 — Doctrine of Providence, and the Theoilica;a- 
 Typical view of Judaism— Supposition of writ- 
 ten documents of the wisdom of the Patriarchs 
 -On the Canon of the Old TesUiment— His 
 
 par- 
 tial asceticism — His view of marriage 2C4 
 
 c) Valentinus and his School. 
 
 His life, and formation of his chararter — Relation 
 to Basilides — Mi\m — Pleroma— .Self-limitation 
 of the Bythos — Horos, and his mode of oixra- 
 tion — Double j-ici* — Three gradations of Bring 
 —Their mutual relations— His Demiurg(>« — 
 Nature of the Tnwj,uxTi».'.i, v>jk-a, yv/_i>iif 265 
 
 His theory of redemption— The Plastic Soter — 
 Relation of man to the Universe — His notion 
 of Inspiration — His views on that subject in 
 reference to the Prophets and to heathenism — 
 Appearance of the Soter — Psychical Messiah — 
 The main point in Redemption— X^/»-T<:tr/»-^5f 
 ■^.u^iK-.f and ;nr«/^«Tonc — Spiritual priiie — Es- 
 chatology — Syzygy of the Soter with the So- 
 phia 208 
 
 Distinguished men of this School. 
 
 Heracleon — His exegesis of St. John — Alle- 
 gorizing indications — His opposition to maityr- 
 dom as an " opus operalum" . . 275 
 
 Ptolemfeus — His relation to Valentinu.'i — Letter to 
 Flora — Threefold principle of the Mosaic Law 
 of Religion — His typical system — F.ists — True 
 object of fasting .... 27G 
 
 Marcus — His life — Character of his doctrines — 
 The idea of a Koyi^ tcu cvtoc refined by him to 
 the utmost point .... 276 
 
 Bardesanes — Life— Character of his Gnosticism — 
 
 He attacks the doctrine of an 
 
 '.«•'«,' 
 
 nt\ — His 
 
 doctrine of moral freedom — He seeks traces of 
 truth in all nations .... 279 
 
 2. Gnostic sects, which denied the connec- 
 tion between the Old and the New Testa- 
 ment, and between the visible and invisible 
 worlds .... 2S0— 290 
 «) Ophites. 
 
 Distinction I>etween them ami the Valentinian 
 Gnosis — Their Demiurgos — Jaldabiu)th — ic/s- 
 ju'.^^'.t — Their anthropology — Meaning of the 
 Serpent — Their view of the fall — Christology 
 — Ophitish Pantheism — Its practical influence 
 — Investigation of their relation to the older 
 Oriental systems of religion . . 260 
 
 b) Pseudo-Basilidians. 
 Character of their sect — Views on Cluist's surter- 
 ings and death — on martyrdom . 283 
 
 c) Sethites and Cainites. 
 Anthro()ology of the Sethites — Shameful Anti* 
 nomianisiu of the Cainites . ■ 284 
 
 d) Saturninus. 
 His Anthropology and Christology . 284 
 
 c) Tatian and the Encralites. 
 
 His life— His conversion to Gnosticism— Fanciful 
 
 ascetic dis[)osition — Traces of n use of AfK>. 
 
 cryphal (Jospcis — EyK^xriTH — Julius Caiwianup 
 
 — -Severiani . . . . • 285 
 
 I /) Eclectic, Antinoraian Gnostics. 
 
 theory of Redemiition— Relation of the Archon , Carpocrates— His religious system^ woiked out by 
 to Christ — His views on the sufferings of J&sus - • • — 
 
 —Doctrine of Justification . . 257 1 
 
 his son Epijthanes— Doctrine of supreme Unity 
 — Pantheistic Mysticism — Anlinomianism — 
 '2*2 
 
462 
 
 ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 Corruption of St. Paul's doctrines — Carpocra- , 
 tians at Same — Inscriptions relating to this 
 sect 287 
 
 Antitacti— ProJicians . . . . 289 
 
 Kicolaitans — Name of this sect — Error of their 
 founder — Nicolaus— Simonians — Their Cory- 
 pliffius — Simon Magus . . . 2U0 
 ^•) Marcion and his School. 
 
 His relation to Gnosticism — His predominantly 
 practical disposition — His sources for the know- 
 ledge of genuine Christianity — Literal interpre- 
 tation of Scripture — His contrast between ^/j-t/c 
 and ^v*a-/c— History of his religious education 
 and development — Seeds of the doctrine of the 
 Demiurgos — Opposition to the Old Testament 
 — His abode in Rome — Acquaintance with 
 Cerdo — His later history — Accounts of his 
 end — Representation of his principles — Oppo- 
 sition between holiness and justice . 29 1 
 
 Doctrine of the Demiurgos and man — Christology 
 — Doctrine of Redemjition — His Patripassian- 
 ism and Docetism — His view of the "de- 
 scensus ad inferos" — Twofold Messianic king- 
 dom 295 
 
 Marcion's ethics and his asceticism — His views 
 on the Canon of Scripture . . 298 
 
 Marcionite Sects. 
 
 Marcus — Lucanus — Appelles — Tertullian on the 
 character and system of the last— His conver- 
 sion to the faith .... 299 
 Additional Remarks. 
 On the Cultus of the Gnostics. 
 
 Marcosians — Caians — Baptismal formula of the 
 first — Use of extreme unction in the case of 
 the dead — Marcion against the " Missa fide- 
 lium" — His endeavour after a primitive Chris- 
 tian of cultus — No vicarious baptism in Mar- 
 cion's system ..... 300 
 
 II. Manes and theManichees 302 — 317 
 
 Character of Manicheeism — History of its founder 
 — Western and eastern sources — Acts of Ar- 
 chelaus of Cascar — Representation of his doc- 
 trines by Scythianus and Buddas — Oriental 
 sources — Education and development of Manes 
 — Amalgamation of Parsism and Christianity 
 in him — He gives himself out for the Paraclete 
 — Relations of this public appearance — His 
 fate .302 
 
 Doctrines — His Dualism and Pantheism — Doc- 
 trine of the Kingdom of Life, of the Mother of 
 Life, of the first Man, of the living Spirit, and 
 of the Soul of the World — The struggles of 
 Ormuzd and Ahriman in the process of purifi- 
 cation of the physical and moral world — Trans- 
 ference of Mithras to the Christ of Manes — 
 Mystical natural Philosophy — Christ crucified 
 in nature — Origin, formation, and nature of 
 man — Dominion of the soul over the Ckh — 
 Allegorical meaning of Genes. U., III. — Des- 
 tiny of man — Original corruption — Infant bap- 
 tism — Appearance of Christ, the Sun-Spirit — 
 Christ crucified, a mere symbol — Last fate of 
 evil — Sources of religious knowledge — Mode 
 of treating and criticizing Holy Scripture — 
 Faustus the Maiiichee . . . 306 
 
 Composition of their religious assemblies — Ex- 
 oteric and esoteric doctrines — Electi, Auditores 
 — Orders — Use of the Sacraments — Their sign 
 
 of recognition — Festivals — Festival of the mar- 
 tyrdom of Manes — Their moral character — 
 Persecutions against them — Edict of Diocle- 
 tian against this sect . . . 315 
 
 Author's Preface to the Third Part 
 SECTION V. 
 
 319 
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE FORMATION AND DE- 
 VELOPMENT OF CHRISTIANITY AS A SYS- 
 TEM OF DOCTRINES IN THE CATHOLIC 
 CHURCH, WHICH FORMED ITSELF IN OP- 
 POSITION TO THE SECTS . 323 453 
 
 I. The genetic development of Church The- 
 ology in general, and the characteristic of 
 the individual religious and dogmatical 
 dispositions which have peculiarly influ- 
 enced it 323—357 
 
 Relation of Christian life to the development of 
 doctrine — Opposition to Judaism and Heathen- 
 ism, especially against Gnosticism. Infiuence 
 of the latter on the development of Doctrine, 
 especially upon the settlement of Hermeneutic 
 Principles. Possible mode of engrafting it 
 upon what there is of truth in Gnosis 323 
 
 Direction and tendency of the Church Theology 
 derived from these considerations — Realistic — 
 Idealistic dispositions . . . 324 
 
 Realistic Disposition. 
 
 Predominant in the development of Church The- 
 olog)' — in Asia Minor — Poly carp of Smyrna, 
 Papias of Hierapolis, Melito of Sardis, Irenseus 
 of Lyons — also in the Western (Romish) 
 Church 324 
 
 Practical Christian disposition of Irenaeus — His 
 controversy with Gnosticism . . 335 
 
 Erroneous turn taken by this Realism, as shown 
 in Montanus 326 
 
 Montanus — Nothing new brought forward by him 
 — His doctrines farther moulded by TertuUian 
 — Character of Montanism . . 326 
 
 Events of the life of Montanus — His peculiarity 
 — Uncertainty as to the time of his coming 
 forward — His appearance explained — His prac- 
 tical errors — Montanislic prophetesses — Pris- 
 cilla, Maximilla .... 327 
 
 Spirit of Montanism — Gradual development of 
 the Church through the Paraclete — The ex- 
 tension and completion of the first Revelation 
 — especially in reference to life and moral doc- 
 trines, and in regard to the defence of the doc- 
 trines which are attacked . . . 329 
 
 Opposition of Montanism to Church views, which 
 clung only to Outward things. Tertullian on 
 the Church of the Spirit, and the Church of 
 the Bishops — Idea of the spiritual priesthood 
 of all Christians — But a confusion, never- 
 theless, between the old and the new Theo- 
 cracy 330 
 
 Prophets of the Montanists — Idea of ecstasy car- 
 ried to the extreme — Controversies concerning 
 inspiration — The opposite extreme (Origen) — 
 Their doctrine concerning the last outpouring 
 of the Holy Spirit about to precede the return 
 j of Christ . . . . • 331 
 
 j Moral doctrine — Their aberration from its true 
 meaning — New commandments — Their asce- 
 I ticism — Fasts commanded — Opposition of evan- 
 
ANALYTICAL TABLE OP CONTENTS. 
 
 4G3 
 
 gelic freedom to these fasts — Their views on , 
 martyrJoni — On marriage — Their principles in 
 regard to penance (Tertullian) . . 33C 
 
 Zeal, in Tertullian, against an exaggerated re- 
 verence for martyrdom — Millenarian doc- 
 trines 331 
 
 Outward history of Montsinism — Circumstances 
 favourable to its advance — Its opponents — | 
 Synods respecting Montanism — Concord esta- j 
 Mished by means of Irena;us — His mission to 
 Eleutheros — Later opponents ; Praxeas — Mon- l 
 tanists as Church-party in separation [i. e. a 
 schismatical party] — (Cataplirygians, Pepu- 
 zians) 334 I 
 
 Violent opponents of Montanism, arising from a I 
 cold intellectual disposition — Alogi . 336, 
 
 Idealistic disposition in the Alexandrian 
 Church 
 
 Alexandrian Catechetical schools — Their oiiginal 
 intention (Eusebius, Jerome) — Activity of in- 
 dividual catechists — Originally only one Cate- 
 chist — Origen divides his office with a second 
 — Requisites for this office — Clement on this 
 point — Their activity furthered by tlie founda- 
 tion of a learned normal school for teachers of 
 
 the Church 337 
 
 Relation of the catechetical schools to different 
 mental dispositions (to the Greeks, to the 
 Gnostics, and to the Realists) — Their Tvceri; 
 
 AxxBm -338 
 
 Relation to the Gnostics— Difference from them 
 in their theory of ttio-ti; and ■yvaxri; — Clement 
 on Pistis— Origen .... 338 
 Peculiar Christian feature in their Gnosis — Its 
 subjective nature and objective sources of 
 knowledge (Clement)— Biblical character of 
 their Gnosis — Reproaches against them for re- 
 quiring intellectual attainments and culture — 
 Clement defends them for requiring these — 
 Mutual relations of Christianity and philosophy 
 — Clement alternately mild, and severe against 
 the adversaries of the Alexandrian Gnosis — 
 He defends philosophical study — One-sided 
 view of the Ante-Christian condition and edu- 
 cation of man on the part of his opponent 
 (Tertullian)— Clement on the march of the 
 development of the Grecian philosophy, consi- 
 dered in the light of an education ibr human 
 nature — On the relation of iiKiwinw to philo- 
 sophy, and its weak points — Philosophy consi- 
 dered as a point of transition to Christianity 339 
 
 The Alexandrians began to consider Christianity 
 as the reconciliation of the oppositions caused 
 by human one-sidedncss — Their freedom of 
 spirit 345 
 
 Intermixture of Platonism and Christianity in 
 reference to mim; and yvurK- Trtrrit a subor- 
 dinate condition .... 346 
 
 Point of connection of the Alexandrian yvc»9■^lKi( 
 with the Gnostic Tmu/uoLTMo;, of the 7r/(rT/«5c 
 with the 4t/;t(xic . • • • 346 
 
 Difference of the two— existing certainly but not 
 of great importance— Its causes— Their predo- 
 minantly speculative disposition, and the opp<v 
 sition to other modes of conceiving twt/; 347 
 
 Consequences of this separation of ytiurK from 
 TTij-Ti; — Theosophy . . . . ' 347 
 
 Farther advance of the ideas of Clement by Origen 
 — His view on the nature of faith and its de- 
 grees—Opposition to faith in sight (jyyi»fK)— 
 
 False explanation of St. Paul's cxpresnions— 
 On the twofold position of a spiritual and a 
 carnal Christian — On spiritual Judaism ami 
 carnal Christianity— On the deeper sense of 
 Holy Scripture .... 34S 
 
 Connection of this theory with the diiferent 
 forms of revelation of iho Logo* — Disiinrtioa 
 of the predicates of the Logos in reference tt> 
 his nature, and what he is, as received in refe- 
 rence to redemjition — Origen on the subordinate 
 position — and condescension to it— Disapproval 
 of a contemptuous pride . . . 352 
 
 Theory of diflerent exegetical positions connected 
 with the former theory — Twofold (>o:-ition — 
 The predominantly speculative spirit leads to ati 
 intermixture of Christian ))hiIosophy and the 
 doctrines of the Christian faith . . 3.53 
 
 Subject-matter [lit. contents] of Gnosis — as re- 
 ceived by Origen—Third (and more exhorta- 
 tory) sense of Scripture— for those who haJ 
 not attained to Gnosis — Supposition of myths 
 in Scripture— Application of this principle to 
 the New Testament . . . 3.').'> 
 
 Explanation of the views of Origen — Truth and 
 error mixed together in them— But still what is 
 historical not destroyed — Necessary opjwsition 
 to these views in Realism , . 356 
 
 II. The Development of the great doc- 
 trines of Christianity considered sepa- 
 rately .... 357— 1U7 
 Theology. 
 Poctrine concerning God — (Jod-consciousness re- 
 vived in Christianity — Uilferent forms of its 
 development — Controversy of the Church doc- 
 trine with the superstitious and idolators — .Ap- 
 peal to the original God-consciousness — Cle- 
 ment on the demonstration of the existence of 
 God — Origen — 'J'heophilus of Antioch on the 
 revelation of God in the creation — Tertullian 
 — Who appeals to the testimony of the soul, 
 especially against Marcion . • 357 
 Nature of God — Realistic conception of it — Ter- 
 tullian — Confusion between corporeality and 
 existence — Spiritualization of the Idea-of-God 
 by means of a practical disposition — Irenffus, 
 Novatian. Distinction between Anthropo- 
 morphism and Anlhropopathism — Truth in tho 
 I latter — Opposition between a sensuous human- 
 1 izing of God in religious Realism ; and a de- 
 I humanizing of him in Idealism — Peculiar 
 nature of Marcian's Anthropopathism — Ter- 
 j tullian against him — Endeavours of the .Alex- 
 andrians to spiritualize Anthropopathism — 
 Origen— Middle way of the .Mexandrians l)e- 
 tween the Gnostics and the rest of the Church- 
 
 I teachers 360 
 
 Doctrine concerning creation — Cre.Uion out of 
 I nothing — In opposition to the reliijions of na- 
 ture [deification of nature] — Maintenance of 
 I the Incomprehensible as such against s[>ecula- 
 I tion and poetry [imaginative views] — Cluis- 
 1 tianity purifies religious faith — .Misconcejjtion 
 i of this doctrine by the (inosticjj . 363 
 
 I Doctrine of Hennogenes — DilTercnrc and coin- 
 i cidence of bis turn of mind with ihnt of the 
 Gnostic-s — His controversy against the emana- 
 I tion-<lo<triric of the Gnostics — Tertullian ron- 
 I cerning him — His doctrine of evil — L)educo«l 
 j from natural necessity — Eternity of two princi- 
 ples — God tho forming principle — His incon- 
 
464 
 
 ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 sistency in the notion of a progressive forma- 
 tion of matter — Theotloret concerning him — 
 Irenseus and Tertullian against these disposi- 
 tions 365 
 
 Peculiar system of Origen — Engraftment on the 
 Church-doctrine, and union of speculation with 
 it — Impossibility of a transition from not- 
 creating to creating— Origen, an opponent of 
 the Gnostic emanation-system — Supposes a 
 spiritual beaming forth of God — Eternal Be- 
 coming — His opponent Methodius — Weakness 
 of his objections .... 366 
 
 Origen's doctrine of the omnipotence of God — 
 Platonizing view of it — Importance of this 
 doctrine in his system . . , 367 
 
 Doctrine of the Trinity — Peculiarity of Chris- 
 tianity in the recognition and worship of God 
 as Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctilier — Import 
 of this doctrine — Different modes of conceiving 
 the Triune God — Mischief arising from the 
 mixture of speculative and dialectic notions 
 with the practical element . . 368 
 
 Idea of the Logos — Engrafting on the previous 
 ideas derived from Wt. Paul and St. John — 
 Union of the doctrine of the divinity of Christ 
 with existing speculative ideas — Two different 
 dispositions, already existing among the Jews— 
 The Church-doctrine engrafts itself on the one, 
 while the other comes forward to oppose the 
 Church-doctrine, and thus furthers its develop- 
 ment 369 
 
 The opponents of the Church-doctrine endeavour 
 to maintain firmly the Unity of God (//ovitp;^^/^) 
 — Dilference in the application of this tfieory 
 to Christ — Two classes of Monarchians de- 
 rived from this source — The first proceeding 
 from a dialectic and critical turn of mind, the 
 second from a practical and Christian 370 
 
 The second class of Monarchians more sharply 
 opposed to the first, than to the Church-doc- 
 trine—from a peculiarly Christian leaning-- 
 Patripassians— Origen concerning them 371 
 
 Praxeas, a Patripassian — His life — His doctrine 
 of the Logos — Two views concerning it pos- 
 sible, according to Tertullian . . 371 
 
 Doctrines of Noetus — Theodoret and Hippolytus 
 concerning him .... 372 
 
 First class of Patripassians-'First traces of them 
 —Their founder Theodotus— Artemon— Arte- 
 monites— Christology of the two parties— Ex- 
 planation of the Artemonite disposition 372 
 
 Alogi— Whether they belong to this class— First 
 trace of them in Irenseus— I'races in Epiphanius 
 —Inquiries into the nature of this party— Con- 
 nection between the Alogi and the Theodolians 
 according to Epiphanius— Their opposition to 
 the Gospel of St. John, and the Old Testa- 
 ment 374 
 
 Paul of Samosata— Ambiguity of his character- 
 Accusations against him — Zenobia, Queen of 
 Palmyra, favours him — He uses this connection 
 for worldly objects— He favours the acclama- 
 tions of the people in the Church — Changes 
 the Church-hynyis, apparently from dogmatical 
 grounds— His doctrine of the Logos— Reference 
 which he gave to tlic name of the "Son of 
 God" — He was in the habit of concealing his 
 theological views— Fate of Paul . 376 
 
 Last class of Monarchians (a third class, which 
 stood between the two already mentioned) — 
 Bcryllus of Bostra— Eusebius concerning him 
 
 — Agreement between Origen and Eusebius — 
 Origen persuades Beryllus— Spirit of modera- 
 tion in the Alexandrian School . . 378 
 
 Sabellius engrafts his doctrines on those of Be- 
 ryllus— Sources of his doctrine according to 
 Epiphanius— His Monas and Trias— His doc- 
 trine of the Logos — The spiritual personality 
 of the Logos considered as an hypostatized 
 emanation— Denial of an eternally enduring 
 personality— Final return to the Monas 379 
 
 Church-doctrine of the Trinity, in opposition to 
 the Monarchians — Opposed views of the West- 
 ern and Eastern Churches— The Alexandrians 
 — Origen — His doctrines taken collectively — 
 His views opposed both to Gnostics and Mo- 
 narchians — Opposed to the transference of the 
 idea of time to the Logos — To sensuous repre- 
 sentations and expressions in regard to genera- 
 tion — Opposed to o/j.zwT-t'iv, in favour of the 
 absolute pre-eminence of the Father — Prac- 
 tical consequence of this doctrine in regard to 
 prayer ...... 381 
 
 Comparison of Tertullian with Origen — Con- 
 demnation of the o/jLoma-m by the Council of 
 Antioch 385 
 
 Seed of a controversy between the Origenistic 
 system and that of the Romish Church — Letter 
 of Dionysius of Rome against 'o/ji.o'.v7i',v — His 
 moderation 386 
 
 Doctrine concerning the Holy Ghost — Imperfect 
 ideas on the nature of Spirit — The idea of a 
 personal substantial Being is firmly maintained 
 — Justin Martyr — Origen . . 386 
 
 Anthropology. 
 
 Doctrine concerning human nature — Its peculiar 
 importance in reference to the doctrine of Re- 
 demption — Pneumatology — Connection with 
 Anthropology — Neglect of what is of import- 
 ance in a Christian and practical point of view 
 among the Gnostics — Church-doctrine in oppo- 
 sitidn to them — In reference to evil . 387 
 
 Contrast between the North African and the 
 Alexandrian teachers. 
 
 North African Church — Tertullian's doctrine — 
 His peculiar theory of the propagation of the 
 first corruption — Tertullian on sinfulness — Op- 
 position against the division of the soul into 
 (xKoyov and Kzytucv — Against the Gnostic doctrine 
 of different elementary principles in human 
 nature — Tertullian on grace and free will — No 
 irresistible grace .... 388 
 
 Alexandrian Church — Clement against the North 
 African doctrine — His Anthropology — Peculiar 
 system of Origen — He endeavours to derive all 
 differences from moral freedom — Vacillating 
 views of Origen hereon, in respect to the origin 
 of evil 388 
 
 Origen against Traducianisni and Crelianisni — 
 He teaches the pre-existence of souls — Allego- 
 rical explanation of the narrative concerning 
 Paradise — The doctrine put forth in the book 
 "■*?' 'g;t'*"' respecting the degradation of fallen 
 souls in the bodies of animals afterwards given 
 up — Theory of a process of purification in op- 
 position to the notion of a cycle in the wander- 
 ings of the soul — Three principles, according 
 to Origen, in the fallen nature of man — Their 
 characteristics 392 
 
AXALYTTCAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 A(\i 
 
 Christoloc;y. 1 
 
 Doctrine about the Reilccmor — Dcvclopinont of 
 this doctrine — Realistic-Christian disposition ! 
 called forth by opposition to Gnostic systems — 
 Especially by opposition to Uocetism — Iprnatius 
 of Antioch — Tcrtullian — Doctrine of Clement, | 
 corrupted by Neo-Platonism (the u.T«5ai of the 
 Redeemer) — Doctrine of Iren.TUS — Justin Mar- 1 
 tyr — In his system the Logos takes the place of 
 a soul— TertuUian on the proper human soul 
 of tlie Redeemer • . . . 393 ■ 
 
 Influence of OriG;en on the Church system of doc- 
 trine — His ctVorts for a systematic foundation 
 of this doctrine — DifTcrence between the T'.TJu^t 
 and the -I'^X" '" ^'hrist — The Redeemer's soul 
 an instrument for the communication of life — 
 His doctrine of the nature of the body of Christ 
 — His influence on the formation of the Church- 
 doctrine — The Oris^enistic view bronccht for- 
 ward aijainst Ber\'llus of Bostra — Objections ! 
 to the doctrine of Origen . . . 395 
 
 Doctrine concerning Redemption — Character of 
 the doctrine at this period — IS'egative and posi- 
 tive side of the doctrine — Both these points ■ 
 used against Docetism — In the doctrine of , 
 Irenreus the latter pcint, in that of Justin Mar- 
 tyr the former predominant — peculiar theory 
 of redemption in Origcn — His view of the 
 magical operation of the sacrifice of a guiltless 
 one ...... 397 
 
 Doctrine concerning faith — Connection between 
 redemption and sanctification — irSubjective ap- 
 propriation of redemption — Individual wit- 
 nesses of the original Christian conviction 
 and consciousness [Bcwusstsein] — Clement of 
 Rome — Irenaius on law and faith — The Paul- 
 ine notion of faith obscured — Judaizing view 
 of it — False notion among the (Jnostics — Mar- 
 rion — Fundamental idea of the Church-doc- 
 trine — Disturbed by interchange of outward 
 and inward things .... 399 
 
 Doctrine concerning tlie Church. 
 
 Doctrine concerning the sacraments — Obscurity 
 concerning the relation of the divine thing to the 
 outward token — a) Baptism— Irenajus — Tertul- 
 lian — Confusion between outward and inward — 
 Its practical prejudicial consequences — Satisfac- 
 tion for sins committed after baptism, by means 
 of penances and good works — Cyprian~6) Sup- 
 per of the Lord — Doctrine of Ignatius of An- 
 tioch — Justin — Irenaus — TertuUian — Belief in 
 the North African Church, in a supernatural 
 sanctifying power of the token — Doctrine of 
 the Alexanilrians — View of Origen — His doc- 
 trine of the symbol in the Sacrament 400 
 
 Eschatology. 
 
 Doctrine concerning the last things— (.'hiliasm— 
 Conception of the idea of a millennial kingdom 
 —Sensuous Chiliasni of Papias of Hierapolis 
 —This is puritied and spiritualized in the case 
 of Ircna^us— It never belonged to the general 
 doctrines of the (Jhurch . . . 404 
 
 Antichiliastic disposition— Opposition to Montun- 
 isni— 'i'he presbyter Cuius against Produs— 
 Influence of the learned views of the Alexan- 
 drians on the spirilualization of the ideas of 
 the kingdom of (Jod and Christ— Sensuous 
 Chiliasm in Egypt— Defended by Nepos of 
 
 59 
 
 iNomos, and advanced by Korakion — Motlera- 
 tion of Dioiiysius of Alexandria in CDnlrovort- 
 ing this error — His work ti^/ »Ta)}i>j»i— Judg- 
 ment concerning Xe|Xis . . . -IO.t 
 
 Doctrine concerning the Resurrection — Views of 
 the Gnostics — A carnal conception oppt>si\l to 
 this view — Interchange [Verweehselung ! Re- 
 conciliation] of the o|>posite extremes in Ori- 
 gen ...... 40»! 
 
 Doctrine of the restoration of all things — Theorv 
 of Origen loV 
 
 III. History of the most relebratod ^'luirch- 
 teachers .... 4(l7 — ^1.'>;j 
 Apostolical Fathers — DilTerence l>etween their 
 writings and those of the Apostles — \\'ritings 
 of these Fathers, in an unsatisfactory condi- 
 tion 407 
 
 Barnabas — The Catholic Epistle not written i>y 
 him — Alexandrian spirit in that letter — Fanciful 
 remarks in it alternately with pompous ones — 
 Tendency of the epistle . . . 407 
 Clement of Rome — His letter to the Corinthian 
 Church — Fragment of a second — Two letters 
 under his name in tlic Syrian Church (edited 
 by Wetstein) — Doubts as to their genuineness 
 — The Clementine — Apostolical Constitutions 
 counterfeited under bis name . . 408 
 
 Hermas — Pastor Henna? — Doubts as to its genu- 
 ineness ...... 109 
 
 Ignatius of Antioch — Seven epistles to the 
 
 Churches of Asia Minor, and to Polycarp 410 
 
 Polycarp of Smyrna — Epistle to the Phili(>- 
 
 pians . . . . . . 410 
 
 Apologists — Occasion of the defence of the Chris. 
 
 tians — Quadratus — His Apology lost — Euse- 
 
 bius concerning him . . . 41(1 
 
 Aristides . . . . . . 4 H 
 
 Justin Martyr — Accounts of his life and etluc;> 
 tion — His religious development — His activity 
 as a preacher of the Gos|h'1 — His ApolojA- to 
 the emperor — Occasion of the first ApoloL'v — 
 Time at which it was written — Whether writ- 
 ten in the time of Marcus Aurelius — It comes 
 into the time of Antoninus Pius — Peculiar 
 ideas of these .Apologies on Revelation and tho 
 >.-/^«c ff^me unTix.-.c — But nothing of this kind 
 ' occurs in his other writings — His " Kvhortation 
 to the Greeks" — Explanation of this diflerencc 
 I — xc)^f Tgsc 'Kxxie/stf — Treatise rt^i u:>iif)(its — 
 1 Dialogus cum Tryphone JudaH>— lu uuthen- 
 j ticity and relation to the other writings of 
 Justin — Agreement of the A polonies and this 
 ; Dialogue — Especially in tho do<-trine of tli.- 
 Logos and the nvst/,t/< <<)*-.v — Occasion and 
 cause of the composition of Ibis Dialogue — 
 — Lost work of Justin — Letter on the rhar.ic- 
 j teristics of Christian worship, not genuine — 
 I His martynlom • • • . 411 
 
 Tatian, a disciple of Justin — His religious deve- 
 loijrnent— His study of the Old 'I'estatnent— 
 ! Preparatory to tR4ieving — His ad«lress to llie 
 
 heathen " >^ 
 
 Athenagoras — Apology to the emperor — Personal 
 ; accounts of him — TriMtisc in defence of the 
 resurrection . . • • • 4 IS 
 
 Hermias — His ii-xn^w.t tot i;» o/>.-.r;*a> — -^ vio- 
 lent encniy of the Greek philosophy . 4 l'» 
 Theophilus of Antioch— A |)ologeliciil work by 
 him addressed to .\utolvcus — His commentary 
 on the Bible . . ' • • • '«''-* 
 
ANALYTICAL TABLE OP CONTENTS. 
 
 466 
 
 Peculiar character of the Church-teachers 
 of Asia Minor. 
 
 Formation of the Anti-Gnostic — Practical — Real- 
 istic spirit— Hegesippus — His Church history 
 — Hardly an opponent of Paul — Active author- 
 ship of these teachers — (Melito of Sardis) — 
 Their object — Claudius Apollinaris . 419 
 
 Irenajus, bishop of Lyons and Vienne— His epis- 
 tles to riorinus— Irenaeus no Montanist — His 
 chief work against the Gnostics — His other 
 writings — Exegesis and Hermeneutics formed 
 in opposition to the Gnostics— Epistles of Ire- 
 najus to Blastus and Florinus . . 421 
 
 Hippolytus, a disciple of Irenajus— His residence 
 — His writings — List of the latter — His woiks j 
 on the Gospel of St. John and the Apocalypse i 
 — Against thirty-two heresies — About Anti- i 
 christ, and his 7r^-^r^irrTw.v rrgoc ^Xi/i-eitv^y 423 
 
 Peculiar character of the Church-teachers 
 of North Africa. 
 
 TertuUian — His characteristics — Personal History 
 — His conversion to Montanism— Wiiethcr he 
 remained a Montanist — Tertullianists 424 
 
 Cyprian — Influence of TertuUian on him — His 
 " Libri Testimoniorum"— Intention and aim of 
 this collection 427 
 
 [Commodianus — His " Instructiones" — Written 
 not long after Cyprian's time — His strict notions 
 — Speaks against pride in martyrdom as an 
 " opusoperatum"] .... 427 
 
 Arnoljius — Account of his conversion — His apo- 
 logetic work— Occasion of his conversion — 
 Time of the composition of his work " Adversus 
 Gentes" 427 
 
 Romish Church. 
 
 Its original poverty in Theological respects — 
 Caius — Novatianus — His writings — Treatise 
 concerning the Jewish laws about food — Minu- 
 cius Felix— his Apologetic Dialogue . 429 
 
 Peculiar character of the Alexandrian 
 Church-teachers. 
 
 Pantfflnus —Clement of Alexandria, his successor 
 in the ofhce of (^atechist — His writings— Of an 
 apologetic, ethical, and dogmatical character — 
 His Hypotyposes — The rest of his writings 430 
 
 Origen — His biography — Influence of his father 
 Leonidas on the formation of his religious cha- 
 racter — Influence of Clenxent on his theological 
 development — Origen amidst persecution— ^His 
 place of refuge — His controversy with Gnos- 
 ticism — His firmness during the persecutions — 
 His asceticism — Misunderstanding of this 432 
 
 Theological formation of Origen — His emjiloy- 
 ment on the Platonic philosophy — -Justification 
 of this study — Ammonius Saccas, his teacher 
 — Change in the theological turn of his mind — 
 His free spirit of investigation, and his mild- 
 nes.s, particularly in refetcrfce to the Gnostics 
 
 in Alexandria — (Ambrosius) — His services in 
 the cause of exegesis and criticism — He divides 
 his office of Catechist with Heraclas . 435 
 His activity as a theological teacher — Character 
 of his lectures on the explanation of Scripture 
 — Active participation of Ambrosius in his 
 labours — His expressions with regard to the 
 object of his Libours — His commentary — His 
 work vi^i i'^X'^v — His endeavours for the party 
 of the Church zealots — His relations with De- 
 metrius of Alexandria — Jealousy of the latter 
 towards him — Origen ordained a presbyter at 
 Cffisarea — Persecution of Origen by the bishop 
 — First and second synods against him — Ex- 
 communication of Origen in the last of these 
 — Causes of these persecutions — One cause of 
 them the dogmatical views of Origen [dog- 
 matik] — His expressions with regard to those 
 who charged him with heresy — His writings ad- 
 dressed to the synod in his own defence 437 
 His activity in Palestine — Exhortation to the 
 confessors — His change of residence — Correc- 
 tion of the Alexandrian version — Hexapla — 
 His conduct in this matter defended by himself 
 — His interchange of letters with Julius Afri- 
 canus, and his prejudices in regard to the tradi- 
 tions of the Church — The rest of his writings 
 — His influence on the controversies relative to 
 the doctrine — His steadfast confession during 
 the Decian persecution — His death . 440 
 Continuation of the Origenistic School — Disciples 
 of Origen — Heraclas — Dionysius of Alexan- 
 dria — His letter to the Bishop Basilides in 
 Egypt — Pierius and Theognostus, teachers of 
 the Alexandrian Church — An Origenistic and 
 an Anti-Origenistic party in Egypt . 445 
 Hieracas, the ascetic — His allegojizing exegesis 
 and ascetic bias — His disapproval of marriage 
 — Participation in the kingdom of heaven, a 
 consequence of severity and strictness of moral 
 observances — His views on the middle state of 
 Children [in the world to come] and on the 
 Trinity ...... 446 
 
 Gregory Thaumaturgus — His parentage and edu-. 
 cation — His acquaintance with Origen leads 
 him to Christianity — His language concerning 
 the Exegesis of Origen — His departure from 
 his master — Origen — Epistle of the latter to 
 Gregory — His activity in Neo-C£esarea— His 
 writings ...... 449 
 
 Methodius, bishop of Olympus — An opponent of 
 the Origenistic school — but an illogical one — 
 His writings ..... 452 
 
 Pamphilus, presbyter at Caisarea in Palestine — 
 Defends Origen. He is the founder of a theo- 
 logical school, especially for exegesis — His work 
 in defence of Origen, written in conjunction 
 with his scholar Eusebius . . 452 
 
 Theological school at Antioch — Of great import- 
 ance in an cxegetical jjoint of view — Dorotheus 
 and Lucian . . . . . 4.03 
 
 I General conclusion in regard to this period 453 
 


 Date Due 
 
 
 CC193 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 f)