H. ITCH. IV.]

RIGOROUS DOCTRINES.

13

In a few years after the return of the church of Jerulem, it became a natter of doubt and controversy, whether man who sincerely acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah, but who still continued to observe the law of Moses, could possibly hope for salvation. The humane temper of Justin Martyr inclined him to answer this question in the affirmative; and though he expressed himself with the most guarded diffidence, he ventured to determine in favour of such an imperfect Christian, if he were content to practise the Mosaic ceremonies, without pretending to assert their general use or necessity. But when Justin was pressed to declare the sentiment of the church, he confessed that there were very many among the orthodox Christians, who not only excluded their Judaizing brethren from the hope of salvation, but who declined any intercourse with them in the common offices of friendship, hospitality, and social life. The more rigorous opinion prevailed, as it was natural to expect, over the milder; and an eternal bar of separation was fixed between the disciples of Moses and those

the first Christians were the same as theirs. Artemon, among others, are great weight to this argument. Döderlein, and many modern theologians, have taken pains to show that this was a charge falsely alleged against the Ebionites. Comment. de Ebion., 1770, § 1-8. GUIZOT.] [The passages in scripture quoted above contain no proofs of the early Christians in Jerusalem having been called Ebionites, nor do they indicate such poverty as would have warranted the appellation. -ED.] * See the very curious dialogue of Justin Martyr with the Jew Tryphon. The conference between them was held at Ephesus, in the reign of Antoninus Pius, and about twenty years after the return of the church at Pella to Jerusalem. For this date consult the accurate note of Tillemont, Mémoires Ecclesiastiques, tom. ii, p. 511. [Justin Martyr made an important distinction, which Gibbon has left unnoticed. The first Jew-Christians were called Ebionites, and had retired to Pella. Those who were persuaded by their bishop, Marcus, to abandon, at least partially, the Mosaic law and return to Jerusalem, took the name of Nazarenes; those who persisted in their Judaism retained that of Ebionites. These last alone are rejected by the church, and severely reprehended by Justin Martyr. He is more lenient towards the Nazarenes, who, though still observing themselves some parts of the Mosaic law, did not compel pagan converts to conform to it; while the Ebionites, properly so called, desired to enforce their compliance. This appears to have been the principal distinction between the two sects. Döderlein, p. 25.—Guizor.]*[In all this we see that there was a considerable difference between early Jew and Greek Christianity. The "Greek prelate" Marcus prevailed on some to adopt the latter, while the

14

THE EBIONITES.

[CH. X of Christ. The unfortunate Ebionites, rejected from ot religion as apostates, and from the other as heretics, four themselves compelled to assume a more decided characte and although some traces of that obsolete sect may be di covered as late as the fourth century, they insensibly melte away either into the church or the synagogue."

While the orthodox church preserved a just mediu between excessive veneration and improper contempt fe the law of Moses, the various heretics deviated into equ but opposite extremes of error and extravagance.

From the acknowledged truth of the Jewish religion, th Ebionites had concluded that it could never be abolished From its supposed imperfections the Gnostics as hastil inferred that it was never instituted by the wisdom of th Deity. There are some objections against the authority o Moses and the prophets, which too readily present them selves to the sceptical mind: though they can only be derived from our ignorance of remote antiquity, and from our incapacity to form an adequate judgment of the divine economy. These objections were eagerly embraced, and as petulantly urged, by the vain science of the Gnostics.+ As those heretics were, for the most part, averse to the plea sures of sense, they morosely arraigned the polygamy of the patriarchs, the gallantries of David, and the seraglio of Solomon. The conquest of the land of Canaan, and the extirpation of the unsuspecting natives, they were at a loss how to reconcile with the common notions of humanity and justice. But when they recollected the sanguinary list of others, who continued recusant, were disowned by the two religions between which they stood, and gradually disappeared. This explains Justin Martyr's severity.-ED.] *Of all the systems of Christianity, that of Abyssinia is the only one which still adheres to the Mosaic rites (Geddes's Church History of Ethiopia, and Dissertations de La Grand, sur la Relation du P. Lobo). The eunuch of queen Candace might suggest some suspicions; but, as we are assured (Socrates, 1. 19. Sozomen, 2. 24. Ludolphus, p. 281) that the Ethiopians were not converted till the fourth century, it is more reasonable to believe that they respected the Sabbath, and distinguished the forbidden meats, in imitation of the Jews who, in a very early period, were seated on both sides of the Red Sea. Circumcision had been practised by the most ancient Ethopians, from motives of health and cleanliness, which seem to be explained in the Recherches Philosophiques sur les Américains, tom. ii, p. 117. Beausobre, Histoire du Manichéisme, 1. 1, c. 3, has stated their objections, particularly those of Faustus, the adversary of Augustin, with the most learned impartiality.

murders, of executions, and of massacres, which stain almost My page of the Jewish annals, they acknowledged that

barbarians of Palestine had exercised as much compasbe towards their idolatrous enemies, as they had ever shewn netheir friends or countrymen.* Passing from the sectaries the law to the law itself, they asserted that it was imposele that a religion which consisted only of bloody sacrips and trifling ceremonies, and whose rewards as well as Yenishments were all of a carnal and temporal nature, uld inspire the love of virtue, or restrain the impetuosity passion. The Mosaic account of the creation and fall of was treated with profane derision by the Gnostics, who ould not listen with patience to the repose of the Deity fter six days' labour, to the rib of Adam, the garden of den, the trees of life and of knowledge, the speaking serent, the forbidden fruit, and the condemnation pronounced gainst human kind for the venial offence of their first proenitors. The God of Israel was impiously represented the Gnostics, as a being liable to passion and to error, pricious in his favour, implacable in his resentment, anly jealous of his superstitious worship, and confining partial providence to a single people, and to this tranry life. In such a character they could discover none the features of the wise and omnipotent Father of the verse. They allowed that the religion of the Jews was mewhat less criminal than the idolatry of the Gentiles: at it was their fundamental doctrine, that the Christ whom ey adored as the first and brightest emanation of the eity, appeared upon earth to rescue mankind from their arious errors, and to reveal a new system of truth and perection. The most learned of the fathers, by a very singular ondescension, have imprudently admitted the sophistry of eGnostics. Acknowledging that the literal sense is pugnant to every principle of faith as well as reason, they eem themselves secure and invulnerable behind the ample Apud ipsos fides obstinata, misericordia in prompta: adversus nes alios hostile odium. Tacit. Hist. 5. 4. Surely Tacitus had seen e Jews with too favourable an eye. The perusal of Josephus must ave destroyed the antithesis. + Dr. Burnet (Archæologia, 1. 2, has discussed the first chapters of Genesis with too much wit and reedom. The milder Gnostics considered Jehovah, the Creator, being of a mixed nature between God and the demon. Others onfounded him with the evil principle. Consult the second century

16

EARLY SCHISMS.

[он.

veil of allegory, which they carefully spread over e tender part of the Mosaic dispensation.*

It has been remarked with more ingenuity than tr that the virgin purity of the church was never violate schism or heresy before the reign of Trajan or Hadı about one hundred years after the death of Christ.+ may observe with much more propriety, that, during period, the disciples of the Messiah were indulged in a f latitude, both of faith and practice, than has ever t allowed in succeeding ages. As the terms of commun were insensibly narrowed, and the spiritual authority of prevailing party was exercised with increasing sever many of its most respectable adherents, who were ca upon to renounce, were provoked to assert, their priv opinions, to pursue the consequences of their mista principles, and openly to erect the standard of rebell against the unity of the church. The Gnostics were tinguished as the most polite, the most learned, and most wealthy, of the Christian name: and that gene appellation, which expressed a superiority of knowled was either assumed by their own pride, or ironically bestow by the envy of their adversaries. They were almost with exception of the race of the Gentiles; and their princi founders seem to have been natives of Syria or Egy where the warmth of the climate disposes both the mi and the body to indolent and contemplative devotion. 1 Gnostics blended with the faith of Christ many sublime b obscure tenets, which they derived from oriental philosop and even from the religion of Zoroaster, concerning eternity of matter, the existence of two principles, and t mysterious hierarchy of the invisible world. As soon

of the general history of Mosheim, which gives a very distinct, thot concise, account of their strange opinions on this subject. Beausobre, Hist. du Manichéisme, I. 1, c. 4. Origen and St. August were among the Allegorists. Hegesippus, ap. Euseb. 1. 3.1 4. 22. Clemens Alexandrin. Stromat. 7. 17. [This is not so positive asserted by Hegesippus. As the passage stands in Eusebius (1 c. 32, p. 84) the first part is modified by the last. It is there state that up to that period, the church had remained pure and inviola! "Those who had attempted to corrupt the doctrines of the gosp had till then obscurely toiled."—GUIZOT.] In the accounti the Gnostics of the second and third centuries, Mosheim is ingenio and candid, Le Clerc dull, but exact; Beausobre almost always

hunched out into that vast abyss, they delivered them. to the guidance of a disordered imagination; and as aths of error are various and infinite, the Gnostics imperceptibly divided into more than fifty particular of whom the most celebrated appear to have been Basilidians, the Valentinians, the Marcionites, and, in a ater period, the Manichæans. Each of these sects boast of its bishops and congregations, of its doctors martyrs; and, instead of the four Gospels adopted by church, the heretics produced a multitude of histories, Thich the actions and discourses of Christ and of his tles were adapted to their respective tenets. The suc

gist; and it is much to be feared that the primitive fathers are frequently calumniators. [The Gnostics were the offspring of hy, in the early stages of the progress of Christianity. The when they arose is uncertain; nor had they any eminent per or fixed rule of faith. They appear to have originated on as the new religion became generally known; they were most educated among the heathens, and abounded principally one eastern countries, that were most pervaded by the philo al notions of the age. Till the beginning of the second centhe Christian churches did not possess their scriptures, and common standard of orthodoxy. They had only traditions of heir great teacher had proclaimed, and these every individual ed for himself to his own peculiar philosophy, be it what it and fashioned them to his own liking and degree of knowledge. freedom of thought brought within the pale of the church all had in any way learned to discredit the fables of polytheism, and xample of the higher drew the lower after them. Churches were organized, into which, when they received the Scriptures, stricter were introduced.-ED.] * See the catalogue of Irenæus and anius. It must indeed be allowed, that those writers were ed to multiply the number of sects which opposed the unity of March. + Eusebius, 1. 4, c. 15. Sozomen, 1. 2, c. 32. See in in the article of Marcion, a curious detail of a dispute on that st. It should seem that some of the Gnostics (the Basilidians) ed, and even refused the honour of martyrdom. Their reasons ingular and abstruse. See Mosheim, p. 359. + See a very kable passage of Origen (Proem. ad Lucam). That indefatigable , who had consumed his life in the study of the Scriptures, for their authenticity on the inspired authority of the church. impossible that the Gnostics could receive our present Gospels, parts of which (particularly in the resurrection of Christ) are y, and, as it might seem, designedly, pointed against their trite tenets. It is, therefore, somewhat singular that Ignatius ad Smyrn. Patr. Apost. tom. ii. p. 34) should choose to employ que and doubtful tradition, instead of quoting the certain tea ASOL. II.

C