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virtue. Thus were the messengers of Christ, the heralds of his spiritual and immortal kingdom, furnished for their glorious work, as the unanimous voice of ancient history so loudly testifies. The event sufficiently declares this; for, without these remarkable and extraordinary circumstances no rational account can be given of the rapid propagation of the Gospel throughout the world.

IX. What indeed contributed still farther to this glorious event, was the power vested in the apostles of transmitting to their disciples these miraculous gifts; for many of the first Christians were no sooner baptized according to Christ's appointment, and dedicated to the service of God by solemn prayer and the imposition of hands, than they spoke languages which they had never known or learned before, foretold future events, healed the sick by pronouncing the name of Jesus, restored the dead to life, and performed many things above the reach of human power.* And it is no wonder if men, who had the power of communicating to others these marvellous gifts, appeared great and respectable, wherever they exercised their glorious ministry.

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servants, and the spotless purity of the doctrine they taught, were not sufficient to defend them against the virulence and malignity of the Jews. The priests and rulers of that abandoned people, not only loaded with injuries and reproaches the apostles of Jesus, and their disciples, but condemned as many of them as they could to death, and executed in the most irregular and barbarous manner their sanguinary decrees. The murder of Stephen, of James the son of Zebedee, and of James, surnamed the Just, bishop of Jerusalem, furnish dreadful examples of the truth of what we here advance.* This odious malignity of the Jewish doctors, against the heralds of the Gospel, undoubtedly originated in a secret apprehension that the progress of Christianity would destroy the credit of Judaism, and lead to the abolition of their pompous ceremonies.

II. The Jews who lived out of Palestine, in the Roman provinces, did not yield to those of Jerusalem in point of cruelty to the innocent disciples of Christ. We learn from the history of the Acts of the Apostles, and other records of unquestionable authority, that they spared no labour, but zealously seized every occasion of animating the magistrates against the Christians, and instigating the multitude to demand their destruction. The high priest of the nation, and the Jews who dwelt in Palestine, were instrumental in exciting the rage of these foreign Jews against the infant church, by sending messengers to exhort them, not only to avoid all intercourse with the Christians, but also to persecute them in the most vehement manner. For this inhuman order, they endeavoured to find out the most plausible pretexts; and, therefore, they gave out, that the Christians were enemies to the Roman emperor, since they acknowledged the authority of a certain person whose name was Jesus, whom Pilate had punished capitally as

X. Such then were the true causes of that amazing rapidity with which the Christian religion spread itself upon the earth; and those who pretend to assign other reasons of this surprising event, indulge themselves in idle fictions, which must disgust every attentive observer of men and things. In vain, there fore, have some imagined, that the extraordinary liberality of the Christians to their poor, was a temptation to the more indolent and corrupt part of the multitude to embrace the Gospel. Such malignant and superficial reasoners do not consider, that those who embraced this divine religion exposed their lives to great danger; nor have théy attention enough to recollect, that neither lazy nor vicious members were suffered to remain in thea malefactor by a most righteous sentence, and society of Christians. Equally vain is the fancy of those, who imagine, that the profligate lives of the Heathen priests occasioned the conversion of many to Christianity; for, though this might indeed give them a disgust to the religion of those unworthy ministers, yet it could not, alone, attach them to that of Jesus, which offered them from the world no other prospects than those of poverty, infamy, and death. The person who could embrace the Gospel, solely from the motive now mentioned, must have reasoned in this senseless and extravagant manner: "The ministers of that religion which I have professed from my infancy, lead profligate lives: therefore, I will become a Christian, join myself to that body of men who are condemned by the laws of the state, and thus expose my life and fortune to the most imminent danger."

CHAPTER V.

Concerning the Calamitous Events that happened to the Church.

I. THE innocence and virtue that distinguished so eminently the lives of Christ's *See Pfanner's learned treatise, De Charismatibus sive Donis miraculosis antiquæ Ecclesiæ, published at Francfort, 1683.

on whom, nevertheless, they conferred the royal dignity. These perfidious insinuations had the intended effect, and the rage of the Jews against the Christians was conveyed from father to son, from age to age; so that the church of Christ had, in no period, more bitter and desperate enemies than the very people, to whom the immortal Saviour was more especially sent.

III. The Supreme Judge of the world did not suffer the barbarous conduct of this perfidious nation to go unpunished. The most signal marks of divine justice pursued them; and the cruelties which they had exercised upon Christ and his disciples, were dreadfully avenged. The God, who had for so many ages protected the Jews with an outstretched arm, withdrew his aid. He permitted Jerusalem, with its famous temple, to be destroyed by Vespasian and his son Titus, an innumerable multitude of this devoted people to perish by the * The martyrdom of Stephen is recorded in the acts of the Apostles 12; that of James the Just is mentioned vii. 55; and that of James the son of Zebeder Aets by Josephus in his dewish Antiquities, book xx. chap. viii. and by Eusebiad, in his Feclen Haary, book ii. chap. xxiii.

See the Dialogue of Justin Martyr, with Trypho

the Jew.

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sword, and the greatest part of those that re-quire, how it happened that the Romans, who mained to groan under the yoke of a severe were troublesome to no nation on account of bondage. Nothing can be more affecting than its religion, and who suffered even the Jews to the account of this terrible event, and the cir- live under their own laws, and follow their own cumstantial description of the tremendous ca- method of worship, treated the Christians alone lamities which attended it, as they are given by with such severity. This important question Josephus, himself a Jew, and also a spectator seems still more difficult to be solved, when we of this horrid scene. From this period the consider, that the excellent nature of the ChrisJews experienced, in every place, the hatred tian religion, and its admirable tendency to proand contempt of the Gentile nations, still more mote both the public welfare of the state, and than they had formerly done; and in these the private felicity of the individual, entitled their calamities, the predictions of Christ were it, in a singular manner, to the favour and proamply fulfilled, and his divine mission farther tection of the reigning powers. A principal illustrated. reason of the severity with which the Romans IV. However virulent the Jews were against persecuted the Christians, notwithstanding the Christians, yet, on many occasions, they these considerations, seems to have been the wanted power to execute their cruel purposes. abhorrence and contempt felt by the latter for This was not the case with the heathen na- the religion of the empire, which was so intitions; and, therefore, from them the Christians mately connected with the form, and indeed, suffered the severest calamities. The Romans with the very essence of its political constiare said to have pursued the Christians with tution; for, though the Romans gave an unthe utmost violence in ten persecutions;* but limited toleration to all religions which had this number is not verified by the ancient his- nothing in their tenets dangerous to the comtory of the church; for if, by these persecutions, monwealth, yet they would not permit that of such only are meant as were extremely severe their ancestors, which was established by the and universal throughout the empire, then it is laws of the state, to be turned into derision, certain, that these amount not to the number nor the people to be drawn away from their atabove mentioned; and, if we take the provin-tachment to it. These, however, were the two cial and less remarkable persecutions into the account, they far exceed it. In the fifth century, certain Christians were led by some passages of the Scriptures, and by one especially in the Revelations, to imagine that the church was to suffer ten calamities of a most grievous nature. To this notion, therefore, they endeavoured, though not all in the same way, to accommodate the language of history, even against the testimony of those ancient records, from which alone history can speak with authority.‡

V. Nero was the first emperor who enacted laws against the Christians. In this he was followed by Domitian, Marcus Antoninus the philosopher, Severus, and the other emperors who indulged the prejudices they had imbibed against the disciples of Jesus. All the edicts of these different princes were not, however, equally unjust, nor framed with the same views, or for the same reasons. Were they now extant as they were collected by the celebrated lawyer Domitius, in his book concerning the duty of a proconsul, they would undoubtedly cast a great light upon the history of the church, under the persecuting emperors. At present, we must, in many cases, be satisfied with probable conjectures, for want of certain. evidence.

VI. Before we proceed in this part of our history, a very natural curiosity calls us to in

*The learned J. Albert Fabricius has given us a list of the authors who have written concerning these persecutions, in his Lux Evangelii toti Orbi exorieus, cap. vii. † Rev. xvii. 14.

things which the Christians were charged with, and that justly, though to their honour. They dared to ridicule the absurdities of the pagan superstition, and they were ardent and assiduous in gaining proselytes to the truth. Nor did they only attack the religion of Rome, but also all the different shapes and forms under which superstition appeared in the various countries where they exercised their ministry. Hence the Romans concluded, that the Christian sect was not only insupportably daring and arrogant, but, moreover, an enemy to the public tranquillity, and ever ready to excite civil wars and commotions in the empire. It is probably on this account, that Tacitus reproaches them with the odious character of haters of mankind,* and styles the religion of Jesus a destructive superstition; and that Suetonius speaks of the Christians, and their doctrine, in terms of the same kind.†

VII. Another circumstance that irritated the Romans against the Christians, was the simplicity of their worship, which resembled in nothing the sacred rites of any other people. They had no sacrifices, temples, images, oracles, or sacerdotal orders; and this was sufficient to bring upon them the reproaches of an ignorant multitude, who imagined that there could be no religion without these. Thus they were looked upon as a sort of atheists; and, by the Roman laws, those who were chargeable with atheism were declared the pests of human society. But this was not all: the sordid in

* Annal. lib. xv. cap. xliv.

In Nerone, cap. xvi. These odious epithets, which See Sulpitius Severus, book ii. ch. xxxiii. as also Au-Tacitus gives to the Christians and their religion, as likegustin, de Civitate Dei, book xviii. ch. lii. wise the language of Suetonius, who calls Christianity a poisonous or malignant superstition (malefica superstitio,) are founded upon the same reasons. A sect, which could not endure, and even laboured to abolish, the religious practices of the Romans, and also those of all the other nations of the universe, appeared to the short-sighted and superficial observers of religious matters, as the determined enemies of mankind.

The collection of the imperial edicts against the Christians, made by Domitius, and now lost, is mentioned by Lactantius, in his Divine Institutes, book v. chap. xi. Such of these edicts as have escaped the ruins of time, are learnedly illustrated by Franc. Balduinus, in his Comment. ad Edicta veterum Principum Romanorum de Christianis

terests of a multitude of lazy and selfish priests were immediately connected with the ruin and oppression of the Christian cause. The public worship of such an immense number of deities was a source of subsistence, and even of riches, to the whole rabble of priests and augurs, and also to a multitude of merchants and artists. And, as the progress of the gospel threatened the ruin of that religious traffic, this consideration raised up new enemies to the Christians, and armed the rage of mercenary superstition against their lives and their cause.*

they prevent their punishment by apostacy; under another, we see inhuman magistrates endeavouring to compel them, by all sorts of tortures, to renounce their religious profession. X. All who, in the perilous times of the church, fell by the hand of bloody persecution, and expired in the cause of the divine Saviour, were called martyrs; a term borrowed from the sacred writings, signifying witnesses, and thus expressing the glorious testimony which these magnanimous believers bore to the truth. The title of confessor was given to such, as, in the face of death, and at the expense of honours, fortune, and all the other advantages of the world, had confessed with fortitude, before the Roman tribunals, their firm attachment to the

that was paid both to martyrs and confessors; and there was, no doubt, as much wisdom as justice in treating with profound respect these Christian heroes, since nothing was more adapted to encourage others to suffer with cheerfulness in the cause of Christ. But, as the best and wisest institutions are generally perverted, by the weakness or corruption of men, from their original purposes, so the authority and privileges granted, in the beginning, to martyrs and confessors, became in process of time, a support to superstition, an incentive to enthusiasm, and a source of innumerable evils and abuses.

VIII. To accomplish more speedily the ruin of the Christians, all those persons whose interests were incompatible with the progress of the gospel, loaded them with the most opprobrious calumnies, which were too easily re-religion of Jesus. Great was the veneration ceived as truth, by the credulous and unthinking multitude, among whom they were dispersed with the utmost industry. We find a sufficient account of these perfidious and illgrounded reproaches in the writings of the first defenders of the Christian cause. And these, indeed, were the only arms the assailants had to oppose the truth, since the excellence of the Gospel, and the virtue of its ministers and followers, left to its enemies no resources but calumny and persecution. Nothing can be imagined, in point of virulence and fury, that they did not employ for the ruin of the Christians. They even went so far as to persuade the multitude, that all the calamities, wars, tempests, XI. The first three or four ages of the church and diseases that afflicted mankind, were judg-were stained with the blood of martyrs, who ments sent down by the angry gods, because the Christians, who contemned their authority, were suffered in the empire.‡

IX. The various kinds of punishment, both capital and corrective, which were employed against the Christians, are particularly described by learned men who have written professedly on that subject.§ The forms of proceeding, used in their condemnation, may be seen in the Acts of the Martyrs, in the letters of Pliny and Trajan, and other ancient monuments. These judicial forms were very different at different times, and changed, naturally, according to the mildness or severity of the laws enacted by the different emperors against the Christians. Thus, at one time, we observe appearances of the most diligent search after the followers of Christ; at another, we find all perquisition suspended, and positive accusation and information only allowed. Under one reign we see them, on their being proved Christians, or their confessing themselves such, immediately dragged away to execution, unless

* This observation is verified by the story of Demetrius the silversmith, Acts xix. 25, and by the following passage in the 97th letter of the xth book of Pliny's epistles; "The temples, which were almost deserted, begin to be frequented again; and the sacred rites, which have been long neglected, are again performed. The victims, which have had hitherto few purchasers, begin to come again to the market," &c.

† See the laborious work of Christ. Kortholt, entitled, Paganus Obtrectator, seu de Calumniis Gentilium in Christianos; to which may be added, Jo. Jac. Huldricus, de Calumniis Gentilium in Christianos, published at Zu

rich in 1744.

+ See Arnobius contra Gentes.

*

suffered for the name of Jesus. The greatness of their number is acknowledged by all who have a competent acquaintance with ancient history, and who have examined that matter with any degree of impartiality. It is true, the learned Dodwell has endeavoured to invalidate this unanimous decision of the ancient historians, and to diminish considerably the number of those who suffered death for the gospel; and, after him, several writers have maintained his opinion, and asserted, that whatever may have been the calamities which the Christians, in general, suffered for their attachment to the Gospel, very few were put to death on that account. This hypothesis has been warmly opposed, as derogating from that divine power which enabled Christians to be faithful even unto death, and a contrary one embraced, which augments prodigiously the number of these heroic sufferers. It will be wise to avoid both these extremes, and to hold the middle path, which certainly leads nearest to the truth. The martyrs were less in number than several of the ancient modern writers

have supposed them to be, but much more numerous than Dodwell and his followers are willing to believe; and this medium will be easily admitted by such as have learned from the ancient writers, that, in the darkest and most calamitous times of the church, all Christians were not equally or promiscuously disturbed, or called before the public tribunals. Those who were of the lowest rank of the people, escaped the best; their obscurity, in some

See for this purpose Ant. Gallonius and Gasp. Sagit-measure, screened them from the fury of per

tarius, de Cruciatibus Martyrum.

§ See Bohmer, Juris Eccles. Protestant. tom. iv. lib. v. Decretal. tit. 1. sec. 32.

* See Dodwell's Dissertation, de Paucitate Martyrum in his Dissertationes Cyprianicæ.

secution. The learned and eloquent, the doctors and ministers, and chiefly the rich, for the confiscation of whose fortunes the rapacious magistrates were perpetually gaping, were the persons most exposed to the dangers of the times.

XII. The actions and sayings of these holy martyrs, from the moment of their imprisonment to their last gasp, were carefully recorded, in order to be read on certain days, and thus proposed as models to future ages. Few, however, of these ancient acts have reached our times the greatest part of them having|| been destroyed during that dreadful persecution which Diocletian carried on ten years with such fury against the Christians: for a most diligent search was then made after all their books and papers; and all of them that were found were committed to the flames. From the eighth century downwards, several Greek and Latin writers endeavoured to make up this loss, by compiling, with vast labour, accounts of the lives and actions of the ancient martyrs. But most of them have given us scarcely any thing more than a series of fables, adorned with a profusion of rhetorical flowers and striking images, as the wiser, even among the Romish doctors, frankly acknowledge. Nor are those records, which pass under the name of martyrology, worthy of superior credit, since they bear the most evident marks both of ignorance and falsehood; so that, upon the whole, this part of ecclesiastical history, for want of ancient and authentic monuments, is extremely imperfect, and necessarily attended with much obscurity.

cilable with chronology.* The death of Nero, who perished miserably in the year 68, put an end to the calamities of this first persecution, under which, during the space of four years, the Christians suffered every sort of torment and affliction, which the ingenious cruelty of their enemies could invent.

XIV. Learned men are not entirely agreed with regard to the extent of this persecution under Nero. Some confine it to the city of Rome, while others represent it as having raged through the whole empire. The latter opinion, which is also the more ancient, is undoubtedly to be preferred, as it is certain, that the laws enacted against the Christians were enacted against the whole body, and not against particular churches, and were consequently in force in the remotest provinces. The authority of Tertullian confirms this, who tells us, that Nero and Domitian had enacted laws against the Christians, of which Trajan had, in part, taken away the force, and rendered them, in some measure, without effect. We shall not have recourse for a confirmation of this opinion, to that famous Portuguese or Spanish inscription, in which Nero is praised for having purged that province from the new superstition; since that inscription is justly suspected to be a mere forgery, and the best Spanish authors consider it as such.§ We may, however, make one observation, which will tend to illustrate the point in question, namely, that since the Christians were condemned by Nero, not so much on account of their religion, as for the falsely-imputed crime of burning the city, it is scarcely to be imXIII. It would have been surprising, if, un-agined, that he would leave unmolested, even der such a monster of cruelty as Nero, the beyond the bounds of Rome, a sect whose Christians had enjoyed the sweets of tranquil-members were accused of such an abominable lity and freedom. This, indeed, was far from being the case; for the perfidious tyrant accused them of having set fire to the city of Rome, that horrid crime which he himself had committed with a barbarous pleasure. In avenging this crime upon the innocent Christians, he ordered matters so, that the punishment should bear some resemblance to the

offence. He therefore wrapped up some of them in combustible garments, and ordered fire to be set to them when the darkness came on, that thus, like torches, they might dispel the obscurity of the night: while others were fastened to crosses, or torn to pieces by wild beasts, or put to death in some such dreadful manner. This horrid persecution was set on foot in the month of November,† in the 64th year of Christ: and in it, according to some ancient accounts, St. Paul and St. Peter suffered martyrdom, though the latter assertion is contested by many, as being absolutely irrecon

deed.

XV. Though, immediately after the death of Nero, the rage of this first persecution against the Christians ceased, yet the flame broke out anew in the year 93 or 94, under Domitian, a prince little inferior to Nero in

*See Tillemont, Histoire des Empereurs, tom. i. p. 504.-Baratier, de Successione Romanor. Pontif. cap. v.

This opinion was first defended by Franc. Balduin, in his Comm. ad Edicta Imperatorum in Christianos, After him Launoy maintained the same opinion in his Dissert. qua Sulpitii Severi locus de prima Martyrum Galliæ Epocha vindicatur, sect. i. p. 139, 140; tom. ii. part i. oper. This opinion is still more acutely and learnedly defended by Dodwell, in the xith of his Dissertationes Cyprianicæ.

Apologet. cap. iv.

This celebrated inscription is published by the learned Gruter, in the first volume of his Inscriptions. It ters do not venture to defend the genuineness and aumust, however, be observed, that the best Spanish writhority of this inscription, as it was never seen by any of them, and was first produced by Cyriac of Ancona, a person universally known to be utterly unworthy of the * Such of those acts as are worthy of credit have been least credit. We shall add here the judgment which the collected by the learned Ruinart, into one volume in excellent historian of Spain, Jo. de Ferreras, has given folio, of a moderate size, entitled, Selecta et sincera Mar- of this inscription; "Je ne puis m'empecher (says he) tyrum Acta, Amstelod. 1713. The hypothesis of Dod-d'observer que Cyriac d'Ancone fut le premier qui pubwell is amply refuted in the author's preface.

lia cette inscription, et que c'est de lui que les autres l'ont tiree; mais comme la foi de cet ecrivain est suspecte au Al-jugement de tous les scavans, que d'ailleurs il n'y a ni vestige ni souvenir de cette inscription dans les places ou l'on dit qu'elle s'est trouvee, et qu'on ne scait ou la prendre a present, chacun peut en porter le jugement qu'il voudra."

See for a farther illustration of this point of chronology, two French Dissertations of the very learned phonse de Vignoles, concerning the cause and the commencement of the persecution under Nero, which are printed in Masson's Histoire critique de la Republique des Lettres, tom. viii. p. 74-117; tom. ix. p. 172–186. See also Toinard ad Lactantium de Mortibus Persequut

P. 398

See Theod. Ruinart, Præf. ad Acta Martyrum sincera et selecta, f. 31, &c.

wickedness.* This persecution was occasioned, if we may give credit to Hegesippus, by Domitian's fear of losing the empire; for he had been informed, that, among the relatives of Christ, a man should arise, who, possessing a turbulent and ambitious spirit, was to excite commotions in the state, and aim at supreme dominion. However that may have been, the persecution renewed by this unworthy prince was extremely violent, though his untimely death soon put a stop to it. Flavius Clemens,

*Præf. ad Acta Martyrum, &c. f. 33-Thom. Ittigii Select. Histor. Eccl. Capit. sæe. i. cap. vi. sect. 11. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. ini. eap. xix. xx.

a man of consular dignity, and Flavia Domitilla, his niece, or, as some say, his wife, were the principal martyrs that suffered in this persecution, in which also the apostle John was banished to the isle of Patmos. Tertullian and other writers inform us, that, before his banishment, he was thrown into a caldron of boiling oil, from which he came forth, not only living, but even unhurt. This story, however, is not attested in such a manner as to preclude all doubt.*

* See Mosheim's Syntagma Dissert. ad Historiam Eccles. pertinentium, p. 497-546.

PART II.

THE INTERNAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.
CHAPTER I.

Concerning an Account of the State of Learning

and Philosophy.

I. IF we had any certain or satisfactory account of the doctrines which were received among the wiser of the eastern nations, when the light of the Gospel first rose upon the world, this would contribute to illustrate many important points in the ancient history of the church. But the case is quite otherwise: the fragments of the ancient oriental philosophy that have come down to us, are, as every one knows, few in number, and, such as they are, they yet require the diligence, erudition, and sagacity of some learned man, to collect them into a body, arrange them with method, and explain them with perspicuity.*

*

III. From the earliest times, the Indians knowledge and wisdom. We might, perhaps, were distinguished by their taste for sublime be able to form a judgment of their philosophical tenets, if that most ancient book, which they deemed particularly sacred, and which they called veda, or the law, should be brought to light, and translated into some known language. But the accounts which are given of this remarkable book, by those who have been in the Indies, are so various and irreconcilable with each other, that we must yet wait for satisfaction on this head. As to the Egyptians, they were divided, as every one knows, into a multitude of sects and opinions.tFruitless, therefore, are the labours of those who endeavour to reduce the philosophy of this people to one system.

II. The doctrine of the magi, who believed IV. But of all the systems of philosophy the universe to be governed by two principles, that were received in Asia and Africa about the one good, and the other evil, flourished in the time of our Saviour, no one was so detriPersia. Their followers, however, did not all mental to the Christian religion, as that which agree with respect to the nature of these prin- was styled gnosis, or science, i. e. the way to ciples; but this did not prevent the propaga- the true knowledge of the Deity, and which tion of the main doctrine, which was received we have above called the oriental doctrine, in throughout a considerable part of Asia and order to distinguish it from the Grecian phiAfrica, especially among the Chaldeans, As-losophy. It was from the bosom of this presyrians, Syrians, and Egyptians, though with different modifications, and had even infected the Jews themselves. The Arabians at that time, and even afterwards, were more remarkable for strength and courage, than for genius and sagacity; nor do they seem, according to their own confession, to have acquired any great reputation for wisdom and philosophy before the time of Mohammed.

The history of the oriental philosophy by Mr. Stanley, though it is not void of all kind of merit, is yet extremely defective. That learned author is so far from having exhausted his subject, that he has left it, on the contrary, in many places, wholly untouched. The history of philosophy, published in Germany by the very learned Mr. Brucker, is vastly preferable to Mr. Stanley's work; and the German author, indeed, much superíor to the English one, both in point of genius and of erudition.

tended oriental wisdom, that the chiefs of those sects, which, in the three first centuries perplexed and afflicted the Christian church originally issued. These supercilious doctors, endeavouring to accommodate to the tenets of their fantastic philosophy, the pure, simple, and sublime doctrines of the Son of God, brought forth, as the result of this jarring composition, a multitude of idle dreams and system of opinions which were partly ludifictions, and imposed upon their followers a crous and partly perplexed with intricate subtilties, and covered with impenetrable obscurity. The ancient doctors, both Greek and

Some parts of the Veda bave been published; or, it may rather be said that pretended portions of it have appeared; but, whatever may be alleged by oriental enin-thusiasts, these Brahminical remains do not evince the "sublime knowledge or wisdom" which many writers attribute to the ancient inhabitants of India.-Edit. † See Dr. Mosheim's Observations on Cudworth's System

See Hyde's History of the Religion of the Ancient Persians, a work full of erudition, but indigested and terspersed with conjectures of the most improbable kind. See Wolf's Manichæismus ante Manichæos. See Abulpharagius de Moribus Arabum, published by Focock. VOL. I-5

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