supposed to have been of the school of Valen- || lar manner, the mortification of the body; that tine, the Egyptian. But this notion is entirely he distinguished the creator of the world from without foundation, since their doctrine differs the Supreme Being; denied the reality of in many things from that of the Valentinians, Christ's body; and corrupted the Christian approaching nearer to that of the oriental phi- || religion with several other tenets of the orienlosophy concerning the two principles. Bar- tal philosophy. He had a great number of desanes, a native of Edessa, was a man of a followers, who were, after him, called Tavery acute genius, and acquired a shining re- tianists, but were, nevertheless, more freputation by his writings, which were in great quently distinguished from other sects by number, and valuable for the profound erudi- names relative to the austerity of their mantion they contained. Seduced by the fantastic ners; for, as they rejected, with a sort of hor charms of the oriental philosophy, he adopted ror, all the comforts and conveniences of life, it with zeal, but, at the same time, with certain and abstained from wine with such a rigorous modifications, that rendered his system less ex- obstinacy, as to use nothing but water even at travagant than that of the Marcionites, against the celebration of the Lord's Supper; as they whom he wrote a very learned treatise. The macerated their bodies by continual fastings, sum of his doctrine is as follows: There is a and lived a severe life of celibacy and absti Supreme God, pure and benevolent, absolutely nence, so they were called Encratites, [*] Hyfree from all evil and imperfection; and there droparastates, [f] and Apotactites. [1] is also a prince of darkness, the fountain of all X. Hitherto, we have only considered the evil, disorder and misery. God created the doctrine of the Asiatic Gnostics. Those of world without any mixture of evil in its com- the Egyptian branch differ from them in geneposition; he gave existence also to its inhabi-ral in this, that they blended into one mass the tants, who came out of his forming hand, pure and incorrupt, endued with subtile etherial bodies, and spirits of a celestial nature. But when, in process of time, the prince of darkness had enticed men to sin, God, permitted them to fall into sluggish and gross bodies, formed of corrupt matter by the evil principle; he permitted also the depravation and disorder which this malignant being introduced, both into the natural and the moral world, designing, by this permission, to punish the degeneracy and rebellion of an apostate race; and hence proceeds the perpetual conflict between reason and passion in the mind of man. It was on this account, that Jesus descended from the upper regions, clothed, not with a real, but with a celestial and aerial body, and taught mankind to subdue that body of corruption which they carry about with them in this mortal life, and, by abstinence, fasting and contemplation, to disengage themselves from the servitude and dominion of that malignant matter which chained down the soul to low and ignoble pursuits. Those, who hear the voice of this divine instructor, and submit themselves to his discipline, shall, after the dissolution of this terrestrial body, mount up to the mansions of felicity, clothed with ethereal vehicles, or celestial bodies." Such was the doctrine of Bardesanes, who afterwards abandoned the chimerical part of this system, and returned to a better mind; though his sect subsisted a long time in Syria.* oriental philosophy and the Egyptian theology; the former of which the Asiatics preserved unmixed in its original simplicity. The Egyptians were, moreover, particularly distinguished from the Asiatic Gnostics by the following difference in their religious system, viz. 1. That though, beside the existence of a deity, they maintained that also of an eternal matter, endued with life and motion, yet they did not acknowledge an eternal principle of darkness, or the evil principle of the Persians. 2. They supposed that our blessed Saviour was a compound of two persons, of the man Jesus, and of Christ, the Son of God; that the divine nature entered into the man Jesus, when he was baptized by John in the river Jordan, and departed from him when he was seized by the Jews. 3. They attributed to Christ a real not an imaginary body; though it must be confessed, that they were much divided in their sentiments on this head. 4. Their discipline, with respect to life and manners, was much less severe than that of the Asiatic sect, and seems, in some points, to have been favourable to the corruption and passions of men. XI. Basilides has generally obtained the first place among the Egyptian Gnostics. "He acknowledged the existence of one Supreme God, perfect in goodness and wisdom, who produced from his own substance seven beings, or æons, of a most excellent nature. Two of these æons called Dynamis and Sophia (power and wisdom,) engendered the angels of the IX. Tatian, by birth an Assyrian, and a dis- highest order. These angels formed a heaven ciple of Justin Martyr, is more distinguished, for their habitation, and brought forth other by the ancient writers, on account of his ge- angelic beings, of a nature somewhat inferio lius and learning, and the excessive and in- to their own. Many other generations of an credible austerity of his life and manners, thangels followed these and new heavens were also by any remarkable errors or opinions which he taught his followers. It appears, however, from the testimony of credible writers, that Tatian looked upon matter as the fountain of all evil, and therefore recommended, in a particu See the writers who have given accounts of the ancient heresies, as also Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. lib. iv. cap. xxx.-Origen, Dial. contra Marcionitas, sect. iii.-F. Strunzius, Hist. Bardesanis.-Beausobre, Hist. du MaRich. vol. ii. created, until the number of angelic orders, an Oration addressed to the Greeks. [*] Temperate. [+] Drinkers of water. [1] Renouncers. ticularly that of the arrogant leader of the Jewish people. The god of the Jews, alarmed at this, sent forth his ministers to scize the man Jesus, and put him to death. They executed his commands; but their cruelty could not extend to Christ, against whom their efforts were vain.* Those souls, who obey the precepts of the Son of God, shall, after the dissolution of their mortal frame, ascend to the Father, while their bodies return to the corrupt mass of matter from which they were formed. Disobedient spirits, on the contrary, shall pass successively into other bodies." the days of the year. All these are under || tures which presided over the world, and par the empire of an omnipotent Lord, whom Basilides called Abraxas."# This word (which was certainly in use among the Egyptians before his time) contains numeral letters to the amount of 365, and thereby expresses the number of heavens and angelic orders above-mentioned. "The inhabitants of the lowest heavens, which touched upon the borders of the eternal, malignant, and self-animated matter, conceived the design of forming a world from that confused mass, and of creating an order of beings to people it. This design was carried into execution, and was approved by the Supreme God, who, to the animal life with which only the inhabitants of this new world|| were at first endowed, added a reasonable soul, giving, at the same time, to the angels, the empire over them.” XIII. The doctrine of Basilides, in point of morals, if we may credit the account of most ancient writers, was favourable to the lusts and passions of mankind, and permitted the practice of all sorts of wickedness. But those whose testimonies are the most worthy of regard, give a quite different account of this teacher, and represent him as recommending the practice of virtue and piety in the strongest manner, and as having condemned not only the actual commission of iniquity, but even every inward propensity of the mind to a vicious conduct. It is true there were, in his precepts relating to the conduct of life, some points which gave great offence to all real XII. "These angelic beings, advanced to the government of the world which they had created, fell, by degrees, from their original purity, and manifested the fatal marks of their depravity and corruption. They not only endeavoured to efface from the minds of men the knowledge of the Supreme Being, that they might be worshipped in his stead, but also began to war against one another, with an ambitious view to enlarge, every one, the bounds of his respective dominion. The most arro-Christians; for he affirmed it to be lawful for gant and turbulent of all these angelic spirits, was that which presided over the Jewish nation. Hence God, beholding with compassion the miserable state of rational creatures, who groaned under the contests of these jarring powers, sent from heaven his son Nus, or Christ, the chief of the æons, that, joined in a substantial union with the man Jesus, he might restore the knowledge of the Supreme Being, and destroy the empire of those angelic na * We have remaining a great number of gems, and receive more from Egypt from time to time, on which, beside other figures of Egyptian taste, we find the word Abraxas engraven. See, for this purpose, a work entitled, Macarii Abraxas, seu de Gemmis Basilidianis Disquisitio, which was published at Antwerp with several improvements, by M. Chifflet, in 1657. See also Montfaucon, Palæograph Græc. lib. ii. cap. viii. All these gems are supposed to come from Basilides, and therefore bear his name. Most of them, however, contain the marks of a superstition too gross to be attributed even to a half-Christain, and bear also emblematic characters of the Egyptian theology. It is not, therefore, just to attribute them all to Basilides (who, though erroneous in many of his opinions, was yet a follower of Christ,) but such of them only as exhibit some mark of the Christian doctrine and discipline.-There is no doubt that the old Egyptian word Abraxas was appropriated to the governor or lord of the heavens, and that Basilides, having learned it from the philosophy of his nation, retained it in his religious system. See Beausoore, Hist. du Manicheisme. vol. ii. p. 51., and also Jo. Bapt. Passerius, in his Dissert. de Gemmes Basilidianis, which makes a part of the splendid work that he published at Florence, 1750, de Gemmis stelliferis, tom. ii. p. 221. See also the sentiments of the learned Jablonski, concerning the signification of the word Abraxas, as they are delivered in a dissertation inserted in the seventh volume of the Miscell. Leips. Nova. Pesserius affirms, that none of these gems can properly be said to relate to Basilides, but that they concern only magicians, i. e. sorcerers, fortune-tellers, and the like adventurers. Here, however, this learned man seems to go too far, since he himself acknowledges (p. 225,) that he had sometimes found, on these gems, vestiges of the errors of Basilides. These famous monuments stand yet in need of an interpreter; but it must be one who can join circumspection o liligence a.id erudition, VOL. I.--10 them to conceal their religion, to deny Christ, when their lives were in danger, and to partake of the feasts of the Gentiles that were instituted in consequence of the sacrifices offered to idols. He endeavoured also to diminish the glory of those who suffered martyrdom for the cause of Christ impiously maintaining, that they were more heinous sinners than others, and that their sufferings were to be looked upon as a punishment inflicted upon them by the divine justice. He was led into this enormous error, by an absurd notion that all the calamities of this life were of a penal nature, and that men never suffered but in consequence of their iniquities. This rendered his principles greatly suspected; and the irregular lives of some of his disciples seemed to justify the unfavourable opinion that was entertained of their master.† XIV. But whatever may be said of Basilides, it is certain, that he was far surpassed in impiety by Carpocrates, who was also of Alex andria, and who carried the Gnostic blasphemies to a more enormous degree of extravagance than they had ever been brought by any of that sect. His philosophical tenets agree, in general, with those of the Egyptian Gnos tics. He acknowledged the existence of a Supreme God, and of the sons derived from * Many of the ancients have, upon the authority of Irenæus, accused Basilides of denying the reality of Christ's body, and of maintaining that Simon the Cyrenian was crucified in his stead. But this accusation is entirely groundless, as may be seen by consulting the Commentar. de rebus Christian. ante Constant. where it is demonstrated, that Basilides considered the divine Saviour as compounded of the man Jesus, and Christ the Son of God. It may be true, indeed, that some of the disciples of Basilides entertained the opinion which is here unjustly attributed to their master. For a farther account of Basilides, the reader may consult Ren. Massuet, Dissert. in Irenæum, and Beauso bre Hist, du Manicheisme, vol. ii. him by successive generations. He maintained the eternity of a corrupt matter, and the creation of the world from it by angelic powers, as also the divine origin of souls unhappily imprisoned in mortal bodies, &c. beside these, he propagated sentiments and maxims of a horrid kind. He asserted, that Jesus was born of Joseph and Mary, according to the ordinary course of nature, and was distinguished from the rest of mankind by nothing but his superior fortitude and greatness of soul. His doctrine, also, with respect to practice, was licentious in the highest degree; for he not only allowed his disciples a full liberty to sin, but recommended to them a vicious course of life, as a matter both of obligation and necessity; asserting, that eternal salvation was only attainable by those who had committed all sorts of crimes, and had daringly filled up the measure of iniquity. It is almost incredible, that one who maintained the existence of a Supreme Being, who acknowledged Christ as the Saviour of mankind, could entertain such monstrous opinions. One might infer, indeed, from certain tenets of Carpocrates that he adopted the common doctrine of the Gnostics concerning Christ, and acknowledged also the laws which this divine Saviour imposed upon his disciples. Notwithstanding this, it is beyond all doubt, that the precepts and opinions of this Gnostic are full of impiety, since he held, that lusts and passions being implanted in our nature by God himself, were conse- XVI. "The Creator of this world, accordquently void of guilt, and had nothing crimi- ing to Valentine, arrived, by degrees, at such nal in them; that all actions were indifferent a pitch of arrogance, that he either imagined in their own nature, and were rendered good himself to be God alone, or, at least, was deor evil only by the opinions of men, or by the sirous that mankind should consider him as laws of the state; that it was the will of God such. For this purpose he sent forth prophets that all things should be possessed in common, to the Jewish nation, to declare his claim to the female sex not excepted; but that human the honour that is due to the Supreme Being; laws, by an arbitrary tyranny, branded those and in this point the other angels who preside as robbers and adulterers, who only used their over the different parts of the universe immenatural rights. It is easy to perceive, that, by diately began to imitate his ambition. To these tenets, all the principles of virtue were chastise this lawless arrogance, and to illumidestroyed, and a door opened to the most hor-nate the minds of rational beings with the rid licentiousness, and to the most profligate and enormous wickedness.* nature of the Supreme Being, and by force of this propensity, brought forth a daughter, named Achamoth, who, being exiled from the pleroma, fell down into the rude and undigestBut,ed mass of matter, to which she gave a certain arrangement, and, by the assistance of Jesus, produced the demiurge, the lord and creator of all things. This demiurge separated the subtile or animal matter from that of the grosser or more terrestrial kind; out of the former he created the superior world, or the visible heavens; and out of the latter he formed the inferior world, or this terraqueous globe. He also made man, in whose composition the subtile, and also the grosser matter, were both united in equal portions; but Achamoth, the mother of the demiurge, added to these two substances, of which the human race was formed, a spiritual and celestial substance." This is the sum of that intricate and tedious fable, which the extravagant brain of Valentine imposed upon the world for a system of religious philosophy; and from this it appears that, though, he explained the origin of the world and of the human race, in a more subtile manner than the Gnostics, he did not differ from them in reality. His imagination was more wild and inventive than that of his brethren; and this is manifest in the whole of his doctrine, which is no more than Gnosticism, set out with some supernumerary fringes, as will farther appear from what follows. XV. Valentine, who was likewise an Egyptian by birth, was eminently distinguised from all his brethren by the extent of his fame, and the multitude of his followers. His sect, which took rise at Rome, grew up to a state of consistence and vigour in the isle of Cyprus, and spread itself through Asia, Africa, and Europe, with an amazing rapidity. The principles of Valentine were, generally speaking, the same with those of the Gnostics, whose name he assumed; yet, in many points, he entertained opinions that were peculiar to himself. "He placed, for instance, in the pleroma (so the Gnostics called the habitation of the Deity) thirty wons, of which the one half were male, and the other female. To these he added four others, which were of neither sex, viz. Horus, who guarded the borders of the pleroma, Christ, the Holy Ghost, and Jesus. The youngest of the sons, called Sophia (i. e. wisdom,) conceiving an ardent desire of comprehending the *See Iren. contra Hæres. cap. xxv. Clementis Alex. Stromata, lib. iii. p. 511. But knowledge of the true and Supreme Deity, the name, and one or two of their distinguishing tenets. Such were the Adamites, who are said to have professed an exact imitation of the primitive state of innocence; the Cainites, who miration and respect, Cain, Cora, Dathan, the inhabitants of Sodom, and even the traitor Judas. Such also were the Abelites, who entered into the bonds of matrimony, but neglected to fulfil its principal end, even the procreation of offspring; the Sethites, who honour their chiefs,* and several others. It is highly probable that the ancient doctors, deceived by the variety of names that distinguished the heretics, may with too much precipitation have divided one sect into many; and it may be farther questioned, whether they have, at all times, represented accurately the nature and true meaning of several opinions concerning which they have written. souls are purified thoroughly, and separated from matter, then a raging fire, let loose from its prison, shall spread its flames throughout the universe, and dissolve the frame of this corporeal world." Such is the doctrine of Va-treated as saints, with the utmost marks of ad lentine and the Gnostics; such also are the tenets of the oriental philosophy, and they may be summed up in the following propositions; "This world is a compound of good and evil. Whatever is good in it, comes down from the Supreme God, the Father of light, and to him it shall return; and then the world shall be en-ed Seth in a particular manner, and looked tirely destroyed.”* upon him as the same person with Christ; the XVII. We learn from ancient writers, that || Florinians, who had Florinus and Blastus for the Valentinian sect was divided into many branches. One was the sect of the Ptolemites, so called from their chief Ptolemy, who differed in opinion from his master Valentine, with respect both to the number and nature of the mons, another was the sect of the Secundians, whose chief Secundus, one of the principal followers of Valentine, maintained the doctrine of two eternal principles, viz. light and darkness, whence arose the good and evil that are observable in the universe. From the same source arose the sect of Heracleon, from whose writings Clemens and Origen have made many extracts; as also that of the Marcosians, whose leaders, Marc and Colarbasus, added many absurd fictions to those of Valentine; though it is certain, at the same time, that many errors were attributed to them, which they did not maintain. I omit the mention of some other sects, to which the Valentinian heresy is said to have given rise. Whether, in reality, they all sprang from this source, is a question of a very doubtful kind, especially if we consider the errors into which the ancients have fallen, in tracing out the origin of the various sects that divided the church.t XVIII. It is not necesary to take any particular notice of the more scure and less considerable of the Gnostic sects, of which the ancient writers scarcely mention any thing but It is proper to observe, for the information of those who desire a more copious account of the Valentinian heresy, that many ancient writers have written upon this subject, especially Irenæus, Tertullian, Clemens Alex. &c. Among the moderns, see the dissertation of J. F. Buddeus de hæresi Valentíniana, which gave occasion to many disputes concerning the origin of this heresy. Some of the moderns have endeavoured to reconcile, with reason, this obscure and absurd doctrine of the Valentinians. See, for this purpose, the following authors: Souverain, Platonisme devoile, ch. viii. Camp. Vitringa, Observ. Sacr. lib. i. cap. ii. Beausobre, Histoire du Manicheisme, p. 548. Jac. Basnage, Hist. des Juifs, tom. iii. p. 729. Pierre Faydit, Eclaircissemens sur l'Hist. Ecclesiast. des deux premiers Siecles. How vain all such endeavours are, might easily be shown: and Valentine himself has determined the matter, by ac knowledging that his doctrine is absolutely and entirely different from that of other Christians. Marc did not certainly entertain all the opinions that are attributed to him. Those, however, which we are certain that he adopted, are sufficient to convince us that he was out of his senses. He maintained, among other crude fancies, that the plenitude and perfection of truth resided in the Greek Alphabet, and alledges that as the reason why Jesus Christ was called the Alpha and the Omega. Concerning these sects, the reader will find something fuller in Irenæus and the other ancient writers, and a yet more learned and satisfactory account in Græbe's Spicilegium Patr. et Hæreticor. sec. 2. There is an ample account of the Marcosians in Irenæus, contra Hær. lib. i. XIX. The Ophites, or Serpentinians, a ridiculous sort of heretics, who had for their leader a man called Euphrates, deserve not the lowest place among the Egyptian Gnostics. This sect, which had its origin among the Jews, was of a more ancient date than the Christian religion. A part of its followers embraced the Gospel, while the rest retained their primitive superstition; and hence arose the division of the Ophites into Christian and anti-Christian.. The Christian Ophites entertained almost the same fantastic opinions that were holden by the other Egyptian Gnostics, concerning the ons, the eternal matter, the creation of the world in opposition to the will of God, the rulers of the seven planets that presided over this world, the tyranny of the demiurge, and also respecting Christ united to the man Jesus, in order to destroy the empire of this usurper. But, beside these, they maintained the following particular tenet (whence they received the name of Ophites); "That the serpent, by which our first parents were deceived, was either Christ himself, or Sophia, concealed under the form of that animal;" and, in consequence of this opinion, they are said to have nourished a certain number of serpents, which they looked upon as sacred, and to which they offered a sort of worship, a subordinate kind of divine honours. It was no difficult matter for those, who made a distinction between the Supreme Being and the Creator of the world, and who looked upon every thing as divine, which was in opposition to the demiurge, to fall into these extravagant notions. in the church, from a mixture of the oriental and Egyptian philosophy with the Christian religion, were, in the second century, increased by those Grecian philosophers who embraced the doctrine of Christ. The Christian doctrines concerning the Father, Son, and Holy XX. The schisms and commotions that arose * Here Dr. Mosheim has fallen into a slight inaccuracy in confounding the opinions of these two heretics, since it is certain, that Blastus was for restoring the Jewish religion, and celebrating the passover on the fourteenth day; whereas Florinus was a Valentinian, and maintained the doctrine of the two principles, with other Gnosti errors. Ghost, and the two natures united in our || opposed his system, neither Tertullian, who reblessed Saviour, were by no means reconcila- futed it, nor any of the ancient writers, inform ble with the tenets of the sages and doctors of Greece, who therefore endeavoured to explain them in such a manner as to render them (om us." XXIII. These sects, which we have now been slightly surveying, may be justly regarded prehensible. Praxeas, a man of genius and as the offspring of philosophy. But they were learning, began to propagate these explications succeeded by one in which ignorance reigned, at Rome, and was severely persecuted for the and which was the mortal enemy of philosoerrors they contained. He denied any real phy and letters. It was formed by Montanus, distinction between the Father, Son, and Holy an obscure man, without any capacity or Ghost, and maintained that the Father, sole strength of judgment, and who lived in a creator of all things, had united to himself the Phrygian village called Pepuza. This weak human nature of Christ. Hence his followers man was so foolish and extravagant as to imawere called Monarchians, because of their de- gine and pretend, that he was the paraclete, or nying a plurality of persons in the Deity; and comforter, whom the divine Saviour, at his also Patripassians, because, according to Ter-departure from the earth, promised to send to tullian's account, they believed that the Father his disciples to lead them to all truth. He was so intimately united with the man Christ, his son, that he suffered with him the anguish of an afflicted life, and the torments of an ignominious death. However ready many may have been to embrace this erroneous doctrine, it does not appear, that this sect formed to itself a separate place of worship, or removed from the ordinary assemblies of Christians.* made no attempts upon the peculiar doctrines of Christianity, but only declared, that he was sent with a divine commission, to give, to the moral precepts delivered by Christ and his apostles, the finishing touch that was to bring them to perfection. He was of opinion, that Christ and his apostles made, in their precepts, many allowances to the infirmities of those among XXI. An opinion highly resembling that whom they lived, and that this condescending now mentioned, was, about the same time, pro- indulgence rendered their system of moral laws fessed at Rome by Theodotus, who, though a imperfect and incomplete. He therefore added tanner, was a man of profound learning, and to the laws of the Gospel many austere decialso by Artemas, or Artemon, from whom the sions; inculcated the necessity of multiplying sect of the Artemonites derived their origin. fasts; prohibited second marriages as unlawful; The accounts given of these two persons, by maintained that the church should refuse absothe ancient writers, are not only few in num-lution to those who had fallen into the comber, but are also extremely ambiguous and obscure. Their sentiments, however, as far as they can be collected from the best records, amount to this; "That, at the birth of the man Christ, a certain divine energy, or portion of the divine nature (and not the person of the Father, as Praxeas imagined,) united itself to him.” It is impossible to decide with certainty which of the two was the more ancient, Theodotus, or Artemon; as also whether they both taught the same doctrine, or differed in their opinions. One thing, indeed, is certain, that the disciples of both applied the dictates of philosophy, and even the science of geometry, to the explication of the Christian doctrine. XXII. A like attachment to the dictates of a presumptuous philosophy, induced Hermogenes, a painter by profession, to abandon the doctrine of Christianity concerning the origin of the world, and the nature of the soul, and thus to raise new troubles in the church. Regarding matter as the fountain of all evil, he could not persuade himself that God had created it from nothing, by an almighty act of his will; and therefore he maintained, that the world, with whatever it contains, as also the souls of men, and other spirits, were formed by the Deity from an uncreated and eternal mass of corrupt matter. In this doctrine there were many intricate things, and it manifestly jarred with the opinions commonly received among Christians relative to that difficult and almost unsearchable subject. How Hermogenes explained those doctrines of Christianity which mission of enormous sins; and condemned all care of the body, especially all nicety in dress, and all female ornaments. The excessive austerity of this ignorant fanatic did not stop here; he showed the same aversion to the no against Hermogenes, in which the opinions of the latter *There is yet extant a book written by Tertullian concerning matter, and the origin of the world, are warmly opposed. We have lost another work of the same author, in which he refuted the notion of Hermogenes concerning the soul. Those are undoubtedly in an error, who have asserted that Montanus gave himself out for the Holy Ghost. However weak he may have been in point of capacity, he was not fool enough to push his pretensions so far. Neither have they, who inform us that Montanus pretended to have received from above the same spirit or paraclete which formerly animated the apostles, interpreted with accuracy the meaning of this heretic. It is, made a distinction between the paraclete promised by therefore, necessary to observe here, that Montanus Christ to his apostles, and the Holy Spirit that was shed upon them on the day of Pentecost; and understood, by the former, a divine teacher pointed out by Christ, as a tion of some doctrines omitted by our Saviour, and to comforter, who was to perfect the Gospel by the addicast a full light upon others which were expressed in an obscure and imperfect manner, though for wise reasons which subsisted during the ministry of Christ; and, indeed, Montanus was not the only person who made this distinction. Other Christian doctors were of opinion, that the paraclete promised by Jesus to his disciples, was a divine ambassador, entirely distinct from the Holy Ghost which was shed upon the apostles. In the third century, Manes interpreted the promise of Christ in this manner. He pretended, moreover, that he himself was the paraclete, and that, in his person, the prediction was the same notion, and applied to himself the prediction fulfilled. Every one knows, that Mohammed entertained of Christ. It was, therefore, this divine messenger that Montanus pretended to be, and not the Holy Ghost. This will appear with the utmost evidence, to those who read with attention the account given of this matter by Tertullian, who was the most famous of all the disciples Tertulliani lib. contra Praxean; as also Petri Wes- of Montanus, and the most perfectly acquainted with elingii Probabilia, cap. xxvi. every point of his doctrine. |