II. The influence of these new teachers was at first inconsiderable. During the lives of the apostles, their attempts toward the perversion of Christianity were attended with little success, and they had a very small number of followers. They, however, acquired credit and strength by degrees; and, even from the first dawn of the Gospel, imperceptibly aid the foundations of those sects, whose animosities and disputes produced afterwards such trouble and perplexity in the Christian church. The true state of these divisions is more involved in darkness than any other part of ecclesiastical history; and this obscurity proceeds, partly from the want of ancient records, partly from the abstruse and unintelligible nature of the doctrines that distinguished these various sects; and, finally, from the ignorance and prejudices of those, who have transmitted to us the accounts of them, which are yet extant. Of one thing, indeed, we are certain, and that is, that the greater part of these doctrines were chimerical and extravagant in the highest degree; and, far from containing any thing that could recommend them to a lover of truth, they rather deserve to occupy a place in the history of human delusion and folly.*

III. Among the various sects that troubled the tranquillity of the Christian church, the leading one was that of the Gnostics. These enthusiastic and self-sufficient philosophers boasted of their being able to restore mankind to the knowledge (gnosis) of the true and Supreme Being, which had been lost in the world. They also foretold the approaching defeat of the evil principle, to whom they attributed the creation of this globe, and declared, in the most pompous terms, the destruction of his associates, and the ruin of his empire. An opinion has prevailed, derived from the authority of Clemens the Alexandrian, that the first appearance of the Gnostic sect is to be dated after the death of the apostles, and placed in the reign of the emperor Adrian; and it is also alleged, that, before this time, the church enjoyed a perfect tranquillity, undisturbed by dissensions, or sects of any kind. But the smallest degree of attention to the language of the Scriptures, not to mention the authority of other ancient records, will prevent us from adopting this groundless notion. For, from several passages of the sacred writings,† it evidently appears, that, even in the first century, the general Christian meeting was deserted, and separate assemblies were formed in several

places, by persons infected with the Gnostic heresy; though, at the same time, it must be acknowledged, that this pernicious sect was not conspicuous, either for its number, or its reputation, before the time of Adrian. It is proper to observe here, that, under the general appellation of Gnostics, are comprehended all those who, in the first ages of Christianity, corrupted the doctrine of the Gospel by a profane mixture of the tenets of the oriental philosophy (concerning the origin of evil and the creation of the world,) with its divine truths.

IV. It was from this oriental philosophy, of which the leading principles have been already mentioned, that the Christian Gnostics derived their origin. If it was one of the chief tenets of this philosophy, that rational souls were imprisoned in corrupt matter, contrary to the will of the Supreme Deity, there were, however, in this same system, other doctrines which promised a deliverance from this deplorable state of servitude and darkness. The oriental sages expected the arrival of an extraordinary messenger of the Most High upon earth; a messenger invested with a divine authority, endowed with the most eminent sanctity and wisdom, and peculiarly commissioned to enlighten, with the knowledge of the Su preme Being, the darkened minds of miserable mortals, and to deliver them from the chains of the tyrants, and usurpers of this world. When, therefore, some of these philosophers perceived that Christ and his followers wrought miracles of the most amazing kind, and also of the most salutary nature to mankind, they were easily induced to believe that he was the great Messenger expected from above, to deliver men from the power of the malignant genii, or spirits, to which, according to their doctrine, the world was subjected, and to free their souls from the dominion of corrupt matter.-This supposition once admitted, they interpreted, or rather corrupted, all the precepts and doctrines of Christ and his apostles, in such a manner as to reconcile them with their own pernicious tenets.

V. From the false principle above mentioned, arose, as it was natural to expect, a multitude of sentiments and notions, most remote from the tenor of the gospel doctrines, and the nature of its precepts. The Gnostic doctrine, || concerning the creation of the world by one or more inferior beings, of an evil, or, at least, of an imperfect nature, led that sect to deny the divine authority of the books of the Old Tes tament, whose accounts of the origin of thing so palpably contradicted this idle fiction.Through a frantic aversion to these sacred books, they lavished their encomiums upon the serpent, the first author of sin, and held in veneration some of the most impious and profli

* Certain authors have written professedly of the sects that divided the church in this, and the following century, such as Ittigius, in his treatise de Hæresiarchis vi Apostolici et Apostolico proximi, and also in the Appendix to the same work; Renatus Massuet, in his Dissertations prefixed to Irenæus, and Tillemont, in his Memoires pour servir a l'Histoire de l'Eglise. But these authors, and others whom we shall not mention, have rather colgate persons of whom mention is made in salected the materials from which a history of the ancient sects may be composed, than written their history. Hinckelman, Thomasius, Dodwell, Horbius, and Basnage, have some of them promised, others of them attempted such a history; but none of them finished this useful design. It is therefore to be wished that some eminent writer, who, with a competent knowledge of ancient philosophy and literature, also possesses a penetrating and unbiassed judgment, would undertake this difficult but interesting work.

t1 John ii. 18. 1 Tim. vi. 20. Col. ii. 8.

cred history. The pernicious influence of their fundamental principle carried them to all sorts of extravagance, filled them with an abhorrence of Moses and the religion he taught, and induced them to assert, that in imposing such a system of disagreeable and severe laws upon the Jews, he was only actuated by the malignant author of this world, who consuted his own glory and authority, and not the real

advantage of men. Their persuasion that evil resided in matter, as its centre and source, prevented their treating the body with the regard that is due to it, rendered them unfavourable to wedlock, as the means by which corporeal beings are multiplied, and led them to reject the doctrine of the resurrection of the body, and its future re-union with the immortal spirit. Their notion that malevolent genii presided in nature, and that from them proceeded all diseases and calamities, wars and desolaions, induced them to apply themselves to the study of magic, to weaken the powers or suspend the influences of these malignant agents. I omit the mention of several other extravagances in their system, the enumeration of which would be incompatible with the character of a compendious history.

VI. The notions of this sect concerning Jesus Christ were impious and extravagant. For, though they considered him as the Son of the Supreme God, sent from the pleroma, or habitation of the Everlasting Father, for the happiness of miserable mortals, yet they enter tained unworthy ideas, both of his person and offices. They denied his deity, looking upon him as the mere Son of God, and consequently inferior to the Father; and they rejected his humanity, upon the supposition that every thing concrete and corporeal is, in itself, essentially and intrinsically evil. Hence the greatest part of the Gnostics denied that Christ was clothed with a real body, or that he suffered really, for the sake of mankind, the pains and sorrows which he is said to have sustained in the sacred history. They maintained that he came to mortals with no other view, than to deprive the tyrants of this world of their influence upon virtuous and heaven born souls, and, destroying the empire of these wicked spirits, to teach mankind how they might separate the divine mind from the impure body, and render the former worthy of being united to the Father of spirits.

is nothing surprising or unaccountable in this difference between the Gnostic moralists; for, when we examine the matter with attention, we shall find, that the same doctrine may very naturally have given rise to these opposite sen timents. As they all deemed the body the centre and source of evil, those of that sect, who were of a morose and austere disposition, would be hence naturally led to mortify and combat the body as the enemy of the soul; and those who were of a voluptuous turn, might also consider the actions of the body as having no relation, either of congruity or incongruity, to the state of a soul in communion with God.

VIII. Such extraordinary doctrines had certainly need of an undoubted authority to support them; and, as this authority was not to be found in the writings of the evangelists or apostles, recourse was had to fables and stratagems. When the Gnostics were challenged to produce the sources whence they had drawn such strange tenets, and an authority proper to justify the confidence with which they taught them, some referred to fictitious writings o Abraham, Zoroaster, Christ, and his apostles; others boasted of their having drawn these opinions from certain secret doctrines of Christ, which were not exposed to vulgar eyes; others affirmed, that they had arrived at these sublime degrees of wisdom by an innate force and vigour of mind; and some asserted, that they were instructed in these mysterious parts of theological science by Theudas, a disciple of St. Paul, and by Matthias, one of the friends of our Lord. As to those among the Gnostics who did not utterly reject the books of the New Testament, it is proper to observe, that they not only interpreted those sacred books most absurdly, by neglecting the true spirit of the words and the intention of the writers, but also corrupted them, in the most perfidious manner, by curtailing and adding, in order to remove what was unfavourable, or to produce something conformable to their pernicious and extravagant system.

VII. Their doctrine, relating to morals and practice, was of two kinds, which were ex- IX. It has been already observed, that the tremely different from each other. The great- Gnostics were divided in their opinions before est part of this sect adopted rules of life that they embraced Christianity. This appears were full of austerity, recommended a strict from the account which has been given above and rigorous abstinence, and prescribed the of the oriental philosophy; and hence we may most severe bodily mortifications, from a notion see the reason why they were formed into so that these observances had a happy influence many different sects after their receiving the in purifying and enlarging the mind, and in Christian faith. For, as all of them endeadisposing it for the contemplation of celestial voured to force the doctrines of the Gospel things. As they looked upon it to be the un-into a conformity with their particular sentihappiness of the soul to have been associated, ments and tenets, so Christianity must have at all, to a malignant, terrestrial body, so they appeared in various forms, among the different imagined that the more the body was extenu- members of a sect, which passed, however, ated, the less it would corrupt and degrade the under one general name. Another circummind, or divert it from pursuits of a spiritual stance, which contributed to this diversity of and divine nature: all the Gnostics, however, sects, was, that some, being Jews by birth (as vere not so severe in their moral discipline. Cerinthus and others,) could not so easily asSome maintained that there was no moral dif-sume that contempt of Moses, and that averference in human actions; and thus confoundng right and wrong, they gave a loose rein to all the passions, and asserted the innocence of following blindly all their motions, and of living by their tumultuous dictates.* There

sion to his history, which were so virulently indulged by those who had no attachment to the Jewish nation or to its religious institutions. We may also observe, that the whole Gnostic system was destitute of any sure of solid foundation, and depended both for its ex

Se the Stremota of Clemens A'exandrinus, lib. iii.istence and support, upon the airy suggestions

1

of genius and fancy This consideration alone

XII. The accounts which ancient writers give us of Simon the magician, and of his opinions, seen so different and indeed so inconsistent with each other, that several learned men have considered them as regarding two different persons, bearing the name of Simon; the one a magician, and an apostate from Christianity; the other a Gnostic philosopher. This opinion, which supposes a fact, without any other proof than a seeming difference in the The circumstances of Simon's tragical end; his narration of the ancient historians, ought not to be too ightly adopted. To depart from the authority of ancient writers in this matter is by no means prudent: nor is it necessary to reconcile the different accounts already mentioned, whose inconsistency is not real, but appa-credit from a set of ecclesiastical writers, who, on many rent only. Sin.on was by birth a Samaritan, or a Jew: when he had studied philosophy at Alexandria, he made a public profession of magic (which was not a very uncommon circumstance at that time,) and persuaded the Samaritans, by fictitious miracles, that he had

strous fictions; for he pretended, that in his person resided the greatest and most powerful of the divine æons; that another aon of the female sex, the mother of all human souls, dwelt in the person of his mistress Helena,* and that he came, by the command of God upon earth, to abolish the empire of those who had formed this material world, and to deliver Helena from their power and dominion.

XIV. Another wrong-headed teacher, named Menander, a Samaritan also by birth, appeared in this century. He is said to have been instructed by Simon; but this opinion has no other foundation than the groundless notion, that all the Gnostic sects derived their origin from that magician. He ought rather to be ranked with the lunatics, than with the heretics of antiquity, since he also took it into his head to exhibit himself to the world as the promised Saviour; for it appears, by the testimonies of Irenæus, Justin, and Tertullian, that he pretended to be one of the æons sent from the pleroma or celestial regions, to succour the souls that lay groaning under bodily oppression and servitude, and to maintain them against the violence and stratagems of the dæmons who held the reins of empire in this sublunary world. As this doctrine was built upon the same foundation with that of Simon Magus, the ancient writers looked upon him as the instructor of Menander.

the Gnostics, though the learned are not entirely agreed whether he belongs to the herttics of the first or the second century.* This man was by birth a Jew, and, having applied himself to letters and philosophy at Alexandria, attempted at length, to form a new and singu lar system of doctrine and discipline, by a monstrous combination of the doctrines of Christ with the opinions and errors of the Jews and Gnostics. From the latter he borrowed the pleroma, their æons, their demiurge, &c. and so modified and tempered these fictions, as to give them an air of judaism, which must have considerably favoured the progress of his heresy. He taught "that the Creator of this world, whom he considered also as the sovereign and lawgiver of the Jewish people, was a being endowed with the greatest virtues, and derived his birth from the Supreme God; that he fell by degrees, from his native virtue and his primitive dignity; that God in consequence of this determined to destroy his empire, and sent upon earth, for this purpose, one of the ever-happy and glorious æons, whose name was Christ; that this Christ chose for his habitation the person of Jesus, a man of the most illustrious sanctity and justice, the son of Joseph and Mary, and, descending in the form of a dove, entered into him while he was re ceiving baptism from John in the waters of Jordan: that Jesus, after his union with Christ, opposed himself with vigour to the God of the Jews, and was by his instigation, seized and crucified by the Hebrew chiefs; and that, when Jesus became a prisoner, Christ ascend

was subjected to the pains of an ignominious death." Cerenthus required of his followers, that they should worship the Father of Christ, even the Supreme God, in conjunction with the Son; that they should abandon the lawgiver of the Jews, whom he looked upon as the Creator of the world; that they should retain a part of the law given by Moses, but should, nevertheless, employ their principal attention and care to regulate their lives by the precepts of Christ. To encourage them to this, he promised them the resurrection of this mortal body, after which was to commence a scene of the most exquisite delights, during Christ's earthly reign of a thousand years, which would be succeeded by a happy and never-ending life in the celestial world; for he held, that Christ will one day return upon earth, and, renewing his former union with the man Jesus, will reign with his people in the land of Palestine during a thousand years.

XV. If then we separate these three persons now successively mentioned, from the heretics of the first century, we may rank among the chief of the Christian sectaries, and particularly those who bear the general name of Gnos-ed into heaven, so that the man Jesus alone tics, the Nicolaitans, whom Christ himself mentions with abhorrence by the mouth of his apostle. It is true, indeed, that the divine Saviour does not reproach them with erroneous opinions concerning the deity, but with the licentiousness of their practice, and the contempt of that solemn law which the apostles had enacted (Acts, xv. 29.) against fornication, and the use of meats offered to idols. It is, however, certain, that the writers of the second and the following centuries, Irenæus, Tertullian, Clemens, and others, affirm, that the Nicolaitans adopted the sentiments of the Gnostics concerning the two principles of all things, the mons, and the origin of this terrestrial globe. The authority of these writers would be entirely satisfactory in this matter, were there not some reason to imagine that they confounded, in their narrations, two sects very different from each other; that of the Nicolaitans, mentioned in the Revelations; and another, founded by a certain Nicolaus, in the second century, upon the principles of the Gnostics. But this is a matter of too doubtful a nature to justify a positive decision on either side.

XVII. It has been already observed, that the church was troubled with early disputes concerning the law of Moses and the Jewish rites. Those, however, who considered the observance of the Mosaic rites as necessary to salvation, had not, in this first century, proceeded so far as to break off all communion with

See Sam. Basnage, Annal. Polit. Eccles. tom. ii.; and Faydit, Eclaircissemens sur l'Histoire Eccles. des deux premiers Siecles, cap. v. The opinion of these tw learned men is opposed by Buddeus, de Eccles. Apostolica cap. v.

Theodoret. Fabul. Hæret. lib ii. cap. iii.

such as differed from them in this matter; || renes and Ebionites, by which the judaizing therefore they were still regarded as brethren, Christians were distinguished from those who though of the weaker sort. But when, after looked upon the Mosaic worship and cercmothe second destruction of Jerusalem, under the nies as entirely abolished by the appearance of emperor Adrian, these zealots for the Jewish Christ upon earth. We shall only observe farrites deserted the ordinary assemblies of Chris-ther under this head, that though the Nazarenes tians, and established separate meetings among and Ebionites are generally placed among the themselves, they were numbered with those sects of the apostolic age, they really belong SCs who had departed from the pure doctrine to the second century, which was the earliest > Christ Hence arose the names of Naza- | period of their existence as a sect.

THE SECOND CENTURY.

PART I.

THE EXTERNAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.
CHAPTER I.

Concerning the prosperous Events that happened

to the Church during this Century.

I. In this century, the Roman sceptre was, for the most part, swayed by princes of a mild and moderate turn. Trajan, though too eagerly bent upon the pursuit of glory, and not always sufficiently attentive to his conduct, or prudent in his measures, was nevertheless endowed with many virtues; and the predominant lines of his character were clemency and benevolence. Adrian was of a more harsh and || intractable temper, yet far from deserving the odious appellation of a wicked or unjust prince. He was of a mixed character, chargeable with several vices, and estimable on account of some excellent qualities. The Antonines were illustrious models of humanity, goodness, and sublime virtue. Severus himself, in whose character and disposition such an unexpected and disadvantageous change was effected, was, in the beginning of his reign, unjust toward none; and even the Christians were treated by him with equity and mildness.

**

often been perfidiously exposed to the greatest sufferings. Antoninus Pius went so far as to enact penal laws against their accusers; and others, by various acts of beneficence and compassion, defended them from the injurious treatment of the priests and people. Hence it came to pass, that, in this century, the limits of the church were considerably enlarged, and the number of converts to Christianity prodigiously augmented. Of the truth of this, we have the most respectable and authentic testimonies in the writings of the ancients; testimonies, whose evidence and authority are every way superior to the vain attempts which some have made to obscure and weaken them.

III. It is not easy to point out particularly the different countries on which the light of celestial truth first rose in this age. The ancient records that yet remain, do not give us information sufficient to determine that point with certainty; nor is it, indeed, a matter of high importance. We are, however, assured, by the most unexceptionable testimonies, that Christ was worshipped as God almost throughout the whole East, as also among the Germans, Spaniards, Celts, Britons, and many other nations;§ but which of them received the Gospel in the first century and which in the second, is a question unanswerable at this distance of time. Pantænus, the head of the Alexandrian school, is said to have conveyed to the Indians the knowledge of Christ.|| But,

II. This lenity of the emperors proved advantageous to those Christians who lived under the Roman sceptre; it sometimes suspended their suffering, and alleviated the burthen of their distresses; for, though edicts of a severe nature were issued out against them, and the magistrates, animated by the priests and by the multitude, shed their blood with a cruelty which frequently exceeded even the dictates of the most barbarous laws, yet there was always some remedy that accompanied these evils, and softened their severity. Trajan, however condemnable in other respects, on account of his conduct toward the Christians, was yet engag-nas ed, by the representation that Pliny the younger gave of them, to forbid all search to be made after them. He also prohibited all anonymous Tools and accusations, by which they had so

*See Pliny's epistles, book x. let. xcviii.

Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. lib. iv. cap. xiii.

See Moyle's letters concerning the thundering legion with the remarks which Dr. Mosheim has annexed to his

Latin translation of them, published at the end of a work entitled, Syntagma Dissert. ad Sanctiores Disciplipertinentium. See also the Dialogue between Justin Martyr and Trypho the Jew.

Irenæus contra Hæres. lib. i. cap. x. -Tertullian ady. Judæos, cap. vii.

Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. b. v. c. x Jerome, Catal Script. Eccl. c. xxxvi.