■:fw LIBRARY 111 quoting from the Fathers, I list at the end of the last volume of have always intended to refer to the Bishop Bull's Works, published at best editions, of which I have given a Oxford in 1827. X INTRODUCTION. caution : but even where they stand alone, we must not always entirely reject their statements : and although we may sometimes suspect them, and not unfrequently convict them of contradictions, they have often been the means of preserving information, which would otherwise have been lost ; and we must in fairness consider them not as always speaking the language of their own day, but as having copied from much older and more valuable documents. For a minute and critical account of the principal ancient writers, who have treated of heresies, I would refer to the work of Ittigius, cle Hceresiarchis ccvi Apostolici et Apostolico pro- ximiy Lipsiae, 1690. from the Preface to which I have ex- tracted the greatest part of the following statement. Justin Martyr, in the former part of the second century, wrote a work against Marcion, and another against all here- sies : but neither of them has come down to us. The great work of Irenaeus was directed, according to the Latin translation, against Heresies : but Eusebius and Photius, who have preserved the Greek title, represent it as being, A Refutation and Subversion of Knoidedge falsely so called: which shews, as I shall observe in the course of these Lectures, that it was intended as a refuta- tion of the Gnostic heresies. It was in fact dii'ected chiefly against the heresy of Valentinus : but the writer takes the opportunity of giving a short account of all the heretics who preceded him, beginning with Simon Magus. Irenaeus flourished about the year 185. The Greek original of his work is unfortunately lost, except the greater part of the first book and a few occasional fragments : but the whole of it is preserved in a very ancient Latin translation. The best edition was published by Massuet, at Paris, in 1710; and was reprinted at Venice in 1734, page for page, with some new fragments discovered at Turin, and edited by Pfaffius: but the genuineness of these fragments is ex- tremely doubtful. TertuUian, who flourished about the year 200, has left several works, which are of value in a history of lieresics. He treated of all the heresies which preceded his own day, in INTRODUCTION. xi a Dissertation, entitled De Prcescriptione Hcereticorum : but the concluding part of this treatise, subsequent to the forty-fifth chapter, is now generally looked upon as a later addition. Tertullian also wrote against several particular heresies, as that of Hermogenes, who believed in the eter- nity of Matter ; of Valentinus and Marcion, who were two of the most distinguished Gnostics in the second century ; and of Praxeas, who was one of the earliest supporters of the Patripassian heresy. All these treatises have come down to us : and it is impossible to have an adequate notion of the Gnostic doctrines without a perusal of the work against Valentinus, and the five books against Marcion. The best edition of Tertullian was published at Paris, in 1675, by Priorius ; though that in 6 volumes 8°. by Semler, Halae, 1770 — 6, is valuable as containing some additions to the tract de Oratione, which were discovered by Muratori. Philaster, or Philastrius, who was Bishop of Brescia about A. D. 380, drew up a small work, de Hceresibus, which has been published in different Bibliothecce Patruvi, and sepa- rately in 1528, 1611, and 1721 b; but it has been proved to contain many inaccuracies. We know from Augustin, that Jerom wrote a treatise upon heresies, though Augustin himself does not appear to have seen it. CI. Menardus published at Paris, in 1617, Indiculus de Haresihus Judceorum, which was supposed by him to have been written by Jerom ; but good reasons have been alleged for thinking it spurious; and the work itself is extremely short. The longest and most elaborate work which has come down to us upon ancient heresies, is that of Epiphanius, who was Bishop in the island of Cyprus, and flourished A.D. 368. It was published by Petavius, at Paris, in 1662, and reprinted with some few additions in 1682, at Leipsic, though Colonics appears in the title-page. The authority of Epiphanius does not stand high ; and he must be allowed to have been a credulous writer, who did not exercise much ^ This edition is vnluable on ac- contaiu much information connected count of the notes of Fabricius^ which with the early heretics. xii INTRODUCTION. judgment or criticism in the collection and arrangement of his materials. But still his work is indispensable to the ecclesiastical historian ; and it contains a mass of valuable information, much of which must have been taken from more ancient documents, and which certainly was not the produce of his own invention. Augustin, who lived in the same century with Jerom and Epiphanius, also wrote a short treatise upon heresies. He enumerates eighty-eight different sects, of which the Pela- gians are the last. The notices of each heresy are concise, and do not supply much new information. The work is to be found at the commencement of the eighth volume of the Benedictine edition of Augustin. In the year 1643 J. Sirmondus published a work upon heresies, divided into three books, and bearing the name of Prsedestinatus. The writer appears to have lived not long after the time of Augustin, and to have followed the same order in the enumeration of heresies. Various conjectures have been formed as to his real name. Some have supposed him to have been Primasius, an African bishop ; others have attributed the work to Arnobius Junior, or to a per- son named Vincentius : but this must be looked upon as a point which is still undecided. The author, whoever he may have been, had either access to some documents which had not been seen by the other writers, whose works have come down to us, or he added many particulars from his own imagination. I should rather suspect the latter to have been the case. The work has been republished in 1677 and 1686. The writer, who has treated the subject of heresies at most length, next to Epiphanius, is Theodoret, who was bishop of Cyrus in Syria, and composed a work in five books against all heresies, about the year 452. It may be found in the fourth volume of the edition of the works of Theodoret, published at Paris by J. Sii'mondus in 1642. This writer, though he is much more concise than Epiphanius, appears in many respects to be more deserving of credit. His sources of information were evidently not the same ; and he INTRODUCTION. xiii has given proofs of being a much more judicious and criti- cal compiler. Wherever Epiphanius and Theodoret differ, few persons would hesitate to follow the latter. Leontius of Byzantium, a writer of some note at the end of the sixth century, wrote a work de Sectis, which is di- vided into ten parts, and contains an account of several early heresies. It has been published in 1578 by Leun- clavius, and in the Bibliotheca Patrum, 1624, vol. I. p. 493. Isidorus, bishop of Hispala, who flourished A. D. 595, wrote a work entitled Origenes; and in the third, fourth, and fifth chapters of the eighth book, a description is given of all the early heresies. The best edition of the works of Isidorus is that of Du Breul, 1G17. It is hardly necessary to mention the work of Anastasius, entitled Hodegus, which was composed towards the end of the sixth century ; and in the fourth chapter of which there is a brief enumeration of all the heresies down to the time of Nestorius. It may be found in the Bihliotliecce Patriim, and in Fabricius, Bibl. Gr. vol. VII. p. 480. The same may be said of the circular Epistle written by Sophronius, patriarch of Jerusalem, about the year 629, in which he gives a long list of several heretics : but of some of them he mentions little more than the names. It may be found in the Collections of general Councils, and in Fabri- cius, Bibl. Gr. vol. VII. p. 483. A more detailed account of the early heresies was given by Timotheus, a presbyter of Constantinople, who is placed by different writers at the beginning of the sixth or seventh centuries. The object of his work was to describe the process of admitting heretics into the church. It was published by Meiu'sius in 1619 : by Combefisius, in the second volume of his Auctarium Novum, Paris, 1648; and, lastly, by Co- telerius, in the third volume of his Monumenta Ecclesice Grceccc, p. 377 : but this edition of the work differs very much from the preceding. John Damascenus, as he is generally called from his native place, Damascus, was one of the most distinguished Mv INTRODUCTION. writers of the eighth century, and he lias left a work of some length, which treats of all heresies. But the greater part of it is in fact nothing else than a compilation from Epiphanius ; and the account of the later heresies is alone the original work of Damascenus. The best edition of this author is that of Lequien, Paris, 1712. Rabanus Maurus, who wrote in the ninth century, has given a list of early heresies in the 58th chapter of the second book of his work de Clericorum Institutione : but he has evidently copied Isidorus of Hispala. We do not meet with any other heresiologist till the twelfth century, when Euthymius Zigabenus published his Panoplia Dogmatica Orthodoxce Fidei^ in which the tenets of several heretics are refuted. The whole of this work has never been published in Greek : but copies of it exist in the Bodleian and other libraries. Zonaras, who flourished at the beginning of the same century, composed, among many other works, a Tract, en- titled Canon in Sanctissimam Deiparam, in which he l)riefly refutes several heresies. It was published for the first time entire by Cotelerius, in his Monumenta Ecdesice Gr(BC(B, vol. III. p. 465. In the same century, Honorius, a presbyter of Aucun in Burgundy, composed a work upon Heresies, which was published at Basle in 1544: at Helmstadt in 1611: and in the Bibliotheca Patrum, 1618. vol. XII. p. 1009. and Constantinus Harmenopulus wrote a book de Sectis Ilaircticls, which was published by Fronto Ducaeus, in his Auctuarium, 1624. vol. I. p. 533. Nicetas Choniates, (whose history of the emperors of Constantinople is well known among the works of the By- zantine historians, and who fled to Nice in Bithynia, when Constantinople was taken by the Crusaders,) wrote also a long work in twenty-seven books, entitled Thesaurus Or- fhodo.va; Fklei. The five first books were published in Latin by P. Morellus in 1580, but the Greek has never yet appeared in print, though MSS. of the entire work ai-e preserved in the Bodleian and in the Laurentian librarv at INTRODUCTION. xv Florence. The fouilli book contains an account of forty- four heresies, which preceded the time of Arius. It is hardly necessary to mention the works of later writers, who from the time at which they lived cannot be quoted with any confidence, when they differ from more ancient authors. Some of them, however, if they did not altogether invent the facts which they have recorded, must have had access to older works which are now lost. Itti- gius mentions the names of the following writers who have given an account of early heresies : Guido de Perpiniano, (A. D. 1330.) Matthseus Blastares, (A. D. 1335.) Bern- hardus Luxenburgensis, (A. D. 1520.) Gabriel Prateoh, (A. D. 1570.) Alphonsus a Castro, (A. D. 1540.) Theo- dorus Petreius, (A. D. 1594.) Bonaventura Malvasia, and Daniel Cramerus. For the whole of this list of heresiologists, I am greatly indebted to the work of Ittigius, already referred to, and to the laborious collections of Fabricius and Cave. The history of early heresies has been illustrated by se- veral modern writers, who have either undertaken to com- pose a general ecclesiastical history, or have applied them- selves specifically to a consideration of the subject, which occupies the following pages. In the department of eccle- siastical history, our own country does not hold so conspi- cuous a place as in some other branches of theological learn- ing: and the French and German writers have perhaps been most laborious and most successful in throwing liffht upon those early times. I need only mention the names of Du Pin, Tillemont, and Mosheim : but the work of Tille- mont, entitled M^moires pour servir a THistoire ecclesias- tique des six premiers Steele s, will be found particularly va- luable in an inquiry like the present. The reader will not want to be reminded, that the author of these M^moires was a member of the Romish church : but Tillemont was not only an indefatigable compiler and scrupulous in giving references, but his candour and liberality are often worthy of admiration ; and it is evident that he would have spoken more plainly, and given a more critical decision, upon some xvi INTRODUCTION. occasions, if he liad not been fettered by the decrees of his own credulous church. For a copious list of modern ecclesiastical historians, I would refer to Fabricius, Bihliotheca Graca^ vol. XII. p. ICl. and Salutaris Lux Evangelii, &c. c. V. p. 64. Ittigius, Hi.storicc Ecclesiasticce prinii a Christo nato seculi selccta Capita^ {Picpf.) Weismannus, Hist. Ecclesiastica Novi Testamenti, p. 28. The name and the writings of Mosheim are too illus- trious to require much comment : but if Tillemont and the French historians were warped by the spirit of Romanism, Mosheim and others of his school are to be read with cau- tion, as having been influenced by that love of scepticism, which has shewn itself so much more openly and more dan- gerously in the German divines of our own day. I would observe also, that the Ecclesiastical History of Mosheim, which is more known and studied in this country than any of his other works, is by far the least satisfactory as record- ing the state of the church in the first century. That inter- esting and momentous period occupies only 146 pages in the English translation of the work : and it is to be re- gretted that an account, which is so meagre and superficial, has not been superseded by some history in our own lan- guage, which is written more in detail, and in a spirit more congenial with the forms and institutions of our own church. There are however two other works of Mosheim, which de- serve much greater praise, and much more attention than they commonly meet witK in this country. These are In- stitiitiones HistoricB Christiance Majores, and De Rebus Christlanorum ante Constantinum Magnum Commentarn. The first contains a very elaborate and detailed account of the affairs of the church in the first century : and it was the intention of the author to have illustrated the history of the six first centuries on the same plan : but this scheme was never completed. The other work, as the title implies, records the events of the three first centuries, and of about twenty-five years of the fourth centuiy. The reader of ecclesiastical history will find every point connected with INTRODUCTION. xvli those times illustrated in these two works. The most co- pious and accurate references are given to original writers : every fact and every statement is submitted to the most minute and rigid criticism : and though a member of the Church of England will sometimes think, that the con- clusions of Mosheim are erroneous, I should be unwilling to suppose that he did not mean to be strictly impartial, and that he was not guided by a sincere love of truth. I would also observe, that Mosheim published several disser- tations upon subjects connected with ecclesiastical history, which have been collected into two volumes, and published for the second time with considerable additions in 1767. It is impossible to speak too highly of the use and importance of these admirable dissertations. There is an ecclesiastical history now in progress in Ger- many, which promises to be of considerable value in this department of theology. I allude to the Allgemeine Geschichte dei- ChristUchen Religion und Kirche, pub- lished at Hamburg by Dr. Aug. Neander. The first part of the second volume has already appeared, which carries the history nearly to the end of the fourth century. I have derived no small advantage from this learned work in composing the Notes to the following Lectures ; and it is to be hoped, that, when completed, the whole will be trans- lated into English. The writer is a theorist, as are many of his countrymen ; and I could wish that some of his ob- servations had not been made : but he has investigated with great patience of research, and with a very original train of thought, the early history of the church ; and if he carries into execution, what he has partly promised to undertake, a full and special history of the church in the time of the apostles, he will probably confer a lasting benefit on litera- ture in general. I may now mention the names of some other writers, who have directed their attention particularly to the history of early heresies. The first place is deservedly claimed by Ittigius, to whose work I have already referred, de Hcere- siarcliis cBvi Apostolici et Apostolico proccimi^ seti primi et h xviii INTRODUCTION. seciindi a Chr'isto nato Seculi Dissertatio, Lipsiae, 1690. This laborious and valuable work is directed specifically to the investigation of the subject, which I have proposed for discussion in these Lectures; and it would be endless to point out the benefit which I have derived from a perusal of it. Ittigius also published Historice EcclesiasticcB primi a Christo nato Seculi selecta Capita^ Lipsiae, 1709 ; the fifth chapter of which contains an account of the early heresies, with some additional observations, which were not in the former work. I would next mention the work of Buddeus, entitled, Ec- clesia Apostolica, Jenae, 1 729. which contains a minute and critical account of all the heresies of the first century. There is also another treatise by the same author, Dissertatio de Hceresi Valentiniana, which though belonging more pro- perly to the history of the second century, is of consider- able service in the present investigation. The following work of Colbergius will be found to con- tain much useful information, de Origine et Progressu HcBresium et Errorum in Ecclesia. 1694. Van Till also wrote a short treatise de primi ScbcuU Ad- ve?'sariis, which is closely connected with this subject, and which forms the preface to his Commentarius in IV. Pauli Epistolas. Amsterdam, 1726. The work of Fabricius, entitled, Salutaris Lux Evan- gelii toti orbi exoriens, Hamburgi, 1731, contains a fund of information concerning the early history of the Gospel. The eighth chapter is especially devoted to a consideration of the philosophers and heretics who opposed the rise of Christianity : but the heresies are discussed very briefly. The same may be said in some respects of the work of Weismannus, entitled, Introdnctio in memorabilia ecclesi- astica Historian sacrcB Novi Testamenti, or Historia eccle- siastica Novi Testamenti, though the references to other writers are by no means so copious. The thirty-fourth section in the first century is devoted to n History of the Heresies of the apostolic. Age. The Prolegomena of Lampc to his Commentarius ana- INTRODUCTION. xix lytico-exegeticus Evangelii secundum Joannem^ Amster- dam, 1724, contains nearly all the infoi'mation which we possess concerning the thirty last years of the first century. It deserves to be read with great attention, though I can- not but look upon many of the conclusions as erroneous. The name of Vitringa is well known in several depart- ments of theological learning: but I would confine myself at present to his Ohservationes Sacrce, the best edition of which was printed in three volumes at Amsterdam in 1727. This work contains dissertations upon various subjects : and in the following Lectures I have availed myself of those de SepMroth Kabhalistarum, (vol.1, p. 125.) de Occasione et Scopo Prologi Evangelii Joannis Apostoli, (vol, II. p. 122.) de Statu EcclesicB Christiance a Nerone ad Trqjanum.^ (vol. III. p. 900.) de HcBresibus natis in Ecclesia Apo- stolica, (p. 922.) The following works I have either not been able to meet with, and am indebted for a knowledge of their titles to Mosheim, or I am acquainted with them only by partial and occasional reference, as not being immediately con- nected with the subject under discussion. Voigtius, Bibliotheca HcEresiologica. Langius, Hceresiologia scEculi post Christum primi et secundi. Pfaffius, Institutiones Historic Ecclesiasticce. sceculi primi. Hartmannus, de Rebus gestis Christianorum sub Apio- stolis. 1699. 1710. Dodwell, Dissertationes in IrencEum. Alstedius, Chronol. IIcBres. A further account of these and other works connected with the history of heresy may be seen in Mosheim, Instit. Maj. p. 322. ; and still more copiously in Sagittarius, In- troductio ad Historiam Ecclesice, tom. I. p. 812; tom. II. p. 655. Also in Walchius, Bibliotheca Theologica^ c. VII. sect. 10. vol. III. p. 742. There is also a work written in Italian by Travasa, en- titled, Istoria Critica delle Vite degli Eresiarchi del prima b2 XX INTRODUCTION. secolo; and another in German by Godf. Arnold, entitled, Unpartheyisclie Kirchen unci Ketzer Historic von Anfang (les Neucn Testaments bis mifdas Jia/irCArw^i, 1688, Frank- fort, 1700-15, or An impartial History of the Church and of Heretics from the commencement of the Neio Testament to the year of ChriM 1688. The latter work has been greatly extolled by some writers, and as vehemently con- demned by others, according as they have approved or dis- approved of the liberal and philosophical spirit which ap- pears to have influenced the author ^. Another German work may also be mentioned, which will perhaps be thought less objectionable, Entwurf einer vollstdndigen Historic der Kezereien, Sfc. or Sketch of a complete History of Heresies, <^c. by C. W. F. Walchs, Leipsic, 1762, &c. in eleven volumes, the first of which contains an account of the early heresies. To many persons it is needless to mention the collection of Dissertations in four volumes folio, which form so valu- able an appendix to the Critici Sacri. In investigating the heresies of the Apostolic age, I have been particularly in- debted to the Dissertation of J. S. Saubertus de voce Aoyoj, of B. Stolbergius de Agapis, of E. R. Rothius, de Nico- laitis, and of J. M. Langius de Genealogiis nunquam finiendisy ^c. and some others, to which I have referred in the course of these Lectures. An inquiry into the heresies of the first century might appear to exclude a consideration of the tenets of the Ma- nichees. But though Manes, or Manichaeus, who gave the name to these heretics, did not appear till the end of the third century, it is well known that the tenets which he espoused had been held before under different names. There is a work upon this particular subject, which may be recommended to the attention of the reader, and which throws light upon the history of many heretics who pre- ceded Manes. I allude to the treatise of J. Ch. Wolfius, entitled, Manichceismus ante Manichceos, Hamburgi, 1707; « Moshcim has given an account of this work, Instit. Mnj. p. 329. INTRODUCTION. xxi which in addition to much valuable information, and many judicious reflections, contains copious and accurate refer- ences to the works of other writers. There is another work, which is indispensable in the his- tory of Manicheism, and which is full of information upon many points connected with earlier heresies. This is the well-known work of Beausobre, in two volumes 4°. Histoire critique de ManicMe et du Manichelsme, Amsterdam, 1734. This may truly be characterized as one of the most extraor- dinary productions which ever came from the pen of a writer, who professed to be a believer in the truth of the Gospel. We have no right to doubt, whether this was the case with M. De Beausobre: and yet there never was a work, which required from us a larger portion of charity, when form.- ing a judgment of the author's religious belief; or which should be read with greater caution, both for the principles which it inculcates and the conclusions which it draws. The object of Beausobre may be described in a few words to have been, to depreciate the Fathers, and to prove that their statements are woi'thy of no credit ; while on the other hand he justified the tenets and the conduct of every here- tic, and shewed that their characters had been most unjustly calumniated. To a certain extent, and within certain limits, such an attempt is serviceable and even praiseworthy. I am most willing to admit, that the Fathers have in many cases misrepresented the early heretics, and circulated ca- lumnies concerning their enormities. Beausobre has shewn the most unwearied industry, and the most profound criti- cal acuteness, in detecting these falsehoods, and in placing several points of history in a new and a truer light: but it would be an outrage upon historical candour and upon philosophical criticism to deny that he has often rim into paradox, and that he has sometimes laboured to defend his favourite heretics at the expense of truth. I am aware, that the present age lays claim to particular merit for dis- carding prejudices, and for casting off the shackles of au- thority in matters of ecclesiastical antiquity. There is an air of sincerity, as well as of originality, in the declaration xxii INTRODUCTION. of a modern writer, who says, " I must acknowledge a con- " sciousness of something like a bias in favour of a heretic, " whether ancient or modern ^i." Such appears to have been the feeling entertained by Beausobre : and it would be most irrational to deny, that a freedom from prejudice is one of the fundamental requisites in a search after truth : but a preconceived " bias"" must necessarily be connected with prejudice, whether it lead us to orthodoxy or to hetero- doxy ; and I have yet to learn, that there is any merit in feeling an inclination for heretics rather than for the Fa- thers. Our object should be to arrive at truth : if the inquiry should enable us to clear the character of any per- sons, who have hitherto been condemned, the discovery should give us pleasure: but if we are at the same time obliged to convict other persons of falsehood, the discovery should give us pain. This is the duty of a critical, and I would add, of an honest mind : and I have made these re- marks upon the work of Beausobre, because it is so full of information, it so completely exhausts the subject of which it treats, that it is impossible not to recommend it to every reader of ecclesiastical history, though it is impossible also not to lament the spirit in which it is written. Though our own country, as I have already observed, has not produced any good ecclesiastical history, I must not omit to mention the name of Lardner among those persons, who have contributed to the more accurate knowledge of early heresies. His great work upon the Credibility of' the Gospel History contains many biographical sketches, and much judicious criticism upon the tenets of heretics : but he also wrote a distinct work, entitled. History of Heretics^ in which he has shewn the same extent of reading, and the same unwearied industry in collecting his scattered materials, which characterise all his other writings. For minuteness and accuracy of reference Lardner stands almost unrivalled j and I should be most unwilling to detract from the praise which he has so deservedly obtained for candour and im- ' Mr. Bclshani. INTRODUCTION. xxiii partiality. I cannot however but regret, that in so many instances he has adopted the views and sentiments of Beau- sobre : and I 'am casting no imputation upon the honesty or sincerity of Lardner, when I merely remind the reader, that the particular view, which I/ardner had taken of Christianity, was likely to make him see the events of those early times in a different view from ourselves. The works of Waterland will throw considerable light upon the tenets of the early heretics : and they are so well known, and so highly valued, that I need only specify his Judgment of the primitive Churches, which forms the sixth chapter of The Importance of the Doctrine of the Holy Tri- nity, vol. V. p. 174. The heresies of Cerinthus and Ebion are here treated at great length ; and the conclusions drawn from the writings of the Fathers are often the reverse of those of Beausobre and Lardner, The two first of the following Lectures will be sufficient to shew, that an investigation into the primitive heresies re- quires a particular acquaintance with the errors of the Gnos- tics. It is unnecessary to add, that Gnosticism cannot be understood without a perusal of Irenaeus, and some at least of the other Fathers, whose works I have specified above. I would also mention a short treatise written against the Gnos- tics in the third century by the Platonist Plotinus. This forms the ninth book of the second Ennead in the great work of that philosopher ; and is extremely interesting from the time at which it was written, though it does not in fact supply us with much information ; and it is remarkable, that the name of Gnostic does not occur throughout the book. We are indebted to Porphyry, in his Life of Plotinus, for a knowledge of the fact, that the Gnostics were the per- sons intended to be attacked : and the same writer also states, that the title of the book, against the Gnostics, was added by himself. A difference of opinion has existed as to the allusions to Gnosticism which are to be found in the New Testament. A French writer expresses himself upon this subject in the following manner : " II est aujourd'hui hors de doute que, " des deux cot^s, on est alle trop loin : les uns, les Ham- b4 xxiv INTRODUCTION. " mond, les Brucker, les Michaelis ^, les Mosheim et les *' Herder, en montrant, presque sur chaque page du Nou- " veau Testament, des traces de la soi-disant philosophic ori- " entale, du Gnosticisme et du Zoroastrisme ; les autres, les *' Ernesti, les Tittman et leurs sectateurs, en allant jusqu^a *' nier, que les auteurs des volumes sacres aient fait quelque " allusion a ces doctrines f." Of the two last mentioned writers, Ernesti has delivered his opinion against these allu- sions to Gnosticism in his Instit. hiterp. Novi Testamenti, part. III. c. 10. §. ult. and in Bihl. Theolog. Nova. vol. III. p. 430. 493. vol. V. p. 7. vol. VIII. p. 538. Tittman has maintained the same argument at greater length in a special treatise, the object of which is explained by the title, de Ves- tigiis Gnosticorum in Novo Testamento frustra qucpsitis, Lipsiae, 1773. In addition to the writers upon the other side, who are named above, Tittman also mentions Grotius, WalchiusS, and Semler^ : and I am perfectly willing to agree with Tittman, that some of these writers have shewn much too great a facility in discovering allusions to Gnosticism in the New Testament. No person has gone further in apply- ing these passages to the Gnostics than Hammond : and we are told, that Usher and others expressed themselves afraid of meeting him, lest they should again be troubled with this eternal mention of the Gnostics '. Hammond has shewn his propensity to this method of interpetation in his Annotations upon the New Testament : but he has carried the principle beyond all bounds in his treatise upon Antichrist, which is the first of four Dissertations written by him in defence of Episcopacy against Blondell. This treatise will be found to contain many valuable observations concerning the early Gnostics; and though I agree with the writers mentioned *^ He wrote a treatise de Indiciis ' This anecdote is told by Le (inosticee Philosoj)hice tempore LXX Moyne in his Varia Sacra, vol. II. Interpretum et Philonis, which is the p. 598. Complaints have been brought 13th Dissertation in part II. Syji- against Hammond in this particular /«^w. Comment, p. 249. by Ittigius, de Heeresiarckis, p. 168. ^ Matter, Hist, du Gnosticisme, Wolfius, Manicheeismus ante Mani- tom. I. p. 124. chteos, p. 182. Le Clerc, Epist. Crit. e Hist. Haeres. See above, p. xx. p. 327. Mosheim, Instit. Maj. p. 3 16. ■> Hist. Dogmat. Fidei. Selecta Ca- VVeismannus, Hist. Eccles. Novi pitaHistoriaeecclcsiasticae. Comment. Testamenti, sec. I. §. 17. p. 125. Hist, dc antiqiio ( hristianorum Statu. INTRODUCTION. xxv above, that Hammond has gone too far, I must also sub- scribe to the opinion of the French writer quoted above, that those persons are equally mistaken, who have denied that any traces of Gnosticism are to be found in the New Testa- ment ^. In the following Lectures I have endeavoured to keep clear of both these extremes. The dissertations pre- fixed by Massuet to his edition of Irenaeus supply a learned and valuable Commentary upon the history of Gnosticism. M. J. Matter, professor at Strasburg, whose words I have lately quoted, has published a learned and valuable history of Gnosticism in two volumes, with a third volume containing plates and illustrations. The title of this work is as follows, Histoire critique du Gnosticisme, et de son iriflu- ence sur les Sectes religieuses et philosophiques des six jrre- miers siecles de Vere Chretienne. Paris, 1828. There is perhaps no work which treats this obscure subject at so muclj length, or which contains so much information con- cerning it; though the reader should be cautioned against some mistakes and inaccuracies, which are truly astonishing, and can only be attributed to carelessness'. For the benefit of the reader I may transcribe the titles of some other works upon the same subject, which are mentioned by this au- thor, which I regret that I have not been able to meet with. Lewald, Commentatio de doctrina Gtiostica, Heidelbero-. 1818. •• I have not seen a work published (Syrus), and died at the beginning byprofessor Horn of Uorpat in Latin of the fourth century: whereas he and in German, the subject of which died in the year 402, and since he is to inquire into the Gnosticism of was then nearly one hundred years the Old and New Testament. old, he probably flourished earlier 1 Thus to speak of Origen as than Epbreni, though he survived " ^mule et contemporain de S. C16- him by twenty years? But the most " ment d'Alexandrie" (vol. I. p. 34.) extraordinary confusion, if I rightly is a very vague expression, when Ori- understand the passage, is at p. 210, gen was pupil of Clement, and flou- where he speaks of Gregory of Nazi- rished thirty or forty years later. At anzum, " qui suit ici les renseigne- p. 36. he speaks with praise of Ori- " mens d'EIiedeCr&te;" upon which gen's work against Marcion ; by I shall only observe, that Gregory which he can only mean the Dialogue flourished in the middle of the fourth (le recta in Detim Fide, which has century, and Elias Cretensis wrote a been long decided not to be a work commentary upon his works in the of Origen. At p. 38. he says that middle of the eighth. Epiphauius lived later than Ephrem xxvi INTRODUCTION. Munter, Essay upon the ecclesiastical Antiquities of Gnos- ticism, Anspach. 1790. Neander, Development of the principal Systems ofGnos- ticisjn, Berlin, 1818. The two last works are written in German : and some other references are given by M. Matter in vol. I. p. 25, 26. I would also particularly recommend another work, writ- ten by M. Matter, Essai historique sur TEcole cTAlexandrie, Palis, 1820, which contains a summary of nearly all the in- formation necessary for an acquaintance with that union of philosophical sects, which led the way to Gnosticism. In tracing the causes of Gnosticism, I have considered the opinions of those writers who have connected it either with the Jewish Cabbala, the Oriental doctrine of two prin- ciples, or the Platonic philosophy. References to the prin- cipal works, which illustrate the Cabbala, will be found in note 14, The book, which is generally recommended as ex- planatory of the eastern doctrines, is Hyde''s Veterum Per- sarum et Parthorum et Medorum Religionis Historia, the second edition of which was printed at Oxford in 1760. There is such a depth of learning displayed in this work, and the quotations from Arabian and other oriental writers are so copious, that no person, who is engaged in investi- gating this subject, can neglect the perusal of it. He must indeed derive from it a variety of information : and yet few persons could read it without lamenting in it the want of order and arrangement : even the usual assistance of an in- dex is absent : and truth compels me to add, that the au- thority of Hyde for matters contained in this history has of late years been gradually diminishing. Beausobre com- plained nearly a century ago. that " les extraits, que M. Hyde *' nous a donnez de ses auteurs Arabes, sont si obscurs, et " si embarrassez d'idees, qui paroissent contraires, que je " n*'ose presque me flatter d'avoir attrape leur pensee •"." Brucker has spoken still more, strongly of the little depend- ence which is to be placed upon these extracts from Arabian writers : " Id enim a doctissimo Hydeo potissimum factum "' Hist, de Manich^e. torn. I. p. 175. INTRODUCTION. xxvii " esse, illiimque lectionis exoticae amore occupatum apud " Arabas certissimas veritates vidisse, quae aliis conjecturae " levissimse et traditiones suspectae videntur, indigestam " quoque admirandae lectionis molem acciirato judicio non " digessisse, et ipsa libri eruditissimi inspectio docet, et ma- " gnis viris, rem sine praejudicio et admiratione eruditionis " insolitse et peregrinag aestimantibus, recte judicatum est "."" Lastly, the French writer, whom I have quoted above, says openly, " Tant que Ton a juge la doctrine de Zoroastre sur " Touvrage de Hyde, il a ete impossibile de juger le Gnosti- " cismeo."" With respect to the third source, to which I have traced the doctrines of the Gnostics, it is necessary, as I have ob- served more than once, to make a careful distinction be- tween the writings of Plato himself and of his later followers. Plato is perhaps more admired than read by many persons, who are really scholars and fond of classical pursuits. In investigating the philosophical tenets of the Gnostics, I con- sider it to be very essential, that the original writings of Plato should be studied?. The reader may then pass on to the works of the later Platonists : and it is to be regret- ted, that so few materials have come down to us, which enable us to follow the philosophy of Plato through all its changes. The works of writers, who called themselves Pla- tonists, and who lived subsequent to the rise of Christianity, are neither few nor unimportant. But of the followers and successors of Plato for upwards of three hundred years be- fore the Christian era, we unfortunately know little from any writings of their own. To supply this deficiency, the Prceparaiio Evangelica of Eusebius is a most valuable re- source : and though Eusebius, as I have taken occasion to observe, misunderstood the sentiments of Plato upon some points, he enables us to form our own opinion as to many of the Grecian philosophers, by having preserved copious " Hist. Philosoph. vol. I. p. 144. p In almost every instance I have In the note he gives references to referred to the pages of Stephens' other writers who have spoken fa- edition of Plato, which are also vourably or unfavourably of Hyde. marked in the margin of Bekker's " Matter, Hist, (hi Gnosticismc, edition, torn. I, p. 25. note i. xxviii INTRODUCTION. extracts from tlieir works, which would otherwise have been lost. The study of the later Platonists, such as Plotinus, Proclus, &c. is neither popular, nor, in the general sense of the term, edifying. But in inquiries like the present it cannot be altogether dispensed with : and I am rather wish- ing to make the task light and easy, than to impose a too heavy burden, when I point out the following authors as most serviceable upon the present occasion. The commen- tary of Chalcidius upon the Timaeus is less intricate in its language, and is at the same time a truer and fairer repre- sentation of Plato's real sentiments, than most of the works which proceeded from the later Platonists. The many and violent changes, which they had made in their master's tenets, are fully exhibited in the great work of Plotinus : and since few persons would have patience to read the whole of it, a sufficient specimen of the obscurity of these writers, and of the effect which Christianity had produced upon the thoughts and language of the heathen, may be seen in the fifth book, which is entitled, Tcsp) tmv rpnuiv otp^ixuiv oTrocrratrscov. The work of Porphyry, de Abstinentia ah esu Animalium, is directed to a much less abstruse subject, and will afford some curious information. It is scarcely necessary to observe, that the works of Philo Judaeus are particularly valuable in an inquiry into the early history of the Christian church. Coinciding as they do in their date with the first promulgation of the Gospel, and recording the opinions of a man, who was deeply versed in Jewish and heathen literature, they cannot fail to throw much light upon that mixture of philosophical systems, which forms so peculiar a feature of the early heresies. There is however one work, which may not only be called indispensable to a person making an investigation like the present, but which may supersede the necessity of consult- ing many other authors. I allude to Brucker's Historia Cr'Uka PhilosophicB, the second edition of which was pub- lished in six volumes at Leipsic in 1767. It may almost be said with truth, that all the information which had been collected, and every opinion which had been entertained. INTRODUCTION. xxix up to that time, concerning philosophy and philosophers in every part of the world, are brought together in these vo- lumes. The variety of reading, and the patience of inves- tigation, which were necessary for making this collection, have perhaps never been surpassed : and though a person, who examines the original sources, to which Brucker ap- peals, will often have to lament the inaccuracy of his re- ferences, and sometimes to question the soundness of his judgment, it is difficult to name any subject connected with the opinions of ancient times, which is not copiously illus- trated in this work. The use which I have made of it in tracing the early heresies, will be seen in almost every page of the following Lectures: and I can truly say that the benefit, which I have derived from it, is much greater than it would be possible to express by any quotations or ac- knowledgments however numerous. I have also examined with some attention Cudworth's celebrated work upon the Intellectual System, which has been considered, both by our own and by foreign writers, to be a valuable storehouse for inquiries into ancient phi- losophy. The best edition was published at Leyden in two volumes 4P. in 1773, by Mosheim, who translated it into Latin, and added very copious notes and dissertations of his own. These notes have greatly increased the value of the work ; and furnish perhaps as many proofs of profound learning and critical accuracy, as any thing which Mosheim ever published. It is remarkable, however, that the anno- tator more frequently differs from his author, than agrees with him : and I cannot but observe, that though Cud- worth has collected vast materials, and brought together a great mass of information, his views are often erroneous, and his conclusions quite untenable. No person has proved this more fully than Mosheim himself : and whoever studies the Intellectual System of Cudworth, will find himself in danger of being often led into error, unless he reads it in the edition and with the notes of Mosheim. I have now pointed out the principal works, which I con- sider to be of use, in tracing the history of early heresies. In the course of these Lectures references are given to XXX INTRODUCTION. many other authors : and one of the objects which I have had in view, is to furnish the reader with access to the best and fullest information upon every subject which is discussed. Where a topic has been amply illustrated and exhausted by writers of note, I have sometimes thought it sufficient merely to refer to their works : and the reader, who may not agree with me in opinion, or who may wish for more knowledge than I have been able to supply, will thus be enabled to consult the best authorities. I know but of one objection to this system of references, which I have carried to so great a length. It may expose me to a charge of ostentation, and of wishing to have it imagined that I have read all the works which are named in the fol- lowing pages. I can only answer, that if the plan is really one, which is likely to benefit the reader, I do not regard the objection which applies only to myself. It would have been the greatest of all presumptions to have entered upon an inquiry like the present, without attempting at least to know the sentiments of the best and most approved writers upon the same subject. There is little merit in following the steps of others, in picking up the information which they have chanced to let fall, and in laying it again before the public in a new form. This is all which I pretend to have done: and in arranging my materials, I have been studiously anxious to point out the sources to which I was indebted, and at the same time to direct the reader to the same means of gaining information, and of detecting any error in my quotations or my conclusions. There is nothing so suited to make an author diffident of his own work, as to examine minutely the labours of others, and to verify their references. The errors and inaccuracies which such an ex- amination brings to light, might aluxost deter any other writer from venturing upon the same field, and risking si- milar detections. Truth is perhaps the first requisite in an author ; but accuracy is the second : and since there is little use in making professions of honesty and impartiality, I shall content myself with stating, that I have been particu- larly careful in referring to passages in other writers ; and I liavc never copied a quotation without at least searching INTRODUCTION. xxxi for it in the original work, and endeavouring to represent it faithfully. I had not proceeded far in these Lectures, before I dis- covered that the plan, which I am necessarily bound to follow, is attended with difficulties and inconveniences. In the first place the Bampton Lecturer has to unite two ob- jects, which cannot very easily be made compatible. He has to engage the attention of a congregation during eight Sermons which are orally delivered : and afterwards these same Sermons are to appear in a printed book. It is obvious that the style and the method, which might be suited to one of these purposes, may not be well adapted to the other. If one of them is exclusively attended to, there is a chance of the other being unsuccessful: or if the author aim at both, he may possibly fafl in both. This however is by no means the greatest inconvenience : for few persons would hesitate as to the choice which they are to make in such an alternative : and though there may be something of arro- gance in an author speaking thus of his own work, I con- ceive it to be his duty as well as his ambition to say with the Athenian historian, xr^juca sg as) /xaAAov )j aywvjCfAa Ic to 7rupa^gYj[jLCi uxoveiv ^uyneiToti. There is however another inconvenience attendant upon the twofold shape, in which these Lectures appear before the public ; and the difficulty is much more strongly felt in proportion to the degree of critical research, which the subject requires. A long and minute detail of historical or critical evidence is extremely irksome to a congregation : nor indeed is it easy to follow an intricate argument, or to connect the separate parts of it, when the whole depends upon the attention and the memory. And yet the subject which I have chosen is one, which calls for an elaborate in- vestigation in almost every page. To have introduced all my materials into the body of the Lectures, would have been quite incompatible with the prescribed and ordinary length of such discourses : and although some of my read- ers will perhaps think the Notes already too long, they might, if it had appeared expedient, have been extended to a much greater length. There was therefore only one xxxii INTRODUCTION. course remaining, to state the facts and conclusions in the Lectures, and to leave the detail of arguments and evidence for the Notes. This is the plan, which I have generally followed. The shorter notes are printed at the bottom of the page ; but those, which contain a longer and more ela- borate discussion, are placed together at the end. I am aware, that this is not a convenient plan to many readers : but I repeat, that in the present case it was unavoidable ; and whoever is acquainted with Mosheim's Institutiones Mqjores, or his work de Rebus ante Constantinuvi, will have seen this plan carried to a much greater length, where there does not appear to have existed the same necessity, and where the notes, which greatly exceed the text in bulk, contain nearly all the information. The Notes at the end of the present volume will perhaps be passed over by many persons, who will not read them in their respective places, because they interrupt the body of the Lecture: beside which they may be thought tedious, and too full of minute references to ancient writers. Still however I cannot avoid pointing out the expediency of reading the Notes together with the Text, and of forgetting, as far as is possible, that part of the work was addressed to a congregation. I wish the whole to be read and considered ^as a whole. The point, which I have chosen for discussion, is one which ought to have been treated as a consecutive and connected history : it comprehends in fact nearly the whole of the ecclesiastical history of the first century : and though so much has been done by foreign writers in this depart- ment, I cannot but again repeat my regrets, that no eccle- siastical historian has appeared in our own country, who has given a full and particular account of the progress of the Gospel in the early ages of the Church. LECTURE I. ^%?k ^^ixwwm^^^ EECTURE I. Acts xx. SO. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking 'perverse things, to di-aw away disciples after them. X HERE never perhaps was a time, when the writings of the New Testament were so minutely and critically examined, as in the present day. So various indeed, and so severe have been the tests, to which that book has been submitted, that we may say with confidence, when advocating its truth, that there is no description of evidence which it does not possess, there is no species of doubt or suspicion from which it has not been cleared. The writers of our own country have been among the foremost and the most successful in traversing this ample field : and we have good reason to thank God, that hitherto at least they have not been seduced by that false and fatal philosophy, which has caused some of their fellow-labourers to make shipwreck of their faith. I could wish, that of the protestant divines in Ger- many we could speak in terms of approbation only, or that our censure was confined to mistakes of judg- ment. They have indeed been mighty champions in the field of criticism ; and the church of Christ will always acknowledge and profit by their labours, though she laments the darkness which has so strangely beset them, while they were leading others to a fuller and a clearer light. For works of general introduction to the New Testament, the German the- £ 2 LECTURE I. ologians stand preeminent, and have left little in this department for future critics to supply. Much how- ever may yet be done by a division of labour : and persons of inferior minds and more limited reading may add something to the general stock of know- ledge, if they confine their investigations to particular points. Thus one person may illustrate the language of the New Testament, by a reference to contemporary writers : another may discover and explain allusions by an observance of eastern manners : the geography and chronology of the sacred books may furnish matter for distinct inquiries : and thus while all are employed upon separate parts, the whole system is better understood ; and critical learning promotes what ought to be its final aim, and what is unques- tionably its noblest use, the means of bringing man nearer to God, and of shewing him in a clearer light the mercies of his Creator, his Sanctifier, and his Redeemer. There are many passages in the New Testament, and particularly in the Epistles, which are either un- intelligible or lose much of their force, if the reader is unacquainted with the circumstances in which the writer was placed. What a comment should we have upon St. Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians, and what a key to many of its difficulties, if we were able to compare it with the letter % to which it was an answer? and no discovery could be so valuable to the biblical critic, as the writings of those persons who opposed or perverted the preaching of the gospel. In the absence of such documents, eccle- ^ See I Cor. vii. i. xvi. 17. LECTURE I. 3 siastical history supplies some facts in the lives of the apostles, which enable us to throw light upon many of their expressions. It will be my object in the present Lectures to bring together these scattered notices, and to consider the heresies which infested the church in the lifetime of the apostles. The plan, which first presented itself, was to con- fine the inquiry to those heresies only which are mentioned in the New Testament. But this was not sufficient. Some of the passages, in which erro- neous opinions are condemned, admit such different interpretations ; and some of the allusions are so ob- scurely worded, that it will sometimes be doubted whether in these passages any heresies are intended at all. Even where the names of persons are expressly mentioned, we know so little of their history and of the tenets which they espoused, that we must go to other sources beside the New Testament, if we wish for information concerning them. Instead therefore of confining myself to those heresies, which are men- tioned in the New Testament, I shall direct your at- tention to all the heresies which are known to have existed in the apostolic age. And when I speak of the apostolic age, it might be equally correct to speak of the first century of the Christian era : for it seems certain, that St. John survived the rest of the apo- stles ; and the death of St. John, according to every account, very nearly coincided with the commence- ment of the second century^. ^ The earliest and most va- 178.) he says that St. John luable testimony upon this point hved " to the time of Trajan," is that of IreniEus, who had con- /xe'xP' ■"■"" Tpa'iavov xpw(>>v. Trajan versed with Polycarp the dis- reigned from theyear 98 to i 17. ciple of St. John. In two places Cave quotes Ensebius and Jerom (II. 22. 5. p. 148. III. 3. 4. p. as saying, that John died in the B 2 4 LECTURE I. The object then of the present Lectures, is to con- sider the heresies which infested the church in the j&rst century, while some of the apostles were still alive : and though the inquiry will bring to our no- tice many persons and events, which are not recorded in the New Testament, yet the illustration of that book is an object of which I shall never lose sight ; and I should wish to advert to every passage, which is connected directly or remotely with any heretical opinion. It is not difficult to perceive the utility of such an inquiry. If false doctrines were disseminated in the church, while the apostles were alive, it is at least highly probable that they would allude to them in their writings : and the meaning of such allusions must necessarily be obscure, unless we know some- thing of the principles, which the writers were con- futing. We cannot rightly understand the antidote, unless we know something of the poison which it is third year of Trajan, A. D. loo. has been quoted as saying that at the age of lo I or 102. But St. John Hved to the age of nothing is said of his death in 120: but the work, in which the Armenian edition of the this statement occurs, is con- Chronicon of Eusebius, though fessedly spurious. (Vol. VIII. in the Greek text, as pubhshed Op. p. 131. Append.) The same by ScaUger, we read that he is said in another spurious work, lived 72 years after the ascen- Synopsis de Vita et Morte Pro- sion, and died in the consulship phetarum S(C. which has been of Syrianus and Marcellus, at falsely ascribed to Dorotheus the age of 100 years and 7 Tyrius, who lived A. D. 303. months. Jerom states that The Paschal Chronicle, which John lived to the reign of Scaliger probably followed, Trajan, and died in the 68th places the death of St. John 72 year after the crucifixion : (De years after the crucifixion : but Vir. Illust. vol. II. p. 83 1 . Adv. the date of this work cannot be Jovin. p. 279.) by which he ap- earher than A. D. 630. See pears to mean, as he is under- Dodwell, Addit. ad Pearsoni stood by Cave, that John died Diss. II. c. 5. p. 178. about A.D. 100. Chrysostom LECTURE I. 5 intended to destroy. That there were heresies in the days of the apostles, is expressly asserted by the apostles themselves. St. Paul in the text said to the elders of Ephesus, Of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away dis- ciples after them. To the Corinthians he writes, There must he also heresies among you, that they which are approved may he made manifest among you : (1 Cor. xi. 19.) and if it be said that these pre- dictions, like those of our Saviour concerning^/,?^ Christs and false prophets, referred to a future and distant period, we may remember that the same apostle speaks of false teachers having already broken into the fold. Thus he mentions heresies among the works of the flesh, which were most to be avoided : (Gal. v. 20.) and he instructs Titus to reject an heretic after the first and second admo- nition^, (iii. 10.) St. John also says in plain terms, Even now are there many Antichrists : they went out from us, hut they were not of us : for if they had heen of us, they would have continued with us. (1 John ii. 18, 19) If we only read the Bible with the same interest, which is produced by other ancient writings, our curiosity would natu- rally be raised to know something more of these false teachers. The desire of information will be increased, when we find St. Paul saying so earnestly to the Colossians, Beware, lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, (ii. 8.) The term philosophy may excite attention, though heresy and schism pass unnoticed : and it is plain, that the "^ For the meaning of the Titus iii. lo, see Mosheim, terms alpecreis and alpeTiKos in Instit. Maj. p. 311. Gal. V. 20. I Cor. xi. ig. and B 3 6 LECTURE I. influence of heathen learning upon the simplicity of the gospel had already been felt, when St. Paul ended an Epistle with those impressive words, O Timofhi/, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and mmi habhUngs, and opposi- tions of science falsely so called; which some pro- fessing have erred concerning the faith. (1 Tim. vi. 20, 21.) The most careless reader would wish to know something more of the Nicolaitans, who are only twice mentioned by St. John, (Rev. ii. 6, 15.) and with scarcely any marks to characterize their creed. We read also of Hymenseus and Philetus, who said that the resurrection is past already. (2 Tim. ii. 17, 18.) The name of Hymenaeus is also coupled with that of Alexander, as persons who had made shipwreck of their faith. (1 Tim. i. 19, 20.) Phygellus and Hermogenes are mentioned as per- sons, who had turned away from St. Paul. (2 Tim. i. 15.) Diotrephes evidently gave great trouble to St. John in the church of Ephesus : (3 John 9.) and though the names, which only live as coupled with error or crime, might well be forgotten, yet these names are rescued from oblivion, and have been stamped upon the eternal pages of that book, which still records them wheresoever the gospel shall he preached in the whole world. The inquiry, which I propose to institute, would be useful, if it merely enabled us to understand these passages, and if it only increased om* materials for illustrating the scriptures. But a knowledge of the heresies of the apostolic age becomes highly im- portant, if not essentially necessary, when we look to the controversies, which in later times have agi- tated the Christian church. It has been said, and LECTURE I. 7 the bold assertion has been repeated in our own day, that the Unitarian doctrines were the doctrines of the primitive church. It has been asserted with a positiveness, which ignorance alone can rescue from the charge of wilful mistatement, that the Ebionites, who believed Jesus to be a mere man, were not spoken of as heretics by the earliest Fa- thers. If these assertions be true, the pillars of our faith are shaken even to the ground. Names of party are always to be deprecated, and never more so than in religion. But where sects exist, they must have names : and if the statements of the Unitarians be true, the orthodox and the heretical must change their ground : we are no longer built upon the foundation of apostles and prophets : with shame and with reproach we must take the lowest room : we must retire — in the company indeed of fathers and of councils, those venerable names, which have adorned and spread the doctrine of God our Saviour — we must retire, not even to the rear of that host which fights vmder the banners of the Lamb; but we must range ourselves in the ranks of the enemy, with those who have corrupted and per- verted the pure word of truth ; and the charge of heresy, with all the woes denounced against it, must fall upon ourselves. In the name therefore of Truth, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the sake of our own souls and of those who will succeed us, let us go to the fountain from whence the living waters flow, let us see who they were that with unhallowed hands polluted its holy stream : let us learn, whe- ther we are now drinking it pure and undefiled, or whether we have hewed out broken cisterns, that can hold no water. (Jerem. ii. 13.) B 4s 8 LECTURE I. Before we proceed further, it is perhaps neces- sary that we should come to a right understanding of the term heresy : for since this, like other terms, from a twofold or general signification, has been restricted to one, and that a bad one, mistakes and confusions may arise, if we do not consider the dif- ferent senses in which the word has been used. It is not necessary to observe, that the Greek term, {aipea-ig) in its primary signification, implies a choice or election f whether of good or evil '^. It seems to have been principally applied to what we should call moral choice, or the adoption of one opinion in preference to another. Philosophy was in Greece the great object, which divided the oj)inions and judgments of men : and hence the term aipeaii, (he- resy,) being most frequently applied to the adoption of this or that particular dogma, came by an easy transition to signify the sect or school in which that dogma was maintained. Thus though the heresy of the Academy or of Epicurus would sound strange to om- ears, and though the expression was not common with the early Greek writers, yet in later "^ ThcAvritings of the Fathers " suscipiendas eas utitur." (de supply some good definitions Prcescript. 6. p. 204.) Diogenes of the term haresis. The Pseu- Laertins, who wrote early in do-Athanasius (vol. II. Op. p. the third century, gives two 316.) says, 7r66ev Xeyerat aipe- definitions; I. TrpoV/cXta-ts ev (Tis; ano rod alpelaOai ri 'ibiov koX b6yp.aaiv aKoKovOiav exovcriv' but ToiiTo i^aKokovOeiv. Isidonis His- he prefers the 2nd, ^ Xdyw nvX palensisdefinesit, "Quod unus- Kara t6 cpatvofievov aKoXovdova-a, " quisque id sibi eligat, quod rj SoKoCo-a dKoKovdelv. (Proam. p. " melius sibi esse videtur." 5.) Casaubon says, " Omne (Orig. VIII. 3. p. 64. ed. 1617.) " studium, quod semel amplexi But the words of TertuUian are " firmiter deinceps tenemus, most expressive: " Hcereses " Grsci aipeaiv, Latini sectam " dictae Grseca voce ex inter- " vocant." {ad Polyb. vol. III. " ■^Yci&tione electionis, qua quis p. 154. ed. 1670.) " sive ad instituendas sive ad LECTURE I. 9 times it became familiar, and we find Cicero speak- ing of the heresy to which Cato belonged, when he described him as a perfect Stoic ^. The Hellenistic Jews made use of the same term to express the leading sects which divided their countrymen. Thus Josephus^ speaks of the three heresies of the Pha- risees, Sadducees, and Essenes : and since he was himself a Pharisee, he could only have used the term as equivalent to sect or party. St. Luke also in the Acts of the Apostles (v. 17. xv. 5.) speaks of the heresy of the Pharisees and Sadducees : and we learn from the same book (xxiv. 5, 14.) that the Christians were called by the Jews the heresy of the Na7Lare7ies^. With this opprobrious addition, the term was undoubtedly used as one of insult and contempt ; and the Jews were more likely than the Greeks to speak reproachfully of those, who differed •^ " Cato autem perfectus " different heretical champions " (mea sententia) Stoicus, et " have been the origin of quar- " ea sentit, quae non sane pro- " rels to all of them." (Fragm. " bantvir in vulgiis : et in ea e lib. II. in Exod. vol. II. p. " est hseresi, quae nullum se- 654.) " quiturflorem orationis." (Pc!- * Vita, §. 2. Antiq. Xllt. 5, radox. I. vol. VII. p. 845. ed. 9. In other places he speaks Oxon.) This use of the term of these three heresies as dif- may be illustrated from Philo ferent kinds of philosophy. Judceiis, who says, " Of all Thus Antiq. XVIII. i, 2. 'lov- " the philosophers, who have baiois(j)i\ocro(piaiTpels ycrav, k.t.X. " flourished among Greeks and and de Bello Jud. 11. 8, 2. rpia " barbarians, and who have yap irapa 'lov8aiois et'fijj cpikoaro- " investigated physics, none cjielrm, /cm tov pev alpeTia-ToX *a- " have been able to see even pia-aloi, tov Se k. t. A. Epipha- " the smallest part of nature nius sajs,'lov8ai(i>v alpta-eis e-rrra. " clearly: of Mdiich we have a Respons. ad Epist. Acacii. " plain proof in the discre- ^ Bardesanes, who was him- " pancies, the dissensions, and self a Christian, speaks of rrjs " variety of opinions among rav Xpia-navav alpfaeas. apud " the supporters and oppo- Eus. Prcep. Evang. VI. 10. p. " nents of each heresy: and 279. " the families or schools of the 10 LECTURE I. from them, particularly in matters of religion. The three Jewish sects already mentioned were of long standing, and none of them were considered to be at variance with the national creed : but the Chris- tians differed from all of them, and in every sense of the term, whether ancient or modern, they formed a distinct heresy^. The apostles would be likely to use the term with" a mixture of Jewish and Gentile feelings : but there was one obvious reason, why they should employ it in a new sense, and why at length it should acquire a signification invariably expressive of reproach. The Jews, as we have seen, allowed of three, or perhaps more, heresies, as exist- ing among their countrymen. In Greece opinions were much more divided ; and twelve principal sects have been enumerated, which by divisions and subdivisions might be multiplied into many more. Thus Aristotle might be said to have belonged at first to the heresy of Plato ; but afterwards to have founded an heresy of his own. The shades of differ- ence between these diverging sects were often ex- tremely small : and there were many bonds of union, which kept them together as members of the same family, or links of the same chain. In addition to which, we must remember that these differences were not always or necessarily connected with re- ligion. Persons might disjiute concerning the sum- mum honum, and yet they might worship, or at least profess to worship, the same God. But the doctrine of the gospel was distinct, uncompromising, and of such a nature, that a person must believe the '' So JosepllUS speaks of Ju- 37.) as ao^to-riys Ibias alpeaecos, das the Galilsean, (the same ovdev rols ctXKoLs irpoaeoiKOis. de who is mentioned in Acts v. Bello Jud. II. 8, i. LECTURE I. 11 whole of it, and to the very letter, or he could not be admitted to be a Christian. There is one hody, says St. Paul, and one Spirit, one Lord, one Jkith, one baptism, one God atid Father of all: (Eph. iv. 4, 5.) which words, if rightly understood, evidently mean, that the faith of the gospel is one and undi- vided'. Hence arose the distinction of orthodox and heterodox. He who believed the gospel, as the apostles preached it, was orthodox : he who did not so believe it, was heterodox. He embraced an opinion — it mattered not whether his own or that of an- other, but he made his own choice, and in the strict sense of the term he was an heretic. It was no longer necessary to qualify the term by the addition of the sect or party which he chose ; he was not a true Christian, and therefore he was an heretic'^. It was in this sense, that the term was applied by the early Fathers. If a man admitted a part, or even ' There are many expressions son who did not believe in the in the Epistles which shew the catholic chvirch, i. e. in the great stress that was laid upon one faith which was held by all an unity of faith: Eph. iv, 3. the churches, was an heretic. 2 Tim. i. 13 ; iii. 14. Jude 3. See Bull, Jud. Eccl. Cath. VI. After the very strong expres- 14. Tlie church of Rome has sions of St. Paul to the Gala- endeavoured to keep up this tians, (i. 8.) Though we or an an- distinction between catholic gel from heaven preach any other and heretic : but she forgets, gospel unto you than that lohich toe that according to ancient ideas, have preached unto you, let him the phrase i^omaw c«^Ao/«c would be accursed, the application of have been a contradiction in the term heretic may be consi- terms. dered mild. It was this neces- '' A Stoic could not have sity of the unity of faith, which called a Peripatetic simply alpe- led to the insertion of that ar- tikos, though he might have tide into so many creeds, " I spoken of him as aipeTiKos rrjs " believe in the holy catholic 'Apia-TortXiKris (piXoa-ocpias. The " church ;" or as it is in some Christian vsTiters are therefore creeds, " I believe in one holy the first in which we find the " catholic church." Every per- word alperiKos used by itself. 12 LECTURE I. the whole, of Christianity, and added to it something of his own; or if he rejected the whole of it, he was equally designated as an heretic ^ If Mahomet had appeared in the second century, Justin Martyr or Irenasus would have spoken of him as an heretic"^ : from which it may be seen, that the term was then applied in a much more extended sense than it bears at present". By degrees it came to be restricted to those who jirofessed Christianity, but professed it erroneously : and in later times, the doctrine of the Trinity, as defined by the council of Nice, was al- most the only test which decided the orthodoxy or the heresy of a Christian ". Differences upon minor points were then described by the milder term of ' Epiphanius wrote a work expressly upon the subject of heresies ; but before he comes to the Christian heresies, he mentions Bap^apicr/xoy, ^KvdLa-fxos, EX\T]vi(Tfj,6s, lov8a'i(Tix6s, 'Eafxapa- Ti(Tfj,6s' and to all of these he gives the same appellation of heresies. (Resjwns. ad Epist. §. 2.) Bal- samon also, in his Commentarjr upon the fourteenth canon of the council of Chalcedon, (p. 340. ed. 1620.) expresses him- self thus : " Heretics are di- " vided into two kinds, i. those " who receive the Christian re- " ligion, but err in some points, " who, when they come over to " the church, are anointed with " oil: and, 2. those who do not " receive it at all, and are un- " believers, such as Jews and " Greeks : and these we bap- " tize." '" Dean Woodhouse, in his Annotations on the Apocalypse, (p. 422, &c.) has mentioned several writers, who have con- sidered the religion of Maho- met as a Christian heresy or apostasy. " Mosheim has observed this, but he is rather inclined to censure the Fathers for their use of the term heretic ; for- getting that they used it in the sense which it then bore : " Ponunt saepe optimi viri, " quos Patres vocamus, nomen " hceretici in hominibus, quipro- " prie ferre iUud nequeunt; et " index quidam confici posset " h(ereticorum.,(\\\i cum hostibus ' ' religionis Christianse , non cum " ejus corruptoribus, quales iUi " sunt, qui proprievocan turhae- " retici, conjungi debuissent." De uno Simone Mago. §. 10. p. 80. The fact here stated is true ; but the word proprie is misapplied. " See Photius in Nomocan. Tit. xii. c. 2. p. 1060. ed. 1661. Justinian. Cod. lib. i. tit. i. LECTURE I. 13 schism : and the distinction seems to have been, that unity of faith might be maintained, though schism existed ; but if the unity of faith was violated, the violator of it was an heretic. This distinction ap- pears hardly to have been observed in the apostolic age ; and St. Paul has been thought to use the term heresi/, where later writers would have spoken of schisms. In the course of these Lectures, I shall speak of the heresies of the apostolic age in the sense which was attached to the term by the early Fathers : and all that I wish to be remembered at present is, that the term is not to be understood ac- cording to modern ideas ; but that an heretic is a man who embraces any opinion concerning religion, that opinion not being in accordance with the faith of the gospel. It may be asked by some persons, as a preliminary question in the present discussion, whether it is not strange, that heresies should have sprung up at all in the lifetime of the apostles. It might be said, that the care and protection of the Almighty was of such vital importance to the infant church, that he would never have suifered the enemy to sow tares so early in the field. Or if we consider the apostles as proclaiming a commission from God, and con- firming their pretensions by stupendous miracles, it would seem impossible for any human presumption to proceed so far, as to alter a doctrine which came immediately from heaven. It is not my intention to enter into the abstract question, why God allowed divisions to appear so early in the chm-ch. If it be proved that they did then exist, the believer in re- velation will be satisfied that God saw wise reasons for permitting it to be so : and to the unbeliever, or 14 LECTURE I. the sceptic, it would be useless to offer such reasons, because it would, still be open for them to say, that it would have been better if the evil had not existed. The believer, as I said, will be satisfied with know- ing the fact : or, if he seek for a reason, he will find it in the words of St. Paul, There must he also he- resies among you, that they which are approved may he made manifest among you. (1 Cor. xi. 19.) Which words are to be understood, not as ascribing a motive to the Almighty in allowing divisions ; but as pointing out a good effect which came from them when they appeared i': as if St. Paul had said, I lament your divisions, though I am not surprised at them : it is natural to our condition that they should arise, and God will not always interfere to stop them : neither is the evil, though in itself great, un- attended with good : for where some err from the right way, others will take warning from their danger ; and their own faith being strengthened, and made more conspicuous, will serve, perhaps, to lessen the number of those who might otherwise have fallen. With respect to the other remark, that men could hardly have been so presumptuous as to alter the doctrine of the apostles, we can only say, that it shews a very slight acquaintance with human na- ture. If we shut our eyes to our own experience, and to history, we might perhaps imagine, that the preaching of the apostles would strike such awe into P Tliis is the remark of Chrys- it is quite apparent, that tva ostom, who says, (/)acrl be rtves is used to denote the event, and oTi TovTo ov8e alrioKoyiKov iari to not the cause : e. g. Mark iv. iirippij^a, uKka r^s eK/Sao-fcoy. 22. John ix. 39. X. 1 7. Rom. (Horn. LVI. in Joan. ix. 3. vol. xi. 1 1. 32. 2 Cor. vii. 12. Gal. VIII. p. 327.) In some places v. 17. i John ii. 19. LECTURE I. 15 their hearers, that they would need no voice from heaven to say, Thou shalt not add thereto, nor di- minish from it. But there never was a truer, though it is a melancholy picture of the human heart, than what we read, that whefi Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunders were^ ceased, he sinned yet inore, and hardened his heart. (Exod. ix. 34.) What was the case with Pharaoh, when the effect of the natiu'al f)henomena had died away, the same would be felt by many when the preternatural signs, which attended the apostles' preaching, were no longer before their eyes. If they hear not Moses and the projthets., says our Saviour, neither will they he persuaded, though one rose from the dead: (Luke xvi. 31.) and the same knowledge of human nature, which dictated this strong expression, would hinder us from being surprised, if men should be found who love darkness rather than light ; and who cor- rupted the words of truth, even as they came from the mouths of the apostles. The surprise, however, if it should be felt, will perhaps be diminished, if we remember, as was ob- served above, that the heresies, of which we are speaking, were not heresies in the modern sense of the term. It will appear in the course of these Lec- tm'es, that many persons, who were called heretics in the first and second centuries, had little or nothing in common with Christianity. They took such parts of the gospel as suited their views, or struck their fancy : but these rays of light were mixed up and buried in such a chaos of absurdity, that the apostles themselves would hardly have recognised their own doctrines. Such were most of the heresies in the lifetime of the apostles : and when we come to con- 16 LECTURE 1. sider the state of philosoi)hical opinions at that pe- riod, we shall cease to wonder that the Fathers speak of so many heresies appearing in the lifetime of the apostles. There is another consideration, which is not al- ways remembered, but which may tend to diminish our surprise, that the doctrine of the gospel was so soon corrupted. The dates of the different books of the New Testament will perhaps never be settled, so as to put an end to controversy and doubt. But still, with respect to many of them, we can approach to something very like certainty'. We know from St. Paul's own statement, (Gal. i. 18. ii. 1.) that two consecutive periods of three and fourteen years elapsed between his conversion and his journey to Jerusalem with Barnabas. There are strong reasons for concluding, that this visit to Jerusalem was that which he made upon his return from his first aposto- lic journey, when he declared all things that God had done with them^. It appears, therefore, that seven- teen years elapsed between St. Paul's conversion and his entering uf)on his second apostolic journey. Or if we take the two periods of three and fourteen years to be meant inclusively, we may shorten the whole period to fifteen years. Some commentators and chronologists have imagined a much longer in- terval to have elapsed between these two events : and they have supposed that St. Paul did not set out upon his second tour till twenty years after his conversion. There are good reasons, however, for preferring the shorter period : and I would do so at ■ The numbers refer to 'i Acts xv. 4 : compare Gal. the notes at the end of these ii. 2. Lectures. LECTURE I. 17 present, because the calculation, which is most unfa- vourable for an argument, is, in fact, the safest, if the argument, notwithstanding that disadvantage, still carries weight. I will assume, therefore, that St. Paul set out upon his second apostolic mission in the fifteenth year after his conversion : and I would observe also, that it is not very important for us to settle the precise year in which that event took place. For though chronologists differ as to the year of St. Paul's conversion •', yet whatever date we take for that event, the subsequent dates still main- tain the same relative position : or, in other words, the period of fifteen years still remains the same. To which I would add, that in accordance with the ^ principle mentioned above, I follow those chronolo- gists, who place the conversion of St. Paul in the same year with the crucifixion of our Lord. We have therefore advanced thus far, that in the fifteenth year after our Saviour's death, St. Paul set out upon that journey which led him through Cilicia and Phrygia to Macedonia, and from thence to Athens and Corinth. It is capable almost of demon- stration, that none of St. Paul's Epistles were written during his first apostolic journey : and no commen- tator has imagined any of the catholic Epistles, as they are called, to have been written till many years later. We may assert, therefore, without fear of contradiction, that the First Epistle to the Thessalo- nians is the first in chronological order of St. Paul's Epistles. This was written in some part of the eighteen months which St. Paul passed at Corinth : ' Thus Petavius placed it in Capellus in 38, J. Capellus in 33, Tillemont in 34, Pearson, 39. Usher, and Benson, in 35, L. 18 LECTURE I. (Acts xviii. 11.) and without entering at present into farther detail, we will assume it to have been written in the year 47- It apjiears, therefore, that seventeen years elapsed between the first promulga- tion of the gospel and the date of the earliest writing which has come down to us. Those Epistles, from which most evidence will be drawn concerning the early heresies, were written several years later : and I am speaking greatly within compass in saying, that the accounts which we have of heresies in the first century, are taken from documents which were written twenty years after the first promulgation of the gosjiel. I have said, that this fact is not always borne in mind by j^ersons who are considering the events of the first century : and yet this period is unquestion- ably the most important which ever has occurred in the annals of mankind. If we cast our eyes over the history of the world, the most awful period, perhaps, was that space of one hundred and twenty years, (Gen. vi. 3.) when tlie long-suffering of God ivaited in the days of Noah, ivhde the ark was pre- paring. (1 Pet. iii. 20.) But the awfulness of that period is felt more in the reflexions of those who have lived since, than it was by the people them- selves, who had that space allowed them for repent- ance, and despised the warning. That j^eriod, it is true, was terminated with the destruction of a world : the other period commenced with the salva- tion of a world. When the sun emerged from that darkness which hung over the cross of Christ, it was the harbinger of a light far more glorious than that which broke upon the world, when God said. Let there he light. There were then no beings upon LECTURE I. 19 earth to enjoy that light, or to bless the giver of it : but when the Sun of Righteousness arose with heal- ing on his wings, then indeed might it be said, much more than at the material creation, that the morning stars sang together, and all the sotis of God shouted for joy. (Job xxxviii. 7.) Then was the Gospel first preached, and listened to by a few, whose sound is now gone out into all lands, and its words unto the ends of the world. (Psalm xix. 4.) And yet how little do we know of the progress of the Gospel, not only for those twenty years which have been already mentioned, but for the whole of the first century? If we examine the Acts of the Apostles with this view, we shall find that the author passes over long periods of time without mentioning any incident. Thus in part only of three chapters, the ninth, tenth, and eleventh, we have a period of twelve years ; and yet the only events recorded are the escape of St. Paul from Damascus, two miracles of St. Peter, and his con- version of Cornelius. If it had not been for an in- cidental expression of St. Paul in his Epistle to the Galatians, we should never have known that he passed three years in Arabia immediately after his conversion : or that fourteen more years elapsed be- fore the end of his first journey. Whether he passed the greater part of this period in his native city. Tarsus % and what was the nature of his occupation, we seek in vain to learnt We could hardly con- ceive that the chosen apostle of the Gentiles would ^ Compare Acts ix. 30. and St. Paul did not preach to the xi. 25. idolatrous Gentiles before his ' Lord Barrington advances second visit to Jerusalem after strong reasons for thinking that his conversion. (Essay III.) C 2 20 LECTURE I. be inclined or permitted to delay the great work, to which he had been called : nor would it be easy to imagine, that the other apostles were idle in spread- ing that gospel, which they had been so solemnly or- dered to preach among all nations ". The death of St. James, and the imjDrisonment of St. Peter by order of Herod, prove that they were not idle, and that the gospel made its way. But still it was not till four- teen years after our Lord's ascension, that St. Paul travelled for the first time and preached the gospel to the Gentiles. Nor is there any evidence, that during that period the other apostles passed the confines of Judaea. There are in fact many argu- ments, which prove the contrary ^ : and a tradition is preserved by two ancient writers, that our Saviour told the apostles not to leave Judaea for the space of twelve years ^. Whether this tradition was well grounded or no, the fact apjjears to have been nearly as there stated. According to the calculation which I have followed, the twelfth year after our Lord's ascension was completed in the year 43, and in 45 I have supposed St. Paul to have proceeded upon his " Matt, xxviii. 19. Mark xvi. preserving a tradition, that our 15. Luke xxiv. 47. Acts i. 8. Saviour commanded the apo- -'' These writers are Clement stlese7rl8a>8eiiaeTfaL fir] x^^pi^o'drivai ofAlexandriaandEusebius. The tj^s 'lepovcrakrjn (V. iS.) Whe- former quotes the words of our ther this tradition rested upon Saviour from the apocryphal fact, or was a mere invention, work, called the Preaching of (founded perhaps upon a forced Peter, iav fiiv ovv ris GeKrjarj tov construction of Acts i. 4.) Jeru- ^l Herod's persecution, which The money collected at An tioch took place in 44, may have dis- may have been sent to the pres- persed the apostles. That they byters, because it was their were absent from Jerusalem, business to superintend the dis- when St. Paul went thither, tribution of it by the deacons. (Acts xi. 30.) is ably argued by The apostles might still have Lord Barrington, (Essay II. 2. been at Jerusalem, but this I. Vol. II. p. 140.) and by Mr. was not their office. See Acts Hinds in his History of the vi. 2. Rise &c. of Christianity. (Vol. ' See Fabricius, Lux Evan- I. p. 250.) But this argument gelii toti orbi exoriens, c. 5. p. from the word presbyter in v. 94. 30. is not perhaps conchisive. c 3 m LECTURE I. of that vast concourse of foreign Jews, who were present at the following Pentecost. In those days, when thousands, or rather millions of Jews, were settled in countries remote from Judaea, it is plain that only the most zealous would observe the ancient custom of attending the mother city at the great fes- tivals ^ It is natural also to suppose, that some of these persons, after performing so long a pilgrimage, would stay at Jerusalem, not only for the Passover, but would remain there a few weeks, so as to be present also at the feast of Pentecost. We know, that on the day of Pentecost, which followed the crucifixion of Jesus, 3000 persons were bajjtized : part of these must have been Jews, who came from a distance ^ : and it is probable, that some of them had been present at the conversation with Jesus, which St. John records, and that many of them had witnessed the crucifixion. When these men re- turned to their several homes, both those that were baptized, and those that were not, they would relate the wonderful things which they had seen and heard : and within a few weeks after the day of Pentecost, men believing the gospel would be found in Persia and Cyrenaica, in Rome and in Arabia. (Acts ii. 9—11.) The next event, which contributed to the propa- gation of the Gospel, was the persecution which fol- lowed upon the death of Stephen, when we read that they were all scattered abroad throughout the re- gions of JudcBa and Samaria : (Acts viii. 1.) but it is added, exce^^t the ajjostles. We learn afterwards, that Judsea and Samaria were not the only places to which these persecuted believers fled. (xi. 19.) The inhabitants of those countries escaped to their LECTURE I. 23 own homes : but among the Jews, who had come from a greater distance, and had been converted, some, we are told, belonged to Cyprus and Cyrene, as well as to the nearer places of Phoenicia and An- tioch. All these aj)pear at first to have fled to An- tioch, (xi. 19. 20.) and to have stayed there some time preaching the gosj)el in that populous and wealthy capital. At length however they would return to their homes : and the Christian doctrines would be spread by their mouths in Cyprus and Cyrene. Of Cyrene we hear nothing more in the New Testa- ment '^ ; nor of Cyprus, till St. Paul visited it in his first journey''. It has been thought indeed, from the vicinity of this island to the coast of Cilicia, that St. Paul may have gone thither during his long resi- dence at Tarsus. But this is mere conjecture. The Acts of the Apostles leave St. Paul at Tarsus in the ^ The Rufus, who was at Rome, when St. Paul wrote to the Romans, (xvi. 13.) has been supposed to be the same with the son of Simon of Cyrene, who is mentioned by St. Mark, xv. 21. If so, Chris- tianity may have been carried by Simon to his native country, when he returned thither : but the mother of Rufus appears to have resided at Rome together with her son. ^ Barnabas was a native of Cyprus ; (Acts iv. 36.) and it might have been thought, that he was among those persons of Cyprus and Cyrene, who are said to have gone to Antioch after the death of Stephen, (xi. 19. 20.) But we find in the same passage, that when those persons had collected a large body of believers at Antioch, Barnabas was sent by the apo- stles from Jerusalem to that city. (22.) This was about twelve years after the conver- sion of Barnabas ; and we know nothing of his history during that period. It is not impro- bable, that he paid a visit to his native country : though if the land, which he sold, was in Cyprus, (iv. 37.) he would have less interest in residing there. But being a Levite, (ib. 36.) he was probably a settled inhabit- ant of Jerusalem, though his family was of Cyprus, and he himself may have been born there. It is plain, that he felt an interest in the spiritual con- cerns of the people of Cyprus, (xv. 39.) c 4 ^ 24 LECTURE I. third year after his conversion ; (ix. 30.) and ten years afterwards we find him still at Tarsus, when Barnabas went thither and brought him to Antioch. During this period the gospel was making its way in many parts of the three quarters of the world, though as yet none of the apostles had travelled beyond Judsea : and m hen we come to consider the state of philosophy at that time, and the fashion which prevailed of catching at any thing new, and of uniting discordant elements into fanciful systems, we shall not be surprised to find the doctrines of the gospel disguised and altered ; and that according to the language of that age many new heresies were formed. The gospel in those days and in those coun- tries may be compared to small vessels di'ifting with- out a pilot, where conflicting currents altered their course, and rocks and shoals awaited them on every side. In the midst of such dangers we cannot won- der that many were carried about with every wind of doctrine, (Eph. iv. 14.) and that some made ship- ivreck of their faith. (1 Tim. i. 19-) The example of Rome, the seat of empire and of science, may serve to illustrate what has here been said. We read, that among the multitudes assem- bled at Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, there were strangers of Rome, lioth Jews and proselytes, (Acts ii. 10.) i. e. descendants of Abraham, who lived at Rome, and inhabitants of Rome, who were Jewish proselytes. There can be no doubt, that all these men would carry back with them a report of what had happened at Jerusalem : and some of them would carry also the doctrines which they had em- braced. From this time we have scarcely any men- tion of Rome in the Acts of the Apostles, till St. LECTURE I. 25 Paul arrived there as a prisoner twenty-five years after our Lord's ascension. It seems almost demon- strable, that no apostle had preceded him in a visit to that city'": and it is equally plain, that Chris- tianity had made great progress there long before his arrival"^: we cannot therefore wonder, when the masters of the field were so long absent, if many tares grew up together with the wheat. We know what was the case at Corinth, where the great apostle himself planted the church, (1 Cor. iii. 6, 10. iv. 15.) and at his first visit continued a year and six months teaching the word of God among them: (Acts xviii. 11.) and yet in the fourth year "^ This may be inferred from Romans i. ii. where St. Paul says, For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some sjn- ritual gift. The xap'O'/^aTa irvev- fiartKo. seem to have belong- ed exclusively to the apostles : and from this passage we learn, that the Romans had not as yet received them. But we may prove the point more conclu- sively from Rom. xv. i8 — 22. where St. Paul seems evidently to say, that at that time at least he should not have built upon another man's founda- tion, if he had preached at Rome. This Epistle was written three years before his voyage to that city: but there is no evi- dence, that any other apostle went thither in the interval. '' I have supposed St. Paul to have gone to Rome A. D. 56. Priscilla and Aquila joined him at Corinth ten years be- fore : and if they were already Christians, (which is not cer- tain,) it is probable that it was against the Christians, more than against the Jews, that the decree of Claudius was direct- ed. (Acts xviii. 2.) St. Paul wrote his Epistle to the Ro- mans A. D. 53. and at that time their faith was spoken of throughout the whole world, (i. 8.) and their obedience was come abroad unto all men, (xvi. 19.) After this testimony, it is not necessary to refer to the salu- tations at the end of the Epi- stle, which shew how numerous the Christians were at that time in Rome. We may remember also, that he found some bre- thren at Puteoli, when he land- ed there : (Acts xxviii. 13, 14.) and the open manner, in which he was received by the Chris- tians at Rome, shews that at that time at least the gospel met with little opposition. 26 LECTURE I. after he left thein, (having perhaps visited them again during the interval,) he heard that there were divisions and contentions among them ; (1 Cor. i. 10, 11,) and that some said, / am of Paul, and I ofApoUos, and I of Cephas, and I of Christ. (12.) We know also that St. Paul was the first apostle who visited Galatia ; (i. 6. iv. 19.) and he himself testifies, that they received him as an angel of God: (iv, 14.) and yet within four years of his second visit he was obliged to write and reprove them for being removed fi^om him that called them into the grace of Christ unto another gospel, (i. 6.) I do not mean that St. Paul was the first person who introduced Christianity in Galatia or at Corinth : the observations, which I have made, would j)re- pare us for the contrary, and there is evidence that he found the seeds of the gospel already sown ^ : but if they had the benefit of his personal presence among them, being taught hy him as the truth is in Jesus, (Eph. iv. 21.) and yet listened to false teach- ers who corrupted the word, how much more must this have been the case, in places which the apostle did not visit so soon, and where, as in Rome, the gospel made its way for five and twenty years, with nothing but the zeal of individuals to spread it, and subject to all the fancies which those individuals might adopt ? It seems plain from St. Paul's own words, that some years before he went to Rome, he had heard of false doctrines being introduced among them, or he would not have said so earnestly to them at the end of his Epistle, Now I beseech you, hrethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences, contrary to the doctrine which ye have LECTURE I. 27 learned, and avoid them: (xvi. 17.) and again, / woidd have you wise unto that which is good, and simple concerning evil. (19.) It is my intention to inquire into what St. Paul here calls the divisions and offences which endan- gered the early church. The inquiry will in some respects be painful, as every thing must be, which speaks of division where union should prevail, and which shews how easily the unlearned and the un- stable may corrupt the holiest truths. It is indeed painful to reflect how short was the duration of that peaceful and heavenly calm, when the multi- tude of them that believed were of one heart and one soul. (Acts iv. 32.) It seemed, as if the words of the heavenly host were then beginning to be ac- complished, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. (Lul^e ii. 14.) But the vision of the Angels was scarcely more transient than those peaceful days. The following chapter begins with recording the death of two dis- ciples for avarice and falsehood : and the next with the murmuring of the Grecians against the He- brews. Diversity of doctrine soon followed ; and from those days to the present, as St. Paul foretold in the text, men have arisen, speahing perverse things, to draw disciples after them. It is my in- tention to confine myself to the apostolic times ; to those times, when it pleased God to teach mankind by his special messengers, what they are to practise and what they are to believe : but those times will also furnish us with an awful warning, as to what we are to fear and what we are to avoid : they will teach us to mistrust the wisdom of man, when it is not enlightened and sanctified from above : they will 28 LECTURE I. teach us, that the human mind may build up sys- tems, and may wander up and down through the regions of theory; but that truth is seated in the throne of God; and that he alone can arrive at truth, who lays his hopes, his wishes, and his reason at the foot of that throne. LECTURE II. Col. ii. 8. Bezoare lest any man. spoil you throvgh philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition ()fmen, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. I OBSERVED in the former Lecture, that all the Fathers speak of heresies infesting the Church in the lifetime of the apostles ". We shall have occasion to consider hereafter, what is asserted with one con- sent by all of them, that Simon Magus was the parent and founder of all heresies. The testimony is equally strong, that Simon's opinions were taken up by Menander, who was succeeded in time by two disciples, Basilides and Saturninus. These men lived in the former part of the second century : at which time, or not long after, two other persons, Marcion and Valentinus, still more notorious for the extravagance of their opinions, were at the head of extensive sects. The doctrines of all these per- sons are stated to have had many points of resem- blance : and those of Marcion and Valentinus are as clearly ascertained, as any other which the his- tory of philosophy has preserved. Consequently if the pedigree be rightly traced, which deduces their opinions from the School of Simon Magus, we are not without some clue as to the errors which pre- vailed at the very beginning of the gospel. I have said that the heresies of the second cen- tury are clearly and historically ascertained : and .30 LECTURE II. HO person can read the elaborate work of Irenaeus, which he wrote expressly to confute those heresies, without allowing, that whatever might be his talent or his judgment, he must have known the doctrines which he opposed. Irenaeus and all the Fathers agree in saying, that the heretics, whom I have named, belonged to the Gnostic School '^ : and there- fore by the argument, which was before used, we may infer that the Gnostic opinions, or at least something like to that which was afterwards called Gnosticism, was professed in the time of the apo- stles. Again we learn from the same Irenaeus^, in which he is supported by many early writers, that St. John published his Gospel to oppose the heresy of Cerin- thus : he adds, that the Cerinthian doctrines had been already maintained by the Nicolaitans, and that the Nicolaitans were a branch of the Gnostics^. Here then we have another positive evidence, that the Gnostic opinions were held in the time of the apostles : and if this were so, it might naturally be expected, that some allusions to these opinions would be found in the apostolic writings. It will be my object to investigate this point : but the tenets of Gnosticism hold so prominent a place in every ac- count which we have of the earliest heresies, that it will be necessary for us to consider them at some length, and to endeavour to acquaint om-selves with their peculiar character. There are few points, which are so striking in ^ See Irenaeus, II. praef. III. Nicolaus indulging his passions, 4, 3. p. 179. says that hence sprang up the '' III. II, I. p. 188. Gnostics and other heretics. *= Epiphanius, speaking of Hcer. XXV. 2. p. 77. LECTURE 11. 31 a perusal of the early Christian writers, as the fre- quent mention of the Gnostic tenets. The reader, who has some acquaintance with the doctrines of the heathen philosophers, and is familiar with those of the gospel, finds himself suddenly introduced to a new sect, the very name of which was perhaps unknown to him before. When he comes to the second century, he finds that Gnosticism, vinder some form or other, was professed in every part of the then civilized world. He finds it divided into schools, as numerously and as zealously attended as any which Greece or Asia could boast in their hap- piest days. He meets with names totally unknown to him before, which excited as much sensation as those of Aristotle or Plato. He hears of volumes having been written in support of this new philoso- phy, not one of which has survived to our own day. His classical recollections are roused by finding an intimate connexion between the doctrines of the Gnostics and of Plato : he hears of Jews, who made even their exclusive creed bend to the new system : and what interests him most is, that in every page he reads of the Ijaneful effect which Gnosticism had upon Christianity, by adopting parts of the gospel scheme, but adopting them only to disguise and de- form them. Such is the picture which unfolds itself to the reader of ecclesiastical history in the second century : a picture, which must be allowed to contain a ground- work of truth, though perhaps it has been too highly coloured by the enemies of the Gnostics, who wrote against them when the evil was at its height, and who felt that all their united strength was required to stem the overwhelming torrent. By the blessing 32 LECTURE II. of God it was stemmed, and died away : and, like other hurricanes, which have swept over the moral and religious world, it has left no trace of its devas- tation behind ; it is forgotten, and almost unknown. Some persons will perhaps doubt, whether Gnos- ticism was ever so widely spread as it is here repre- sented : and though many causes might be assigned for the little interest which the subject excites, I be- lieve the proximate cause will be found in the ab- sence of all mention of Gnosticism from classical writers. There is perhaps no expression which ex- cites so universal and so strong a feeling, and yet is so difficult to define, as what are commonly called the classical writers. If we fix certain jieriods of time, before and after which no writing is to be ac- counted classical, then indeed we have a definition which is certain and precise. But to what tribunal of learning or of taste shall we commit the fixing of these intellectual boundaries ? We may trace the line which separates cultivation from the sands be- yond it, but there are still some spots, some oases in the desert, which claim a connexion with more fa- voured regions, and which we admire the more for the barrenness which surrounds them. Custom, however, and prescription, have great influence in classical studies : and many who are most fond of them, would i3erliaps be surprised, if they were to reflect how few authors they have read, who wrote since the commencement of the Christian era''. Of '' Those persons who express were likely to have noticed it. surprise at finding so little men- The only persons whom we tion of Christianity in heathen could name in the historical authors, have not perhaps con- department, between the death sidered how few writers there of Christ and the end of the were in the first century who century, were Valerius Maxi- LECTURE II. 33 those that are preferred, it is difficult to pronounce whether the term classical is, or ought to be, applied to them. But thus much appears certain, that the Christian writers of the second century do not come under that description. In this, perhaps, there is more of chance than of rational or systematic classi- fication. If the second century, instead of the fourth, had witnessed the conversion of the Roman govern- ment, the Fathers of the Christian Church might have been ranked among the classics : or if, from defect of style, this name had been denied them, there is no reason why Justin Martyr, Irenseus, and Clement of Alexandria, might not have held as high a rank in literature as Plutarch, Lucian, or Athe- nasus. If style and language are to decide the ques- tion, the Christian Fathers need not fear the test. Both parties may have drawn from the same cor- rupted sources of eloquence ; but Justin Martyr is much less obsciu'e than Plutarch, and decency is at least not outraged by the Christian writers. If depth of argument be required, Irenaeus is as close and as convincing a reasoner as his heathen contem- poraries : and if the lighter reader loves to gather in Athenaeus the flowers of ancient poetry, he may gratify the same taste in the amusing and diversified pages of Clement of Alexandria. The Christian Fathers are not surely neglected, because, abandon- mus, Q. Curtius, Tacitus, and in the same period wei-e Petro- Suetonius : and of these, the nius Arbiter, Pomponius Mela, two last are the only persons L. A. Seneca, Pliny Senior, who, from their date, or the Quintilian,Epictetus,DioChrvs- subject of their histories, would ostom, and Pliny Junior. The have been likely to notice the poets were Persius, Lucan, Si- Christians ; and the greater lius Italicus, Val. Flaccus, Sta- part of the history of Tacitus tius, Juvenal, and Martial. is lost. The other prose writers D 34 LECTURE II. ing the speculations of men, they give us truths which are revealed from heaven : or if philosophical opinions have so great a charm, and if we must know the systems and the fancies which one man has invented and another has destroyed, there never was a greater record of intellectual absurdity than the history of Gnosticism. It will be said, perhaps, that the absurdity of a system is not exactly the point which we should choose, to recommend its study. But if we would know the human mind, we must observe its failings and aberrations, as well as its more successful flights. History, it has been said, is only a record of the vices and cruelties of mankind : and if man had never erred in the pursuits of science, the his- tory of philosophy would be reduced to a narrow compass. Gnosticism, it is true, is pregnant with absurdities : but this can be no argument against the study of it, when volumes have been written to explain the follies of Epicurus ; or when the mazes in which Plato has involved his unintelligible re- finements, are held up as speculations almost too sublime for unassisted reason^. I do not say that Gnosticism deserves to be studied on its own ac- count. We might well forget that our fellow-beings had ever devised so wild and irrational a scheme : but if the rise of Gnosticism was contemporary with that of the gospel, and if the apostles felt themselves called upon to oppose its progress, it thenceforward assumes a kind of dignity from the contact, and we wish to be acquainted with doctrines which occupied the attention of St. Paul and St. John. ^ See Dacier's translation of the works of Plato, £!pit, dedicat. LECTURE II. 35 In attempting to give an account of these doc- trines, I must begin with observing, what we shall see moi«e plainly, when we trace the causes of Gnos- ticism, that it was not by any means a new and dis- tinct philosophy, but made up of selections from almost every system. Thus we find in it the Pla- tonic doctrine of Ideas, and the notion that every thing in this lower world has a celestial and imma- terial archetype We find in it evident traces of that mystical and cabbalistic jargon which, after their return from captivity, deformed the religion of the Jews : and many Gnostics adopted the oriental no- tion of two independent coeternal principles, the one the author of good, the other of evil. Lastly, we find the Gnostic theology full of ideas and terms, which must have been taken from the gospel : and Jesus Christ, under some form or other, of jEon, emanation, or incorporeal phantom, enters into all their systems, and is the means of communicating to them that knowledge, which raised them above all other mortals, and entitled them to their peculiar name. The genius and very soul of Gnosticism was mystery : its end and object was to purify its fol- lowers from the corruptions of Matter, and to raise them to a higher scale of being, suited only to those who were become perfect by knowledge. We have a key to many parts of their system, when we know that they held Matter to be intrin- secally evil, of which consequently God could not be the author. Hence arose their fundamental tenet, that the Creator of the world, or Demiurgus, was not the same with the supreme God, the author of good, and the father of Christ. Their system al- lowed some of them to call the Creator God: but D 2 36 LECTURE II. the title most usually given to him was Demiurgus. Those, who embraced the doctrine of two princi- ples, supposed the world to have been produced by the evil principle: and in most systems, the Creator, though not the father of Christ, was looked upon as the God of the Jews, and the author of the Mosaic law. Some again believed, that angels were em- ployed in creating the world : but all were agreed in maintaining, that matter itself was not created ; that it was eternal ; and remained inactive, till dispositam, quisquis fuit ille Deorum, Congeriem secuit, sectamque in membra redegit. Ovip. Metam. I. 32. The supreme God had dwelt from all eternity in a Pleroma of inaccessible Light ; and beside the name of first Father, or first Principle, they called him also Sythus^ as if to denote the unfathomable na- ture of his perfections. This Being, by an oj)eration purely mental, or by acting upon himself, produced two other beings of different sexes, from whom by a series of descents, more or less numerous according to different schemes, several pairs of beings were formed, who were called JEons from the periods of their existence before time was, or Emanations from the mode of their production. These successive iEons or Emanations appear to have been inferior each to the preceding ; and their existence was in- dispensable to the Gnostic scheme, that they might account for the creation of the world without mak- ing God the author of evil. These iEons lived through countless ages with their first Father : but the system of emanations seems to have resembled that of concentric circles ; and they gradually de- teriorated, as they approached nearer and nearer to LECTURE II. 37 the extremity of the Pleroma. Beyond this Pleroma was Matter, inert and powerless, though coeternal with the supreme God, and like him without be- ginning. At length one of the jEons passed the limits of the Pleroma, and meeting with Matter created the world after the form and model of an ideal world, which existed in the Pleroma or in the mind of the supreme God. Here it is, that incon- sistency is added to absurdity in the Gnostic scheme. For let the intermediate ^ons be as many as the wildest imagination could devise, still God was the remote, if not the proximate cause of creation. Added to which, we are to suppose that the Demi- urgus formed the world without the knowledge of God, and that having formed it he rebelled against him. Here again we find a strong resemblance to the Oriental doctrine of two Principles, Good and Evil, or Light and Darkness. The two Principles were always at enmity with each other. God must have been conceived to be more powerful than Mat- ter, or an emanation from God could not have shaped and moulded it into form : yet God was not able to reduce Matter to its primeval chaos, nor to destroy the evil which the Demiurgus had produced. What God could not prevent, he was always endea- vouring to cure : and here it is, that the Gnostics borrowed so largely from the Christian scheme. The names indeed of several of their iEons were evidently taken from terms which they found in the gospel. Thus we meet with Logos, Monogenes, Zoe, Ecclesia, all of them successive emanations from the supreme God, and all dwelling in the Ple- roma. At length we meet with Christ and the Holy Ghost, as two of the last jEons which were D 3 38 LECTURE II. put forth. Christ was sent into the world to remedy the evil which the creative Mon or Demiurgus had caused. He was to emancipate men from the ty- ranny of Matter, or of the evil Principle ; and by revealing to them the true God, who was hitherto unknown^, to fit them by a perfection and sublimity of knowledge to enter the divine Pleroma. To give this knowledge was the end and object of Christ's coming upon earth : and hence the inventors and believers of the doctrine assumed to themselves the name of Gnostics ^. In all their notions concerning Christ, we still find them struggling with the same difficulty of reconciling the author of good with the existence of evil. Christ, as being an emanation from God, could have no real connection with matter. Yet the Christ of the Gnostics was held out to be the same with him who was revealed in the gospel : and it was notorious, that he was revealed as the son of Mary, who appeared in a human form. The methods which they took to extricate themselves from the difficulty were principally two. They either denied that Christ had a real body at all, and held that he was an unsubstantial phantom ; or granting that ' It was a leading tenet of " sive de ces Emanations, r6- Gnosticism, that the supreme " demption et retour vers la God was unknown before the " puretdduCreateur.retablisse- coming of Christ : and this may " ment de la primitive har- perhaps throw some light iipon " monie de tous les etres, vie the altar to the unknown God, " heureuse et vraiment divine ayvuxTTa Qem, which St. Paul " de tous dans le sein meme found at Athens, (Acts xvii. " de Dieu : voila les enseigne- 23.) and which is also men- " mens fondamentaux du tioned by Lucian. " Gnosticisme." Matter, Hist. s " Emanation du sein de Critique du Gnosticisme. Introd. " Dieu de tous les etres spiri- vol. I. p. 18. " tuels, degeneration progres- LECTURE 11. 39 there was a man called Jesus, the son of human parents, they believed that one of the Moms, called Christ, quitted the Pleroma, and descended upon Jesus at his baptism. It is not difficult to see how the scriptures would be perverted to support both these notions : though if we are right in assigning so early a date to the rise of Gnosticism, it was rather the preaching of the apostles, which was perverted, than their written doctrines : and from what was stated in my former Lectui'e, concerning the progress of the gospel in distant countries which the apostles had not yet visited, we can easily un- derstand, that truth would be mixed with error, and that the mysterious doctrines would be most likely to suffer from the contact. We have seen, that the God, who was the father or progenitor of Christ, was not considered to be the creator of the world. Neither was he the God of the Old Testament, and the giver of the Mosaic law. This notion was supported by the same ar- guments which infidels have often urged, that the God of the Jews is represented as a God of ven- geance and of cruelty: but it was also a natural consequence of their fundamental principle, that the author of good cannot in any manner be the author of evil. In accordance with this notion, we find all the Gnostics agreed in rejecting the Jewish scrip- tures, or at least in treating them with contempt. Since they held, that the supreme God was revealed for the first time to mankind by Christ, he could not have been the God who inspired the prophets : and yet with that strange inconsistency, which we have already observed in them, they appealed to these very scriptures in support of their own doc- D 4 40 LECTURE 11. trines. They believed the prophets to have been inspired by the same creative ^Eon, or the same Principle of evil, which acted originally upon mat- ter : and if their writings had come down to us, we should perhaps find them arguing, that though the prophets were not inspired by the supreme God, they still could not help giving utterance to truths. Their same abhorrence of matter, and their same notion concerning that purity of knowledge, which Christ came upon earth to impart, led them to re- ject the Christian doctrines of a fiitm'e resurrection and a general judgment. They seem to have under- stood the apostles as preaching literally a resurrec- tion of the hody: and it is certain, that the Fathers insisted upon this very strongly as an article of be- lief. But to imagine, that the body, a mass of cre- ated and corruptible matter, could ever enter into hea- ven, into that Pleroma which was the dwelling of the supreme God, was a notion which violated the fundamental principle of the Gnostics. According to their scheme, no resurrection was necessary, much less a final judgment. The Gnostic, the man who had attained to perfect knowledge, was gradually emancipated from the grossness of matter, and by an imperceptible transition, which none but a Gnos- tic could comprehend, he was raised to be an inha- bitant of the divine Pleroma. If we would know the effect, which the doctrines of the Gnostics had upon their moral conduct, we shall find that the same principle led to two very op- posite results. Though the Fathers may have ex- aggerated the errors of their opponents, it seems un- deniable, that many Gnostics led profligate lives, and maintained upon principle that such conduct was LECTURE 11. 41 not unlawful. Others again are represented as prac- tising great austerities, and endeavouring by every means to mortify the body and its sensual appetites. Both parties were actuated by the same common notion, that matter is inherently evil. The one thought that the body, which is compounded of matter, ought to be kept in subjection ; and hence they inculcated self-denial, and the practice of moral virtue : while others, who had persuaded themselves that knowledge was every thing, despised the dis- tinctions of the moral law, which was given, as they said, not by the supreme God, but by an inferior jEon, or a principle of evil, who had allied himself with matter. Such are the leading doctrines of the Gnostics, both concerning their theology and their moral prac- tice. The sketch, which I have given, is short and imperfect ; and a system of mysticism, which is always difficult to be explained, is rendered still more obscure when we have to extract it from the writ- ings of its opponents. The system, as I have said, was stated to have begun with Simon Magus ; by which I would understand, that the system of uniting Christianity with Gnosticism began with that he- retic '' : for the seeds of Gnosticism, as we shall see presently, had been sown long before. What Simon Magus began, was brought nearly to perfection by Valentinus, who came to Rome in the former part of the second century : and what we know of Gnos- ticism, is taken principally from writers who opposed Valentinus. Contemporary with him there were many other Gnostic leaders, who held different opin- '' See Siricius, de Simone Mago, Disq. I. Thes. 65. p. 58. 42 LECTURE 11. ions : but in the sketch, which I have given, I have endeavoured to explain those principles, which under certain modifications were common to all the Gnos- tics. That the supreme God, or the Good Principle, was not the Creator of the world, but that it was created by an evil, or at least by an inferior Being ; that God produced from himself a succession of ^ons, or Emanations, who dwelt with him in the Pleroma ; that one of these jEons was Christ, who came upon earth to reveal the knowledge of the true God ; that he was not incarnate, but either assumed an unsub- stantial body, or descended upon Jesus at his bap- tism ; that the God of the Old Testament was not the father of Jesus Christ ; and that the prophets were not inspired by the supreme God ; that there was no resurrection or final judgment ; this is an outline of the Gnostic tenets, as acknowledged by nearly all of them ; and it will be my object to con- sider whether there are allusions to these doctrines in the apostolic writings. These writings are in fact the only contemporary documents to which we can appeal for the first cen- tury. The brief Epistles of Ignatius may contain a few facts connected with the end of that century, and the beginning of the next ; and the writings of Justin Martyr, (though his work directed expressly against Marcion and other heretics is unfortunately lostS) may throw light upon many points disputed between the Christians and the Gnostics. But the work of Irenaeus, which was intended as an answer to all heresies, and entitled, with a manifest reference ' Justin himself says, ecrrt Se vop. Apol. I. 26. p. 60. The r]fxlv Koi (TvvrayiJLa koto, iraa-av twv first Apology was written about y(yevr)fi(V(A)V axpi