CHAP. V.

CONCERNING THE HERESIES AND DIVISIONS THAT TROUBLED THE CHURCH DURING THIS CENTURY.

I. AMONG the many seets which divided the Christian church during this century, it is natural to mention, in the first place, that which an attachment to the Mosaic law separated from the rest of their Christian brethren. The first rise of this sect is placed under the reign of Adrian. For, when this emperor had, at length, razed Jerusalem, entirely destroyed even its very foundations, and enacted laws of the severest kind against the whole body of the Jewish people; the greatest part of the Christians, who lived in Palestine, to prevent their being confounded with the Jews, abandoned entirely the Mosaic rites, and chose a bishop named Mark, a foreigner by nation, and consequently an alien from the commonwealth of Israel. This step was highly shocking to those, whose attachment to the Mosaic rites was violent and invincible; and such was the case of many. These, therefore, separated themselves from the brethren, and founded at Pera, a country of Palestine, and in the neighbouring parts, particular assemblies, in which the law of Moses maintained its primitive dignity, authority, and lustre.9

II. This body of judaizing Christians, which set Christ and Moses upon an equal footing in point of authority, was afterwards divided into two sects, extremely different both in their rites and in their opinions, and distinguished by the names of Nazarenes and Ebionites. The former are not placed by the ancient Christians in the heretical register; but the latter were considered as a sect, whose tenets were destructive of the fundamental principles of the Christian religion. These sects made use of a gospel, or history of Christ, different from that which is received among us, and concerning which there have been many disputes among the learned.11 The term Nazarenes was not originally the name of a sect, but that which distinguished the disciples of Jesus in general. And as those whom the Greeks called Christians, received the name of Nazarenes among the Jews, this latter name was not considered as a mark of ignominy or contempt. Those, indeed, who, after their separation from their brethren, retained the title of Nazarenes, differed much from the true disciples of Christ, to whom that name had been originally given; "they held that Christ was born of a virgin, and was also in a certain manner united to the divine nature; they refused to

9 Vid. Sulpitius Severus, Hist. Sacræ, lib. ii. cap. xxxi. p. 245. 10 Epiphanius was the first writer who placed the Nazarenes in the list of heretics. He wrote in the fourth century, but is very far from being remarkable, either for his fidelity or judgment.

11 This gospel, which was called indiscriminately the gospel of the Nazarenes, or Hebrews, is certainly the same with the gospel of the Ebionites, the gospel of the twelve apostles, and is very probably that which St. Paul refers to, Galatians, ch. ver. 6. Dr. Mosheim refers his readers, for an account of this gospel, to Fabricius, in his Codex Apocryph, Nov. Test. tom. i. p. 355. and to a work of his own, entitled Vindicia contra Tolandi Nazarenum, p. 112. The reader will, however, find a still more accurate and satisfactory account of this gospel, in the first volume of the learned and judicious Mr. Jones' incomparable Method of settling the Canonical Authority of the New

Testament.

abandon the ceremonies prescribed by the law of Moses, but were far from attempting to impose the observance of these ceremonies upon the Gentile Christians; they rejected also all those additions that were made to the Mosaic institutions, by the Pharisees and the doctors of the law;" and from hence we may easily see the reason why the greatest part of the Christians treated the Nazarenes with a more than ordinary degree of gentleness and forbearance.

III. It is a doubtful matter from whence the Ebionites derived their name, whether from that of some of their principal doctors, or from their poverty. 13 One thing, however, is certain, and that is, that their sentiments and doctrines were much more pernicious than those of the Nazarenes.1 For, though they believed the celestial mission of Christ, and his participation of a divine nature, yet they regarded him as a man born of Joseph and Mary, according to the ordinary course of nature. They, moreover, asserted, that the ceremonial law, instituted by Moses, was not only obligatory upon the Jews, but also upon all others; and that the observance of it was essential to salvation. And as St. Paul had very different sentiments from them, concerning the obligation of the ceremonial law, and had opposed the observance of it in the warmest manner, so, of consequence, they held this apostle in abhorrence, and treated his writings with the utmost disrespect. Nor were they only attached to the rites instituted by Moses, they went still further, and received, with an equal degree of veneration, the superstitions of their ancestors, and the ceremonies and traditions which the Pharisees presumptuously added to the law. 15

IV. These obscure and unfrequented heretical assemblies were very little detrimental to the Christian cause, which suffered much more from those sects, whose leaders explained the doctrines of Christianity in a manner conformable to the dictates of the oriental philosophy concerning the origin of evil. The oriental doctors, who, before this century, had lived in the greatest obscurity, came forth from their retreat under the reign of Adrian, exposed themselves to public view, and gathered together, in various provinces, assemblies, whose numbers were very considerable. The ancient records mention a great number of these demi-christian sects, many of which are no farther known than by their distinguishing names, which, perhaps, is the only circumstance in which they differ from

12 See Mich. le Quien, Adnot, ad Damascenum, tom. i. p. 82, 83; as also a dissertation of the same author, De Nazarenis et eorum fide, which is the seventh of those that he has subjoined to his edition of the works of Damascenus.

13 See Fabric. ad Philostr. de Hæresibus, p. 81; as also Ittigius, De Hæresibus ævi Apostolici.

14 The learned Mr. Jones looked upon these two sects as differing very little from one another, He attributes to them both much the same doctrines, and alleges, that the Ebionites had only made some small additions to the old Nazarene system. See the New and full Method of settling the Canonical Authority of the New Testament, vol. i. p. 385.

15 Irenæus, lib. i. Contra Hæres. cap. xxvi. p. 105. edit. Massueti. Epiphanius gives a large account of the Ebionites, Hares. xxx. But he deserves little credit, since he confesses (sect. 3. p. 127. and sect. 4. p. 141.) that he had confounded the Sampsæans and Elcesaites with the Ebionites, and also acknowledges that the first Ebionites were strangers to the errors with which he charges them.

16 Clemens Alex, Stromat. lib. viii. cap. xvii, p. 899 Cyprianus, epist. lxxv.

each other. One division, however, of these oriental Christians, may be considered as real and important, since the two branches it produced were vastly superior to the rest in reputation, and made more noise in the world than the other multiplied subdivisions of this pernicious sect. Of this famous division, one branch which arose in Asia, preserved the oriental doctrine concerning the origin of the world, unmixed with other sentiments and opinions; while the other, which was formed in Egypt, made a motely mixture of this philosophy with the tenets and prodigies adopted in the religious system of that superstitious country. The doctrine of the former surpassed in simplicity and perspicuity that of the latter, which consisted of a vast variety of parts so artfully combined, that the explication of them became a matter of much difficulty.

V. Among the doctors of the Asiatic branch, the first place is due to Elxai, a Jew, who, during the reign of Trajan, is said to have formed the sect of the Elcesaites. This heretic, though a Jew, attached to the worship of one God, and full of veneration for Moses, corrupted, nevertheless, the religion of his ancestors by blending with it a multitude of fictions drawn from the oriental philosophy; pretending also, after the example of the Essenes, to give a rational explication of the law of Moses, he reduced it to a mere allegory. It is, at the same time, proper to observe, that some have doubted whether the Elcesaites are to be reckoned among the Christian, or the Jewish sects; and Epiphanius, who was acquainted with a certain production of Elxai, expresses his uncertainty in this matter. Elxai, indeed, in that book, mentions Christ with the highest encomiums, without, however, adding any circumstance from whence it might be concluded with certainty, that Jesus of Naza. reth was the Christ of whom he spoke.'

VI. If, then, Elxai be improperly placed among the leaders of the sect now under consideration, we may place at its head Saturninus of Antioch, who is one of the first Gnostic chiefs mentioned in history. He held the doctrine of two principles, from whence proceeded all things; the one a wise and benevolent deity; and the other matter, a principle essentially evil, and which he supposed under the superintendence of a certain intelligence of a malignant nature. "The world and its first inhabitants were (according to the system of this raving philosopher) created by seven angels, which presided over the seven planets. This work was carried on without the knowledge of the benevoleut deity, and in opposition to the will of the material principle. The former, however, beheld it with approbation, and honoured it with several marks of his beneficence. He endowed with rational souls the beings who inhabited this new system, to whom their creators had imparted nothing more than the mere animal life; and having divided the world into seven parts, he distributed them among the seven angelic architects, one of whom was the god of the Jews, and reserved to himself the supreme empire over all. To these creatures, whom the benevolent principle had endowed with reasonable souls, and with dispositions that led to goodness and virtue, the evil being, to

1 Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. vi. cap. xxxviii. p. 234. Epiphanius, Hæres. xix. sect. 3. p. 41. Theodorus, Fabul. Hæret. lib. ii. cap. vii. p. 221.

maintain his empire, added another kind, whom he formed of a wicked and malignant character; and hence the difference we see among men. When the creators of the world fell from their allegiance to the Supreme Deity, God sent from heaven into our globe, a restorer of order, whose name was Christ. This divine conqueror came clothed with a corporeal appearance, but not with a real body; he came to destroy the empire of the material principle, and to poir out to virtuous souls the way by which they must return to God. This way is beset with difficulties and sufferings; since those souls who propose returning to the Supreme Being after the dissolution of this mortal body, must abstain from wine, flesh, wedlock, and in short, from every thing that tends to sensual gratification, or even bodily refreshment.' Saturninus taught these extravagant doctrines in Syria, but principally at Antioch, and drew after him many disciples by the pompous appearance of an extraordinary virtue.*

VII. Cerdo the Syrian, and Marcion, son to the bishop of Pontus, belong also to the Asiatic sect, though they began to establish their doctrine at Rome, and having given a turn somewhat different to the oriental superstition, may themselves be considered as the heads of a new sect which bears their names. Amidst the obscurity and doubts that render so uncertain the history of these two men, the following fact is incontestible, viz. That Cerdo had been spreading his doctrine at Rome before the arrival of Marcion there; and that the latter having, through his own misconduct, forfeited a place to which he aspired in the church of Rome, attached himself, through resentment, to the impostor Cerdo, and propagated his impious doctrines with an astonishing success throughout the world. "After the example of the oriental doctors they held the existence of two principles, the one perfectly good, and the other perfectly evil. Between these, they imagined an intermediate kind of deity, neither perfectly good, nor perfectly evil, but of a mixed nature (so Marcion expresses it), and so far just and powerful, as to administer rewards and inflict punishments. This middle deity is the creator of this inferior world, and the god and legislator of the Jewish nation; he wages perpetual war with the evil principle; and both the one and the other aspire to the place of the Supreme Being, and ambitiously attempt subjecting to their authority all the inhabitants of the world. The Jews are the subjects of that powerful genius who formed this globe; the other nations, who worship a variety of gods, are under the empire of the evil principle. Both these conflicting powers exercise oppressions upon rational and immortal souls, and keep them in a tedious and miserable captivity. Therefore the Supreme God, in order to terminate this war, and to deliver from their bondage those souls whose origin is celestial and divine, sent to the Jews a being most like unto himself, even his Son Jesus Christ, clothed with a certain shadowy resemblance of a body, that thus he might be visible to mortal eyes. The commission of this celestial messenger, was to destroy the em pire both of the evil principle, and of the author

he was seized by the Jews. 3. They attributed to Christ a real, not an imaginary body: though it must be confessed, that they were much divided in their sentiments on this head. 4. Their discipline with respect to life and manners, was much less severe than those of the Asiatic sect, and seems, in some points to have been favourable to the corruptions and passions of men.

XI. Basilides has generally obtained the first place among the Egyptian Gnostics. "He acknowledged the existence of one Supreme God, perfect in goodness and wisdom, who produced from his own substance seven beings, or æons, of a most excellent nature. Two of these mons, called Dynamis and Sophia (i. e. power and wisdom), engendered the angels of the highest order. These angels formed a heaven for their habitation, and brought forth other angelic beings, of a nature somewhat inferior to their own. Many other generations of angels followed these, new heavens were also created, until the number of angelic orders, and of their respective heavens, amounted to three hundred and sixty-five, and thus equalled the days of the year. All these are under the empire of an omnipotent Lord, whom Basilides called Abraxas.' This word (which was certainly in use among the Egyptians before his time) contains numeral letters to the amount of 365, and thereby expresses the number of heavens and angelic orders above mentioned.' "The inhabitants of the lowest heavens, which touched upon the borders of the eternal, malignant, and self-animated matter, conceived the design of forming a world from that confused mass, and of creating an order of beings to people it. This design was carried into execution, and was approved by the Supreme God, who, to the animal life, with which only the inhabitants of this new world were at first endowed, added a reasonable soul, giving, at the same time, to the angels, the empire over them."

XII. "These angelic beings, advanced to

1 We have remaining a great number of gems, and receive more from Egypt from time to time, on which, beside other figures of Egyptian taste, we find the word Abraxas engraved. See for this purpose, a work entitled, Macari Abraxas, seu de gemmis Basilidianis disquisitio, which was published at Antwerp, with several improvements by Jo. Chifletius, in 4to. in 1657. See also Montfaucon, Palæograph. Græc. lib. ii. cap. viii. p. 177. All these gems are supposed to come from Basilides, and therefore bear his name. Most of them however, contain the marks of a superstition too gross to be attributed even to a half Christian, and bear also emblematic characters of the Egyptian theology. It is not, therefore, just to attribute them all to Basilides, (who though erroneous in many of his opinions, was yet a follower of Christ), but such of them only as carry some mark of the Christian doctrine and discipline.- -There is no doubt but that the old Egyptian word Abraxas was appropriated to the governor or lord of the heavens, and that Basilides, having learned it from the philosophy of his nation, retained it in his religious system. See Beausobre Hist. du Manicheisme, vol. ii. p. 51. and also Jo. Bapt. Passeri, in his Dissert. de gemmis Basilidianis, which makes a part of that splendid work which he published at Florence, 1750, De gemmis stelliferis, tom. if. p. 221. See also the sentiments of the learned Jablonski, concerning the signification of the word Abraxas, as they are delivered in a dissertation inserted in the seventh volume of the Miscell. Leips, Nova. Passerius affirms, that none of these gems relate to Basilides, but that they concern only magicians, . e. sorcerers, fortune-tellers, and such like adventurers. Here, however, this learned man seems to go too far, since he himself acknowledges (p. 225.) that he had sometimes found on these gems, vestiges of the errors of Basilides." These famous monuments stand yet in need of an interpreter, but of such a one as can join circumspection to diligence

and erudition.

the government of the world which they had created, fell, by degrees, from their original purity, and manifested soon the fatal marks of their depravity and corruption. They not only endeavoured to efface in the minds of men the knowledge of the Supreme Being, that they might be worshipped in his stead, but also began to war against one another, with an ambitious view to enlarge, every one, the bounds of his respective dominion. The most arrogant and turbulent of all these angelic spirits, was that which presided over the Jewish nation. Hence the Supreme God, beholding with compassion the miserable state of rational beings, who groaned under the contests of these jarring powers, sent from heaven his son Nus, or Christ, the chief of the sons, that, joined in a substantial union with the man Jesus, he might restore the knowledge of the Supreme God, destroy the empire of those angelic natures which presided over the world, and particularly that of the arrogant leader of the Jewish people. The god of the Jews, alarmed at this, sent forth his ministers to seize the man Jesus, and put him to death. They executed his commands, but their cruelty could not extend to Christ, against whom their efforts were vain, Those souls, who obey the precepts of the Son of God, shall, after the dissolution of their mortal frame, ascend to the Father, while their bodies return to the corrupt mass of matter from whence they were formed. Disobedient spirits, on the contrary, shall pass successively into other bodies.

is

XIII. The doctrine of Basilides, in point of morals, if we may credit the account of most ancient writers, was favourable to the lusts and passions of mankind, and permitted the practice of all sorts of wickedness. But those whose testimonies are the most worthy of regard, give a quite different account of this teacher, and represent him as recommending the practice of virtue and piety in the strongest manner, and as having condemned not only the actual commission of iniquity, but even every inward propensity of the mind to a vicious conduct. true, there were, in his precepts relating to the conduct of life, some things which gave great offence to all true Christians. For he affirmed it to be lawful for them to conceal their religion, to deny Christ, when their lives were in danger, and to partake of the feasts of the Gentiles that were instituted in consequence of the sacrifices offered to idols. He endeavoured also to diminish the glory of those who suffered martyrdom for the cause of Christ; impiously maintained, that they were more heinous sinners than others, and that their sufferings were to be looked upon as a punishment inflicted upon them by the divine justice. Though he was led into this enormous error, by an absurd notion that all the calamities of this life were of a penal nature, and that men never suffered but in consequence of their iniquities yet this rendered

2 Many of the ancients have, upon the authority of Irenæus, accused Basilides of denying the reality of Christ's body, and of maintaining that Simon the Cyrenian was crucified in his stead. But this accusation is entirely groundless, as may be seen by consulting the Commentar. de rebus. Christian, ante Constant. p. 354, &c. &c. where it is demonstrated, that Basilides considered the divine Saviour as compounded of the man Jesus, and Christ the Son of God. It may be, indeed, that some of the disciples of Basilides entertained the opinion that is here unjustly attributed to their master.

his principles greatly suspected, and the irregular lives of some of his disciples seemed to justify the unfavourable opinion that was entertained concerning their master.

3

XIV. But whatever may be said of Basilides, it is certain, that he was far surpassed in impiety by Carpocrates, who was also of Alexandria, and who carried the Gnostic blasphemies to a more enormous degree of extravagance than they had ever been brought by any of that sect. His philosophical tenets agree, in general, with those of the Egyptian Gnostics. He acknowledged the existence of a Supreme God, and of the cons derived from him by successive generations. He maintained the eternity of a corrupt matter, and the creation of the world from thence by angelic powers, as also the divine origin of souls unhap pily imprisoned in mortal bodies, &c. But, beside these, he propagated other sentiments and maxims of a horrid kind. He asserted, that Jesus was born of Joseph and Mary, according to the ordinary course of nature, and was dis tinguished from the rest of mankind by nothing but his superior fortitude and greatness of soul. His doctrine, also, with respect to practice, was licentious in the highest degree; for he not only allowed his disciples a full liberty to sin, but recommended to them a vicious course of life, as a matter both of obligation and necessity; asserting, that eternal salvation was only attainable by those who had committed all sorts of crimes, and had daringly filled up the measure of iniquity. It is almost incredible, that one who maintained the existence of a Supreme Being, who acknowledged Christ as the Saviour of mankind, could entertain such monstrous opinions as these. One would infer, indeed, from certain tenets of Carpocrates, that he adopted the common doctrine of the Gnostics concerning Christ, and acknowledged also the laws which this divine Saviour imposed upon his disciples. But, notwithstanding this, it is beyond all doubt, that the precepts and opinions of this Gnostic are full of impiety; since he held, that lusts and passions, being implanted in our nature by God himself, were consequently void of guilt, and had nothing criminal in them; that all actions were indifferent in their own nature, and were rendered good or evil only by the opinions of men, or by the laws of the state; that it was the will of God, that all things should be possessed in common, the female sex not excepted; but that human laws, by an arbitrary tyranny, branded those as robbers and adulterers, who only used their natural rights. It is easy to perceive that by these tenets, all the principles of virtue were destroyed, and a door opened to the most horrid licentiousness, and to the most profligate and enormous wickedness.4

XV. Valentine, who was likewise an Egyptian by birth, was eminently distinguished from all his brethren by the extent of his fame, and the multitude of his followers. His sect, which took rise at Rome, grew up to a state of consistence and vigour in the isle of Cyprus, and spread itself through Asia, Africa, and Europe, with an amazing rapidity. The principles of Valentine were, generally speaking, the same with those of the Gnostics, whose name he as

3 For a farther account of Basilides, the reader may consult Ren, Massuet, Dissert. in Irenæum, and Beausobre, Hist. du Manicheisme, vol. ii. p. 8.

4 See Iren. Contra Hares. cap. xxv. Clemens Alex. Stromata. lib. iii. p. 511.

sumed, yet in many things he entertained opinions that were particular to himself. "He placed, for instance, in the pleroma (so the Gnostics called the habitation of the Deity) thirty cons, of which the one half were male and the other female. To these he added four others, which were of neither sex, viz. Horus, who guarded the borders of the pleroma, Christ, the Holy Ghost, and Jesus. The youngest of the cons, called Sophia (i. e. wisdom,) conceived an ardent desire of comprehending the nature of the Supreme Being, and, by the force of this propensity, brought forth a daughter, named Achamoth. Achamoth being exiled from the pleroma, fell down into the rude and undigested mass of matter, to which she gave a certain arrangement; and, by the assistance of Jesus, produced the demiurge, the lord and creator of all things. This demiurge separated the subtle, or animal matter, from that of the grosser, or more terrestrial kind; out of the former he created the superior world, or the visible heavens; and out of the latter he formed the inferior world, or this terraqueous globe. He also made man, in whose composition the subtle, and also the grosser matter were both united, and that in equal portions; but Achamoth, the mother of Demiurge, added to these two substances, of which the human race formed, a spiritual and celestial substance.' This is the sum of that intricate and tedious fable, that the extravagant brain of Valentine imposed upon the world for a system of religious philosophy; and from this it appears, that, though he explained the origin of the world, and of the human race, in a more subtle manner than the other Gnostics, yet he did not differ from them in reality. His imagination was more wild and inventive than that of his brethren; and this is manifest in the whole of his doctrine, which is no more than Gnosticism, set out with some supernumerary fringes, as will further appear from what follows.

was

XVI. "The creator of this world," according to Valentine, "arrived, by degrees, to that pitch of arrogance, that he either imagined himself to be God alone, or, at least, was desirous that mankind should consider him as such. For this purpose, he sent forth prophets to the Jewish nation, to declare his claim to the honour that is due to the Supreme Being, and in this also the other angels that preside over the different parts of the universe immediately set themselves to imitate his ambition. To chastise this lawless arrogance of Demiurge, and to illuminate the minds of rational beings with the knowledge of the true and Supreme Deity, Christ appeared upon earth, composed of au animal and spiritual substance, and clothed, moreover, with an aerial body. This Redeemer, in descending upon earth, passed through the womb of Mary, as the pure water flows through the untainted conduit. Jesus, one of the supreme_mons, was substantially united to him, when he was baptized by John in the waters of Jordan. The creator of this world, when he perceived that the foundations of his empire were shaken by this divine man, caused him to be apprehended and nailed to the cross. before Christ submitted to this punishment, not only Jesus the Son of God, but also the rational soul of Christ ascended up on high, so that only the animal soul and the ethereal body suffered crucifixion. Those who, abandoning the service of false deities, and the worship of the God of the Jews, live according to the precepts of Christ,

But