the Jews was to restore his subjects to their native land; and his temporal reign was to commence over his faithful but inferior subjects. The Gospel of Marcion was that of St. Luke, adapted, by many omissions, and some alterations, to his theory. Every allusion to, every metaphor from, marriage was carefully erased, and every passage amended or rejected which could in any way implicate the pure deity with the material world (1). of Gnosticism. These were the chief of the Gnostic sects; but they spread out Varieties into almost infinitely diversified subdivisions, distinguished by some peculiar tenet or usage. The Carpocratians were avowed Eclectics; they worshipped, as benefactors of the human race, the images of Zoroaster, Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, and Jesus Christ, as well as that of their own founder. By this school were received, possibly were invented, many of the astrologic or theurgic books attributed to Zoroaster and other ancient sages. The Jewish Scriptures were the works of inferior angels; they received only the Gospel of St. Matthew. The supreme, unknown, uncreated Deity, was the Monad; the visible world was the creation, the domain of inferior beings. But their system was much simpler, and, in some respects, rejecting generally the system of Eons or Emanations, approached much nearer to Christianity than most of the other Gnostics. The contest of Jesus Christ, who was the son of Joseph, according to their system, was a purely moral one. It revived the Oriental notion of the pre-existence of the soul that of Jesus had a clearer and more distinct reminiscence of the original knowledge (the Gnosis), and wisdom of their celestial state; and by communicating these notions to mankind, elevated them to the same superiority over the mundane deities. This perfection consisted in faith and charity, perhaps likewise in the extatic contemplation of the Monad. Every thing except faith and charity,—all good works, all observances of human laws, which were established by mundane authority, were exterior, and more than indifferent. Hence, they were accused of recommending a community of property, and of women,-inferences which would be drawn from their avowed contempt for all human laws. They were accused, probably without justice, of following out these speculative opinions into praclice. Of all heretics, none have borne a worse name than the followers of Carpocrates and his son and successor, Epiphanes (2). (1) This Gospel has been put together, according to the various authorities, especially of Tertullian, by M. Hahn. It is reprinted in the Codex Apocryphus Novi Testamenti, by Thilo, of which one volume only has appeared. Among the remarkable alterations of the Gospels, which most strongly characterise his system, was that of the text so beautifully descriptive of the providence of God,-which "maketh his sun to shine on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust." Matt. v. 45. The (2) I think that we may collect from Clement not The Ophites (1) are, perhaps, the most perplexing of all these sects. It is difficult to ascertain whether the Serpent from which they took or received their name was a good or an evil spirit,—the Agathodæmon of the Egyptian mythology, or the Serpent of the Jewish and other Oriental schemes. With them, a quaternion seems to have issued from the primal Being, the Abyss, who dwelt alone with his Ennoia, or Thought. These were Christ and Sophia Achamoth, the Spirit and Chaos. The former of each of these powers was perfect, the latter imperfect. Sophia Achamoth, departing from the primal source of purity, formed Ialdabaoth, the Prince of Darkness, the Demiurge, an inferior, but not directly malignant, being-the Satan, or Samaël, or Michael. The tutelar angel of the Jews was Ophis, the Serpent-a reflection of Ialdabaoth. With others, the Serpent was the symbol of Christ himself (2); and hence the profound aborrence with which this obscure sect was beheld by the more orthodox Christians. In other respects, their opinions appear to have approximated more nearly to the common Gnostic form. At the intercession of Sophia, Christ descended on the man Jesus, to rescue the souls of men from the fury of the Demiurge, who had imprisoned them in matter they ascended through the realm of the seven planetary angels. Such, in its leading branches, was the Gnosticism of the East, which rivalled the more genuine Christianity, if not in the number of its converts, in the activity with which it was disseminated, especially among the higher and more opulent; and, in its lofty prelensions, claimed a superiority over the humbler Christianity of the vulgar. But for this very reason, Gnosticism, in itself, was diameGnosti-trically opposite to the true Christian spirit: instead of being popupopular. lar and universal, it was select and exclusive. It was another, in one respect a higher, form of Judaism, inasmuch as it did not rest its exclusiveness on the title of birth, but on especial knowledge (gnosis), vouchsafed only to the enlightened and inwardly designated few. It was the establishment of the Christians as a kind of religious privileged order, a theophilosophic aristocracy, whose esoteric doctrines soared far above the grasp and comprehension of the vulgar (3). It was a philosophy rather than a religion; at least the philosophic or speculative part would soon have predominated Strom. iii. c. 2. According to Clement, the different sects, or sects of sects, justified their immoralities on different pleas. Some, the Prodician Gnostics, considered public prostitution a inystic communion; others, that all children of the primary or good Deity might exercise their regal privilege of acting as they pleased; some, the Antitactæ, thought it right to break the seventh commandment, because it was uttered by the evil Demiurge. But these were obscure sects, and possibly their adversaries drew these conclusions for them from their doctrines. Strom. J. iii. (1) Mosheim, p. 399., who wrote a particular dissertation on the Ophitæ, of which he distinguished two sects, a Jewish and a Christian. (2) M. Matter conjectures that they had derived the notion of the beneficent serpent, the emblem or symbol of Christ, from the brazen serpent in the wilderness. Perhaps it was the Egyptian Agatho-dæmon. (3) Tertullian taunts the Valentinians-"nihil magis curant quam occultare quid prædicant, si tamen prædicant qui occultant." Tert. adv. Valent. over the spiritual. They affected a profound and awful mystery; they admitted their disciples, in general, by slow and regular gradations. Gnostic Christianity, therefore, might have been a formidable antagonist to the prevailing philosophy of the times, but it would never have extirpated an ancient and deeply-rooted religion; it might have drained the schools of their hearers, but it never would have changed the temples into solitudes. It would have affected only the surface of society: it did not begin to work upward from its depths, nor penetrated to that strong under-current of popular feeling and opinion which alone operates a profound and lasting change in the moral sentiments of mankind. Concili towards With regard to Paganism, the Gnostics are accused of a compromising and conciliatory spirit, totally alien to that of primitive atory Christianity. They affected the haughty indifference of the philo- Paganism. sophers of their own day, or the Brahmins of India, to the vulgar idolatry; scrupled not a contemptuous conformity with the established worship; attended the rites and the festivals of the Heathen; partook of meats offered in sacrifice, and, secure in their own intellectual or spiritual purity, conceived that no stain could cleave to their uninfected spirits from this which, to most Christians, appeared a treasonable surrender of the vital principles of the faith. This criminal compliance of the Gnostics, no doubt, countenanced and darkened those charges of unbridled licentiousness of manners with which they are almost indiscriminately assailed by the early fathers. Those dark and incredible accusations of midnight meetings, where all the restraints of shame and of nature were thrown off, which Pagan hostility brought against the general body of the Christians, were reiterated by the Christians against these sects, whose principles were those of the sternest and most rigid austerity. They are accused of openly preaching the indifference of human action. The material nature of man was so essentially evil and malignant, that there was no necessity, as there could be no advantage, in attempting to correct its inveterate propensities. While, therefore, it might pursue, uncontrolled, its own innate and inalienable propensities, the serene and uncontaminated spirit of those, at least, who were enlightened by the divine ray, might remain aloof, either unconscious, or, at least, unparticipant, in the aberrations of its grovelling consort. Such general charges, it is equally unjust to believe, and impossible to refute. The dreamy indolence of mysticism is not unlikely to degenerate into voluptuous excess. The excitement of mental has often a strong effect on bodily, emotion. The party of the Gnostics may have contained many whose passions were too strong for their principles, or who may have made their principles the slaves of their passions; but Christian charity and sober historical criticism concur in rejecting these general accusations. The Gnostics were, in general, imaginative, rather than practical, fanatics; they indulged a mental, rather than corporeal, license. The Carpocratians have been exposed to the most obloquy. But, even in their case, the charitable doubts of dispassionate historical criticism are justified by those of an ancient writer, who declares his disbelief of any irreligious, lawless, or forbidden practices among these sectaries (1). It was the reaction, as it were, of Gnosticism, that produced the last important modification of Christianity, during the second century, the Montanism of Phrygia. But we have, at present, proceeded in our relation of the contest between Orientalism and Christianity so far beyond the period to which we conducted the contest with Paganism, that we reascend at once to the commencement of the second century. Montanism, however thus remotely connected with Gnosticism, stands alone and independent as a new aberration from the primitive Christianity, and will demand our attention in its influence upon one of the most distinguished and effective of the early Christian writers. CHAPTER VI. Roman Emperors at the coinmence CHRISTIANITY DURING THE PROSPEROUS PERIOD OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. WITH the second century of Christianity commenced the reign of another race of emperors. Trajan, Hadrian, and the Antonines, were men of larger minds, more capable of embracing the vast the second empire, and of taking a wide and comprehensive survey of the incentury. terests, the manners, and the opinions of the various orders and ment of races of men which reposed under the shadow of the Roman sway. They were not, as the first Cæsars, monarchs of Rome, governing the other parts of the world as dependent provinces; but sovereigns of the Western World, which had gradually coalesced into one majestic and harmonious system. Under the military dominion of Trajan, the empire appeared to reassume the strength and enterprise of the conquering republic: he had invested the whole frontier with a defence more solid and durable than the strongest line of fortresses, or the most impregnable wall-the terror of the Roman arms, and the awe of Roman discipline. If the more prudent Hadrian withdrew the advanced boundaries of the empire, it seemed in the consciousness of strength, disdaining the occupation of wild and savage districts, which rather belonged to the yet unreclaimed realm of barbarism, than were fit to be incorporated in (1) Καὶ εἰ μὲν πράσσεται παρ' αὐτοῖς τὰ ἄθεα, καὶ ἔκθεσμα, καὶ ἀπειρημένα, ἐγὼ οὐκ ἂν πιστεύσαιμι. Irenæus, i. 24. the dominion of civilisation. Even in the East, the Euphrates appeared to be a boundary traced by nature for the dominion of Rome. Hadrian was the first emperor who directed his attention to the general internal affairs of the whole population of the empire. The spirit of jurisprudence prevailed during the reign of the Antonines; and the main object of the ruling powers seemed to be the uniting under one general system of law the various members of the great political confederacy. Thus, each contributed to the apparent union and durability of the social edifice. This period has been considered by many able writers, a kind of golden age of human happiness (1). What, then, was the effect of Christianity on the general character of the times, and how far were the Christian communities excluded from the general felicity? perors fa to the ad anity. It was impossible that the rapid and universal progress of a new religion should escape the notice of minds so occupied with the internal, as well as the external affairs of the whole empire. But it so happened (the Christian will admire in this singular concurrence of circumstances the overruling power of a beneficent Deity), that the moderation and humanity of the emperors stepped in, as it were, to allay at this particular crisis the dangers of a general and inevitable collision with the temporal government. Christianity Characters itself was just in that state of advancement in which, though it had of the Embegun to threaten, and even to make most alarming encroachments vourable on the established Polytheism, it had not so completely divided the vancement whole race of mankind, as to force the heads of the Polytheistic of Christiparty, the official conservators of the existing order of things, to take violent and decisive measures for its suppression. The temples, though, perhaps, becoming less crowded, were in few places deserted; the alarm, though, perhaps, in many towns it was deeply brooding in the minds of the priesthood, and of those connected by zeal or by interest with the maintenance of Paganism, was not so profound or so general, as imperiously to require the interposition of the civil authorities. The milder or more indifferent character of the Emperor had free scope to mitigate or to arrest the arm of persecution. The danger was not so pressing but that it might be averted that which had arisen thus suddenly and unexpectedly (so little were the wisest probably aware of the real nature of the revolution working in the minds of men) might die away with as much rapidity. Under an emperor, indeed, who should have united the vigour of a Trajan and the political forethought of a Hadrian with the sanguinary relentlessness of a Nero, Christianity would have had to pass a tremendous ordeal. Now, however, the collision of the new religion with the civil power was only occasional, and, as it were, fortuitous; and in these occasional (1) This theory is most ably developed by Hegewisch. See the Translation of his Essay, by M. Solvet. Paris, 1834. |