Page images
PDF
EPUB

in quæ tempora cujusque virtus inciderit.' Sometimes the most frantic enthusiast, or the most absurd and unintelligible mortal, shall be the author of a doctrine or of a system, and shall beget sons and daughters after his own image and similitude. True it is, that such a sect seldom holds out for above half a century, or descends beyond the second generation; as amongst the brutes, a mule, whose sire is an ass, leaves no posterity, and is the last of the family.

The heresies which arose amongst Christians, admitted the truth of the Christian religion, and were a sort of Christianity, though sometimes so corrupted and adulterated as hardly to deserve that appellation. Mohammedism itself made some concessions to the Jews, and to the Christians; and if the author of it had denied the divine mission of Moses and of Christ, he would not have gathered five disciples. Christianity, on the contrary, entered into no composition with Paganism, but absolutely condemned the whole system of idolatry, and so had stronger prejudices to contend with, and yet was triumphant.

The Manichæans gave to each man two souls, the one a good, the other a bad one. Clemens Alexandrinus mentions an odd and ridiculous notion held by some heretics, that God made man down to the navel, and that the rest of him was made by another power. Ἐντεῦθεν ἄλλοι τινὲς κινηθέντες μικροὶ καὶ οὐτιδανοὶ τὸν ἄνθρωπον ὑπὸ δια Φόρων δυνάμεων πλασθῆναι λέγουσι, καὶ τὰ μὲν μέχρις ὀμ Φαλοῦ Θειοδεστέρας τέχνης εἶναι τὰ ἔνερθε δὲ, της ἥττονος· οι δὴ χάριν, ὀρέγεσθαι συνουσίας. Hinc moti aliqui ali, pusilli et nullius pretii, dicunt formatum fuisse hominem a diversis potestatibus: et quæ sunt quidem usque ad umbilicum, esse artis divinioris; quæ autem subter, minoris: qua de caussa coitum quoque appetere.' Strom. iii. p. 526.

Theodoret says, that the Eunomians, as well as the Marcionites, held that there were two principles, and that the lower parts of the human body came from the evil principle. He probably misrepresents the Eunomians, for what hath Arianism to do with Manichæism? Eunomius was an Arian indeed, and the father of an Arian sect; yet as far as we can judge from his writings, some of which are

still extant, and have escaped burning, he was no more a Manichæan than Epiphanius, or Athanasius, or Jerom, or Theodoret.

6 Theodoritus L. iv. Hæreticarum fabularum cap. 3. inter alia Eunomianis tribuit, quod et ipsi cum Marcione duo rerum principia, malum et bonum, statuerint, et infe. riores partes a malo principio ortas, et hinc non totum baptizandum esse hominem docuerint. Cui congruit quod S. Ambrosius Eunomianos jungit Marcionistis, L. i. de Officiis c. 2. ad quem locum conferendæ notæ Monachor.' Benedictin. tom. ii. p. 31. Fabricius Bibl. Gr.

viii. 251.

• Eunomius ritus baptismi immutavit, qua de re accusatum fuisse fatetur Philostorgius. Testis potentissimus mutationis est Epiphanius: Qui jam baptizati sunt, iterum baptizat Eunomius, non modo qui a Catholicis, aut ab aliis hæresibus, sed eos etiam qui ab ipsismet Arianis deficiunt. Repetiti porro illius baptismatis ea formula est, "In nomine Dei increati, et in nomine Filii creati, et in nomine Spiritus sanctificantis, et a creato Filio procreati." Aliam tamen adhibuisse formulam in Theodorito legimus: Dicit non oportere ter immergere eum qui baptizatur, nec Trinitatem invocare, sed semel baptizare in mortem Christi. Risune an lacrimis prosequenda, quæ de Eunomiani baptismi ritibus a Veteribus sunt memoriæ mandata ? Epiphanius: Sunt qui narrent, quotquot ab iis denuo baptizantur in caput demergi, pedibus in sublime porrectis, et sic jusjurandum adigi, nunquam se ab illius hæresi discessuros. Observat et Nicetas: Longissima fascia, eum in usum paratá consecratáque, hominem a pectore, usque ad extremos pedum articulos involvebant, tum deinde superiores corporis partes aqua proluebant. Cujus ritus causa hæc fuit, quod inferioribus corporis partibus pollui aquam arbitrabantur. Tantum superstitio potuit suadere malorum! Baptizatos ad pectus usque aqua madefaciunt, inquit Theodoritus, reliquis autem partibus corporis, tanquam abominandis, aquam adhihere prohibent. Discipulis Eunomii ecclesias visitare moris non erat. Omnes sectatores ejus Basilicas apostolorum et martyrum non ingrediuntur, ut scilicet mortuum adorent Eunomium, cujus libros majoris authoritatis arbitrantur quam evangelia.

Hieronymus. Neque castiores doctrinâ mores fuere, si vera de Atio prædicat Epiphanius: Cum quidam ob stu prum feminæ illatum accusarentur, et ab aliis damnaren tur, nihil illum commotum: sed factum risu et ludibrio prosequentem dixisse, Nullius hoc esse momenti: poris enim hanc esse necessitatem.' S. Basnage Ann.

ii. 861.

cor

Observe that the testimonies of Epiphanius and of Theodoret, concerning the form of Eunomian baptism, contradict each other. We may suppose that the Eunomians used only one immersion, or rather superinfusion, and that they baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, as they were plainly directed to do by the Scriptures, to which they paid as much regard as the Consubstantialists.

When Epiphanius says of their baptism, sunt qui narrent,' we may be sure that proofs ran very low with him.

The Eunomians seem to have been of opinion that it was not necessary for persons to be plunged all over in water, and that it was not decent for them to be stripped at the performance of this religious rite. They therefore only uncovered them to the breast, and then poured water upon their heads. This was enough to give their adversa. ries a pretext, though a poor one, to calumniate them, and to call them Manichæans, and to charge them with holding that the lower parts of the body were made by the devil.

That they worshipped Eunomius, and placed his writings above the New Testament, and despised the martyrs, are some of Jerom's usual figures of rhetoric, and arts of con troversy, to set the populace against the Eunomians: he might as well have said that they had cloven feet, and rode upon broom-sticks in the air.

S. Basnage gives too much credit to such vague and improbable accusations. Epiphanius, a dealer in hearsays, was told by somebody that Ætius, an Arian bishop, talked loosely about fornication, and made a jest of it. Ergo, the Eunomians and the Arians were as corrupted in their manners as in their principles. What a weak and halting inference from precarious premises!

If the Eunomians re-baptized those who had already been baptized by Christians, they were much to be blamed for it; but the same fault was committed by Athanasius, and by those Consubstantialists who rejected Arian baptism as invalid and null.

I know not whether this Manichæan conceit of a double soul suggested to the first lord Shaftsbury an ingenious thought. 'He was wont to say, that there was in every one two men, the wise and the foolish, and that each of them must be allowed his turn. If you would have the wise, the grave, and the serious always to rule and have the sway, the fool would grow so peevish and troublesome, that he would put the wise man out of order, and make him fit for nothing: he must have his times of being let loose to follow his phansies and play his gambols, if you would have your business go on smoothly.' Locke's Memoirs. From such a passage as this, some of the antients would have concluded that Shaftsbury was a Manichaan.

Manes placed the Father in heaven, the Son in the sun and moon, and the Holy Ghost in the air; and in this notion of the Son, or the Aoyos, he seems to have adopted what the Persians held concerning Mithras. By the account of Sozomen, ii. 9, &c. it appears that in the fourth century the sun was the favourite deity of the Persians, as he had been of old, and he whom they most worshipped. The learned and philosophical Persians might perhaps honour the sun only as the symbol of the divinity; but the multitude, without question, terminated their worship in the sun, and he was their God, not the Supreme, but the next to him.

The Oriental theology contains some traces of a Trinity. We find in the Chaldæan or Zoroastrian Oracles, which were published by Stanley, and then by Le Clerc, in his philosophical works,

Πάντι γὰρ ἐν κόσμῳ λάμπει Τριάς, ἧς Μόνας ἄρχει.

Toto enim in mundo lucet Trinitas, cujus Unitas initium est.” But this oracle seems to be the forgery or interpolation of VOL. II.

K

some Christian, or some Platonic philosopher, and the whole collection to be not only a stupid and senseless rhapsody, but spurious and of no authority.

The Manichæan notion, that the souls of the righteous went to the moon, agrees well enough with the Stoical doctrine, thus delivered by Lucan, ix. 6.

[ocr errors]

Quodque patet terras inter, lunæque meatus,
Semidei Manes habitant, quos ignea virtus
Innocuos vita, patientes ætheris imi

Fecit, et æternos animam collegit in orbes.'

See Lipsius Phys. Stoic. iii. 14.

Manichæus, says Augustin, thought that the moon was made of pure water, and the sun of pure fire. He would have been surprised if he had been informed that the moon has neither water nor atmosphere.

The Manichæans held that all should terminate in good, as far as human souls are concerned. Some of the Dualists seem also to have supposed that all moral and natural evil should cease at last, and the evil principle be abolished. But this opinion, if strictly considered, is by no means consistent with the doctrine of two principles; for if evil be unoriginated and self-existing, it must be indestructible; and though its modifications may be varied, it will remain in one shape or other: yet the destruction of Arimanius, and Hades, and the future felicity of mankind, is so set forth by some dualists a.

The perfect Manichæans abhorred wine, which they called the gall of the prince of darkness.' Others before them had held wine in abomination, as being • the blood of the giants. Ἤρξαντο δὲ πίνειν ἀπὸ de

a

Επεισι δὲ χρόνος είμαρμένος, ἐν ᾧ τὸν ̓Αρειμάνιον λοιμὸν ἐπάγοντα καὶ λιμόν, ὑπὸ τούτων ἀνάγκη φθαρῆναι παντάπασι καὶ ἀφανισθῆναι, τῆς δὲ γῆς ἐπιπέδου καὶ ὁμαλῆς γενομένης, ἕνα βίον καὶ μίαν πολιτείαν ἀνθρώπων μακαρίων καὶ ὁμογλώσσων ἁπάντων γενέσθαι. Plutarch. de Isid.

Τέλος απολείπεσθαι [ἀπολεῖσθαι] τὸν Αδην, καὶ τοὺς μὲν ἀνθρώτους εὐδαίμονας ἔσεσθαι, μήτε τροφῆς δεομένους μήτε σκιὰν ποιοῦντας· τὸν δὲ ταῦτα μηχανησάμενον [μηχανησόμενον] θεὸν ἠρεμεῖν καὶ ἀνα παύεσθαι χρόνῳ καλῶς [χρόνον ἄλλως] μὲν οὐ πολὺν τῷ θεῷ ὥσπερ δὲ ἀνθρώπῳ κοιμωμένῳ μέτριον, Theopompus, Ibid.

3

« PreviousContinue »