ern barbarians carried universal desolation and distress through Pontus and other Roman provinces; and the heathen inhabitants, though sufferers in common with the christian, seem to have taken advantage of the general confusion which ensued, to indulge their malice. As many of the believers denied their faith in order to save their lives, and as others committed depredations on the property of those who had fled, Gregory was persuaded, at the request of a neighboring bishop, to address them with a Canonical Epistle, yet extant, consisting of authoritative rules to regulate their conduct and discipline in those lawless times. In A. D. 264, he and Athenodorus, who also was an influential bishop of some place in Pontus, assisted at the Council of Antioch against Paul of Samosata. Having returned to Neocesarea, Gregory soon afterwards died in peace, with the satisfaction of leaving but few heathens in the city, where, at the beginning of his ministry, christianity had scarcely an advocateh. He was reckoned among the most eminent bishops of the time; but his reputation unfortunately increased and grew monstrous after his death, when miracles the most ridiculous and incredible were attributed to him, so that his name went down to posterity with the significant appellation of Thaumaturgus, or Wonderworker. Besides his Panegyric on Origen and his Canonical Epistle, we have his brief Paraphrase on Ecclesiastesi;

h In the account of Gregory Thaumaturgus and Athenodorus, I have generally followed Lardner, who allows but little credit to Gregory Nyssen's legendary tale. Du Pin, also, seems to have discarded it. But Cave and some others, adopt the whole, miracles and all, with veteran credulity. i Some attribute to him the short Creed, relating

but none of these being of a doctrinal character, they throw no light on his views concerning the final extent of salvation, or the nature and result of future punishment. An ancient writer', however, intimates, if I mistake him not, that Gregory Thaumaturgus was well known to have held, with his master, the doctrine of Universal Restoration.

VII. With him ends our select catalogue of Origen's cotemporary followers. It may serve, at least, to point out some of the circumstances which, together with the general diffusion of his writings, tended to spread his sentiments widely through the East. What other particular causes operated to diffuse or cherish Universalism among the orthodox of this period, it is in vain to enquire; but we have no reason to believe that it was confined exclusively to his adherents.

As to the different bodies of heretics, it is probable that among the Gnostics the doctrine remained much in the same state as formerly; and among those of other kinds, it may have found some believers and advocatesk.

solely to the Trinity, which Gregory Nyssen says was brought to him from heaven by St. John and the Virgin Mary. It is probable, however, that Gregory Thaumaturgus never saw it. (See Lardner's Credibility, &c. Chap. Gregory Thaumat.) The Brevis Ecpositio Fi dei, which Cave, in his Lives of the Fathers, had ascribed to Gregory, is allowed, in his Hist. Literaria, to be supposititious; in which ho agrees with Du Pin, Fabricius, Tillemont and Lardner.

Rufinus (Invect. in Hieronym. Lib. i. prope finem, inter Hieronymi Opp. Tom. iv. Part. i. p. 406, Edit. Martianay) alludes to the fact, as notorious, that Gregory Thaumaturgus erred with Origen; and it is of Universalism that he is speaking. k The author of the anonymous book called Prædestinatus, attributed by some to Primasius an African bishop of the sixth century,, but considered, by others, of uncertain date and origin, says that one Ampullianus, a he"retic of Bithynia, avowed the following error: that all the guilty, to

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VIII. Turning our eyes, for a moment, from the Greek churches, to a hasty survey of the Western or Latin, it may be remarked that here the influence of Origen, as well as of the other Greek fathers, was partial and feeble, on account of the difference of language, which discouraged intimacy, and gradually promoted distinction in their customs, manners and feelings. We perceive no certain1 traces of Universalism among them

"gether with the devil and the demons, will be thoroughly purified in "Gehenna, or hell, and come out thence wholly immaculate; and when he "had raised the whole church against himself, on this account, he "corrupted the works of Origen, especially the books Of Principles, "that he might sanction his own sentiments by their authority. (Prædestinat. Lib. i. Hæres. 43, inter Simondi Opera, Tom. i.) When this Ampullianus lived, he does not inform us; nor is his name so much as mentioned by any other ancient writer. But though the account of his having inserted the alleged error in Origen's works, is demonstrably untrue, and universally disregarded, there yet may be a question whether there was not a heretic of that name in Bithynia, sometime during this century, who held the doctrine of Universal Restoration. At any later period he could not well have escaped the notice of other writers, whose works are extant; and indeed it seems difficult to account for their profound silence, in any way whatever, short of denying the whole story. 1 Novatus, or as he is often called, Novatian, an eminent presbyter of Rome, who contested the bishopric of the church there with Cornelius, advanced something like Üniversalism He extolled in the highest, though in general terms, the unbounded goodness of God; (De Regula Fidei, cap. ii. prope finem. Edit. Jackson. Lond. 1728. pp. 23-25.) and maintained that the wrath, indignation, and hatred of the Lord, so called, are not such passions in him as bear the same name in man ; but that they are operations in the divine mind which are directed solely to our purification. (De Regula Fidei cap. iv.) In short he asserted the peculiar principles of Universalism; but whether he pursued them out to their necessary result, does not appear.

Novatus flourished from A. D. 250, onwards, for several years. After his contest for the bishopric, in which he was once elected, he was condemned by his more fortunate rival, and excommunicated for obstinately refusing to admit to the communion such members as had once fallen from their purity or steadfastness, however penitent they might become A considerable party attached itself to him, which maintained his opinion and practice, on this point, till the seventh century, and which was therefore occasionally treated as heretical, and at other times merely as schismatical.

A. D. 249, to 258.

at this period. Indeed, the materials for determining, with precision, their sentiments on a number of points, are rather scanty. Though they had several bishops and writers of temporary renown, there was but one who still holds any distinguished place in ecclesiastical history. This was the eloquent, the active and resolute Cyprian, who presided in the bishopric of Carthage, from about A. D. 249, till his martyrdom in the year 258. Formerly a heathen professor of Rhetoric, he became, on his conversion, one of the most zealous advocates of the christian cause, sold his large estate to supply himself with the means of charity, and devoted all his time and all his powers to the service in which he had so late engaged. As a prelate, he must always stand distinguished by his enterprizing and commanding talents; and as a writer, he evinces considerable ability, though no extraordinary learning. His study, however, was not doctrine, but discipline, the art of governing his churches, and particularly the management of the ecclesiastical concerns in times of great perplexity and danger. For this difficult task he was qualified by a genius of ready resource, a bold decision, and a vehemence approaching to enthusiasm, which often carried him through the execution of his designs with surprising promptness, though at the expense of perpetual contention. We may lament, rather than wonder, that he had the faults natural to such a character: ambition and a strong propensity to domineer; and that his conduct appears sometimes dictated by self-will and passion. While he sternly opposed the arrogance of the Roman

bishop, he himself cherished extravagant notions of Episcopal authority, and unwarily promoted that ecclesiastical tyranny which was at length to enslave the christian world. But a worse fault than all these, at least in moral principle, aside from its general consequences, was his knavish assertion of visions and immediate revelations from God, as his authority and justification, whenever he encroached on the rights of others, or resorted to unpopular measures.

As he seems to have had little acquaintance with the Greek fathers in general, Firmilian excepted, and perhaps none with Origen, his views of the future state may be regarded as, in some degree, a specimen of those that prevailed in the West. He held a temporary and mild purgatory for the less deserving saints m; but for impenitent unbelievers an endless punishment". And it is too manifest that he indulged, at times, the spirit of a doctrine so congenial with the hot African temper: "O what a glorious day," says he, "will come, when the Lord shall begin to recount his people and to adjudge their rewards, to send the guilty "into hell, to condemn our persecutors to the perpetual "fire of penal flames, and to bestow on us the reward "of faith and devotedness to him! What glory, what "joy, to be admitted to see God, to be honored, to

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partake of the joy of eternal light and salvation with "Christ the Lord your God; to salute Abraham, Isaac

m Cypriani Epist. ad Antonianum_lii. p. 72. Edit. Baluzii, Paris. 1726. n Cypriani Lib. contra Demetrian. p. 224. And Epist. ad Clerum, p. 13 and passim.