"and Jacob, and all the patriarchs and prophets, apos"tles and martyrs, to rejoice with the righteous, the "friends of God, in the pleasures of immortality! When "that revelation shall come, when the beauty of God "shall shine upon us, we shall be as happy as the de"serters and rebellious will be miserable in inextinguish"able fire"." Cyprian frequently imitates Tertullian, and sometimes borrows from him; and, it is said, he was so partial to that stern and gloomy enthusiast, that he daily read his works, habitually calling out, as he sat down, Give me my Master. His confident expectation of the immediate end of the world, and near approach of the general judgment, conspired with his naturally warm temper, to cherish a high degree of devotional fervor; and of all the early fathers, there was none whose general style of expression approached so near that of the more enthusiastic or fanatical of the modern orthodox. Yet his opinions are by no means reducible • Cypriani Epist. ad Thibaritanos, lvi. fine pp. 93, 94. Milner the orthodox historian, whose translation I have here adopted, says seriously, on quoting this passage, that "The palm of heavenly mind "edness belonged to these persecuted saints; and I wish, with all our theological improvements, we may obtain a measure of this "zeal, amidst the various good things of this life which, as chris"tians, we at present enjoy." (Church Hist. Cent. iii. chap. 12.) A general collection of these heavenly-minded exultations, over the anticipated torments of the damned, would have satisfied our visionary, that latter ages can boast genuine instances of Tertullian's and Cyprian's zeal. Had he considered, too, that there was some earthly feeling of revenge to inspire the joy of the ancients in the damnation of their persecutors, he must have adjudged the palm to the more disinterested moderns; who, without the aid of provocation, indulge a much more difficult satisfaction in expecting the agonies, not of their oppressors, but of their supporters, their kindest benefactors, and of their own families. to any creed approved at present: He was a trinitarian, but ignorant of predestination and irresistible grace; he held that remission of sins, and spiritual regeneration were imparted by the minister to the candidate in the rite of water baptism; that true converts might afterwards utterly fall from grace; that good works, particularly prayers, tears, fasting and penance, make satisfaction to God for our sins; and that matrimony is but a sort of tolerated prostitution. A. D. 250 to 270. IX. In these particulars, however, he had the agreement of a large proportion of his cotemporaries throughout the East as well as the West. Christianity had then assumed many of the peculiar features it now wears in the Romish religion. - Salvation, it was represented, could be secured only within the pale of the orthodox church; and all the heretics, the excommunicated and the dissenters, were exposed equally with the heathens, to the torments of hell. These separate sects, in their turn, however, usurped, at times, the same terrible prerogative, and retorted upon the catholics their own favorite admonitions. At the head of the true church, the clerical body, and particularly that of the bishops, possessed, when united, an influence uncontrolable, and powerful even when divided by their frequent discords. Some of the prelates began to affect the splendor and magnificence of secular nobility, though the sword of persecution hung over their heads, and often fell upon them in ruthless extermination. The christian ceremonies and ordinances, to which extravagant spiritual efficacy was generally attributed, were losing their pristine simplicity in pomp and tedious parade. Nor was the morality of the gospel less perverted: though downright monachism had not been introduced into the church, yet acts of mortification and penance, were regarded as superior to ordinary virtue, and a life of rigid abstinence as the favorite institution of heaven. But, as might be expected, the manners of the time approached, at once, the two extremes of austerity and licentiousness: some who professed the abstinence of celibacy, even indulged themselves, to the great scandal of the better sort, in the possession of concubines from among those who had vowed perpetual chastity. Amidst this scene of growing corruption, a jealous zeal was cherished against all supposed error; and the church exhibited the striking, though not singular, spectacle, of rage for soundness of faith, in proportion to the common degeneracy. While the destructive persecutions of the heathens, urged at this time with unprecedented violence, were drenching the earth with christian blood, the believers, both in the East and the West, seemed to devote the intervals of repose, to a mad search for non-conformity in doctrine and discipline, which they hunted into every corner, and condemned with little discrimination or reflection. In the West, Novatus and his followers were excommunicated for their factious conduct and for their obstinate exclusion of the lapsed; and Cyprian and the bishop of Rome were engaged in a quarrel about rebaptizing heretics. In the East, Noetus and Sabellius on the one hand, and Paul of Samosata on the other, were arraigned and condemned for opposite departures from the indefinable and wavering standard of trinitarianism. Between the East and the West, a controversy was kept up, concerning the proper days for fasting, and the time for the celebration of the Paschal Feast. In one word, so universal was the passion for censure, that scarcely an individual of eminence, escaped reproof from one quarter or another. This circumstance will serve to introduce us to the subject of the next chapter; which returning from our excursion among the cotemporaries of Origen, takes up the history of his doctrine, from the time of his death. APPENDIX TO CHAPTER V. I. But in order to avoid an unseasonable interruption in that narrative, we must defer the history of Origen's doctrine, till we shall have brought into notice a new kind of Gnostic christians. The sect of Manicheans began to appear, in the East, about this time; and though small at first, became, eventually, the most famous of all the parties of oriental heretics that ever arose. By gradually drawing into itself the more ancient bodies of Gnostics, it swelled, at length, to a formidable magnitude; the number of its converts, and the talents of some of its members, gave it an alarming respectability; and so long did it flourish, so widely did it diffuse its sentiments, under various modifications, throughout christendom, that its influence disturbed the church for many succeeding centuries, and reached even down to the remote era of the Reformation. The author of this heresy was one Mani, a Persian philosopher, who appears to have combined a daring imagination and a most fertile genius with the austerest life and manners. Though educated in the schools of the Magi, and thoroughly instructed in the religion and sciences of his country, he abandoned the ancient established profession of Zoroaster, and embraced christianity; but like many other converted philosophers, he attempted an accommodation between the gospel and his former theology. His history is deeply involved in contradictions, and mixed with fables; but if we About may adopt the most probable account, he was, on his conversion, ordained Presbyter in the city of Ahwaz, about seventy miles north of the mouth of the Euphrates. As his system of doctrine was, in some of its parts, too manifestly inconsistent with the tenor of the scriptures, as well as repugnant to the faith of the few christians already in his country, he announced himself an apostle of Jesus Christ, inspired by heaven to complete the imperfect revelation of his Master, by declaring the remaining truths which he had not divulged, and by fulfilling his ancient promise of a Comforter. But whether this was the assumption of sincere fanaticism, or the impious pretence of designing imposture, cannot be absolutely determined. Removing, afterwards, to the capital cities of Ctesiphon and Ecbatana, he converted the Persian king, the renowned Sapor, to his religion, and obtained, perhaps, |