pleroma, their cons, their demiurge, &c. and so modified and tempered these fictions, as to give them an air of Judaism, which must have considerably favoured the progress of his heresy. He taught "that the creator of this world, whom he considered also as the sovereign and lawgiver of the Jewish people, was a being endowed with the greatest virtues, and derived his birth from the Supreme God; that this being fell, by degrees, from his native virtue, and his primitive dignity; that the Supreme God, in consequence of this, determined to destroy his empire, and sent upon earth, for this purpose, one of the ever happy and glorious cons, whose name was Christ; that this Christ chose for his habitation the person of Jesus, a man of the most illustrious sanctity and justice, the son of Joseph and Mary, and descending in the form of a dove, entered into him while he was receiving the baptism of John in the waters of Jordan; that Jesus, after his union with Christ, opposed himself with vigour to the God of the Jews, and was, by his instigation, seized and crucified by the Hebrew chiefs; that when Jesus was taken captive, Christ ascended up on high, so that the man Jesus alone was subjected to the pains of an ignominious death." Cerinthus required of his followers, that they should worship the father of Christ, even the Supreme God, in conjunction with the Son; that they should abandon the lawgiver of the Jews; whom he looked upon as the creator of the world; that they should retain a part of the law given by Moses, but should, nevertheless, employ their principal attention and care to regulate their lives by the precepts of Christ. To encourage them to this, he promised them the resurrection of this mortal body, after which was to commence a scene of the most exquisite delights, during Christ's earthly reign of a thousand years, which was to be succeeded by a happy and never ending life in the celestial world. For Cerinthus held, that Christ will one day return upon earth, and, renewing his former union with the man Jesus, will reign with his people in the land of Palestine during a thousand years. XVII. It has been already observed, that the church was troubled with early disputes concerning the law of Moses, and the Jewish rites. Those, however, properly be who considered the observance of the Mosaic cond century. rites as necessary to salvation, had not, in this first century, proceeded so far as to break off all commu

The Nazarenes and Ebionites

long to the se

nion with such as differed from them in this matter. Therefore they were still regarded as brethren, though of the weaker sort. But when, after the second destruction of Jerusalem, under the emperor Adrian, these zealots for the Jewish rites deserted the ordinary assemblies of Christians, and established separate meetings among themselves, then they were numbered with those sects who had departed from the pure doctrine of Christ. Hence the name Nazarenes and Ebionites, by which the judaizing Christians were distinguished from those who looked upon the Mosaic worship and ceremonies as entirely abolished by the appearance of Christ upon earth. We shall only observe further under this head, that though the Nazarenes and Ebionites are generally placed among the sects of the apostolic age, yet they really belong to the second century, which was the earliest period of their existence

THE SECOND CENTURY.

PART I.

EXTERNAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

CHAPTER I.

CONCERNING THE PROSPEROUS EVENTS THAT happened TO THE CHURCH DURING THIS CENTURY.

1. In this century the Roman sceptre was, for the most part, swayed by princes of a mild and moderate The state of turn. Trajan, though too eagerly bent upon the the republic pursuit of glory, and not always sufficiently attentive to his conduct, nor prudent in his measures, was nevertheless endowed with many virtues, and the predominant lines of his character were clemency and benevolence. Adrian was of a more harsh and untractable temper; yet very far from deserving the reputation of a wicked or unjust prince. He was of a mixed character, chargeable with several vices, and estimable on account of many excellent qualities. The Antonines were illustrious models of humanity, goodness, and sublime virtue. Severus himself, in whose character and disposition such an unexpected and disadvantageous change was effected, was, in the beginning of his reign, unjust toward none, and even the Christians were treated by him with equity and mildness.

II. This lenity of the emperors was singularly advantageous to those Christians who lived under the Ro- The progress man sceptre; it suspended sometimes their suffer- of Christianity ings, and alleviated the burden of their distresses. empire. For, though edicts of a severe nature were issued out against them, and the magistrates, animated by the priests and by the multitude, shed their blood with a cruelty which frequently exceeded even the dictates of the most barbarous laws, yet there was always some remedy that accompanied these evils, and softened their severity. Trajan, however condemnable in other respects, on account of his conduct toward the Christians, was yet engaged, by the representations that Pliny the younger gave of them, to forbid all search to be made after them. He also pro

hibited all anonymous libels and accusations, by which the Christians had so often been perfidiously exposed to the greatest sufferings." Antoninus Pius went so far as to enact penal laws against their accusers. And others, by various acts of beneficence and compassion, defended them from the injurious treatment of the priests and people. Hence it came to pass, that, in this century, the limits of the church were considerably enlarged, and the number of converts to Christianity prodigiously augmented. Of the truth of this, we have the most respectable and authentic testimonies, in the writings of the ancients; testimonies, whose evidence and authority are every way superior to the vain attempts which some have made to obscure and weaken them.

What coun

tries were en

with the gos

pel.

III. It is not easy to point out particularly the different countries on which the light of celestial truth first rose in this age. The ancient records that yet relightened main, do not give us information sufficient to determine that matter with certainty; nor is it, indeed, a matter of much importance. We are, however, assured by the most unexceptionable testimonies, that Christ was worshipped as God, almost thoughout the whole east, as also among the Germans, Spaniards, Celts, Britons, and many other nations; but which of them received the gospel in the first century, and which in the second, is a question unanswerable at this distance of time. Pantænus, the head of the Alexandrian school, is said to have conveyed to the Indians the knowledge of Christ. But after an attentive examination of the account which Eusebius gives of this matter, it will appear, that these Indians were certain Jews, inhabitants of the Happy Arabia, whom Bartholomew the apostle had before instructed in the doctrines of Christianity. For according to the account of St. Jerome, Pantænus found among this people the gospel of St. Matthew, which they had received from Bartholomew their first teacher.

IV. The Christian religion, having penetrated among the

a See Pliny's epistles, book x. let. xcviii.

Eusebius Eccl. Hist. lib. iv. cap. xiii. p. 126.

© See Moyle's letters concerning the thundering legion, with the remarks which Dr. Mosheim has annexed to his Latin translation of them, published at the end of a work, entitled, Syntagma Dissert. ad Sanctiores Disciplinas pertinent. See also the dialogue between Justin Martyr and Trypho the Jew, p. 341.

d Irenæus contr. Hæres. lib. i. cap. x. Tertullian adv. Judæos, cap. vii. p. 212. Eusebius, Hist. Eccles, book v. c. x. Jerome Catal. Scriptor. Eccles, c. xxxvi, i