painful death, as to risk limb or life upon the field of battle? Unquestionably it does; but the motive which actuates each is different, and different also is the result which is produced. The one labours for the applause or the advantage of men, and verily he has his reward; the other is actuated by the constraining influence of the love of Christ, and in Christ shall be his recompense. Should it, however, be replied, that for this generous and noble self-devotion there is comparatively but narrow scope, since all are not summoned to preach the Gospel to the heathen-should it even be said that all cannot do this; it may be rejoined, that there is something which all can do. All can, in one way or other, help forward the great work of the Christian Missionary, however they may not actively engage in it. Many can bestow of their substance; all may contribute of their prayers. While the spirit of the Gospel is awake and active, as we trust and believe it now is, in the churches of Christ, a sufficiency will doubtless be found of those, whose ties to their native country are not so strong in an opposite direction, as to forbid or impede their devotion to this service. But it is the duty of the Christian public,-it is your general and individual duty, to render those means more effectual than they now are; more extensive, more adequate to the exigencies of the case. Were a hundred times the number of Ministers in preparation,—were a thousand times the number of Missionaries in actual exertion,-the supply would still fall infinitely short of the demand. In fact, with all the exertions of the friends of the Gospel (and those exertions have been most laudable and exemplary,) enough has only been effected to display what might be done by the application of more adequate means. may, indeed, trust that the foundation-stone is laid, but we must allow that the edifice is still to be erected; we may hope that the seed is sown, we must still look to the harvest which is to be reaped and gathered. The contemplation of the moral and religious state of the world, if we view it with the eye of the Christian, will be at once an incentive to us neither to rest satisfied with what is done, nor yet to be discouraged by what remains to do. We But the main consideration for individuals,-the main consideration for yourselves, Christian brethren, is neither what has been already effected in this great cause, nor what may be effected by the increased exertions of the Christian church; but what you have done towards it, personally and individually. The event of all human exertions is, and must remain, with God alone; but the event has no connexion with your duty. Once convinced that God would have all men to be saved, once persuaded that it is your part to cooperate in bringing men to a knowledge of the truth,-you must, if you are duly alive to your own obligations as disciples of Christ,-if you are really anxious to extend to others those benefits of the Gospel which you have learned to value for yourselves,-you must come forward, you must do what you can; more will not be required, less ought not to be offered. What then can you do? Ask yourselves the question. Is there no superfluous expense which you can retrench for these great purposes of Christian charity? Is there no indulgence from which you can abstain? Is there no sacrifice which you can offer,-no exertion which you can make, -no influence which you can exert? Is the propagation of the Gospel of Christ, the word that bringeth salvation, an object of such trifling moment, that it neither demands nor will recompense exertion? We do not ask of you to cross the tempestuous ocean, and preach the Gospel in the freezing climate of North America, or the sultry regions of the east; we only ask you to weigh the claims, to consider the objects, to aid the efforts of this venerable Society, in sending forth men who will devote themselves to this self-denying task; that of also it you said, "They have done what they could; after having freely received, they were willing freely to give." T. D. may be MISCELLANEOUS. ON THE EARLY FATHERS OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. No. XIV. "Omnium doctrinarum curiosissimus explorator."-Tertullian. THE original Greek of the great work of Irenæus, with the exception of most of the first book, and a few occasional fragments, is unfortunately lost; but the whole is still extant in a very ancient Latin translation. According to this translation, it was directed generally (contra hæreses) "against heresies;" but the subversion of the Gnostic heresy, as brought to perfection by Valentinus, was mainly contemplated by the writer. In the Greek title, which is preserved by Eusebius and Photius, there is manifest reference to the words of St. Paul in 1 Tim. vi. 20, the work being designated "A Refutation of Knowledge falsely so called;"* in conformity wherewith it describes and exposes the various forms which Gnosticism had assumed, from its origin with Simon Magus to the period at which the work was composed. It is divided into five books; in the first of which the mystic dogmas of the Gnostics are described, and the remaining four are occupied in refuting their absurdities, and vindicating the purity of Gospel truth. From the history of the heresy, it appears that some time after St. Peter's severe rebuke of Simon, who had offered to purchase from the Apostles the gift of the Holy Ghost, and his temporary penitence (Acts viii. 9, 20), he proceeded to Rome, and there remained during Nero's persecution. In order to avoid the sufferings inflicted on the Christians, he maintained that it was allowable to conform indifferently to the worship of idols; and it is scarcely surprising that the doctrine should have met with numerous followers. It was probably his increasing popularity which led him to aspire to * Euseb. Hist. Ecc. V. 7. Ελεγχος καὶ ἀνατροπὴ τῆς ψευδωνύμου γνώσεως. Indeed Irenæus himself verifies this title, in the Procem to Lib. II.-Quapropter quod sit detectio et eversio sententiæ ipsorum, operis hujus conscriptionem ita titulavimus. pare also Lib. IV. V. in initio. Com higher honours; and accordingly he is stated by Irenæus (I. 23. 2.) to be the parent of all heresies. His success was doubtless increased by his skill in magic, and in the exhibition of lying wonders, which he seems to have performed with remarkable dexterity, and his disciples pretended to the same powers. Speaking of the Simonians, Irenæus observes (I. 23. 4.): Horum mystici sacerdotes libidinosè quidem vivunt, magias autem perficiunt, quemadmodum potest unusquisque ipsorum ; exorcismis et incantationibus utuntur; amatoria quoque et agogima, et qui dicuntur paredri et oneiro pompi, et quæcunque sunt alia perierga, apud eos studiose exercentur. The exercise of these arts consisted in the mysterious construction of certain hieroglyphic numbers and figures, whereby they affected to controul the malevolent influences presiding, as they supposed, over the whole course of nature; and amulets, marked with these occult characters, were commonly worn as preservatives against misfortune or disease.* Of the legends engraven on these gems, none was more frequent than the name ABPACAE, or, as it was otherwise spelt, ABPAEAC; a name which they held in peculiar esteem, as comprising in its letters the number 365, which they believed to be the number of the heavens.† The credit which Simon acquired by these practices was unquestionably great; and Irenæus (I. 23. 1.) after Justin (Apol. I. 26. 56.) affirms that he was worshipped as a god. The same tradition is also recorded by Tertullian, Theodoret, and other fathers; but, though possibly true, Justin, whose is the first and main authority, may possibly have been misled by an inscription commencing SEMONI SANCO, and dedicated to a Sabine deity. A tablet, bearing such an inscription, was dug up near Rome in 1754; and, at a hasty glance, the name might easily have been mistaken for SIMONI SANCTO. Irenæus says that he declared himself among the Samaritans to be the Father, to the Jews to be the Son, and to the rest of the world the Holy Ghost. There is another tradition, far less credible however, and wholly unnoticed by Irenæus, from which it should seem that the ambition of Simon Magus led eventually to his destruction. Emboldened by his mechanical skill, and trusting to dæmoniacal assistance, he is said to have raised himself into the air in a fiery chariot; ‡ but the dæmons forsaking him at the prayers of St. Peter, he was precipitated to the ground, and broke both his legs. The failure so enraged the disappointed impostor, that he put an end to his life, by throwing himself from the top of a house to the bottom. It is just possible that this story may have originated in the account which is given by Suetonius (Ner. 12.), of a * Amuletum, quod malum amolitur. † Iren. I. 24. 7. According to others of the Fathers, Abraxas was the supreme god of the Gnostics. The letters composing the name are equivalent to those in MEITHRAS, the Sun of the Egyptians: thus = A (1) + B (2) + P (100) + C (200) + A (1) + ≈ (60) 365. M (40) + E (5) + 1 (10) + ℗ (9) + P (100) + A (1) + C (200) = 365. A variety of gems, illustrative of the Gnostic heresy, are given in An Essay on Ancient Coins, &c., by the Rev. R. Walsh, LL.D. reviewed in The Christian Remembrancer, for January, 1829. Arnobius adv. Gentes, Lib. II. p. 50. Viderant cursum Simonis Magi et quadrigas igneas Petri ore difflatas, et nominato Christo evanuisse. Compare Theodoret. Hær. Fab. I. 1. person attempting to fly, like Icarus, who fell to the earth and was killed; but the silence of all the fathers before Arnobius is alone a sufficient reason, if not altogether to reject, at least to receive the narrative respecting Simon with limitations. He may possibly have had recourse to some artifice to delude the people into a belief of his supernatural pretensions; and the prayers of the Apostle may have been instrumental in detecting the fraud, and provoking the suicide of the cheat. It was a notion of the Platonists, that from the Ideas in the Divine Mind proceeded certain Intelligences, which were employed by the Deity in the creation of the world; and upon this notion, combined with that of the mystical Sephiroth of the Jewish Cabbala, and the oriental fiction of two principles, were founded those interpretations of Scripture, from which the absurd tenets of Simon and his followers were derived. He maintained that the Supreme God was not the Creator of the world, but that one of a successive generation of Æons, or Emanations from the Deity, became the Demiurgus, contrary to the will of the Creator, from whose tyranny Christ, the last of the Eons, was sent to deliver mankind. To this fancy, connected with his belief in the transmigration of souls, should doubtless be referred the allegorical fiction, for such it seems to be, of the female by whom he was accompanied. According to Irenæus, he had purchased a Tyrian prostitute, named Helena, whom he identified with the causa teterrima of the Trojan war; and, carrying her about with him, represented her to be the first conception of his mind, the mother of all things, by whom he had created angels and archangels, and, by their means, the world.* His followers wore amulets, upon which were images of himself and Helena, after the figure of Jupiter and Minerva. Besides the internal evidence against the credibility of this story, it should be remarked that some copies of Irenæus for Helenam read Selenen; and that a like companion, under the title of Luna, which is in Greek Zλýn, is attributed by the Clementine Recognitions (II. 12.) to Dositheus, a cotemporary and co-heretic with Simon. With respect to the other doctrines maintained by Simon, he set on foot the notion that Christ was a phantom, having no material body; he denied a general resurrection; and maintained that the Prophets of the Old Testament were not inspired by the Supreme God, but by the creative Æon, who made the world. Between Simon and Valentinus, against the latter of whom the work of Irenæus was more especially directed, several professors of the Gnostic doctrines are mentioned by this father, whose tenets, with certain unimportant shades of difference, were essentially the same. The immediate successors of Simon were Menander and his two disciples, Saturninus, and Basilides; the latter of whom seems to have carried his doctrines considerably forward in extent, as well as in absurdity and impiety. In the main, however, they were founded upon those of Simon. Like Pythagoras, he enjoined the strictest * Iren. I. 23. 2. Hic Helenam secum circumducebat, dicens hanc esse primam mentis ejus conceptionem, matrem omnium, per quam, mota mente, concepit Angelos facere et Archangelos. Hanc enim Ennoiam, &c. So also Justin. M. Apol. I. 26. Th ἀπ' αὐτοῦ Ἐννοίαν πρώτην γενομένην. secresy upon his followers; and the schools of Alexandria, where he was born, had doubtless contributed much to involve his tenets in mystery and obscurity. He denied the resurrection, and inculcated the metempsychosis. His system of Eons is thus described by Irenæus (I. 24): "Basilides autem, ut altius aliquid et verisimilius invenisse videatur, in immensum extendit sententiam doctrinæ suæ : ostendens Novv primo ab innato natum Patre; ab hoc autem natum Λόγον; deinde a Λόγῳ Φρόνησιν ; a Φρόνησι autem Σοφίαν et Δύναμιν ; a ▲úvaμ autem et Zopia Virtutes et Principes et Angelos, quos et primos vocat, et ab iis primum coelum factum." He also maintained that Christ was a phantom, and did not really suffer death; but that Simon the Cyrenian was crucified in his stead, while he stood uninjured by, and, laughing at the deception, ascended invisibly into heaven. He permitted his disciples to partake of meats offered in sacrifice to idols; and considered virtue and vice as matters of in-difference. Of his Gospel mention has already been made. He died at Alexandria, in the reign of Hadrian. With some minute shades of difference, the Gnostic doctrines were entertained by Carpocrates, Cerinthus, Ebion, Cerdon, Marcion,* and others of less note, who looked upon every interpretation of Scripture except their own as the result of ignorance and simplicity. Hence the name which they arrogated to themselves was descriptive of that superior knowledge (yvots) to which they pretended, in eliciting the abstruse and hidden mysteries of religion. (Iren. I. 24.) At length arose Valentinus, in whose hands the system was perfected in absurdity and impiety. He flourished in the reign of Antoninus Pius, and for some time, in the hopes of obtaining a bishopric, to which he thought himself entitled by his superior attainments, was not only an orthodox believer, but preached the Gospel both in the Greek and Latin churches. Disappointed in his expectations, he sought that celebrity in the propagation of heretical tenets, which he had failed by his exertions in the cause of genuine Christianity to procure. According to the Valentinian theology, the Supreme God was "incomprehensible, invisible, eternal, sunbegotten." (Iren. I. i. 1.) From his unfathomable nature he was also called Bythos (Búbos), and with him, in a state of silence and quietude, was Ennoa (Evvoía), called also Charis (Xápic) and Sige (yn). Hence proceeded a series of Emanations, or Eons,†-eight in number, according to the earlier Gnostics, but increased by Valentinus to thirty, who dwelt with the Deity in a pleroma (λnowμa) of inaccessible light, beyond the limit of which was matter, which, being evil, was independent of the Deity. Of this pleroma St. Paul is supposed to speak, when he declares that in Jesus Christ "dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily" (Col. ii. 9); and other passages in the apostolic writings are referred to the same tenets. The first Ogdoad of Eons, in which Búbos and Zy were included, consisted, beside these, of Νοῦς and ̓Αλήθεια, Λόγος and Ζωή, "Ανθρωπος and 'Ekkλŋoia, from whom proceeded eleven other pairs, male and female; * Of Marcion more particular mention will be made under Tertullian. + Alaves. So called from their eternal preexistence, as from their mode of generation they were designated Emanations. |