by the mouth of his apostle. It is true, indeed, CENT. L that the divine Saviour does not reproach them with PARTII erroneous opinions concerning the deity, but with the licentiousness of their practice, and the contempt of that solemn law which the apostles had enacted, Acts xv. 29, against fornication, and the use of meats offered to idols. It is however certain, that the writers of the second and the following centuries, Irenæus, Tertullian, Clemens, and others, affirm, that the Nicolaitans adopted the sentiments, of the gnostics, concerning the two principles of all things, the cons, and the origin of this terrestrial globe. The authority of these writers would be entirely satisfactory in this matter, were there not some reason to imagine, that they confounded, in their narrations, two sects very different from each other; that of the Nicolaitans, mentioned in the Revelations; and another, founded by a certain Nicolaus, in the second century, upon the principles of the gnostics. But this is a matter of too doubtful a nature to justify a positive decision on either side. the Cerinthi ans. XVI. There is no sort of doubt, but that Cerinthus Cerinthus and may be placed with propriety among the gnostics, though the learned are not entirely agreed whether he belongs to the heretics of the first or the second century. This man was by birth a Jew, and having applied himself to letters and philosophy at Alexandria, attempted, at length, to form a new and singular system of doctrine and discipline by a monstrous combination of the doctrines of Christ, with the opinions and errors of the Jews and gnos e Rev. ii. 6, 14, 15. See Sam. Basnage, Annal. Polit. Eccles. tom. ii. p. 6. Faydit, Eclaircissemens sur l'Histoire Eccles. des deux premiers Siecles, cap. v. p. 64. The opinion of these two learned men is opposed by Buddeus, De Eccles. Apostolica, cap. v. p. 412. e Theodoret. Fabul. Hæret. lib. ii. cap. iii. p. 219, tom. iii. opp PART II. CENT. I. tics. From the latter he borrowed their 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 suc PART II. ceeded by an happy and never ending life in the CENT. I. 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. The Nazaignites proper renes and Eb ly belong to century. XVII. It has been already observed, that the church was troubled with early disputes concerning the law of Moses, and the Jewish rites. Those how- the second ever who considered the observance of the Mosaic rites as necessary to salvation, had not, in this first century, proceeded so far as to break off all communion 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 as a sect. THE SECOND CENTURY. PART I. EXTERNAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH. CHAPTER I. CONCERNING THE PROSPEROUS EVENTS THAT HAPPENED TO THE the republic, 1. In this century the Roman sceptre was, for CENT. IL the most part, swayed by princes of a mild and PART 1. moderate turn. Trajan, though too eagerly bent The state of upon the 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. of Christianity II. This lenity of the emperors was singularly The progress advantageous to those christians who lived under in the Roman the Roman sceptre; it suspended sometimes their empire, sufferings, and alleviated the burden of their |