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one God of the Law and the Prophets, and another of the Gospels, and maintain that the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ was not He who was proclaimed by the Law and the Prophets, but another, I know not what, God, wholly unknown and unheard of,- all such, we consider as heretics, however they may set off their doctrines with different fictions. Such are the followers of Marcion, and Valentinus, and Basilides.” *

In the fifth century, Theodoret wrote a history of heresies. He speaks of the Gnostics as nearly extinct, and professes, that his accounts of them are derived from preceding writers. † He treats of them in his first book; and this book, he says, contains "an account of the fables of those who have imagined another Creator, and, denying that there is one principle of all things, have introduced other principles which have no existence; and who say that the Lord appeared to men in the semblance of a man only." ‡

The original adds; "and those who call themselves Tethians;" where, for "Tethians," I suppose we should read "Sethians," a name assumed by some of the Gnostics, who regarded Seth as the progenitor or prototype of the spiritual among men.

See the Introduction to his "Hæreticarum Fabularum Compendium," and the Preface to the Second Book. Opp. IV. pp. 187-189, 218. Ed. Sirmond.

Ibid., p. 188.

But

OUR information concerning the distinguishing doctrines common to the Gnostics, in the general form in which they have been stated, is full and satisfactory; and these doctrines there is no difficulty in comprehending. the same cannot be said of the transcendental speculations of the theosophic Gnostics. These concerned the supposed production from the Supreme Divinity of hypostatized * attributes and ideas, forming beings whom, in common with him, they denominated Eons, or Immortals; — the full developement of the Deity by those emanations, constituting the Pleroma; †

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the realm of God, the Spiritual World, (in contradistinction to the animal and material,) which was likewise called the Pleroma; all properly spiritual existences being considered as deriving their substance from that of the Infinite Spirit ;-and the mingling of spirit with matter; the causes which led to the formation of the material world, and the relations of

I use the term "hypostatize," and its relatives, to express the ascribing of proper personality to what in its nature is devoid of it.

+Пane, Fullness, Completeness, Perfection, here signifying the full, complete, perfect developement of the Deity. The word, though with a change of its meaning, was borrowed by the Gnostics from St. Paul. See Ephesians, i. 23; iii. 19. Coloss. i. 19; ii. 9.

this to the spiritual world. Their speculations on these subjects were very foreign from any conceptions with which we are familiar. They seem to have assumed no definite and permanent shape; but to have varied according to the imaginations of different sects and individuals; every one, as Tertullian says, moulding what he had received to his own liking; the disciple thinking himself as much at liberty as his master, to innovate at pleasure.* Nearly all the direct information concerning them, on which we can rely with any confidence, is derived from their earlier controversial opponents, the fathers of the second and third centuries; and it cannot be supposed that these writers furnish a full explanation of the theories of the Gnostics in their most intelligible and plausible form. It was the business of

* Tertullian. De Præscript. Hæretic. c. 42. pp. 217, 218. — Of the sect of the Marcosians, Irenæus treats at much length, probably because they prevailed particularly in the part of Gaul where he resided. (Lib. I. c. 13. § 7. p. 65.) He concludes his account of them with saying; "But, since they disagree among themselves in doctrine and teaching, and those, who are acknowledged as the more recent, affect every day to find out something new, and to bring forth what never had been thought of before, it is hard to describe the notions of all of them." (Lib. I. c. 21. § 5. p. 98.) The same, or nearly the same, might, I conceive, have been said of every other body of theosophic Gnostics, who were classed together as a sect.

the fathers to divest them of all adventitious recommendations, to remove whatever might dazzle and deceive the eye, and to show, not their coincidence with any existing forms of philosophy, but their essential errors, their intrinsic incongruity, and their opposition to reason and Scripture. They have taken them to pieces, to exhibit their defects; and it is not easy, or rather it is impossible, to restore them as they were originally put together. At the same time, clearness of thought, precision of language, and accuracy in reporting opinions, were not characteristics of the writers of that age. Beside this, the Gnostics did not understand themselves, and it was impossible, therefore, that the fathers should understand them. All these causes combine to occasion peculiar difficulty in forming a just notion of the speculations of the theosophic Gnostics. If their own writings had remained to us entire, no common acuteness would probably have been necessary to follow the process by which visionary conceptions and allegories passed into doctrines; to apprehend the state of mind, the confused mingling of imperfect, changing, and inconsistent fancies, out of which their theories arose; to determine where mysticism was brightening into meaning; or to detect what

portion of truth, under some disguise or other, may have entered into and been neutralized in their composition. As in so many metaphysical and theological systems, from the age of Plato to our own, we should doubtless have found, that their dialect admitted of but a very partial translation into the universal language of common sense. With the best guidance, we should have been unable to place ourselves in the same position with the Gnostics, under the same circumstances, so as to discern the spectral illusions, which, in the dawn of Christianity, they saw pictured on the clouds, and fancied to be celestial visions. Still, even as regards their theosophic doctrines, enough may be ascertained for our purpose; perhaps all that is of importance in relation to the history of opinions, or the history of our religion. After fixing our attention on them steadily, what appeared at first view altogether confused and monstrous begins to assume a form better defined; the great features common to their systems show themselves more distinctly, and we are able to discern their likeness to other modes of opinion that have widely prevailed.

The extramundane speculations of the Gnostics have attracted particular attention, both from their very nature, and from the subtile and

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