mystical spirit Achamoth. From her passions, and tears, and smiles emanated a vast cycle of life, including the Demiurge, the fiery God pictured in the Old Testament. The Demiurge made mankind; but, unknown to him, the higher powers had instilled pneumatic instincts into human souls, which impelled them to seek for light and peace in the Pleroma. To aid them in this search came Jesus the Christ. Though nailed to a cross, he suffered no real pangs. Christ revealed the deep spiritual order of things that lay behind the Demiurge and the Mosaic law. Christ and Achamoth are united. The spiritual realm is opened to the highest class of the redeemed-viz., the initiated Gnostics; the region of the Demiurge is allotted to such Jews and Christians as have fallen short of the true gnosis; and the carnal portion of the human race are blotted out of existence. Valentinus had many disciples, among them being the teachers Heracleon and Ptolemæus; and (about the beginning of the third century) Bardesanes.* To the writings of the Valentinian school belongs a Gnostic romance entitled the Pistis-Sophia. It relates the adventures of the unfortunate Sophia, who had made a rash attempt to reach the Absolute. Jesus the Redeemer assists her to regain th kingdom of light. Peter and Mary Magdalene take part in the dialogues. In answer to Mary, Jesus gives detailed accounts of torments for sin. Much stress is laid on the importance of observing a holy sacrament called the Mystery of the Ineffable One. The book closes with prayers uttered by Jesus, as he stands by the sea, on a mountain, or in mid-air. He performs, with wine and water, the blessed Mystery; and then discourses upon the magical significance of the signs of the Zodiac, and of the sacred names of the planets, etc.† Cerdo, the Syrian, a Gnostic preacher in Rome (about 140), maintained that the "good" God of Christianity differed from the "just" God of Judaism. Cerdo's doctrine was adopted and expounded by Marcion. Born at Sinope in Pontus (Asia Minor), and enriched by his business of a shipmaster, Marcion settled in Rome, * Mansel's "Gnostic Heresies ;" Baur's "Church History," vol. i.; Kurtz's "History," section 27. + A summary of the Pistis-Sophia in given in King's "Gnostics." where he died about 170. The Saints of Rome refused him a place in their fellowship, and he, sarcastically reminding them that new wine could not be poured into old bottles, withdrew to form a church of his own. His church spread wide. Italy, Pontus, Cyprus, Egypt, Syria, and Arabia had their Marcionite congregations. Explorers have discovered in Syria the ruins of a Marcionite temple.* The great Gnostic preached a rigid ethics. He condemned the theatre and the circus, and frowned upon personal adornment. Dividing his followers into two classes, the Elect and the Catechumens (learners), he forbade the first to marry. But the procedure of his churches was simple; and the Catechumens took free share in the services. Fired by deep enmity to Judaism, Marcion put aside the whole of the Old Testament, and found in Paul the only true teacher of the Christian faith. He accepted ten letters as the genuine productions of Paul-Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Romans, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, Ephesians, Colossians, Philemon, and Philippians; but he did not receive these books in their present form. The other books which are now included in the New Testament he rejected as tainted by Hebrew thought. He possessed an evangel which he named the Gospel of the Lord. It ran parallel to "Luke to a large extent, but was characterised by notable variations. Marcion's gospel contained no genealogy, and began thus: "In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Cæsar, Jesus came down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and was teaching on the sabbath-days; and they were astonished at his doctrine, for his word was in authority." References to Old Testament prophecy have no place in Marcion's gospel. Instead of "You shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God," Marcion reads, "You shall see all the righteous." His version of the Lord's Prayer commences : Father, let thy Holy Spirit come upon us; Hallowed be thy name," etc. Marcion's opponents accused him of purposely omitting certain passages from "Luke," and altering others. Whether he did so or not we cannot now decide. He so much disliked Judaism that he wrote a book of "Antitheses," or * Herzog's (Schaff's edition) "Encyclopædia of Religious Knowledge. discrepancies between the Old and New Testaments. His objections to the Hebrew traditions showed acuteness and moral discrimination. Among other things, he criticised Yahveh for having created man in his own image, and then allowing him to fall into sin; for asking where Adam was, as if ignorant; for permitting the Israelites to rob the Egyptians; for prohibiting graven images, and yet setting cherubim over the ark; for repenting of his choice of Saul as king; for threatening to destroy his own people of Israel, and only refraining at the pleading of Moses, etc. Yahveh the Demiurge proclaimed a law, but could not educate the world into keeping it. Therefore, the good God who ruled higher than Yahveh revealed the Logos to save mankind from the incompetence of the Demiurge. The jealous Yahveh sought Christ's death, but only in appearance did the Saviour die on the cross (i.e., Marcion taught the Docetic doctrine). Descending to hell, Christ-so Marcion maintained, perhaps not without irony-liberated all the brave souls, such as Cain, Esau, Korah, Sodomites, and Egyptians, who had defied the God of the Jews, and left in Hades the wretched men-Abel, Enoch, Noah, and the leading patriarchs and prophets, who had servilely obeyed the Demiurge. Marcion appears also to have asserted the existence of an evil Matter, or Hyle, which conjoined itself with Yahveh. But he built up no complicated system of Pleroma and Æons, and thus stands outside the more pronounced Gnostic ranks. It should be observed, however, that none of the actual writings of Marcion have come down to us, his gospel and his opinions being known only through quotations in Irenæus, Tertullian, etc. Several disciples carried on Marcion's propaganda, such as Prepon the Assyrian, Apelles, and Hermogenes, the African painter. Of these Apelles (died about 180) was the most distinguished. The true God, said Apelles, created a superior angelic world. One of the angels created the human world, which fell into corruption, and was redeemed by Christ. Apelles compiled a catalogue of passages from the Pentateuch, which exposed the weakness of the Hebrew deity. A singular frankness marked this Gnostic teacher. In his old age he confessed to one of his Christian adversaries that he experienced a difficulty in proving the existence of one and only God; he did indeed believe in such a being, but he based his doctrine on faith alone. The Marcionite church lingered on into the fifth century. It had its martyrs, and holy virgins, and austere monks.* 29. The Last Book of the New Testament.-About 150170, and possibly at Rome, appeared the last writing now incorporated in the New Testament. This was the document commonly entitled the "Second Epistle of Peter." For more than two centuries doubts as to authenticity gathered round this epistle. Origen quoted it as Peter's. The first words run as follows: "Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have obtained a like precious faith with us in the righteousness of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace be multiplied in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord." The Saints have taken on the divine nature, and escaped the corrupt and lustful world; and the writer exhorts them to make their divine title sure. Speaking in his supposed character of Peter the Apostle, he says he is about to die, and so regards it as a solemn duty to edify the people. And he adds: "We did not follow cunningly-devised fables, when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eye-witnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, and this voice we ourselves heard come out of heaven, when we were with him in the holy mount" [of Transfiguration]. The writer then launches out into strong and intolerant abuse of certain heretics who deny even the Master that bought them." He pauses a moment to asseverate: "This is now, beloved, the second epistle that I write unto you ;" proceeds to foretell the new heaven and earth; and closes with a recommendation to Christians to read the epistles of "our beloved Paul;" epistles which, unhappily, certain ill-disposed persons have distorted out of their legitimate meaning "unto their own destruction." * Renan's "Marc-Aurèle," chapter ix.; Kurtz's "History," section 27; Baur's "Church History," vol. i.; Mansel's "Gnostic Heresies," lecture xiii.; "Antiqua Mater," chapter ix. J. Hamlyn Hill has published an English version of the Gospel of the Lord. The work cannot be accepted as that of an apostle. An apostle would scarcely write "the commandment of the Lord through your apostles," nor refer to Paul's correspondence as "scriptures;" nor express surprise at people getting weary of waiting for the Lord's coming (since so few years would have elapsed); nor would "heresies" have grown up so soon. The style and the grammar differ from those displayed in the First Epistle of "Peter." Most cogent reason of all, this document deliberately copies and expands the language of the epistle of "Jude." For example :—Jude: "There are certain men crept in privily, even they who were of old set forth unto this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying our only Master." Peter: "There arose false prophets also among the people, as among you also there shall be false teachers, who shall privily bring in destructive heresies, denying even the Master," etc. Fude:-" Defile the flesh ......and rail at dignities." Peter:-"Walk after the flesh..... and despise dominion." Other striking resemblances may be detected by the most cursory reader. We cannot admit that an apostle would have exposed his want of ideas by such open plagiarism from another man's manuscript.* 30. Justin Martyr.-The leading works of Justin Martyr are an Apology and a Dialogue. Other treatises ascribed to him are either unimportant, or not his genuine compositions. Though he had received some instruction in the Stoical schools, he displays but inferior intellectual capacity. His inaccuracy betrays itself in his assertion that to Simon the Mage a statue, with the inscription, "Simoni Deo Sancto" (To the holy god Simon), had been erected on an island in the Tiber; whereas, on the spot he names, there was dug up in 1574 a stone inscribed "Semoni Sanco Deo " (Semo Sancus being a local Sabine deity). He absurdly attributes to the agency of devils all facts and practices which displease or disgust him. This is how he speaks of his contemporary Marcion: "The devils put forward Marcion of Pontus, who is even now teaching men to deny that God is the maker of all things in heaven and on earth, and that the Christ predicted by the prophets is his son, and preaches another God * Davidson's "Introduction," vol. ii. |