The word was not, in its earliest acceptation, conceived to convey any reproach in it, since it was indifferently used either of a party approved, or of one disapproved, by the writer. In this way it occurs several times in the Acts of the Apostles, where it is always (one single passage excepted) rendered sect. We hear alike of the sect of the Sadducees, αίρεσις των Σαδδουκαίων, Acts v. 17, and of the sect of the Pharisees, aipeσis Twv Papioaiwv, chap. xv. 5. In both places the term is adopted by the historian purely for distinction's sake, without the least appearance of intention to convey either praise or blame. Nay, on one occasion, Paul, in the defence he made for himself before king Agrippa, where it was manifestly his intention to exalt the party to which he had belonged, and to give their system the preference to every other system of Judaism, both in soundness of doctrine and purity of morals, expresses himself thus: "My manner of life, from my youth, which was at the first among mine own nation at Jerusalem, know all the Jews, which knew me from the beginning, if they would testify,-that after the most straitest sect of our religion,” κατα την ακριβεστατην αίρεσιν της ἡμετέρας θρησ KELAS, "I lived a Pharisee," Acts xxvi. 4, 5.

κειας,

2. There is only one passage in that history, (Acts xxiv. 5,) wherein there is an appearance that something reproachful is meant to be conveyed under the name aipɛois. It is in the accusation of Paul by the orator Tertullus, on the part of the Jews, before the governor Felix; where, amongst other things, we have these words: "We have found this man a pestilent fellow, and a mover of sedition among all the Jews throughout the world, and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes,” πρωτοστάτην τε της των Ναζωραίων αἱρέσεως. I should not, however, have imagined that any part of the obloquy lay in the application of the word last mentioned, if it had not been for the notice which the apostle takes of it in his answer: "But this I confess unto thee, that after the way which they call heresy,” ήν λεγουσιν αἱρεσιν, so worship I the God of my fathers," chap. xxiv. 14.

3. Here, by the way, I must remark a great impropriety in the English translation, though in this, I acknowledge, it does but follow the Vulgate. The same word is rendered one way in the charge brought against the prisoner, and another way in his answer for himself. The consequence is, that though nothing can be more apposite than his reply in this instance, as it stands in the original, yet nothing can appear more foreign than this passage in the two versions above-mentioned. The apostle seems to defend himself against crimes of which he is not accused. In both places, therefore, the word ought to have been translated in the same manner, whether heresy or sect. In my judgment, the last term is the only proper one; for the word heresy, in the modern acceptation, never suits the import of the original word, as used in Scripture. But, when one attends to the very critical circum

stances of the apostle at this time, the difficulty in accounting for his having considered it as a reproach to be denominated of a sect disclaimed by the whole nation, instantly vanishes. Let it be remembered, first, that since the Jews had fallen under the power of the Romans, their ancient national religion had not only received the sanction of the civil powers for the continuance of its establishment in Judea, but had obtained a toleration in other parts of the empire; secondly, that Paul is now pleading before a Roman governor, a Pagan, who could not well be supposed to know much of the Jewish doctrine, worship, or controversies; and that he had been arraigned by the rulers of his own nation, as belonging to a turbulent and upstart sect: for in this way they considered the Christians, whom they reproachfully named Nazarenes. The natural consequence of this charge, with one who understood so little of their affairs as Felix, was to make him look upon the prisoner as an apostate from Judaism, and therefore as not entitled to be protected, or even tolerated, on the score of religion. Against a danger of this kind it was of the utmost importance to our apostle to defend himself.

4. Accordingly when he enters on this part of the charge, how solicitous is he to prove, that his belonging to that sect did not imply any defection from the religion of his ancestors; and thus to prevent any mistaken judgment on this article of his arraignment, into which a heathen judge must have otherwise unavoidably fallen. His own words will, to the attentive, supersede all argument or illustration: "But this I confess to thee, that after the way which they call a sect, so worship I-"Whom? No new divinity, but, on the contrary, "the God of our fathers:" He adds, in order the more effectually to remove every suspicion of apostasy, "Believing all things which are written in the law and the prophets; and have the same hope towards God which they themselves also entertain, that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and of the unjust," Acts xxiv. 14, 15. Nothing could have been more ridiculous, than for the apostle seriously to defend his doctrine against the charge of heterodoxy before an idolater and polytheist, who regarded both him and his accusers as superstitious fools, and consequently as, in this respect, precisely on a footing; but it was entirely pertinent in him to evince, before a Roman magistrate, that his faith and mode of worship, however much traduced by his enemies, were neither essentially different from, nor any way subversive of, that religion which the senate and people of Rome had solemnly engaged to protect; and that therefore he was not to be treated as an apostate, as his adversaries, by that article of accusation that he was of the sect of the Nazarenes, showed evidently that they desired he should. Thus the apostle, with great address, refutes the charge of having revolted from the religious institution of

Moses, and at the same time is so far from disclaiming, that he glories in the name of a follower of Christ.

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5. There is only one other place in this history in which the word occurs, namely, where the Jews at Rome, (for whom Paul had sent on his arrival,) speaking of the Christian society, address him in these words: "But we desire to hear of thee what thou thinkest; for as concerning this sect,” περι μεν γαρ της αἱρέσεως ταύτης, we know that it is every-where spoken against," Acts xxviii. 22. There cannot be a question, here, of the propriety of rendering the word aipeous sect; a term of a middle nature, not necessarily implying either good or bad: For, as to the disposition wherein those Jews were at this time, it is plain they did not think themselves qualified to pronounce either for or against it, till they should give Paul, who patronized it, a full hearing. This they were willing to do; and therefore only acquainted him, in general, that they found it to be a party that was universally decried. Thus, in the historical part of the New Testament, we find the word aipeois employed to denote sect or party indiscriminately, whether good or bad. It has no necessary reference to opinions, true or false. Certain it is, that sects are commonly, not always, caused by difference in opinion; but the term is expressive of the effect only, not of the cause.

6. In order to prevent mistakes, I shall here further observe, that the word sect, among the Jews, was not, in its application, entirely coincident with the same term as applied by Christians to the subdivisions subsisting among themselves. We, if I mistake not, invariably use it of those who form separate communions, and do not associate with one another in religious worship and ceremonies. Thus we call Papists, Lutherans, Calvinists, different sects, not so much on account of their differences in opinion, as because they have established to themselves different fraternities, to which, in what regards public worship, they confine themselves; the several denominations above-mentioned having no intercommunity with one another in sacred matters. High church and low church we call only parties, because they have not formed separate communions. Great and known differences in opinion, when followed by no external breach in the society, are not considered with us as constituting distinct sects, though their differences in opinion may give rise to mutual aversion. Now, in the Jewish sects (if we except the Samaritans) there were no separate communities erected. The same temple, and the same synagogues, were attended alike by Pharisees and by Sadducees. Nay, there were often of both denominations in the sanhedrim, and even in the priesthood.

Another difference was, that the name of the sect was not applied to all the people who adopted the same opinions, but solely to the men of eminence among them who were considered as the leaders and instructors of the party. The much greater

part of the nation, nay, the whole populace, received implicitly the doctrine of the Pharisees, yet Josephus never styles the common people Pharisees, but only followers and admirers of the Pharisees. Nay, this distinction appears sufficiently from sacred writ: "The Scribes and Pharisees," says our Lord, Matt. xxiii. 2,"sit in Moses' seat." This could not have been said so generally, if any thing further had been meant by Pharisees but the teachers and guides of the party. Again, when the officers, sent by the chief priests to apprehend our Lord, returned without bringing him, and excused themselves by saying, "Never man spake like this man," they were asked, "Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees, believed on him?" John vii. 48. Now, in our way of using words, we should be apt to say that all his adherents were of the Pharisees; for the pharasaical was the only popular doctrine. But it was not to the followers, but to the leaders, that the name of the sect was applied. Here, however, we must except the Essenes, who, as they all, of whatever rank originally, entered into a solemn engagement whereby they confined themselves to a peculiar mode of life, which in a great measure secluded them from the rest of mankind, were considered almost in the same manner as we do the Benedictines or Dominicans, or any order of monks or friars among the Romanists.

*

Josephus, in the account he has given of the Jewish sects, considers them all as parties who supported different systems of philosophy, and has been not a little censured for this by some critics. But, as things were understood then, this manner of considering them was not unnatural. Theology, morality, and questions regarding the immortality of the soul and a future state, were principal branches of their philosophy. "Philosophia," says Cicero, "nos primum ad deorum cultum, deinde ad jus hominum quod situm est in generis humani societate, tum ad modestiam, magnitudinemque animi erudivit : eademque ab animo tanquam ab oculis, caliginem dispulit, ut omnia supera, infera, prima, ultima, media, videremus." Besides, as it was only men of eminence qualified to guide and instruct the people who were dignified with the title either of Pharisee or of Sadducee, there was nothing so analagous among the Pagans as their different sects of philosophers, the Stoics, the Academics, and the Epicureans, to whom also the general term aipsσic was commonly applied. Epiphanius, a Christian writer of the fourth century, from the same view of things with Josephus, reckons among the alpeσuç, sects, or heresies, if you please to call them so, which arose among the Greeks before the coming of Christ, these classes of philosophers-the Stoics, the Platonists, the Pythagoreans, and the Epicureans. Of this writer it may also be remarked, that in the first part of his work he evidently uses the

* Tuscul. Quæst. lib. 1.

word aipeous in all the latitude in which it had been employed by the sacred writers, as signifying sect or party of any kind, and without any note of censure; otherwise he would never have numbered Judaism, whose origin he derives from the command which God gave to Abraham to circumcise all the males of his family, among the original heresies. Thus, in laying down the plan of his work, he says, Εν τῳ ουν πρωτῳ βιβλιῳ πρώτου του μου αίρεσεις εικοσιν, αἱ εἰσιν αἱδε βαρβαρισμος, σκυβισμος, ἑλλη νισμος, ιουδαϊσμος, κ. τ. ε.* This only by the way.

7. But it may be asked, is not the acceptation of the word in the epistles different from what it has been observed to be in the historical books of the New Testament? Is it not in the former invariably used in a bad sense, as denoting something wrong and blamable? That in those indeed it always denotes something faulty, or even criminal, I am far from disputing; nevertheless, the acceptation is not materially different from that in which it always occurs in the Acts of the Apostles. In order to remove the apparent inconsistency in what has been now advanced, let it be observed, that the word sect has always something relative in it; and therefore, in different applications, though the general import of the term be the same, it will convey a favourable idea or an unfavourable, according to the particular relation it bears. I explain myself by examples. The word sect may be used along with the proper name, purely by way of distinction from another party of a different name; in which case the word is not understood to convey either praise or blame. Of this we have examples in the phrases above quoted-the sect of the Pharisees, the sect of the Sadducees, the sect of the Nazarenes. In this way we may speak of a strict sect or a lax sect, or even of a good sect or a bad sect. If any thing reprehensible or commendable be suggested, it is not suggested by the term sect, aipeois, but by the words construed with it. Again, it may be applied to a formed party in a community, considered in reference to the whole. If the community, of which the sect is a part, be of such a nature as not to admit this subdivision without impairing and corrupting its constitution, to charge them with splitting into sects, or forming parties, is to charge them with corruption in what is most essential to them as a society. Hence arises all the difference there is in the word, as used in the history, and as used in the epistles of Peter and Paul; for these are the only apostles who employ it. In the history, the reference is always of the first kind; in the epistles, always of the second. In these, the apostles address themselves only to Christians, and are not speaking of sects without the church, but either reprehending them

The import of the word heresy in Epiphanius has not escaped the observation of the author of Dictionnaire Historique des Auteurs Ecclesiastiques, who says, "Par le mot d'hérésies, St. Epiphane entend une secte ou une societé d'hommes, qui ont, sur la religion, des sentimens particuliers."