Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/91

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 73 raglio of Solomon. The conquest of the land of Ca- CHAP, naan, and the extirpation of the unsuspecting natives, '^^• they were at a loss how to reconcile with the common notions of humanity and justice. But when they recol- lected the sanguinary list of murders, of executions, and of massacres, which stain almost every page of the Jewish annals, they acknowledged that the barbarians of Palestine had exercised as much compassion to- wards their idolatrous enemies, as they had ever shown to their friends or countrymen"'. Passing from the sectaries of the law to the law itself, they asserted that it was impossible that a rehgion which consisted only of bloody sacrifices and trifling ceremonies, and whose rewards as well as punishments were all of a carnal and temporal nature, could inspire the love of virtue, or restrain the impetuosity of passion. The Mosaic account of the creation and fall of man was treated with profane derision by the Gnostics, who would not listen with patience to the repose of the Deity after six days' labour, to the rib of Adam, the garden of Eden, the trees of life and of knowledge, the speaking ser- pent, the forbidden fruit, and the condemnation pro- nounced against human kind for the venial offence of their first progenitors'. The God of Israel was impi- ously re})resented by the Gnostics, as a being liable to passion and to error, capricious in his favour, impla- cable in his resentment, meanly jealous of his supersti- tious worship, and confining his partial providence to a single people, and to this transitory life. In such a character they could discover none of the features of the wise and omnipotent father of the universe ^ They ^ Apud ipsos fides obstinata, misericordia in promptu : adversus omnes alios hostile odium. Tacit. Hist. v. 4. Surely Tacitus had seen the jews with too favourable an eye. The perusal of Josephus must have destroyed the antithesis. •= Dr. Burnet ( Archaeologia, 1. ii. c. 7.) has discussed the first chapters of Genesis with too much wit and freedom. ^ The milder Gnostics considered Jehovah, the Creator, as a being of a mixed nature between God and the demon. Others confounded him with the evil principle. Consult the second century of the general history of Mosheim, which gives a very distinct though concise account of their str.inge opinions on this subject.