Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/93

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 75 They were, almost without exception, of the race of the Cll A P. gentiles ; and their principal founders seem to have '__ been natives of Syria or Egypt, where the warmth of the climate disposes both the mind and the body to indolent and contemplative devotion. The Gnostics blended with the faith of Christ many sublime but obscure tenets, which they derived from oriental philo- sophy, and even from the religion of Zoroaster, con- cerning the eternity of matter, the existence of two principles, and the mysterious hierarchy of the in- visible world'. As soon as they launched out into that vast abyss, they delivered themselves to the guidance of a disordered imagination; and as the paths of error are various and infinite, the Gnostics were impercepti- bly divided into more than fifty particular sects'', of whom the most celebrated appear to have been the Basilidians, the alentinians, tlie Marcionites, and, in a still later period, the Manicha^ans. Each of these sects could boast of its bishops and congregations, of its doctors and martyrs'; and, instead of the four gospels adopted by the church, the heretics produced a multitude of histories, in which the actions and dis- courses of Christ and of his apostles were adapted to their respective tenets'". The success of the Gnostics ' In the account of the Gnostics of the second and third centuries, Mosheim is ingenious and candid; Le Clerc, dull, but exact; Beausobre almost always an apologist ; and it is mucli to be feared that the primitive fathers are very frequently calumniators. ^ See the catalogues of Irenasus and Epiphanius. It must indeed be allowed, that those writers were inclined to multiply the number of sects which opposed the unity of the church. ' Eusebius, 1. iv. c. 15; Sozoraen, . ii. c. 32. See in Bayle, in the article of Marcioii, a curious detail of a dispute on that subject. It should .seem that some of the Gnostics (the Basilidians) declined, and even refused, the honour of martyrdom. Their reasons were singular and abstruse. See Rlosheim, p. 359. "" See a very remarkable passage of Origen, Procem. ad Lucam. That indefatigable writer, who had consumed his life in the study of the scrip- tures, relies for their authenticity on the inspired authority of the church. It was impossible that the Gnostics could receive our present gospels, many parts of which (particularly in the resurrection of Christ) are directly, and as it mi>jhtseem designedly, pointed against their favourite tenets. It is there- fore "somewhat singular that Ignatius (Epist, ad Smyrn. Pair. Apostol. torn. ii. p. 34.) should choose to employ a vague and doubtful tradition, instead of (juoting the certain teslimony of the evangelists.