Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/124

 102 THE DECLINE AND FALL a question would arise, by what means, and of wliat materials, it was originally framed ; and our sounder theology is startled by an answer which was not peculiar to the CJnostics, that both the form and the sul:)stance proceeded from the divine essence. The idea of ])ure and absolute spirit is a refinement of modem philosophy ; the incorporeal essence, ascribed by the ancients to human souls, celestial bein<i;s, and even the Deity himself, does not exclude the notion of extended space ; and their imagina- tion was satisfied with a subtle nature of air, or fii*e, or aether, incomparably more perfect than the grossness of the material world. If we define the place, we must describe the figure, of the Deity. Our experience, perhaps our vanity, represents the powers of reason and virtue under an human form. The Anthro- pomorphites, who swarmed among the monks of P],gypt and the Catholics of Africa, could produce the express declaration of Scripture that man was made after the image of his Creator.^- The venerable Serapion, one of the saints of the Nitrian desert, relin(|uished, with many a tear, his darling prejudice ; and be- wailed, like an infant, his unlucky conversion, which had stolen away his (iod and left his mind without any visible object of faith or devotion. ^^ III. Double III. Such were the fleeting shadows of the Docetes. A more cerinthug Substantial, though less simple, hypothesis was contrived by Cerinthus of Asia,i' who dared to oppose the last of the apostles. Placed on the confines of the Jewish and (jentile world, he laboured to reconcile the Gnostic with the Ebionite, by con- 1- The pilgrim Cassian, who visited Egypt in the beginning of the vth century, observes and laments the reign of anthropomorphism among the monks, w ho were not conscious that they embraced the system of Epicurus (Cicero, de Nat. Deorum, i. 18, 34). Ab universe propemodum genere monachorum, qui per totam pro- vinciam .-Egyptum morabantur, pro simplicitatis errore susceptum est, ut e con- trario memoratum pontificcm {Theophilus) velut hasresi gravissinia depravatuni, pars maxima senioruni ab universe fraternitatis corpore decerneret detestandum (Cassian, Collation, x. 2). As long as St. Augustin remained a Manichaan, he was scandalized b)' the anthropomorphism of the vulgar Catholics. 1-' Itaest in oratione senex mente confusus, eoquod illam ai0pw7ronop(<)oi' imaginem Deitatis, quam proponere sibi in oratione consueverat, aboleri de suo corde sentiret, ut in amarissimos fletus crebrosque singultus repente prorumpens, in terram prostratus, cum ejulntu validissimo proclamaret ; " Heu me miserum ! tulerunt a me Deum nieum, et quem nunc teneam non habeo, vel quern adorem aut inter- pellem jam nescio ". Cassian, Collat. x. 2 [leg. 3]. ^' St. John and Cerinthus (A.u. 80, Cleric. Hist. Eccles. p. 493) accidentally met m the public bath of Ephesus ; but the apostle fled from the heretic, lest the building should tumble on their heads. This foolish story, reprobated by Dr. Middleton (Miscellaneous Works, vol. ii.), is related however by Irenaeus (iii. 3), on the evidence of Polycarp, and was probably suited to the time and residence of Cerinthus. The obsolete, yet probably the true, reading of i John iv. 3 — b AOei ■t'ov 'Iijcroui — alludcb to the double nature of that primitive heretic.