Page:The Mohammedan system of theology (IA mohammedansyste00neal).pdf/49

 the Canon of the New Testament, heresies had advanced to a considerable height, particularly those of Ebion and Cerinthus, and the several sects of Gnostics, which commenced with Simon Magus, and were continued and carried on by Valentinus and Basilides, Carpocrates and Menander. The Divinity of Jesus was denied by Ebion, according to Eusebius and Epiphanius, who asserted him to be a mere man, and to have had no existence before he was born of the Virgin Mary. The Gnostics had debased Christianity by intermixing with its pure doctrines the reveries of Jewish Cabbalists, the conceits of Pythagoras and Plato, and the Chaldæan philosophy, the genealogy of divine emanations and distinctions respecting the Person of Christ. Thus errors had been lamentably accumulating, The symptoms indicated a general decay and dereliction of first principles. The adoration of relics, the worship of