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Judaic antagonism to these innovations . The elements of ( 3 noS- » ticism wefe therefore in existence , and actually fermenting in the heart of Judaism , before the preaching of the Gospel ; and we ipay consider the cabbalistic doctrines as the transition state between
pure Zoroastrism and the final developement of the proper g no sis . Contemporaneous with these changes in Judea itself , a Gnostic element was formin g * under circumstances somewhat different * in another quarter , to which we have already alluded , in the city
of Alexandria . Hither , it is well known , a number of Jevva had migrated in the reign of the first of the Ptolemies ; and amongst them were those who shared in the general enthusiasm fostered by those princes for letters and philosophy . The adoption of Greek as the common dialect of the multifarious inhabitants of the
city , promoted the readier intermingling of their religious and philosophical ideas . In this centre of the eastern and western worlds , the doctrines of all sects and countries were thrown into combination , and from their mutual action arose new forms of speculation . The mystic science of the native priesthoods , though declined from , its ancient reputation , must still have had ita
influence in the general excitement of human ideas ; and it was here brought a second time into collision with the institutions of the great Hebrew legislator and prophet , who was said himself to have been learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians ; and to these elements and to the traditional knowledge of the system of Zoroaster , which the Jews brought with them from Palestine , were
added the doctrines of the several Grecian schools , and especially that of Plato , which found in Alexandria a congenial toil . * Underthese influences flourished Philo , who allegorized the Mosaic code , and found in it all the doctrines of Platonisrn . We can trace in his writings the germ of Gnosticism . By his doctrine of
a logos , or world of ideas , dwelling in God , and the medium of the divine agency on the world of matter , which he borrowed from Plato , he prepared the way for some of the most favourite speculations of the Gnostic schools . He ascribed all true knowledge of God to intuition ; and conceived that from this source Moses and the prophets derived a kind of gnosis .
From perceiving the tendency of men ' s ideas previous to the appearance of Christ * we are the less surprised at the form that was given to his doctrine by various sects , when it came to be disseminated in the world . It combined with elements already existing , and formed compounds in which the pure and practical wisdom of Jesus was disguised in mixtures of heathen origin . It is stated by ecclesiastical writers , that only two kinds of heresies were known in the two first centuries ; that of those who denied
the possibility of any connexion between the visible and invisible worlds ^ and considered Jesus Christ a man in appearance onl y * * Grttutumutn hogyitiufn urbem Alexandriam bftbuit Pfctopipn philo ^ p ^ hift . Heyn © , dc Genio Sfleculi PtolexnaDorum , p . 144 ,
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1833, page 567, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2620/page/55/
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