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Untitled Article
dam . These atiti-judaiceit principles ^ ve te k&tfled to their exttethe by tte Cainit £ s > ; ttho looked upon all the bad men pdnished under the old dispensation as thdsfe who dlone deserved to be consid £ r £ d spiritual , and the faithful servants of the true God .
If We may borrow a term from the Greek , the principlte of the prevailing Gnostic sects was rather syncretism than ectectfcistn ; they saw truth everywhere ; they found affinities in every system ; ana associated the elements of the most opposite religions in their theories . They ran into the opposite extreme of the exclusiveness of the Catholic church . While the Catholics saw error in every system but their own , the Gnostics , with equal want of reason , made no discrimination , and blended truth and error into one
heterogeneous m&ss . This was particularly the case with the Cctrpocfatiaris , Who were equally tolerant in their theology arid lax in trieir moral principles . In a Greek inscriptiori , discovered in Cyrehaick , and ascribed to this sect , we find the names united of Osiris , Zoroastef , Pythagoras , Epicurus , and Christ : an union
which , however strange it may seem to us , was not without its parallel in those days . The Etnperor Alexander Severus showed what Gibboti sarcastically calls ( vol . ii . p . 450 , ) ' a singular but injudicious regard for the Christian religion / by the erection of a dbftiestic chapel , in which he placed the statues of Abraham , of Orpheus * of Apollonius , and of Christ .
The Gnostics generally despised martyrdom , and justified the use of coiicealtnent and reserve for the privilege of remaining in the bosom of the Catholic church . They understood the extent of the application of the text , to the pure all things are pure . It has been Well skid , that the moral tendency of opinions cannot be judged of from the characters of those who first propagate them .
The GntfStic leaders were , fofrthe most part , men of pure morals , rather ascetic in their lives , of ardent minds and misguided imaginations ; blit in the sequel their sects degenerated . From the fanatibttl contempt of matter , and the belief that the gospel conferred an exemption from the obligations of all positive law , they fell into the wildest ahtinomianisrri . and confounded all rtioral
distinctions . Gnosticism , though we have viewed it solely in connexion with Christianity , showed itself , as we have before observed , in he&theiiism also , and was one of the indications of the spirit of the time . It attempted to appropriate to itself this accumulated
wisdom of aritiquity , and to fitid in the united reasonings and conceptions of all sects , Jewish , Christian , and Heathen , the solution of those prdblems to ^ hich no one philosopher or sage , and no one sect or |) Arty , had hitherto been able to devise a satisfactory ariawer .
How far the language and conceptions of the writers of the New Testament have been influenced b y the prevalence of these Gnostic opinions , is A questibri on which tne most distinguished names will be found tanged on opposite sides . Both parties , perhaps , have
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S 74 On the infltHftm 6 / the Bptrit 6 f Gnosticism .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1833, page 574, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2620/page/62/
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