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    have actually asserted , that the whole had its origin in the conception of some oriental brain , and was only the last phasis of the expiring theosophy of the anciferit world . But the main facts of the life of Jesus are indisputable ; there they ate , graven with a pen of iron on the monumental brass and stone of history ; and in the union of these facts with the Gnostic theories , we have a

    curious specimen of the mode in which an oriental Imagination will blend a few facts occurring on the surface of earth , with a system of pure fiction and arbitrary combination relating to the world which lies wholly beyond the sphere of sfense . In this intense working of the oriental theosophy on the simple facts of Christianity , we have before our eyes an actual exemplification of

    that singular process , usually occurring long before the record of history , by , which abstractions are gradually converted into realities , and allegories into persons ; by which fact tnelts into fable , and fable modifies fact , and the long succession and varied forrtis of a niuitiplicity of gods grow out of the figurative representations

    of the attributes and powers of one supreme mind . The east is the cradle of religions ; the east gave birth to the various systems of Gnosticism ; and by a careful investigation of the method by which these systems fixed themselves on a partial basis of historical fact , and entered into divers combinations with a

    multiplicity of foreign eletnents , we open an important chapter in the history of the human mind ,, and may perhaps furnish ourselves with some clue to the unravelling of that complicated intermixture of fact and fable which usually takes place in the impenetrable depth of antiquity .

    IV . The history of Gnosticism is important , not so much from any intrinsic value which attaches to its speculations , as from its exhibiting One of those manifold aspects of public opinion , which accottipanied the collision of Heathenism with Christianity in the earlier centuries of our era . Gnosticism and new Platonisrn were

    merely the Christian and the Heathen tendencies of the same fundamental principle ; the last efforts , in different directions , of the oriental theosophy , previous to its final extinction . Christianity was destined by Providence to be the future receptacle of the religion and civilization of mankind ; and Gnosticism cannot be better described than as the intermediate and transition state ,

    which stnoothed dowti the abruptness of the sudden scission of Christianity from Heathenism . The developement of Christianity , amidst this antagonism of influences , is a subject . far from being yet exhausted ; and from the impartial consideration of its history under this point of view , it appears to us , that new and most

    striking illustrations of its nature , its spirit , and its tendency , might be expected fo arise . We should like to have set before us a clear and powerful delineation of the moral elements at work in the wide bosom of the Roman empire , just previous to the expiration of the ancient civilization of the earth . The materials are

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    Spirit of Gnosticism . 607

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1833, page 607, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2622/page/23/