LETTER IV.

Of the supposed orthodox Jewish Church at Jerusalem, and of the Veracity of Origen.

REV. SIR,

You speak of a church of trinitarian Jews, who had

abandoned the law of Moses, and resided at Jerusalem, subsequent to the time of Adrian. Origen, who asserts that all the Jewish christians of his time conformed to the law of Moses, you say, must have known of this church, and therefore you do not hesitate, after Mosheim, to tax him with asserting a wilful falsehood. Error was often ascribed to this great man by the later fathers, but never before, I believe, was his veracity called in question. And least of all can it be supposed that he would have dared to assert a notorious untruth in a public controversy. He must have been a fool, as well as the knave you make him, to have ventured upon it. Your treatment of myself, however, gives me the less pain, when I see you not odium on the character of

scrupling to fix a similar the respectable Origen. But what, Sir, would you not have said of me if I had been reduced to this dilemma in order to maintain my opinion? What an outcry did not you and Mr. Badcock make when I disputed the evidence of Eusebius, though I could confute him from himself! and with respect to

*Pearson makes no difficulty of contradicting Eusebius in this case, and without making any apology for him at all. His opponent Mr. Daillé having said if that account be true, he replies, "He knew very well that, strictly speaking, it was not true; for he knew many others long before Theodotus, and not a few even before Ignatius, who taught the same heresy, a catalogue of whom may be seen in Epiphanius," and whom he proceeds to mention. Vindiciæ, lib. ii. cap. ii. p. 24.

integrity, the character of Eusebius never stood so high as that of Origen. But you, or rather your author, Mosheim, shall be heard.

"I shall take," you say, p. 59, "what you may think a bold step. I shall tax the veracity of your witness of this Origen. I shall tell you that, whatever may be the general credit of his character, yet in this business the particulars of his deposition are to be little regarded, when he sets out with the allegation of a notorious falsehood. He alleges of the Hebrew christians in general, that they had not renounced the Mosaic law. The assertion served him for an answer to the invective which Celsus had put in the mouth of a Jew against the converted Jews, as deserters of the laws and customs of their ancestors. The answer was not the worse for wanting truth, if his heathen antagonist was not sufficiently informed in the true distinctions of christian sects to detect the falsehood. But in all the time which he spent in Palestine, had Origen never conversed with Hebrew christians of another sort? Had he met with no christians of Hebrew families of the church of Jerusalem when that church was under the government of bishops of the uncircumcision? The fact is, that after the demolition of Jeru salem by Adrian, the majority of the Hebrew christians, who must have passed for Jews with the Roman magistrates had they continued to adhere to the Mosaic law, which to this time they had observed more from habit than from any principle of conscience, made no scruple to renounce it, that they might be qualified to partake in the valuable privileges of the Elian colony, from which Jews were excluded. Having thus divested themselves of the form of Ju

daism, which to that time they had borne, they removed from Pella and other towns to which they had retired, and settled in great numbers at Ælia. The few who retained a superstitious veneration for their laws remained in the North of Galilee, where they were joined perhaps by new fugitives of the same weak character from Palestine. And this was the beginning of the sect of the Nazarenes. But from this time, whatever Origen may pretend, to serve a purpose, the majority of the Hebrew christians forsook their law, and lived in communion with the gentile bishops of the new modelled church at Jerusalem; for the name was retained, though Jerusalem was no more, and the seat of the bishop was at Elia. All this I affirm with the less hesitation, being supported by the authority of Mosheim, from whom, indeed, I first learned to rate the testimony of Origen in this particular question at its true value."

Struck with this extraordinary narration of a transaction of ancient times, for which you refer to no authority besides that of Mosheim, I looked into him; but even there I do not find all the particulars that you mention. He says nothing of the Jewish christians having observed their law more from habit than any principle of conscience; nothing of their making no scruple to renounce their law in order to partake in the privileges of the Ælian colony; nothing of any Jewish christians removing from Pella and settling in Ælia; nothing of the retiring of the rest to the North of Galilee, or of this new origin of the Nazarenes there. For all these particulars therefore, learned Sir, you must have some other authority in petto besides that of Mosheim, and you ought to have produced it.

Also, as you adopt the assertions of Mosheim, I could wish to know his authority for supposing that there was any such thing as a church, or part of a church, of Jewish christians at Jerusalém after the destruction of that city by Adrian. As to your additions, they are a series of such improbable circumstances as hardly any historian of the time could make credible. Bodies of men do not, whatever you may imagine, suddenly change their opinions, and much less their customs and habits: least of all would an act of violence produce that effect; and, of all mankind, the experiment was the least likely to answer with Jews. If it had produced any effect for a time, the old customs and habits would certainly have returned when the danger was over. You might just as well suppose that all the Jews in Jerusalem began to speak Greek, as well as abandoned their ancient customs, in order to enjoy the valuable privileges of the Ælian colony. And you would have this to allege in your favour, that from that time the bishops of Jerusalem were all Greeks; the public offices were no doubt performed in the Greek language; and the church of Jerusalem was indeed in all respects as much a Greek church as that of Antioch.

As you say, p. 134, with respect to myself, " that a man ought to be accomplished in ancient learning who thinks he may escape with impunity and without detection in the attempt to browbeat the world with a peremptory and reiterated allegation of testimonies that exist not;" how much more accomplished ought that man to be, who now writes the history of transactions in the second century without alleging any testimony at all!

Mosheim himself, who began this accusation of Origen, produces no authority in his Dissertations for his assertion. He only says that he cannot reconcile the fact that Origen mentions, with his seeming unwillingness to allow the Ebionites to be christians. But this is easily accounted for from the attachment which he himself had to the doctrine of the divinity of Christ, which they denied; and from their holding no communion with other christians.

All the appearance of authority that I can find in any ancient writer, of the Jewish christians deserting the law of their ancestors, is in Sulpitius Severus, to whom I am referred by Mosheim in his History. But what he says on the subject is only what follows: "At this time Adrian, thinking that he should destroy christianity by destroying the place, erected the images of dæmons in the church, and in the place of our Lord's sufferings; and because the christians were thought to consist chiefly of Jews, (for then the church at Jerusalem had all its clergy of the circumcision,) ordered a cohort of soldiers to keep constant guard, and drive all Jews from any access to Jerusalem. Which was of service to the christian faith; for at that time they almost all believed Christ to be God, but with the observance of the law; the Lord so disposing it, that the servitude of the law should be removed from the liberty of the faith and of the church. Then was Marc the first bishop of the Gentiles at Jerusalem *."

* Qua tempestate Adrianus, existimans se christianam fidem loci injuria perempturum, et in templo ac loco dominicæ passionis dæmonum simulachra constituit. Et quia christiani ex Judæis potissimum putabantur (namque tum Hierosolymæ non nisi ex circumcisione habebat ecclesia Sacerdotem) militum cohortem custodias in perpetuum agitare jussit, quæ Judæos omnes Hieroso