the writer; whereas his censures of the Gnostics are frequent and copious; so that no person can pretend to leave them out without materially injuring the epistles.

Besides, there are in these epistles of Ignatius several things that are unfavourable to the doctrine of the divinity of Christ. Thus to the Ephesians he says, sect. v. "How much more must I think you happy who are so joined to him [the bishop] as the church is to Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ to the Father, that so all things may agree in the same unity!" To the Magnesians, sect. vii. he says, "As therefore the Lord did nothing without the Father, being united to him, neither by himself nor yet by his apostles, so neither do ye any thing without your bishop and presbyters."

tarian.

What this excellent man said when he appeared before the Emperor Trajan, was the language of an uni"You err," he said, " in that you call the evil spirits of the heathens gods. For there is but one God, who made heaven and earth, and the sea, and all that are in them; and one Jesus Christ, his only begotten

Son, whose kingdom may I enjoy !"

Wake, p. 131.
I am, &c.

LETTER VI.

Of the Sentiments of Justin Martyr, Irenæus, and Clemens Alexandrinus, concerning Heresy.

REV. SIR,

IF, after what I have seen in your Charge and in these Letters, I could be surprised at any thing you say on these subjects, it would be at your so confidently main

taining, p. 79, that Justin Martyr had a view to the unitarians in those accounts of heresy in general which I quoted from him; when any person, with a small portion of that reading of which you pretend to so much, must know that every word and phrase in those accounts, especially the charge of pride, atheism, and blasphemy, is appropriated to the Gnostics, and the Gnostics only. I must take the liberty to say that you know nothing at all of the ancient ecclesiastical writers, if you can imagine that the unitarians are ever described by them in this manner. I am even ashamed to argue with any man who, if he has read the early fathers at all, has read them to so little purpose.

To me it is indisputably clear that Justin Martyr considered no other class of persons as heretics, unfit to have communion with christians, but the Gnostics only. Let any reasonable man but compare these passages in which he censures the Gnostics with so much severity, with those in which he speaks of the unitarians, (in which I still am of opinion he makes an apology to them for his own principles, but which certainly imply no censure,) and I think he cannot but conclude with me, that unitarianism was considered in those times in a very different light from what it was afterwards, and is now.

Justin also particularly mentions his having no ob jection to hold communion with those Jewish christians who observed the law of Moses, provided they did not impose it upon others. Dial. p. 23.* Now who

* This circumstance may throw some light on the passage in Jerom, in which he speaks of the Ebionites as anathematized solely on account of their adherence to the Jewish law. The Ebionites, at least many of them, would have imposed the yoke of the Jewish law upon the Gentile christians, they would not

could those be but Jewish unitarians? for, agreeable to the evidence of all antiquity, all the Jewish christians were such.

It is truly remarkable, and may not have been observed by you, as indeed it was not by myself till very lately, that Irenæus, who has written so large a work on the subject of heresy, after the time of Justin, and in a country where it is probable there were fewer uni tarians, again and again characterizes them in such a manner, as makes it evident that even he did not consider any other persons as being properly heretics besides the Gnostics. He expresses a great dislike of the Ebionites; but though he appears to have known none of them besides those who denied the miraculous conception, he never calls them heretics.. I had thought that in one passage he had included them in that appellation; but observing that in his introduction and other places, in which he speaks of heretics in general, he evidently meant the Gnostics only, and could not carry his views any further, I was led to reconsider that particular passage, and I found that I had been mistaken in my construction of it.

All heretics," he says, "being untaught and ignorant of the dispensations of God, and especially of that which relates to man, as being blind with respect to the truth, oppose their own salvation; some intro

communicate with those who were not circumcised, and of course these could not communicate with them; so they were necessarily in a state of excommunication with respect to each other. This would also be the case with the Cerinthians as well as the Ebionites, and therefore Jerom mentions them together, the separation of communion with respect to both arising from the observance of the law of Moses; though Jerom might write unguardedly, as he often did, in confounding the case of the Cerinthians so much as he here does with that of the Ebionites.

ducing another Father besides the maker of the world; others saying that the world, and the matter of it, was made by angels," &c. and after mentioning other similar opinions, he adds, "others not knowing the dispensation of the virgin, say, that he (Jesus) was begotten by Joseph. Some say that neither the soul nor the body can receive eternal life, but the internal man only," i. e. that they denied the resurrection.

Now, as Cerinthus and Carpocrates, and other Gnostics, denied the miraculous conception, as well as the Ebionites, and all the rest of this description, both before and after this circumstance, evidently belongs to the Gnostics only, and as in no other place whatever does he comprehend them in his definition of heresy, it is natural to conclude that he had no view to them even here, but only to those Gnostics who, in common with them, denied the miraculous conception. If there be any other passage in Irenæus, in which he calls, or seems to call, the Ebionites heretics, I have overlooked it. The Ebionites were Jews, and had no communion with the Gentiles, at least that appears; and Irenæus says nothing at all of the unitarians among the Gentiles, who generally believed the miraculous conteption, though, as appears from other evidence, they constituted the great mass of the unlearned christians.

Clemens Alexandrinus makes frequent mention of

* Indocti omnes hæretici, et ignorantes dispositiones Dei, et inscii ejus quæ est secundum hominem dispensationis, quippe cæcutientes circa veritatem, ipsi suæ contradicunt saluti. Alii quidem alterum introducentes præter demiurgum patrem. Alii autem ab angelis quibusdam dicentes factum esse mundum, et substantiam ejus, &c. Alii autem rursus ignorantes Virginis dispensationem, ex Joseph dicunt eum generatum. Et quidam quidem neque animam suam neque corpus recipere posse dicunt æternam vitam, sed tantum hominem interiorem. Lib. v. cap. xix. p. 429.

heretics, and expresses as much abhorrence of them as Justin Martyr does; but it is evident that, in all the places in which he speaks of them, his idea of heresy was confined to Gnosticism. He considers it as an answer to all heretics to prove that "there is one God, the almighty Lord, who was preached by the law and the prophets, and also in the blessed gospel *." He also speaks of heresy as "borrowed from a barbarous philosophy;" and says of heretics, that "though they say there is one God, and sing hymns to Christ, it was not according to truth; for that they introduced another God, and such a Christ as the prophets had not foretold." Strom. lib. vi. p. 675. See also p. 542. 662. He likewise speaks of heretics in general, as having a high opinion of their own knowledge, omo YVWσEW'S EIλNPOTwv. Strom. lib. vii. p. 754. He calls them doiσopoi, men who think that they have found the truth, p. 755. and úπo dogoσopias engμevoi, elated with a conceit of their knowledge, p. 759. He says that "heresy began in the time of Adrian," when it is well known that Basilides and the most distinguished of the Gnostics made their appearance. Strom. lib. vii. p. 764. He says the heretics went by different names, as those of Valentinus, Marcion, and Basilides, mentioning none but Gnostics, p. 765. It may only be conjectured that he meant the Ebionites by the Peratici, enumerated by him among those who had their denomination from the place of their residence. But this is the only passage in which the word occurs. He never includes the Gentile unitarians among heretics,

* Και άπασαις εντευθεν ταις αἱρεσεσιν ἕνα δεικνύναι θεον και κυριον παντοκρατορα, τον δια νομου και προφητων, προς δε και μας καρίου ευαγγελιου γνησίως κεκηρυγμένον. Strom. lib. vi. p. 475.