That Hegefippus was an Ebionite, may be inferred from his giving a lift of all the herefies of his time, in which he enumerates a confiderable number, and all of them Gnoftics, without making any mention of the Ebionites.

He being a Jewish christian himself, could not but be well acquainted with the prevailing opinions of the Jewish christians, the most confpicuous of which, it cannot be denied, was the doctrine of Chrift's being a mere man. Now can it be fuppofed, that if he himself had been what is now called an orthodox chriftian, that is, a trinitarian, or even an Arian, he would wholly have omitted the mention of the Ebionites in any lift of heretics of his time, had it been ever fo fhort a one; and this confifts of no less than eleven articles? Alfo, can it be fuppofed that Eufebius, who speaks of the Ebionites with fo much hatred and contempt, would have omitted to copy this article, if it had been in the lift?

Their not being inferted in the lift by fuch a perfon as Eufebius, muft, I think,

fatisfy

fatisfy any perfon, who has no fyftem to fupport, with refpect to this article. A ftronger negative argument can hardly be imagined. As to Hegefippus himself, we muft judge of his feelings and conduct as we fhould of thofe of any perfon at this day in a fituation fimilar to his. Now, did any subfequent ecclefiaftical hiftorian, or did any modern divine, of the orthodox faith, ever omit Arians, or Socinians, or names fynonymous to them (who always were, and still are, in the highest degree obnoxious to them) in a lift of heretics?

Had the faith of the early chriftians been either that Chrift was true and very God, or a fuperior angelic fpirit, the maker of the world, and of all things vifible and invisible under God; and had Hegefippus himself retained that faith, while the generality, or only any confiderable number of his countrymen, had departed from it, it could not but have have been upon his mind, and have excited the fame indignation that the opinions of the Arians and Socinians excite in the minds of those who are called orthodox at this day. Nay, in his circumstances,

such a defection from that important article of faith in his own countrymen, after having been so recently taught the contrary by the apostles themselves, whose writings they still had with them, must have excited a much greater degree of surprize and indignation, than a similar defection would have occafioned in any other people, or in any later times.

It is said to be as remarkable that Hegefippus should have omitted the Cerinthians as the Ebionites. But I see nothing at all extraordinary in the omission of the Cerinthians in this list of heretics by Hegefippus, as they were only one branch of the Gnoftics, several of whom are in his list; and it is not improbable that these Cerinthians, having been one of the earliest branches, might have been very inconsiderable, perhaps extinct in his time. I do not know that they are mentioned by any ancient writer as existing so late as the time of Hegesippus; and as they seem to have been pretty much confined to some part of Asia Minor, and efpecially Galatia, which was very remote from the seat of the Ebionites,

he

1

he might not have heard much about them. Whereas the Ebionites were at that very time in their full vigour, and though their opinions (being then almoft univerfal in what was called the catholic church) had not begun to give offence, they were afterwards the object of the most violent hatred to the other christians, and continued to be fo as long as they fubfifted.

That Hegefippus, though an unitarian himself, should speak as he does of the state of opinions in the feveral churches which he vifited, as then retaining the true faith, is, I think, very natural. The only heresy that disturbed the apostle John, and therefore other Jewish chriftians in general, was that of the Gnoftics; and all the eleven different kinds of herefies, enumerated by this writer, are probably only different branches of that one great herefy. If, therefore, the churches which he vifited were free from Gnosticism, he would naturally say that they retained the true faith. For as to the doctrine of the perfonification of the logos, held then by Juftin Martyr, and perhaps a few others, it was not, in its origin, so very e alarming

VOL. III.

alarming a thing; and very probably this plain man had not at all confidered its nature and tendency, if he had heard of it. The author of the Clementine Homilies, though cotemporary with Hegefippus, and unquestionably an unitarian, makes no mention of it.

Hegefippus, as an unitarian, believed that all the extraordinary power exerted by Christ was that of the Father refiding in him, and Speaking and acting by him; and he might imagine that these philofophizing chriftians, men of great name, and a credit to the caufe, held in fact the fame thing, when they faid that this logos of theirs was not the logos of the Gnoftics, but that of John the evangelift, or the wifdom and power of God himself. And though this might appear to him as a thing that he could not well understand, he might not think that there was any herefy, or much harm in it. Had he been told (but this he could only have had from infpiration) that this fpecious perfonification of the divine logos would, about two centuries afterwards, end in the doctrine of the perfect equality of the Son with the Father,

this