tial parts, of Christianity. The Greek and Latin fathers, aware of this, suffered, as if with unanimous consent, the events in Rome to sink in oblivion, though by far the most singular, interesting and important in the whole range of ecclesiastical history. The Gnostic system, under pretence of teaching and befriending the gospel, is in reality an artful scheme to sink it in the dregs of Heathenism and Judaism. Its base authors were among those very men who put our Saviour to death in Jerusalem. When it was formed, their missionaries were sent to every place where the gospel in its purity was made known by the apostles. The missionary of the impostors to Rome is noticed by Josephus. His associates were the Samaritan Simon, the priests of Isis, and other bad men, who, by their supposed skill in magic and astrology, had influence over the mind of Tiberius. They succeeded in making the emperor believe that Jesus was the god Pan, the son of Mercury and Penelope; and induced him to propose his deification to the senate. To give colour to the doctrine that he was a god, they invented the story of his miraculous birth. Their real character, however, soon displayed itself; and their crimes are recorded by the Jewish historian. Accordingly, in my last paper I have shewn that the Jew whom Josephus branded as an impostor, though pretending to teach the philosophy of Moses, as Josephus calls the gospel, was no other than he with whom the Apostle Paul expostulates, in the second chapter of his Epistle to the Romans. At the close of the Epistle, Paul thought it right to give the Christians at Rome the following admonition respecting him and his base associates: "I beseech you, brethren, mark those who make divisions and bring offences" (i. e. introduce offensive doctrines) "contrary to the doctrine which ye have learnt. For such inen are not servants of our Lord Jesus Christ, but of their own belly, and by their doctrine about Chrestus, and their eulogy of him, they deceive the hearts of the simple. (For your obedience is come abroad unto all. I rejoice, therefore, in you; but I wish you to be wise unto good ness and harmless unto evil.) But the God of peace will quickly bruise Satan under your feet."

My object is to make a few remarks on this passage, which may serve to shew how necessary the knowledge of facts is to understand the language of the Apostle Paul. The impostors, when they taught the divinity of Christ, changed his name X50s into Xonos, good, benign, useful, an epithet of those superior beings whom Plato and others supposed to be agents under God, in the government of the world. Hence the origin of a well-known fact, that the enemies of the gospel called our Lord Chrestus, and his followers Chrestiani: and frequent allusions to these names occur in the writings of the ancient apologists. The original term Xongohoya occurs in no other place, and is a word coined by the apostle to express the specions arts of the impostors in teaching the divinity of Christ, by making his very name indicative of his being a good demon. The impostors, however, were ready to allow among themselves that the doctrine which they thus taught was false but useful, as calculated to remove the objections of Heathens to a crucified Saviour. In this sense, Xoshoyia may be considered as coined by the deceivers themselves to express the object and utility of their doctrine: and in this view it approaches near the notion which is annexed to it, by the commentators, and by Mr. Belsham.

The Heathen gods had festivals in honour of them celebrated by their votaries: and when the Gnostics taught the divinity of Christ, it was necessary to institute a feast commemorative of his superior nature. With this view they perverted the Lord's Supper, and affected to regard it as symbolical of the divinity, and not of the death of Christ. The name of the Lord's Supper, thus perverted, is ɛvλoya, which Mr. Belsham improperly renders by "fair speeches." Sacra cœna vocatur evλoya, says Suicer, in his Lexicon of the Greek Fathers. The perversion of this institution took place not only in Rome, but was introduced by the same wicked agents into every place where a Christian Church was formed by the apostles. And to its introduction to the Church at Corinth we are indebted for the following words of Paul :-"Wherefore, my beloved brethren, flee from idolatry that cup of eulogy which

we eulogize-(TO BOTYPIOV TÃS EUλoyias 6 ευλογέμεν, alluding to ευλογια, as a title of the sacrament)" that cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a partaking of the blood of Christ? The loaf which we break, is it not a partaking of the body of Christ ?" What was this idolatry, against which the apostle cautioned the Corinthian converts? Did it not consist in regarding the cup and the loaf not as symbols of the blood and body, that is, symbols of Christ being a real human being, and having really died, but as symbols of his divine nature? It would not be safe to ascribe any meaning to the words of the Apostle Paul in any place, if this be not implied in his words on this occasion.

Though the impostors pretended to honour Christ as a God, they uniformly refused to acknowledge him as their Lord: εδε κύριον αυτον ονομάζειν θέλεσι, says Irenæus, p. 9. The reason was, that if they acknowledged him as Lord, they must have acknowledged their obligation to obey his moral precepts, and to imbibe his pure and holy example. If they looked to him as their lord, they stood to him in the relation of servants to a master, to whose authority they were obliged to submit, and whose work they were bound to do. This is the point upon which the following words of our apostle turn: "For such men are not servants of our Lord Jesus Christ, but of their own belly." In another place he says, "their belly was their God," alluding, by both expressions, to the well-known fact that these deceivers pretended to honour Christ's divinity by the festivals which they frequented, but the object of which in reality was to pamper their appetites and to gratify their lusts. Irenæus, (p. 31,) speaking of them, thus happily illustrates the language of Paul: "These men, serving the pleasures of the flesh, say that they ought to indulge the flesh with the works of the flesh; and the women who have imbibed from them this doctrine, they debauch in secret." Josephus himself has recorded one signal instance of the abominations which they practised. The crimes of which the Gnostics were guilty were imputed by their enemies to all the followers of Jesus without discrimination: and it was in the practice of the most subtle and rancorous

foes, under the name of friends, that the imputations entirely originated.

The impostors, I have observed, called the divinity and miraculous birth of Christ, but which Paul calls offensive doctrines, contrary to the doctrine which the converts had at first learned, xonλoyia, an useful doctrine; and the utility of it consisted" in deceiving Satan;" a phrase which, divested of its symbolical sig nification, simply means the leading of men into a belief of the gospel, in consequence of evading, by false representations, those unreasonable objections which the mistaken notions and the depraved principles of the world threw in the way of its progress. Now, it is observable, that if we pass over the words in the parenthesis, and consider the subsequent in connexion with the preceding part of the sentence, this will actually appear to be the pretence for their specious impostures. "And by their doctrine of Chrestus, and their eulogy of him," (i. e. their festival in honour of his divinity,) "they deceive the hearts of the simple-but the God of peace will quickly bruise Satan under your feet;" as though he had said, "These men propagate their falsehoods under the pretext of deceiving Satan, but in reality they deceive only those who, unlike themselves, possess innocent and guileless hearts. And as to Satan, the great adversary that retards the gospel, the Almighty, instead of imposing on him by lies, or opposing him by violence and contention, will speedily bruise him under your feet; and this he will do by means consistent with gentleness, peace and truth."

Our Lord wishing to prevent his apostles from adopting the conduct pursued by the Gnostic teachers in the propagation of their system, among many other appropriate directions, delivered to them the following :"Be ye wise as the serpent, and harmless as the dove." This maxim, though dictated in opposition to them, the deceivers perverted to a justification of their falsehoods, interpreting it thus, and omitting the last clause :"As the serpent, or Satan, employed his wisdom to deceive the mother of mankind, so may you, after his example, employ the same means to deceive the serpent, and thus defeat him with

his own weapons." The men who thus argued, the Apostle elsewhere calls false apostles, ministers of Satan, who himself was transformed into a minister of light; and he says, in reference to their subtilty, "I fear, lest, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your mind should be corrupted from the simplicity which is in Christ." In order to rectify the above wicked perversion of his divine Master's precept, Paul thus writes to his brethren at Rome: "I wish you to be wise unto goodness, but unto evil to be harmless." As if he had said, My desire is, that the end you have in view should ever be laudable, and that you should pursue it by methods consistent with truth and virtue. It were better that you possess no wisdom at all, than that you pervert it to sinister purposes. In all that is evil, therefore, shew yourselves as though you were entirely destitute of sagacity and skill; but in whatever is virtuous and praiseworthy, display all the knowledge and all the prudence which it is possible for man to acquire."

A circumstance in this place presents itself, which leads us to the men here stigmatized by Josephus and by the Apostle, as the author of the doctrine inculcating the miraculous birth of our Lord. The plea by which they attempted to justify this and other falsehoods propagated respecting him, was to deceive the devil. Now it is remarkable, that this very plea has been adopted by the supporters of that doctrine in after ages. When the objector to the truth of the tale asked, "If Mary did really conceive while she was yet a virgin and unknown to Joseph, how came she at that very time to be espoused to him, and by that means expose herself to an unjust suspicion ?"-The usual reply was, "She was espoused in order to deceive the devil. For the devil having heard that a virgin would be with child, observed the virgins; therefore, that the deceiver might be deceived, Joseph espoused her who was ever a virgin." This argument, which was borrowed, not as is supposed from Ignatius, but from the first inventors of the story, contemptible as it now is, had something like meaning in its original application. For, divested of its figure, the phrase to deceive the

number, (pp. 531-333,) that he considers aμmaλ as the true reading in Orestes, 316, and has moreover remarked, that "Porson's note shews that he mistook the meaning and construction of the passage." The Doctor, I know, will excuse me if I say that were I to adopt Mr. Porson's reading, I should also adopt his interpretation; and that for more reasons than one. But the reading itself is false. If ever our illustrious countryman altered the text of his author unnecessarily, (which he certainly did very seldom,) he has done it in this verse and its fellow in the antistrophe, having admitted into them three conjectures, which answer no other end than to break the uniformity of the chorus, by intermixing trochaic penthimemers with a series of dochniacs. This observation is extorted from me by the truth of the case; and if any one shall imagine that it is intended to cast any slight on the skill of Mr. Porson, he does not know the veneration in which I hold this prince of critics.

SIR,

E. COGAN.

Oct. 2, 1823. HAVE remarked, with pleasure, that your useful publication contains, not unfrequently, articles of neglected biography. In the hope of obtaining an additional notice of this kind, and of gratifying no illaudable curiosity, I may be permitted to ask, whether any of your numerous readers can favour you with information respecting the late Dr. John Collet, who, I think, once practised, as a physician, at Newbury, in Berkshire, who appears, like some others of his profession, to have been a zealous friend of scriptural studies, and who, if my recollection be accurate, gave proof that he himself pursued them with success?