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 conception, 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, omniv YVWσEW'S EIAN POTwv. Strom. lib. vii. p. 754. He calls them dopo, men who think that they have found the truth, p. 755. and no docoropias 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 καριου ευαγγελιου γνησίως κεκηρυγμένον. Strom. lib. vi. p. 475.

and even your great authority, Mosheim, allows (what indeed he could not deny) that the unitarians lived in communion with the catholic church in the early ages.

As the strict Ebionites held no communion with the Gentile christians, it is very possible that Clemens Alexandrinus might insert them in a catalogue of heretics, and allude to them under the name of Peratici, without intending any censure of their doctrine with respect to Christ. Besides, this was a name given them, as he says, from their place of residence, and therefore did not include the unitarians among the Gentiles.

It is clear to me, from the attention that I have lately given to this subject, that even long after the doctrine of the divinity of Christ was established by councils and the decrees of emperors, the common people were well known to believe nothing of the matter; and yet, if they made no disturbance, and did not think proper to separate from the communion of the orthodox themselves, they were not excommunicated. This may be inferred from the passage which I quoted from Athanasius; but of which you have taken no notice, from which it appears that the unitarians were the oi noλλoi, the many. In the time of Tertullian they were the major pars credentium, the greater part of believers; and in the time of Origen they were the Tо λnlos, the multitude, and the Ta πλŋŋ, the multitudes.

I am, &c.

LETTER VII.

Of the State of Heresy in the Time of Tertullian.

REV. SIR,

NOTHING can well be more evident than that Tertullian represents the great body of unlearned christians in his time as unitarians, and even holding the doctrine of the trinity in great abhorrence. It is hardly possible in any form of words to describe this state of things more clearly than he does. Indeed, with respect to this you are pleased to make some concession, though by no means such as the case requires.

"I must confess, Sir," you say, p. 74, "here seems to be a complaint against the unlearned christians, as in general unfavourable to the trinitarian doctrine;" but you add, "the complaint is of your own raising. Tertullian will vouch but for a small part of it. Simple persons, says Tertullian, (not to call them ignorant and ideots,) who always make the majority of believers, because the rule of faith itself carries us away from the many gods of the heathens to the one true God; not understanding that one God is indeed to be believed, but with an ECONOMY (or arrangement) startle at the economy. They take it for granted that the number and disposition of the trinity is a division of the unity. They pretend that two, and even three, are preached by us, and imagine that they themselves are the worshippers of one God. We, they say, hold the monarchy. Latins have caught up the word MONARCHIA, Greeks will not understand ECONOMIA. Let our author's words be thus exactly

rendered, and you will find in them neither complaint nor acknowledgement of a general prevalence of the unitarian doctrine among christians of any rank. Tertullian alleges, that what credit it obtained was only with the illiterate, nor with all the illiterate, but only those who were ignorant and stupid in the extreme. To preclude the plea of numbers, he remarks that the illiterate will always make the majority of believers. Some simple people, he says, take alarm at the notion of a plurality of persons in the unity of the godhead.”

Here, Sir, I complain of two gross misrepresentations of your author;. the first respects the number of these simple people, and the second the degree of their simplicity, or, as you call it, stupidity. Whoever Tertullian meant by the simplices and the idiotæ, for any thing that appears, he meant the whole body of them. His language is general and unlimited, and therefore you are altogether unwarranted in your limitation of it to some of them. I really wonder at your assurance in this. I am far from construing Tertullian rigorously, and am ready to allow that some of these simplices and idiotæ might profess to believe the doctrine of the trinity, though he says nothing of it; but making all reasonable deductions on this account, he asserts a palpable falsehood, and against himself, if a very great majority of these simplices and idiota were not unitarians. On the whole, it is impossible not to infer from this passage, that in the time of Tertullian the great body of unlearned christians were unitarians, and that they were so in part from their construction of the regula fidei, or the creed, to which they gave their assent at baptism. They even regarded the doctrine of the trinity with horror, as nothing less than idolatry, en