Part 33 (1/2)

The Ebionites, or Nazarenes, as they were previously called were rejected by the Jews _as apostates_, and by the Egyptian and Roman Christians _as heretics_, therefore, until they completely disappear, their history is one of tyrannical persecution. Although some traces of that obsolete sect may be discovered as late as the fourth century, they insensibly melted away, either into the Roman Christian Church, or into the Jewish Synagogue,[134:4] and with them perished the _original_ Gospel of Matthew, _the only Gospel written by an apostle_.

”Who, where ma.s.ses of men are burning to burst the bonds of time and sense, to deify and to adore, wants what seems earth-born, prosaic fact?

Woe to the man that dares to interpose it! Woe to the sect of faithful Ebionites even, and on the very soil of Palestine, that dare to maintain the earlier, humbler tradition! Swiftly do they become heretics, revilers, blasphemers, though sanctioned by a James, brother of the Lord.”

Edward Gibbon, speaking of this most unfortunate sect, says:

”A laudable regard for the honor of the first proselytes has countenanced the belief, the hope, the wish, that the Ebionites, or at least the Nazarenes, were distinguished only by their obstinate perseverance in the practice of the Mosaic rites. Their churches have disappeared, _their books are obliterated_, their obscure freedom might allow a lat.i.tude of faith, and the softness of their infant creed would be variously moulded by the zeal of prejudice of three hundred years. Yet the most charitable criticism must refuse these sectaries any knowledge of the pure and proper _divinity of Christ_. Educated in the school of Jewish prophecy and prejudice, they had never been taught to elevate their hope above _a human_ and temporal Messiah. If they had courage to hail their king when he appeared in a plebeian garb, their grosser apprehensions were incapable of discerning their G.o.d, _who had studiously disguised his celestial character under the name and person of a mortal_.

”The familiar companions of Jesus of Nazareth conversed with their friend and countryman, who, in all the actions of rational and human life, appeared of the same species with themselves. His progress from infancy to youth and manhood was marked by a regular increase in stature and wisdom; and after a painful agony of mind and body, he expired on the cross.”[135:1]

The Jewish Christians then--the congregation of Jerusalem, and their immediate successors, the Ebionites or Nazarenes--saw in their master nothing more than _a man_. From this, and the other facts which we have seen in this chapter, it is evident that the man Jesus of Nazareth was deified long after his death, just as many other men had been deified centuries before his time, and even _after_. Until it had been settled by a council of bishops that Jesus was not only _a G.o.d_, but ”_G.o.d himself in human form_,” who appeared on earth, as did Crishna of old, to redeem and save mankind, there were many theories concerning his nature.

Among the early Christians there were a certain cla.s.s called by the later Christians _Heretics_. Among these may be mentioned the ”_Carpocratians_,” named after one Carpocrates. They maintained that Jesus was a _mere man_, born of Joseph and Mary, _like other men_, but that he was good and virtuous. ”Some of them have the vanity,” says _Irenaeus_, ”to think that they may equal, or in some respects exceed, Jesus himself.”[135:2]

These are called by the general name of _Gnostics, and comprehend almost all the sects of the first two ages_.[135:3] They said that ”all the ancients, and even the Apostles themselves, received and taught the same things which they held; and that the truth of the Gospel had been preserved till the time of _Victor_, the thirteenth Bishop of Rome, but by his successor, _Zephyrinus_, the truth had been corrupted.”[135:4]

Eusebius, speaking of _Artemon_ and his followers, who denied the divinity of Christ, says:

”They affirm that all our ancestors, yea, and the Apostles themselves, were of the same opinion, and taught the same with them, and that this their true doctrine (for so they call it) was preached and embraced unto the time of Victor, the thirteenth Bishop of Rome after Peter, and corrupted by his successor Zephyrinus.”[136:1]

There were also the ”_Cerinthians_,” named after one Cerinthus, who maintained that Jesus was _not_ born of a virgin, which to them appeared impossible, but that he was the son of Joseph and Mary, _born altogether as other men are_; but he excelled all men in virtue, knowledge and wisdom. At the time of his baptism, ”_the Christ_” came down upon him in the shape of a dove, and _left him_ at the time of his crucifixion.[136:2]

Irenaeus, speaking of Cerinthus and his doctrines, says:

”He represents Jesus as the son of Joseph and Mary, according to the ordinary course of human generation, and _not_ as having been born of a virgin. He believed nevertheless that he was more righteous, prudent and wise than most men, and that _the Christ_ descended upon, and entered into him, at the time of his baptism.”[136:3]

The _Docetes_ were a numerous and learned sect of Asiatic Christians who invented the _Phantastic_ system, which was afterwards promulgated by the Marcionites, the Manicheans, and various other sects.

They denied the truth and authenticity of the Gospels, as far as they related to the conception of Mary, the birth of Jesus, and the thirty years that preceded the exercise of his ministry.

Bordering upon the Jewish and Gentile world, the _Cerinthians_ labored to reconcile the _Gnostic_ and the _Ebionite_, by confessing in the _same Messiah_ the supernatural union of a man and a G.o.d; and this _mystic_ doctrine was adopted, with many fanciful improvements, by many sects. The hypothesis was this: that Jesus of Nazareth was a mere mortal, the legitimate son of Joseph and Mary, but he was _the best_ and wisest of the human race, selected as the worthy instrument to restore upon earth the wors.h.i.+p of the true and supreme Deity. When he was baptized in the Jordan, _and not till then_, he became _more than man_.

At that time, _the Christ_, the first of the _aeons_, the Son of G.o.d himself, descended on Jesus in the form of a dove, _to inhabit his mind_, and direct his actions during the allotted period of _his ministry_. When he was delivered into the hands of the Jews, _the Christ_ forsook him, flew back to the world of spirits, and left the _solitary Jesus_ to suffer, to complain, and to die. This is why he said, while hanging on the cross: ”My G.o.d! My G.o.d! why hast thou forsaken me?”[137:1]

Here, then, we see the _first_ budding out of--what was termed by the _true_ followers of Jesus--_heretical doctrines_. The time had not yet come to make Jesus _a G.o.d_, to claim that he had been born of a virgin.

As he _must_, however, have been different from other mortals--throughout the period of his ministry, at least--the Christ _must_ have entered into him at the time of his baptism, and _as mysteriously_ disappeared when he was delivered into the hands of the Jews.

In the course of time, the seeds of the faith, which had slowly arisen in the rocky and ungrateful soil of Judea, were transplanted, in full maturity, to the happier climes of the _Gentiles_; and the strangers of _Rome_ and _Alexandria, who had never beheld the manhood_, were more ready to embrace the _divinity_ of Jesus.

The polytheist and the philosopher, the Greek and the barbarian, were alike accustomed to receive--as we have seen in this chapter--a long succession and infinite chain of angels, or deities, or _aeons_, or emanations, issuing from the throne of light. Nor could it seem strange and incredible _to them_, that the first of the _aeons_, the Logos, or Word of G.o.d, of the same substance with the Father, should descend upon earth, to deliver the human race from vice and error. The histories of their countries, their odes, and their religions were teeming with such ideas, as happening in the past, and they were also _looking for and expecting an Angel-Messiah_.[137:2]

Centuries rolled by, however, before the doctrine of Christ Jesus, the Angel-Messiah, became a settled question, an established tenet in the Christian faith. The dignity of Christ Jesus was measured by _private judgment_, according to the indefinite _rule of Scripture_, or _tradition_ or _reason_. But when his pure and proper divinity had been established _on the ruins of Arianism_, the faith of the Catholics trembled _on the edge of a precipice_ where it was impossible to recede, dangerous to stand, dreadful to fall; and the _manifold inconveniences of their creed_ were aggravated by the sublime character of their theology. They hesitated to p.r.o.nounce that _G.o.d himself_, the second person of an equal and consubstantial Trinity, was _manifested in the flesh_,[137:3] that the Being who pervades the universe _had been confined in the womb of Mary_; that his eternal duration had been marked by the days, and months, and years of human existence; _that the Almighty G.o.d had been scourged and crucified_; that his impa.s.sible essence _had felt pain and anguish_; that his omniscience was _not exempt from ignorance_; and that _the source of life and immortality expired on Mount Calvary_.

These alarming consequences were affirmed with unblus.h.i.+ng simplicity by Apollinaris, Bishop of Laodicea, and one of the luminaries of the Church. The son of a learned grammarian, he was skilled in all the sciences of Greece; eloquence, erudition, and philosophy, conspicuous in the volumes of Apollinaris, were humbly devoted to the service of religion.

The worthy friend of Athanasius, the worthy antagonist of Julian, he bravely wrestled with the Arians and polytheists, _and though he affected the rigor of geometrical demonstration_, his commentaries revealed the literal and allegorical sense of the Scriptures.

_A mystery_, which had long floated in the looseness of popular belief, was defined by his perverse diligence in a technical form, _and he first proclaimed the memorable words, ”One incarnate nature of Christ._”[138:1]

This was about A. D. 362, he being Bishop of Laodicea, in Syria, at that time.[138:2]