they were always undetermined respecting what constituted the sort of probability to which a wise man should assent, their doctrines contributed, no less than that of the Sceptics, to render every thing vague and unsettled. To make it, as they did, a matter of doubt and uncertainty, whether the gods existed or not; whether the soul was perishable or immortal; whether virtue was preferable to vice or vice to virtue, was certainly nothing less than to undermine the fundamental principles of religion and morality. The Academic system of philosophy fell into such disrepute as to be, at one time, quite neglected and nearly lost; but Cicero revived it at Rome, a little before the birth of Christ, and so much weight was attached to his example and authority that it was soon embraced by all who aspired to the chief honours of the state.

The Peripatetics belonged to the other class of philosophers, for they acknowledged the existence of a God, and the obligations of morality; yet their tenets were not much calculated to inspire a reverence for the one or a love for the other. The doctrine which Aristotle, their great master, taught, gave to the Deity an influence not much beyond that of the moving principle in a piece of machinery. He indeed considered him to be of a highly refined and exalted nature, happy in the contemplation of himself, but entirely unconscious of what was passing here below; confined from all eternity to the celestial world, and instigating the operations of nature rather from necessity than from volition or choice. In a deity of this description, differing but little from the god of the Epicureans, there surely was nothing that could reasonably excite either love, respect, or fear. It is difficult to ascertain precisely what were the sentiments of this class of philosophers respecting the immortality of the soul; but it may fairly be asked, Could the interests of religion or morality be in any shape effectually promoted by teachers like these, who denied the superintendance of divine providence, and insinuated, in no very obscure terms, a disbelief of the soul's future existence?

The Stoics assigned to the Deity somewhat more of majesty and influence than the disciples of Aristotle. They did not limit his functions merely to the regulating of the clouds, and the numbering of the stars; but conceived him to animate every part of the universe with his presence, in the nature of a subtile, active,

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penetrating fire. They regarded his connexion with matter, however, as the effect of necessity, and supposed his will to be subordinate to the immutable decrees of fate; hence it was impossible for him to be considered as the author either of rewards to the virtuous or of punishment to the wicked. The Stoics denied the immortality of the soul, and thus deprived mankind of the strongest motive to a wise and virtuous course of life. In short, the moral discipline of the Stoics may be compared to a body of a fair and imposing external appearance, but which, on closer examination, is found destitute of those essential parts which alone can give it either energy or excellence.

The Platonists seem, of all the Grecian philosophers, to have made the highest advances in knowledge and the nearest approach to true wisdom. Yet the system of PLATO had its defects. He considered the Deity as supreme governor of the universe, a being of the highest wisdom and power, and totally unconnected with any material substance. The souls of men he conceived to proceed from this pre-eminent source; and, as partaking of its nature, to be incapable of death. His system gave the strongest encouragement to virtue, and equally discountenanced vice, by holding out to mortals the prospect of a future state of rewards and punishments. Yet, after all, his notions of the Deity were very contracted, since he never ascribes to him the attributes of infinity, immensity, ubiquity, omnipotence, omniscience, but supposes him to be confined within certain limits, and that the direction of human affairs was committed to a class of inferior spiritual agents, whom he termed dæmons. This notion of ministering dæmons, as well as those points of doctrine which relate to the origin and condition of the human soul, greatly disfigured the morality of Plato, inasmuch as they tended to generate superstition and to confirm men in the practice of worshipping a number of inferior deities. His doctrine, moreover, that the soul, during its continuance in the body, was in a state of imprisonment, and that we ought to endeavour, by means of contemplation, to set it free, and restore it to an alliance with the divine nature, had a pernicious tendency, in prompting persons of weak minds to withdraw a proper degree of attention from the body and the concerns of this life, and to indulge in the dreams and fancies of a disordered imagination.

The Eclectics were a sect of philosophers that took their leading principles from the system of Plato. They considered almost every thing which he had advanced respecting the Deity, the soul, the world, and the dæmons, as indisputable axioms, on which account they were regarded by many as altogether Platonists. Indeed this title, so far from being disclaimed, was rather affected by some of them, and particularly by those who joined themselves to Ammonius Sacca, another celebrated patron of the Eclectic philosophy. Yet, with the doctrines held by Plato, they very freely intermixed the most approved maxims of the Pythagoreans, the Stoics, the Peripatetics, and the Oriental philosophers; taking due care, however, to admit none that were in opposition to the tenets of their favourite guide and instructor.

The Oriental Philosophy.

It is a subject of much regret among the learned that the Greek writers, to whom we are chiefly indebted for our knowledge of the ancient history of philosophy, have taken so little pains to inform posterity concerning the opinions which, during the time that the Greek sects flourished, were taught in other countries, particularly in Egypt and Asia. It is owing to this that the documents which have hitherto come to light relating to the Oriental philosophy are so few, and consequently our knowledge on the subject so imperfect. Some insight, however, into its nature and principles may be obtained from what has been handed down to us respecting the tenets of several of the earlier sects that sprang up in the Christian church.

The Oriental philosophy, as a peculiar system of doctrines concerning the divine nature, is said to have originated in Chaldea, or Persia; whence it passed through Syria, Asia Minor, and Egypt; and, mixing with other systems, formed many different sects. There seems also to be sufficient ground for referring the formation of the leading doctrines of this philosophy into a regular system to Zoroaster, whose name the followers of this doctrine prefixed to some of their spurious books, and whose system is fundamentally the same with that which was subsequently adopted by the Asiatic and Egyptian philosophers.

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The mixture of Platonic notions which is found in the Asiatic philosophy, as well as of Oriental doctrines among the later Platonists, may be easily accounted for, from the intercourse which subsisted between the Alexandrian and Asiatic philosophers, after the schools of Alexandria were established. From that time, many Asiatics who were addicted to the study of philosophy doubtless visited Alexandria, and became acquainted with the then popular doctrines of Plato; and, by blending these with their own, formed an heterogenous mass of opinions, which in its turn mixed with the systems of the Alexandrian schools. This union of Oriental and Grecian philosophy was further promoted by the dispersion of the philosophers of Alexandria, in the reign of Ptolemy Physcon: many of whom, to escape from tyranny, fled into Asia, and opened schools in various places.

It is supposed to have been at the time when the Platonic philosophers of Alexandria visited the Eastern schools, that certain professors of the Oriental philosophy, prior to the existence of the Christian heresies, borrowed from the Greeks the name of Gnostics, to express their pretensions to a more perfect knowledge of the Divine Nature than others possessed. The Pagan origin of ⚫ this appellation is supposed to be plainly intimated by the apostle Paul in two passages of his writings; in one of which he cautions. Timothy against "the opposition of false science" (1 Tim. vi. 20), and in the other warns the Colossians not to be imposed upon by a "vain and deceitful philosophy," framed according to human tradition and the principles of the world, and not according to the doctrine of Christ, Col. ii. 8. But, whatever may be thought concerning the name, there is little room left to doubt that the tenets at least of the Gnostics existed in the Eastern schools long before the rise of the Gnostic sects in the Christian church under Basilides, Valentine, and others; consequently they must have been imported or derived by the latter from the former. The Oriental doctrine of emanation seems frequently alluded to in the New Testament, as hath been already observed, and in terms which cannot so properly be applied to any other dogmas of the Jewish sects.

The Oriental philosophers, though divided into a great variety of sects, seem to have been generally agreed in believing matter to be the cause of all evil, though they were much divided in

opinion as to the particular mode or form under which it ought to be considered as such. They were unanimous in maintaining that there had existed from all eternity a divine nature, replete with goodness, intelligence, wisdom, and virtue, a light of the most pure and subtile kind diffused throughout all space, of whom it was impossible for the mind of man to form an adequate conception. Those who were conversant with the Greek language gave to this pre-eminent Being the name of Budos (BUTнOS), in allusion to the vastness of his excellence, which they deemed it beyond the reach of human capacity to comprehend. The space which he inhabits they named nowμa (Pleroma), but occasionally the term Aɩwv (Aion or Æon) was applied to it. This divine nature, they imagined, having existed for ages in solitude and silence, at length, by the operation of his own omnipotent will, begat of himself two minds or intelligences of a most excellent and exalted kind, one of either sex. By these, others of a similar nature were produced; and, the faculty of propagating their kind being successively communicated to all, a class of divine beings was in time generated, respecting whom no difference of opinion seems to have existed, except in regard to their number, some conceiving it to be more and others less. The nearer any of this celestial family stood in affinity to the one grand parent of all, the closer were they supposed to resemble him in nature and perfection; the farther they were removed, the less were they accounted to partake of his goodness, wisdom, or any other attribute. Although every one of them had a beginning, yet they were all supposed to be immortal, and not liable to any change; on which account they were termed àɩwveç, that is, immortal beings placed beyond the reach of temporal vicissitudes or injuries.*

Beyond that vast expanse refulgent with everlasting light, which was considered as the immediate habitation of the Deity,

The Greek term Awv (on) properly signifies indefinite or eternal duration, as opposed to that which is finite or temporal. It was however metonymically used for such natures as are in themselves unchangeable and immortal. That it was commonly applied in this sense, even by the Greek philosophers, at the time of Christ's birth, is plain from Arrian, who uses it to describe a nature the reverse of ours, superior to frailty, and liable to no vicissitudes. There was therefore nothing strange or unusual in the application of this term, by the Gnostics, to beings of a celestial nature, liable to neither accident nor change. Indeed the term is used by the ancient fathers of the purer class to denote the angels in general, good as well as bad.