SECTION II. Of the inference from Hegefippus. HAVE inferred from the filence of Hegefippus with refpect to the Nazarenes or Ebionites, in his lift of heretics, that he, being a Jewish chriftian, was one of them; and this is afcribed by my critic t, to my " zeal "to support a fyftem at all hazards." This however, I cannot help thinking to be highly probable. He, being a Jewish chriftian himfelf, could not but be well acquainted with the prevailing opinions of the Jewish chriftians, the most confpicuous of which, it cannot be denied, was the opinion of Christ'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 have wholly omitted the mention of the Ebionites in any pretended lift of heretics of his time, had it been ever fo fhort a one, and this confifts of no less then 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; and yet my critic fays, "how do we know that the Ebionites were + P. 520. " omitted, "omitted?" Their not being inferted in the lift by fuch a perfon as Eufebius, muft, I think, 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 fubfequent 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 ftill 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 fuper-angelic fpirit, the maker of the world, and of all things vifible and invifible 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 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 circumftances, fuch a defection from that important article of faith in his own countrymen, after having been fo recently taught the contrary by the apoftles themselves, whofe writings they ftill had with them, must have excited excited a much greater degree of furprize and indignation than a fimilar defection would have occafioned in any other people, or in any later times. Laftly, Hegefippus quoting the fame gofpel that was in ufe among the Ebionites, might alfo have been alledged as a prefumption that he was one of them. My opponent fays t," It is as remark able that Hegefippus fhould have omit"ted the Cerinthians as the Ebionites." How differently do we judge of things being remarkable, or extraordinary, I fee nothing at all extraordinary in the omiffion of the Cerinthians in this lift of heretics by Hegefippus; as they were only one branch of the Gnoftics, feveral of whom are in his lift; and it is not improbable that thefe Cerinthians having been one of the earlieft branches might have been very inconfiderable, perhaps extinct in his time; I do not know that they are mentioned by any antient writer as exifting fo late as the time of Hegefippus; and as they feem to have been pretty much confined to fome parts of Afia Minor, and efpecially Galatia, which was very remote from the feat of the Ebionites, they might never have extended fo far; and therefore he might not have heard much about + P. 520. them them. Whereas the Ebionites were at that very time in their full vigor, 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 chriftians, and continued to be fo as long as they fubfifted. That Hegefippus, though an Unitarian himfelf, fhould fpeak as he does of the ftate of opinions in the feveral churches which he vifited, as then retaining the right faith, is, I think, very natural. The only herefy that disturbed the apostle John, and therefore other Jewish chriftians in general, was that of the Gnoftics; and almoft 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 visited were free from Gnofticifm, he would naturally fay that they retained the right 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, fo very alarming a thing; and very probably this plain man had not at all confidered its nature and tendency. He, as an Unitarian, believed that all the extraordinary power exerted by Chrift was that of the Father refiding in him, and Speaking and acting by him; and he might imagine imagine that thefe philofophifing 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 himfelf. And though this might appear to him as a thing that he could not well underftand, 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 plain good man might have been a little ftartled. That Eufebius, and others, fhould speak of Hegefippus with refpect (from which my critic argues, that he could not poffibly have been an Ebionite,") appears to me nothing extraordinary, though it fhould have been known to them that he was one; confidering that they quote him only as an Hiftorian; and fuppofing what is very probable, that he did not treat particularly of doctrinal matters, but confined himself to the acts of the apostles, and other hiftorical circumftances attending the propagation of the Gofpel; especially as he P. 520. was |