It seems probable however that he went much further than his predecessors, in teaching that the millennium would consist in a course of sensual indulgence and it may have been his notions upon this subject, added to those concerning the human nature of Christ, which led him to maintain, contrary to the generality of Gnostics, that Christ had not yet risen, but that he would rise hereafter". The Gnostics, as we have seen, denied the resurrection altogether. Believing Jesus to be a phantom, they did not believe that he was crucified, and they could not therefore believe that he had risen. But Cerinthus, who held that Jesus was born, like other human beings, found no difficulty in believing literally that he was crucified: and he is said also to have taught that he would rise from the dead at some future period. It is most probable that this period was that of the millennium: and the words of St. John in the Revelations would easily be perverted, where it is said of the souls of the martyrs, that they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. (xx. 4.)

It has been supposed by some writers, that this was the notion, and not the one more commonly maintained by the Gnostics, to which St. Paul alluded when he urged in his First Epistle to the Corinthians, that Christ had really risen from the dead. I should rather have thought that Cerinthus had not published his sentiments at so early a period : but if he was really referred to by St. Paul in this passage, we may perhaps adopt the explanation of some of the Fathers concerning an obscure expression which occurs in the course of the argument. St. Paul asks, after having asserted the doctrine of the

resurrection, Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead? (xv. 29.) and Epiphanius has preserved a tradition, that the Cerinthians, if one of their proselytes died without being baptized, substituted a living person in his room, and baptized him for the person who was dead. It will perhaps be allowed, that if such a practice could be proved to have existed, this would furnish a simpler and more literal interpretation of St. Paul's words than any other which has been given to them. Some of the Fathers have adopted this literal explanation: and the objection, which is generally brought, that St. Paul would not have taken an argument from the practice of heretics, has not perhaps much weight. St. Paul was evidently arguing against heretics who denied the resurrection: and if he had asked them why they baptized their converts, since the baptismal resurrection was a sign, and therefore an acknowledgment, of a future and final resurrection, they would have replied, that baptism admitted their converts to every Gnostic privilege, and was in itself the resurrection: but that the soul of a Gnostic, as soon as it was freed from the body by death, flew up to the Pleroma. St. Paul would then rejoin, If this be so, why do you baptize a living person for the dead, for one whose soul is already separated from the body? it is plain that in this case you must expect some change to happen to the dead person in consequence of bap

• Ἐπεὶ seems to be used in this place, for otherwise, if this be not so, as it is in Rom. iii. 6. xi. 6, 22. 1 Cor. v. 10. and in the following passage of

Plato, ἀλλ ̓ ἴσως οὐκ ὀλίγον ἔργον ἐστιν, ὦ Σώκρατες· ἐπεὶ πάνυ γε σαφῶς ἔχοιμι ἂν ἐπιδεῖξαί σοι, Euthyphron, p. 9.

tism. There is nothing unnatural in supposing St. Paul thus to argue from a concession made by his opponents, though those opponents were heretics: and that he was really doing this, may perhaps be inferred from the words which immediately follow, And why stand we in jeopardy every hour? Tí Kai ἡμεῖς κινδυνεύομεν πᾶσαν ὥραν ; a form of construction which might lead us to think that he had not before been speaking of true Christians, but now returned to them. His argument therefore is this: If there be no resurrection, why do the heretics, who say so, practise a vicarious baptism even for the dead, and why do we stand in daily danger of our lives, when by denying our belief in a resurrection, we might escape that danger? I repeat that this would be the simplest and most literal interpretation of St. Paul's words: and the whole seems to depend upon the degree of weight which we give to the tradition preserved by Epiphanius 78.

But I have perhaps dwelt too long upon the history of Cerinthus, and I should proceed immediately to consider that of Ebion, if Epiphanius had not preserved the names of four other persons, who agreed with Cerinthus in believing Christ to be born of human parents. These persons are Cleobius or Cleobulus, Claudius, Demas, and Hermogenes. Of the two first, though they are mentioned by other writers, I shall say nothing more in this place, because their names do not occur in the apostolic writings: but Epiphanius evidently meant by Demas the same person, of whom St. Paul writes to Timothy, Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica; (2 Tim. iv. 10.) and by Hermogenes he

meant the same who is coupled with Phygellus as having turned away from St. Paul in Asia. (i. 15.) Anecdotes such as these, when they occur in the writings of the later Fathers, should be received with great caution: and I should be unwilling to believe, without some stronger evidence, that Demas had actually apostatized from his faith, and joined the ranks of the Gnostics. That Hermogenes and Phygellus did this, I have already shewn to be probable and it is even said by a writer later than Epiphanius, that Demas became a priest in a heathen temple at Thessalonica. We might suspect that this place was fixed upon as the scene of his apostasy, merely because St. Paul had said, Demas is departed unto Thessalonica: but we should remember that in the same sentence Crescens is said to have gone to Galatia, and Titus unto Dalmatia ; neither of whom was ever charged with apostasy: and the more probable as well as the more charitable conjecture would be, that during the persecution which was then raging by the order of Nero, those persons, as St. Paul says, loved this present world, i. e. they did not feel themselves called upon to expose their lives unnecessarily, and they profited by the permission which their heavenly Master appeared to have given, When they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another79.

With respect to Ebion, it has often been disputed whether such a person ever really existed, or whether his followers were not called Ebionites, from a Hebrew term signifying poor. It is certain that in later times the Ebionites took credit to them

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selves for being named after the first believers, who made themselves poor: and their opponents reproached them with this name, as being expressive of the poverty of their doctrines, and of the mean opinion which they entertained of Christ'. But notwithstanding these verbal allusions, it seems by no means improbable that there was such a person as Ebion and by some writers he is said to have been a disciple of Cerinthus. We might be more certain of speaking correctly, if we say that they were contemporaries 1: and it is only on the authority of two late writers that Ebion is represented as an eloquent man, and attached to the philosophy of the Stoics1. Whether he published his doctrines in Rome and Cyprus, as is said by Epiphanius", may perhaps be doubted; but that he disseminated them in Asia3, and in the neighbourhood of Ephesus, can hardly admit of a dispute.

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In many points he resembled Cerinthus: and the sentiments of the two heresiarchs have perhaps been sometimes confounded. Thus they both are represented as Jews; and both of them agreed in observing some parts of Judaism, as well as in rejecting others. It is said of Ebion in particular, that