hypothetical views, if they would present to the reader a distinct and consistent narrative. Photius and Petrus Siculus call the Paulicians a branch of the Manichees, and go through a detail of their doctrine in accordance with this imputation; and in this testimony Gibbon acquiesces, as Neander and others since. There is this difficulty, however, in admitting it:-that (besides the utter absence, I believe, of any testimony to the existence of Manicheeism in their neighbourhood, up to the time of their rise,) these religionists actually disowned the name of Manichee, anathematized Manes, and abjured both his theology and even that of the Gnostic Valentinus. But if we are not to trust Peter and Photius for the origin, how shall we trust them for the doctrine of the Paulicians? especially as a notion about their origin may have biassed those writers in their account of the doctrine.

Gibbon solves this difficulty by the following hypothesis. He finds that, in the fourth century, Gnostics were congregated in the villages and mountains about the Euphrates, and that a trace of the Marcionites is found, though at some distance from the river, in Theodoret's personal history in the fifth. He knows nothing of them later; but he sees that the Paulicians rose at Samosata, near the Euphrates. It suggests itself, therefore, to him, that, though they did not profess themselves Manichees, perhaps they were some remnant of Gnostics popularly called Manichees, in spite of their disowning Valentinus. For the Gnostics rejected the Old Testament, and held the doctrine of two Principles, which Photius and Petrus Siculus impute to the Paulicians; and are very likely to have had the other Paulician peculiarities, such as contempt of images and relics, neglect of St. Mary, and disbelief in the Eucharistic change, because they separated off from the Church before these

points. were formally settled. So far, well; but it appears that the people, out of whom the Paulicians arose, were not well acquainted with the Gospels, which would seem to show they were Catholic laymen; but then he reflects that it is not impossible but the Gnostic laity were forbidden the use of the Scriptures too. This completes his theory; and enables him forthwith to set forward in the vigorous and flowing passage that follows, his apologies and explanations skilfully falling into their places as he proceeds:

"The Gnostics, who had distracted the infancy, were oppressed by the greatness and authority of the Church. Instead of emulating or surpassing the wealth, learning, and numbers of the Catholics, their obscure remnant was driven from the capitals of the east and west, and confined to the villages and mountains along the borders of the Euphrates. Some vestige of the Marcionites may be detected in the fifth century; but the numerous sects were finally lost in the odious name of the Manicheeans; and these heretics, who presumed to reconcile the doctrines of Zoroaster and Christ, were pursued by the two religions with equal and unrelenting hatred. Under the grandson of Heraclius, in the neighbourhood of Samosata, more famous for the birth of Lucian than for the title of a Syrian kingdom, a reformer arose, esteemed by the Paulicians as the chosen messenger of truth. In his humble dwelling of Mananalis, Constantine entertained a deacon, who returned from Syrian captivity, and received the inestimable gift of the New Testament, which was already concealed from the vulgar by the prudence of the Greek, and perhaps of the Gnostic, clergy. These books became the measure of his studies, and the rule of his faith; and the Catholics, who dispute his interpretation, acknowledged that his text was genuine and sincere.

In the gospel, and the epistles of St. Paul, his

faithful follower investigated the creed of primitive Christianity; and, whatever might be the success, a Protestant reader will applaud the spirit of the inquiry.

"But if the Scriptures of the Paulicians were pure, they were not perfect. Their founders rejected the two epistles of St. Peter, the apostle of the circumcision, whose dispute with their favourite for the observance of the law could not easily be forgiven. They agreed with their Gnostic brethren in the universal contempt for the Old Testament, the books of Moses and the prophets, which have been consecrated by the decrees of the Catholic church. With equal boldness, and doubtless with more reason, Constantine, the new Sylvanus, disclaimed the visions, which, in so many bulky and splendid volumes, had been published by the oriental sects; the fabulous productions of the Hebrew patriarchs and the sages of the East; the spurious gospels, epistles, and acts, which in the first age had overwhelmed the orthodox code; the theology of Manes, and the authors of the kindred heresies; and the thirty generations, or eons, which had been created by the fruitful fancy of Valentine. The Paulicians sincerely condemned the memory and opinions of the Manicheean sect, and complained of the injustice which impressed that invidious name on the simple votaries of St. Paul and of Christ.

"Of the ecclesiastical chain, many links had been broken by the Paulician reformers; and their liberty was enlarged as they reduced the number of masters, at whose voice profane reason must bow to mystery and miracle. The early separation of the Gnostics had preceded the establishment of the Catholic worship; and against the gradual innovations of discipline and doctrine, they were as strongly guarded by habit and aversion as by the silence of St. Paul and the Evangelists. The objects, which had been transformed by the magic of

superstition, appeared to the eyes of the Paulicians in their genuine and naked colours. An image made without hands was the common workmanship of a mortal artist, &c. The miraculous relics were an heap of bones and ashes, &c.; the true and vivifying cross was, &c.; the Body and Blood of Christ, a loaf of bread, and a cup of wine, the gifts of nature and the symbols of grace; the Mother of GOD was degraded, &c.; and the Saints and Angels were no longer solicited, &c.

In the practice, or at least in the theory of the Sacraments, the Paulicians were inclined to abolish all visible objects of worship; and the words of the gospel were, in their judgment, the baptism and communion of the faithful.

"A creed thus simple and spiritual was not adapted to the genius of the times; and the rational Christian, who might have been contented with the light yoke and easy burden of Jesus and His Apostles, was justly offended that the Paulicians should dare to violate the Unity of GOD, the first article of natural and revealed religion. . . . They likewise held the eternity of matter, a stubborn and rebellious substance, the origin of a second principle, &c. . . . The apostolic labours of Constantine-Sylvanus soon multiplied the number of his disciples; the secret recompense of spiritual ambition. The remnant of the Gnostic sects, and especially the Manicheeans of Armenia, were united under his standard; many Catholics were converted or seduced by his arguments; and he preached with success in the region of Pontus and Cappadocia, which had long since imbibed the religion of Zoroaster." . . &c.

Now I conceive there is nothing in this sketch, though it seems so precarious on an analysis, which is fairly open to objection, except that the author has not mentioned its hypothetical character.

7. Another writer of history may be mentioned, who uses hypothesis as well as fact, and presump

tion as well as evidence, but is properly careful to discriminate between them. Disquisition cannot be conducted in a more logical tone than it assumes in the present Bishop of St. David's History of Greece; yet it would not be logical, if, when engaged upon the early portions of it, where evidence is wanting, it did not proceed by means of general truths, and appeal to common places larger than the particular points on which he has to decide. Thus, when discussing the origin of the Grecian mythology, he introduces one or two passages from Herodotus and Homer which bear upon the subject; and then interprets or modifies them by a view of his own, founded on presumptions. He refers to Agamemnon's oath in the Iliad, addressed not only to Jupiter, but to the omniscient sun, rivers, and earth, and to the gods of vengeance in the realms below; he refers also to Herodotus's testimony or opinion, or rather that of the priests of Dodona, that "the Pelasgians," that is, the early possessors of the country, "once sacrificed only to nameless deities;" and to the statement of the same author, that the religion underwent two changes, one from the introduction of Egyptian rites, the other from the poems of Homer and Hesiod, who gave names and histories to the gods.

These are his four facts; and he submits them to the action of the following antecedent probabilities. He observes that "the Greek was formed to sympathize strongly with the outward world; nothing was to him absolutely passive and inert; in all the objects around him he found life, or readily imparted it to them out of the fulness of his own imagination. This was not a poetical view, the privilege of extraordinary minds, but the popular mode of thinking and feeling, cherished undoubtedly by the bold forms, and abrupt contrasts, and all the natural wonders of a mountainous and sea-broken land. A people so disposed and situate