spent whole nights in finging hymns.". Who does not fee in all this the language of an enemy, defcribing men of holy lives and mortified affections worshipping the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghoft, and elevated in their defires and fpirit above the world, that is real chriftians?

Ariftides the Sophift, another contemporary of Celfus, fpeaks with indignation against fome perfons of his day, whom he obferves in manners to be not unlike the impious people in Paleftine; for they acknowledge not the gods, they differ from the Greeks and all good men, dextrous in fubverting houfes and disturbing families; contributing nothing to public festivals, but dwelling in corners, they are wonderfully wife*."

Thus, when men were out of humour with any perfons, they compared them to chriftians, who were thus made the off-fcouring of all things. Their fingular abftinence from all reigning vices and follies, and their steady adherence to the worfhip of the living God, appears from hence, and we have here an additional teftimony to the ftrength of the Divine operations on their minds.

Much about the fame time Galen, the famous phyfician, gave teftimony to the firmnefs and perfeverance of chriftians: "It is eafier," fays he,

t

to convince the difciples of Mofes and Chrift than physicians and philofophers who are addicted to particular fects," fo that their fortitude or obftinacy was proverbial at that time, and they were a people then well known in the world.

Plotinus was one of the most celebrated disciples of the new Platonic fchool in this century, the genius of which, as formed by Ammonius, has been before defcribed. He had ftudied under Ammonius, and by the ftrength of his parts, the multiplicity

Lardner's Collections, chap. xix.

multiplicity of his literary acquifitions, and the gravity of his manners, attained a very high reputation in the world. He imitated Socrates in his pretenfions to a communion with a Dæmon, and was by his difciples looked on as fomething celeftial. Perfons of the greatest quality revered him; the emperor Gallienus himself was once on the point of giving him a ruined city in Campania, in which he might fettle a Platonic republic. The man feems, to his dying day, to have fupported his philofophic reveries. I am ftill in expectation," fays he, as he was juft dying; " and that which is divine in us, I am endeavouring to rejoin to the divine part of the univerfe*." Undoubtedly he alluded to the idea of "God being the foul of the universe," that Pantheiftic compound of pride and Atheistic abfurdity which was the proper creed of most of the ancient Philofophers, and was even more impious than all the fables of vulgar Paganism t.

The oracle of Apollo, we are told, after his death, informed his admirers that his foul was in the Elyfian fields with Plato and Pythagoras. Such were the artifices by which Satan and his human followers endeavoured to raise up rivals to the chriftians. In a work profeffedly illuftrating the operations of the Spirit of God, it feems proper to notice the contrafts, or rather the counterfeits by which the spirit of falsehood endeavoured to fupport the declining cause of idolatry. Its vulgar and grofs fcenes were in part abandoned, and a more refined habit was given to it by philofophy, pretending to wifdom and virtue in a high degree. But holiness it could not produce, because humility and the faith of Jefus were not there.

* Fleury.

See this point ably difcuffed in Warburton's Legation of Mofes,

there. Pride was its predominant feature, and while thousands found, even in this life, the falutary benefits of chriftianity, Philofophers prated concerning virtue, and did nothing either for the honour of God, or the good of mankind.

One of the most ftudious and laborious disciples of Plotinus was Amelius. It is evident from a paffage of Eufebius, that he made attempts to unite Something of Chriftianity with Platonífm, juft as we have feen Origen, who was of the same school, mix fomething of the latter with the former, to the great prejudice of the gospel. "This was the word," fays he, by whom, he being himself eternal, were made all things that are; the same whom the barbarian affirms to have been in the place and dignity of a principal, and to be with God, and to be God, by whom all things were made, and in whom every thing that was made has its life and being; who, defcending into body and putting on flesh, took the form of man, though he even then gave proof of the majesty of his nature; nay, and after his diffolution he was deified again, and is God, the fame he was before he defcended into body, and flesh, and man."

This may be called no mean testimony to St. John's gospel, (for he is doubtless the barbarian here mentioned): the ideas of chriftianity, it feems, in fome loofe ambiguous manner, were admitted by thefe philofophers, and incorporated into their fyftem, juft as a modern Swedenburg, a Rouffeau, and a Bolingbroke are not unwilling to enoble their compofitions with fome fublime christian sentiments, confufedly understood; while yet they stand aloof from the fociety of chriftians no better than as barbarians, and make not, in their

Eufeb. Pr. Ev.-See Lardner's Collections, chap. xxxiii.

own

own cafe, the leaft approach to the faith and love of Jefus.

Thus Longinus alfo, a fcholar of the fame fchool, and well acquainted with Plotinus, has enriched his treatife on the fublime with a quotation from the first chapter of Genefis, and calls Mofes a man of no mean character*. A fragment of his alfo which has been preferved, and of which I fee no reason to doubt the authenticity, fpeaks of Paul of Tarfus as one of the first orators, who he obferves was the first fupporter of a doctrine not demonftrated.

The paffage feems to carry internal proofs of its genuineness. It has been faid that it has been forged by fome chriftian. But why should any christian be charged with fuch a crime on mere prefumption? What temptation could there be for it? Against a mere fancy, in addition to the authority of the manufcript of the gofpels from which the paffage was taken, I fhall venture to place the character of Longinus himself, a judicious critic, if ever there was one in the world; very capable of feeing the beauties of St. Paul's compofitions, by the excellency of his tafte; of confeffing them from the candour of his temper; and of overlooking what ought principally to have fixed his attention, from his entire indifference to religion: I may add alfo, that the ftyle is exactly like his, rather nervous than elegant.

We fee hence how well chriftians were known in the third century, what refpect their doctrine even then obtained in the world from thofe who could not bear the thought of embracing it for themselves.

Porphyry is the laft unwilling witnefs for chriftians whom I fhall mention within the third cen

ου τυχών ανήρ

tury.

tury. Indeed there is a work bearing his name, entitled the Philofophy of Oracles, which appears to have been written in the time of Conftantine, or after the civil establishment of christianity, There are in it very ftrong teftimonies in favour of the gospel. But as its date is evidently beyond the period before us, the confideration of it properly belongs to the history of the next century.

This man was born at Tyre in Phoenicia, was a fcholar of Plotinus, and, like the rest of that fchool, maintained a gravity of manners, and entered vigorously into Platonic refinements; but in acrimony against chriftians he far exceeded them all. He took much pains to overturn the gospel, and it must be confeffed his learning and acutenefs were confiderable. The very few fragments extant of his works give one indeed no great opportunity to judge of the extent of his capacity, or the depth of his judgment. But, from the ferious pains taken by the ancient chriftians to confute him, we may conclude that his abilities were of a far higher order than thofe of Celfus.

In a paffage preserved by Eufebius*, he cenfures the famous Origen for leaving Gentilism and embracing the barbarian temerity, that is, the gofpel. That he is wrong in the fact is certain. Origen was brought up under chriftian parents; but I had almoft faid, he deferved the reproach for paying fuch extravagant refpect to the enemies of chriftianity. Porphyry allows him to have been a great proficient in philofophy, and fays that he was very converfant with Plato, Longinus, and the works of the Pythagoreans and Stoics; that he learnt from thefe the allegorical method of explaining the Greek mysteries, and by forced interpretations inconfiftent in themselves, and unfuitable

Eufeb. book 6, chap. 18.