The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 420 pages of information about The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II..

The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 420 pages of information about The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II..
Tatianists, and in connection with him and his doctrines we hear of the Eucratites, Hydroparastates (the water-drinkers), and Apotactites.  The Eucratites appear to have been in existence before Tatian professed Gnosticism, but he so increased their influence as to be sometimes regarded as their founder.  The Egyptian Gnostics were less ascetic, and mostly favoured the idea that Jesus had a real body on which the AEon descended and joined himself thereunto.  They regarded him as born naturally of Joseph and Mary.  Basilides, and Valentinus headed the Egyptians, and then we have as sub-divisions the Carpocratians, Ptolemaites, Secundians, Heracleonites, Marcosians, Adamites, Cainites, Sethites, Florinians, Ophites, Artemonites, and Hermogenists; in addition to these we have the Monarchians or Patripassians, who maintained that there was but one God, and that the Father suffered (whence this name) in the person of Christ.  This long list may be closed with the Montanists, a sect joined by Tertullian (see his account of the orthodox after he became a Montanist, ante, p. 225); they held that Montanes, their founder, was the Paraclete promised by Christ, missioned to complete the Christian code; he forbade second marriages, the reception into the Church of those who had been excommunicated for grievous sin, and inculcated the sternest asceticism.  He opposed all learning as anti-Christian, a doctrine which was rapidly spreading among Christians, and which seems, indeed, to have been an integral part of the religion from its very beginning (Matt. xi. 25, 1 Cor. i. 26, 27).  In the third century the heretic camp received a new light in the person of Manes, or Manichaeus, a Persian magus; he appears to have been a man of great learning, a physician, an astronomer, a philosopher.  He taught the old Persian creed tinctured with Christianity, Christ being identical with Mithras (see ante, p. 362), and having come upon earth in an apparent body only to deliver mankind.  Manes was the paraclete sent to complete his teaching; the body was evil, and only by long struggle and mortification could man be delivered from it, and reach final blessedness.  Those who desired to lead the highest life, the elect, abstained from flesh, eggs, milk, fish, wine, and all intoxicating drink, and remained in the strictest celibacy; they were to live on bread, herbs, pulse, and melons, and deny themselves every comfort and every gratification (see pp. 80-82).  The Hieracites in Egypt were closely allied with the Manichaeans.  The Novatians differed from the orthodox only in their refusal to receive again into the Church any who had committed grievous crimes, or who had lapsed during persecution.  The Arabians denied the immortality of the soul, maintaining that it died with the body, and that body and soul together would be revivified by God.  The controversies on the persons of the Godhead now increased in intensity.  Noctus of Smyrna maintained the doctrine of the Patripassians,
Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.