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OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 103 fessing in the same Messiah the supernatural union of a man and a God ; and this mystic doctrine was adopted with many fanciful improvements by Carpocrates, Basilides, and Valentine,^^ the heretics of the Egyptian school. In their eyes, Jesus of Nazareth was a mere mortal, the legitimate son of Joseph and Mary ; but he was the best and wisest of the human race, selected as the worthy instrument to restore upon earth the worship of the true and supreme Deity. When he was bap- tized in the Jordan, the Christ, the first of the aeons, the Son of (lod himself, descended on Jesus in the form of a dove, to inhabit his mind and direct his actions during the allotted period of his ministry. When the Messiah was delivered into the hands of the Jews, the Christ, an immortal and impassible being, forsook his earthly tabernacle, flew back to the pleroma or world of spirits, and left the solitary Jesus to suffer, to com- plain, and to expire. But the justice and generosity uf such a desertion are strongly questionable ; and the fate of an innocent martyr, at first impelled, and at length abandoned, by his divine companion, might provoke the pity and indignation of the pro- fane. Their murmurs were variously silenced by the sectaries who espoused and modified the double system of Cerinthus. It was alleged that, when Jesus was nailed to the cross, he was endowed with a miraculous apathy of mind and body, which rendered him insensible of his apparent sufferings. It was affirmed that these momentary though real pangs would be abundantly repaid by the temporal reign of a thousand years reserved for the Messiah in his kingdom of the new Jerusalem. It was insinuated that, if he suffered, he deserved to suffer ; that human nature is never absolutely perfect ; and that the cross and passion might serve to expiate the venial transgres- sions of the son of Joseph, before his mysterious union with the Son of God.i 1' The Valentinians embraced a complex and almost incoherent system, i. Both Christ and Jesus were seons, though of different degrees ; the one acting as the rational soul, the other as the divine spirit, of the Saviour. 2. At the time of the passion, they both retired, and left only a sensitive soul and an human body. 3. Even that body was athereal, and perhaps apparent. Such are the laborious conclusions of Mosheim. But I much doubt whether the Latin translator under- s^tood Irenjeus, and whether IrenEEUs and the Valentinians understood themselves. i*" The heretics abused the passionate exclamation of " My God, my God, why hast ition fiirsake?! me?" Rousseau, who has drawn an eloquent but indecent parallel between Christ and Socrates, forgets that not a word of impatience or despair escaped from the mouth of tlie dying philosopher. In the Messiah such sentiments could be only apparent ; and such ill-sounding words are properly ex- plained as the application of a psalm and prophecy.