Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

THE SECOND AGE OF THE MARTYR CHURCH.283meets and refutes Simon Magus, the first propagatorof falsehood, who receives divine sacramentsand then claims against the giver to be " the greatpower of God." This fact is likewise the symbolof a long line of action, wherein it is part of thedivine plan to make the perpetual restlessness oferror subserve the complete exhibition of truth.The Gnostics denied the divine monarchy; at oncemutilated and misinterpreted Scripture ; claimedto themselves a secret tradition of truth. We oweto them in consequence the treatises of Irenseus,Tertullian, and Clement, and a written exhibitionof the Church's divine order, succession, and unity,as well as a specific mention of the tie which heldthat unity together; and the mention of this tieat so early a period might otherwise have beenwanting to us. But these three writers do butrepresent to us partially an universal result. Thedanger which from gnostic influence beset all thechief centres of ecclesiastical teaching marks thetransition from the first state of simple faith tothat of human learning, inquiry, and thought,turned upon the objects of Christian belief. TheGnostics had a merit which they little imaginedfor themselves._They formed the first doctorsof post-apostolic times. Irenasus, Tertullian, andClement are a great advance upon the more simpleand external exhibition of Christianity which wefind in the apologists. In them the Church is preparingto encounter the deepest questions moved