Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

THE THIRD AGE OF THE MARTYR CHURCH.3153. But there was yet another enemy within themp tself, which from the beginning trackedthe footsteps of the Church, grew with itand everywhere attempted to dissolve its organisationand weaken its influence. The whole secondcentury is occupied with the rise and tangledgrowth of the Gnostic sects. But these were notalone. From the very time of the Apostles we findthe evidence of a number of sects, rising and fall-ing, preying on and devouring each other, nonewithout some portion of Christian truth, on whichit feeds, blended with Jewish, * Greek, \^ A V\^JL**ft Oriental \^S J. AV/AJL WVM+Egyptian, Libyan notions, prejudices, and errors ;domiciled in various parts of the empire in accordancewith the national or local character whichthey represent. They reproduce with a Christiancolour the sects and the sect-life of the Greekschools of philosophy. As the wheat has its prcweed, which springs up hi the midst of it ancounterfeits it, so error, everywhere gathering roundsome portion of truth, forms itself into an anta-gonistic life. The force and truth of the ChristianChurch were shown not in the absence of theserivals, but in its triumph over their variety, in itsremaining one whilst they diverged endlessly fromthat unchanging original type, in its continuousm growth whilst they rose and fell,domineeredcertain times and places, and thdisappeared. In this its course the Church hadto master very great difficulties, which were in-