THE SABBATH. 9 



rife with forgeries. Even good men lent themselves to 

 these pious frauds, believing that true Christian doc- 

 trine, which of course was their doctrine, would be 

 thereby quickened and promoted. There were gospels 

 and counter-gospels; epistles and counter-epistles 

 some frivolous, some dull, some speculative and roman- 

 tic, and some so rich and penetrating, so saturated with 

 the Master's spirit, that, though not included in the 

 canon, they enjoyed an authority almost equal to that 

 of the canonical books. When arguments or proofs 

 were needed, whether on the side of the Jewish Chris- 

 tians or of the Gentile Christians, a document was dis- 

 covered which met the case, and on which the name of 

 an apostle, or of some authoritative contemporary of the 

 apostles, was boldly inscribed. The end being held to 

 sanctify the means, there was no lack of manufactured 

 testimony. The Christian world seethed not only with 

 apocryphal writings, but with hostile interpretations of 

 writings not apocryphal. Then arose the sect of the 

 Gnostics men who know who laid claim to the pos- 

 session of a perfect science, and who, if they were to be 

 believed, had discovered the true formula for what 

 philosophers called " the Absolute." But these specu- 

 lative Gnostics were rejected by the conservative and 

 orthodox Christians of their day as fiercely as their 

 successors the Agnostics men who don't know are 

 rejected by the orthodox in our own. The good Poly- 

 carp one day met Marcion, an ultra-Paulite, and a cele- 

 brated member of the Gnostic sect. On being asked by 

 Marcion whether he, Polycarp, did not know him, Poly- 

 carp replied, " Yes, I know you very well; you are the 

 first-born of the devil." * This is a sample of the bit- 

 terness then common. It was a time of travail of 

 throes and whirlwinds. Men at length began to yearn 

 * UEglise Chretienne, p. 450. 



