THE SABBATH. 9 



rife with forgeries. Even good men lent themselves to 

 these pious frauds, believing that true Christian doctrine, 

 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 romantic, 

 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 Christians 

 or of the Gentile Christians, a document was discovered 

 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 specula- 

 tive Gnostics were rejected by the conservative and 

 orthodox Christians of their day as fiercely as their 

 successors the Agnostics — men who don't knoiv — are 

 rejected by the orthodox in our own. The good Polycarp 

 one day met Marcion, an ultra-Paulite, and a celebrated 

 member of the Gnostic sect. On being asked by Mar- 

 cion whether he, Polycarp, did not know him, Polycarp 

 replied, ' Yes, I know you very well ; you are the first- 

 born of the devil.' 1 This is a sample of the bitterness 

 then common. It was a time of travail — of throes and 

 whirlwinds. Men at length began to yearn for peace 

 1 UEglise Chretienne, p. 450. 



