imposed by connection with matter created by the God of this world. This world-soul, under the form of a serpent, urged Eve to emancipate herself from thraldom and pass with Adam, by. an act of transgression, into the glorious liberty of the sons of the supreme God. The doctrines of the Ophites with respect to Christ was that of Valentine. Christ came to break the last chains of law by which man was bound, and to translate him into the realm of grace where sin does not exist. The Ophites possessed a gospel called the Gospel of Eve. It contained, no doubt, an account of the Fall from their peculiar point of view. St. Epiphanius has preserved two passages from it. They are so extraordinary, and throw such a light on the doctrines of this gospel, that I quote one as follows:

"I was planted on a lofty mountain, and lo! I beheld a man of great stature, and another who was mutilated. And then I heard a voice like unto thunder. And when I drew near, he spake with me after this wise: I am thou and thou art I. And wheresoever thou art there am I, and I am dispersed through all. And wheresoever thou willest, there canst thou gather me; but in gathering me thou gatherest thyself.

"The meaning of this passage is not doubtful. It expresses the doctrine of absolute identity between Christ and the believer, the radiation of divine virtue through all souls, destroying their individuality, that all may be absorbed into Christ. Individualities emerge out of God, and through Christ are drawn back into God. It is greatly to be regretted that we have so little of this curious book preserved. "THE GOSPEL OF PERFECTION was another work regarded as sacred by the Ophites. St. Epiphanius says: 'Some of them (i. e., of the Gnostics) there are who vaunt the possession of a certain fictitious, far-fetched poem which they call the Gospel of Perfection, whereas, it is not a gospel, but the perfection of misery. For the bitterness of death is consummated in that production of the devil. Others without shame boast their Gospel of Eve.' St. Epiphanius calls this Gospel of Perfection a poem, but M. Nicolas justly observes that the Greek word used is not to describe the work as a poetical composition, but as a fiction. In a passage of Irenæus, of which only the Latin has been preserved, the Gospel of Judas is called 'Confictio." "

THE GOSPEL OF ST. PHILIP is said to have belonged to the same category as the last two, if not to the Ophites to a similar sect, perhaps that of the Prodicians. St. Philip passed in the early ages of Christianity as having been, like St. Paul, an apostle of the Gentiles, and perhaps as having agreed with his views on the law and evangelical liberty. Tradition, however, had confounded Philip the apostle and Philip the deacon of Cæsarea, who, after having been a member of the Hellenist church at Jerusalem and having been driven thence by the martyrdom of Stephen, was the first to carry the gospel beyond the family of Israel to convert the heathen to Christ. His zeal and success caused him to be called an evangelist. In the second century it was supposed that an evangelist meant one who had written a gospel. And as no gospel bearing his name existed, one was very conveniently composed for him, which doubtless answered the same purpose, to those who unfalteringly believed in it, as though he had written it himself Of this gospel Epiphanius has preserved the following passage:

The Lord has revealed to me the words to be spoken by the soul when it ascends into heaven, and how it has to answer each of the celestial powers. The soul must say: "I have known myself, and I have gathered myself from all parts. I have not born children to Archon (the prince of this world), but I have plucked up his roots, and I have gathered his dispersed members. I have learned who thou art: for I am, saith the soul, of the number of the celestial ones. But if it is proved that the soul has borne a son, she must return downward till she has recovered her children, and has absorbed them into herself."

This passage is thought to have this signification: The soul, trammeled with the chains of matter, created by the Archon, the creator of the world, has to emancipate itself from all material concerns. Each thought, interest, passion, excited by anything in the world, is a child borne by the soul to Archon, to which the soul has contributed animation, the world, form. The work of life is the disengagement of the soul from all concern in the affairs of the world, in the requirements of the body. When the soul has reached the most exalted. perfection, it is cold, passionless, indifferent; then it comes before the supreme God, passing through the spheres, guarded by attendant ons, or angels, and to each it

protests its disengagement. But should any thought or care for mundane matters be found lurking in the recesses of the soul, it has to descend again and remain in exile till it has re-absorbed all the life it gave, the interest it felt in such concerns, and then again make its essay to reach God.

St. Paul held the rabbinic ideas of the spheres surrounding the throne of God, and the foregoing was doubtless elaborated from Paul's epistles. The rabbinic idea, in turn, was in all probability obtained from the, Chaldees, "and from the same source, perhaps," says Baring-Gould, "sprang the conception of the soul making her ascension through the angel-guarded spheres, which we find in the fragment of the Gospel of St. Philip. Unfortunately we have not sufficient of the early literature of the Chaldees and Assyrians to be able to say for certain that it was so. But a very curious sacred poem has been preserved on the terra-cotta tablets of the library of Assurbani-Pal, which exhibits a similar belief as prevalent anciently in Assyria. This poem represents the descent of Istar into the immutable land, the nether world, divided into seven circles. The heavenly world of the Chaldees was also divided into seven circles, each ruled by a planet. The poem, therefore, exhibits a descent instead of an ascent. But there is little reason to doubt that the passage in each case would have been analogous. We have no ancient Assyrian account of an ascent; we must therefore content ourselves with what we have. Istar descends into the lower region, and as she traverses each circle is despoiled of one of her coverings worn in the region above, till she stands naked before Belith, the queen of the Land of Death.

1. At the first gate, as I made her enter, I despoiled her; I took the crown from off her head.

'Hold, gatekeeper! thou hast taken the crown from off my head.'

'Enter into the empire of the Lady of the Earth, to this stage of the circles.' 2. At the second gate I made her enter; I despoiled her and took from off her the earrings from her ears.

'Hold, keeper of the gate! thou hast despoiled me of the earrings from my ears.' Enter into the empire of the Lady of the Earth, to this stage of the circles.'

3. At the third gate I made her enter; I despoiled her of the precious jewels on her ne

'Hold. keeper of the gate thou hast despoiled me of the jewels of my neck.' Enter into the empire of the Lady of the Earth, to this stage of the circles.' 4. At the fourth gate I made her enter; I despoiled her of the broach of jewels upon her breast.

'Hold, keeper of the gate! thou hast despoiled me of the broach of jewels upon my breast.'

Enter into the empire of the Lady of the Earth, to this stage of the circles.' 5. At the fifth gate I made her enter; I despoiled her of the belt of jewels about her waist.

'Hold, keeper of the gate! thou hast despoiled me of the belt of jewels about my waist.'

'Enter into the empire of the Lady of the Earth, to this stage of the circles.' 6. At the sixth gate I made her enter; I despoiled her of her armlets and bracelets.

'Hold, keeper of the gate! thou hast despoiled me of my armlets and bracelets.' 'Enter into the empire of the Lady of the Earth, to this stage of the circles.'

7. At the seventh gate I made her enter; I despoiled her of her skirt.

'Hold, keeper of the gate! thou hast despoiled me of my skirt.'

Enter into the empire of the Lady of the Earth, to this degree of circles.'

"We have something very similar in the judgment of souls in the Egyptian Ritual of the Dead. From Chaldea or from Egypt the Gnostics who used the Gospel of St. Philip drew their doctrine of the soul traversing several circles, and arrested by an angel at the gate of each. The soul, a divine element, is in the earth combined with the body, a work of the Archon. But her aspirations are for that which is above; she strives to 'extirpate his roots.' All her scattered members,' her thoughts, wishes, impulses, are gathered into one uptapering flame. Then only does she 'know (God) for what he is,' for she has learned the nature of God by introspection.

"Such, if I mistake not, is the meaning of the passage quoted by Epiphanius. The sect which used such a gospel must have been mystical and ascetic, given to contemplation, and avoiding the indulgence of their animal appetites. It was that probably of Prodicus, strung on the same Pauline thread as the heresies of Marcior, Nicolas, Valentine, Marcus, the Ophites, Carpocratians, and Cainites. Prodicus, on the strength of St. Paul's saying that all Christians are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, maintained the sovereignty of every man placed under the gospel. But a king is above law, is not bound by law, therefore the Christian is under no bondage of law, moral or ceremonial. He is lord of the Sabbath,

above all ordinances.

God to consist in the

Prodicus made the whole worship of inner contemplation of the essence of God. External worship was not required of the Christian; that had been imposed by the Demiurge on the Jews and all under his bondage till the time of the fulness of the gospel had come. The Prodicians did not constitute an important, widely-extended sect, and were confounded by many of the early Fathers with other Pauline Gnostic sects.'

THE GOSPEL OF JUDAS is the last of the lost and hostile gospels examined by Baring-Gould. It was made use of by certain Christian sects classed as heretics--the followers of Carpocrates, Epiphanes, Isadore, and others. They made a distinction "between the supreme God and the Demiurge, the God of the Jews, of the Law, of the World. The body, the work of the God of creation, is evil; it 'serves the law of sin,'" i. e., of the Demiurge. "But the Demiurge has imposed on man his law, the Ten Commandments. If the soul consents to that law, submits to be in bondage under it, the soul passes from the liberty of its ethereal sonship under the dominion of a god at enmity with the Supreme Being. Therefore the true Christian must show his adherence to the Omnipotent by breaking the laws of the Decalogue—the more the better. The Cainites exhibit Pauline Antinomianism in its last, most extravagant, most grotesque. expression. Their doctrine was the extreme development of an idea in itself originally containing an element of truth."

"Looking at the Old Testament," from the standpoint of the Cainites and other similar heretical believers, "the extreme wing of the Pauline host, the Cainities, naturally came to regard the Patriarchs as being under the protection, the prophets as being under the inspiration, of the God of the Jews, and therefore to hold them in abhorrence as enemies of Christ and the Supreme Deity. Those, on the other hand, who were spoken of in the Old Testament as resisting God, punished by God, were true prophets, martyrs of the Supreme Deity, forerunners of the gospel. Cain became a type of virtue; Abel, on the contrary, of error and perversity. The inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah were pioneers of gospel