nction of the Judaeo-Christian community related
from Mosheim by Gibbon himself (c. xv.) accounts both simply and
naturally for the loss of a composition, which had become of no
use--nor does it follow that the Greek Gospel of St. Matthew is
unauthorized.--M.]

[Footnote 6: The metaphysics of the soul are disengaged by Cicero
(Tusculan. l. i.) and Maximus of Tyre (Dissertat. xvi.) from the
intricacies of dialogue, which sometimes amuse, and often perplex, the
readers of the Phoedrus, the Phoedon, and the Laws of Plato.]

[Footnote 7: The disciples of Jesus were persuaded that a man might have
sinned before he was born, (John, ix. 2,) and the Pharisees held the
transmigration of virtuous souls, (Joseph. de Bell. Judaico, l. ii. c.
7;) and a modern Rabbi is modestly assured, that Hermes, Pythagoras,
Plato, &c., derived their metaphysics from his illustrious countrymen.]

[Footnote 8: Four different opinions have been entertained concerning
the origin of human souls: 1. That they are eternal and divine. 2. That
they were created in a separate state of existence, before their union
with the body. 3. That they have been propagated from the original stock
of Adam, who contained in himself the mental as well as the corporeal
seed of his posterity. 4. That each soul is occasionally created and
embodied in the moment of conception.--The last of these sentiments
appears to have prevailed among the moderns; and our spiritual history
is grown less sublime, without becoming more intelligible.]

[Footnote 9: It was one of the fifteen heresies imputed to Origen, and
denied by his apologist, (Photius, Bibliothec. cod. cxvii. p. 296.) Some
of the Rabbis attribute one and the same soul to the persons of Adam,
David, and the Messiah.]

II. The seeds of the faith, which had slowly arisen in the rocky and
ungrateful soil of Judea, were transplanted, in full maturity, to the
happier climes of the Gentiles; and the strangers of Rome or Asia, who
never beheld the manhood, were the more readily disposed to embrace the
divinity, of Christ. The polytheist and the philosopher, the Greek and
the Barbarian, were alike accustomed to conceive a long succession,
an infinite chain of angels or daemons, or deities, or aeons, or
emanations, issuing from the throne of light. Nor could it seem strange
or incredible, that the first of these aeons, the Logos, or Word of God,
of the same substance with the Father, should descend upon earth, to
deliver the