mystic doctrine was adopted with many
fanciful improvements by Carpocrates, Basilides, and Valentine, [15] the
heretics of the Egyptian school. In their eyes, Jesus of Nazareth was a
mere mortal, the legitimate son of Joseph and Mary: but he was the
best and wisest of the human race, selected as the worthy instrument to
restore upon earth the worship of the true and supreme Deity. When he
was baptized in the Jordan, the Christ, the first of the aeons, the Son
of God himself, descended on Jesus in the form of a dove, to inhabit his
mind, and direct his actions during the allotted period of his ministry.
When the Messiah was delivered into the hands of the Jews, the Christ,
an immortal and impassible being, forsook his earthly tabernacle, flew
back to the pleroma or world of spirits, and left the solitary Jesus to
suffer, to complain, and to expire. But the justice and generosity of
such a desertion are strongly questionable; and the fate of an innocent
martyr, at first impelled, and at length abandoned, by his divine
companion, might provoke the pity and indignation of the profane.
Their murmurs were variously silenced by the sectaries who espoused and
modified the double system of Cerinthus. It was alleged, that when Jesus
was nailed to the cross, he was endowed with a miraculous apathy of mind
and body, which rendered him insensible of his apparent sufferings.
It was affirmed, that these momentary, though real, pangs would be
abundantly repaid by the temporal reign of a thousand years reserved for
the Messiah in his kingdom of the new Jerusalem. It was insinuated,
that if he suffered, he deserved to suffer; that human nature is never
absolutely perfect; and that the cross and passion might serve to
expiate the venial transgressions of the son of Joseph, before his
mysterious union with the Son of God. [16]

[Footnote 14: St. John and Cerinthus (A.D. 80. Cleric. Hist. Eccles.
p. 493) accidentally met in the public bath of Ephesus; but the apostle
fled from the heretic, lest the building should tumble on their heads.
This foolish story, reprobated by Dr. Middleton, (Miscellaneous Works,
vol. ii.,) is related, however, by Irenaeus, (iii. 3,) on the evidence
of Polycarp, and was probably suited to the time and residence of
Cerinthus. The obsolete, yet probably the true, reading of 1 John, iv.
3 alludes to the double nature of that primitive heretic. * Note:
Griesbach asserts that all the Greek Mss., all the translators, and