aratively free from divisions; and, whilst
the inspired heralds of the gospel lived, it could not be said that
"there were parties in religion." The heretics who appeared were never
able to organize any formidable combinations; they were inconsiderable
in point of numbers; and, though not wanting in activity, those to whom
our Lord had personally entrusted the publication of His Word, were
ready to oppose them, so that all their efforts were effectually checked
or defeated. The most ancient writers acknowledge that, during the early
part of the second century, the same state of things continued.
According to Hegesippus, who outlived Polycarp about fifteen or twenty
years, [529:1] the Church continued until the death of Simeon of
Jerusalem, in A.D. 116, [529:2] "as a pure and uncorrupted virgin." "If
there were any at all," says he, "who attempted to pervert the right
standard of saving doctrine, they were yet skulking in dark retreats;
but when the sacred company of the apostles had, in various ways,
finished their career, AND THE GENERATION OF THOSE WHO HAD BEEN
PRIVILEGED TO HEAR THEIR INSPIRED WISDOM HAD PASSED AWAY, then at length
the fraud of false teachers produced a confederacy of impious errors."
[529:3] The date of the appearance of these parties is also established
by the testimony of Celsus, who lived in the time of the Antonines, and
who was one of the most formidable of the early antagonists of
Christianity. This writer informs us that, though in the beginning the
disciples were agreed in sentiment, they became, in his days, when
"spread out into a multitude, divided and distracted, each aiming to
give stability to his own faction." [530:1]

The statements of Hegesippus and Celsus are substantiated by a host of
additional witnesses. Justin Martyr, [530:2] Irenaeus, [530:3] Clemens
Alexandrinus, [530:4] Cyprian, [530:5] and others, all concur in
representing the close of the reign of Hadrian, or the beginning of the
reign of Antoninus Pius, as the period when heresies burst forth, like a
flood, upon the Church. The extant ecclesiastical writings of the
succeeding century are occupied chiefly with their refutation. No wonder
that the best champions of the faith were embarrassed and alarmed. They
had hitherto been accustomed to boast that Christianity was the cement
which could unite all mankind, and they had pointed triumphantly to its
influence in bringing together the Jew and the Gentile, the Greek and
the