ing
their Trinity from the Valentinians and Marcionites. See Beausobre,
Hist. de Manicheisme, l. iii. c. 5, 7.]

[Footnote 27: Non dignum est ex utero credere Deum, et Deum Christum....
non dignum est ut tanta majestas per sordes et squalores muli eris
transire credatur. The Gnostics asserted the impurity of matter, and of
marriage; and they were scandalized by the gross interpretations of the
fathers, and even of Augustin himself. See Beausobre, tom. ii. p. 523,
* Note: The greater part of the Docetae rejected the true divinity
of Jesus Christ, as well as his human nature. They belonged to the
Gnostics, whom some philosophers, in whose party Gibbon has enlisted,
make to derive their opinions from those of Plato. These philosophers
did not consider that Platonism had undergone continual alterations,
and that those who gave it some analogy with the notions of the Gnostics
were later in their origin than most of the sects comprehended under
this name Mosheim has proved (in his Instit. Histor. Eccles. Major. s.
i. p. 136, sqq and p. 339, sqq.) that the Oriental philosophy, combined
with the cabalistical philosophy of the Jews, had given birth to
Gnosticism. The relations which exist between this doctrine and the
records which remain to us of that of the Orientals, the Chaldean and
Persian, have been the source of the errors of the Gnostic Christians,
who wished to reconcile their ancient notions with their new belief. It
is on this account that, denying the human nature of Christ, they
also denied his intimate union with God, and took him for one of the
substances (aeons) created by God. As they believed in the eternity of
matter, and considered it to be the principle of evil, in opposition to
the Deity, the first cause and principle of good, they were unwilling to
admit that one of the pure substances, one of the aeons which came forth
from God, had, by partaking in the material nature, allied himself to
the principle of evil; and this was their motive for rejecting the real
humanity of Jesus Christ. See Ch. G. F. Walch, Hist. of Heresies in
Germ. t. i. p. 217, sqq. Brucker, Hist. Crit. Phil. ii. p 639.--G.]

[Footnote 28: Apostolis adhuc in saeculo superstitibus apud Judaeam
Christi sanguine recente, et phanlasma corpus Domini asserebatur.
Cotelerius thinks (Patres Apostol. tom. ii. p. 24) that those who will
not allow the Docetes to have arisen in the time of the Apostles, may
with equal reason deny that the sun shines