pre-existence of souls. He regarded the
world as formed by inferior spirits who are out of harmony with the
supreme unity, knowledge of which is the true _Gnosis_. The souls which
remember their pre-existing state can attain to this contemplation of
unity, and thereby rise superior to all the ordinary doctrines of
religion or life. Jesus is but a man in whom this reminiscence is
unusually strong, and who has consequently attained to unusual spiritual
excellence and power. To the Gnostic the things of the world are
worthless; they are to him matters of indifference. From this position
it easily followed that actions, being merely external, were morally
indifferent, and that the true Gnostic should abandon himself to every
lust with perfect indifference. The express declaration of these
antinomian principles is said to have been given by Epiphanes. The
notorious licentiousness of the sect was the carrying out of their
theory into practice.

CARPZOV (Latinized _Carpzovius_), the name of a family, many of whose
members attained distinction in Saxony in the 17th and 18th centuries as
jurists, theologians and statesmen. The family traced its origin to
Simon Carpzov, who was burgomaster of Brandenburg in the middle of the
16th century, and who left two sons, Joachim (d. 1628), master-general
of the ordnance in the service of the king of Denmark, and BENEDIKT
(1565-1624), an eminent jurist.

BENEDIKT CARPZOV was born in Brandenburg on the 22nd of October 1565,
and after studying at Frankfort and Wittenberg, and visiting other
German universities, was made doctor of laws at Wittenberg in 1590. He
was admitted to the faculty of law in 1592, appointed professor of
institutions in 1599, and promoted to the chair _Digesti infortiati et
novi_ in 1601. In 1602 he was summoned by Sophia, widow of the elector
Christian I. of Saxony, to her court at Colditz, as chancellor, and was
at the same time appointed councillor of the court of appeal at Dresden.
After the death of the electress in 1623 he returned to Wittenberg, and
died there on the 26th of November 1624, leaving five sons. He published
a collection of writings entitled _Disputationes juridicae_.

BENEDIKT CARPZOV (1595-1666), second of the name, was the second son of
the preceding, and like him was a great lawyer. He was born at
Wittenberg on the 27th of May 1595, was at first a professor at Leipzig,
obtained an honourable post at Dresden in 1639, became ordinary of the