Section 5 (Page i)
PRELIMINARY
OBSERVATIONS
ON THE GNOSTIC SYSTEM.
The Gnostic system in its original development, marks an Early earnest endeavour on the part of the human intellect to ^Belief! recur to certain primary principles, that gave a starting ^
v. point to the philosophical theories of Greece, and that subPlot Porgh. sisted among other races also, in proportion to their civili sation, as the arcane soul of their faith in things unseen.
That glimpses of truth, of which man had an unclouded view in Paradise, were still retained in the earliest ages of the world, is very evident, so far as the Bible has revealed to us the religious history of the various families of the human race after the deluge.
For a time, at least, the tra ditions of Paradise held their ground; nor had they wholly died away when Christ appeared.
Gnosticism applied itself to collect and re-arrange these fragmentary portions of truth ; although, as might be expected of a work performed without reference to Divine Revelation, the materials were thrown together in much grotesque confusion, and pre sented at the best a rude and undigested mass of dimly appreciated truth.
The Persian theosophy of Zoroaster, p. 44, n. 1. the Cabbala learned by the Jews in Babylon, the Isiacal traditions of Egypt, as refined into a system of harmony by Plato, the arithmetical theories of Pythagoras, possibly of Indian origin, and symbolising the abstract truth and unbut rf A limited power of the Deity, were severally laid under p£. 1. 'sou vol.
1. a
PATRIARCHAL
THEOLOGY.
Early contribution ; they were amalgamated successively by the Belief.
Gnostic schools, and eventually all met in the Valentinian — theory.
A brief review of the earlier forms of religious belief so far as History, whether Sacred or Profane, has revealed them to us, will enable the reader to judge of the cor rectness of this view.
Before Abraham was chosen to be the especial guardian of the truth, we may trace the existence of a primitive theology upon earth.
Melchizedek, most probably of the race of Shem, whose genealogy coincided with that of Abraham in some ancestral link, was a Preacher of Righte-
Heb. »u. i. ousness and Priest of the Most High God, and he ex pressed doctrines that, without doubt, were handed down from a more ancient source.
Are we to imagine that the same truths were altogether hidden from other collateral branches of the same widely spreading stock ; such as the children of Elam, and Aram, and Asshur, the Joktanida3 of the Arab coasts, or the Shemitic dispersion of the days of Peleg?
If we follow the patriarch Abraham in his descent to Egypt, we observe clearly that the primitive traditions of the Asiatic had not yet wholly evaporated.
They still possessed in direct descent, a fragmentary ray of the re ligious light inherited by the sons of Noah
; for we cannot fail to be struck with the similarity of faith in funda mental verities, that brought Abraham and the Egyptian king into closer relations than could have subsisted without it.
Their intercourse was established upon the immutable .m. 19; basis of justice and truth ; whilst Hagar, the Egyptian handmaid of Sarah, confessed faith in an All-wise Deity, . xvi. 10. and was favoured with an angelic vision and message.
»■ Abimelech also, king of Gerar of the Philistines, gave evidence of his belief in one God, and expressed himself in a religious point of view very much as the patriarch