a Dissertation, entitled De Præscriptione Hæreticorum : but the concluding part of this treatise, subsequent to the forty-fifth chapter, is now generally looked upon as a later addition. Tertullian also wrote against several particular heresies, as that of Hermogenes, who believed in the eternity of Matter; of Valentinus and Marcion, who were two of the most distinguished Gnostics in the second century; and of Praxeas, who was one of the earliest supporters of the Patripassian heresy. All these treatises have come down to us and it is impossible to have an adequate notion of the Gnostic doctrines without a perusal of the work against Valentinus, and the five books against Marcion. The best edition of Tertullian was published at Paris, in 1675, by Priorius; though that in 6 volumes 8°. by Semler, Halæ, 1770-6, is valuable as containing some additions to the tract de Oratione, which were discovered by Muratori.

Philaster, or Philastrius, who was Bishop of Brescia about A. D. 380, drew up a small work, de Hæresibus, which has been published in different Bibliothecæ Patrum, and separately in 1528, 1611, and 1721b: but it has been proved to contain many inaccuracies.

We know from Augustin, that Jerom wrote a treatise upon heresies, though Augustin himself does not appear to have seen it. Cl. Menardus published at Paris, in 1617, Indiculus de Haresibus Judæorum, which was supposed by him to have been written by Jerom; but good reasons have been alleged for thinking it spurious; and the work itself is extremely short.

The longest and most elaborate work which has come down to us upon ancient heresies, is that of Epiphanius, who was Bishop in the island of Cyprus, and flourished A.D. 368. It was published by Petavius, at Paris, in 1662, and reprinted with some few additions in 1682, at Leipsic, though Coloniæ appears in the title-page. The authority of Epiphanius does not stand high; and he must be allowed to have been a credulous writer, who did not exercise much

This edition is valuable on ac- contain much information connected count of the notes of Fabricius, which with the early heretics.

judgment or criticism in the collection and arrangement of his materials. But still his work is indispensable to the ecclesiastical historian; and it contains a mass of valuable information, much of which must have been taken from more ancient documents, and which certainly was not the produce of his own invention.

Augustin, who lived in the same century with Jerom and Epiphanius, also wrote a short treatise upon heresies. He enumerates eighty-eight different sects, of which the Pelagians are the last. The notices of each heresy are concise, and do not supply much new information. The work is to be found at the commencement of the eighth volume of the Benedictine edition of Augustin.

In the year 1643 J. Sirmondus published a work upon heresies, divided into three books, and bearing the name of Prædestinatus. The writer appears to have lived not long after the time of Augustin, and to have followed the same order in the enumeration of heresies. Various conjectures have been formed as to his real name. Some have supposed him to have been Primasius, an African bishop; others have attributed the work to Arnobius Junior, or to a person named Vincentius: but this must be looked upon as a point which is still undecided. The author, whoever he may have been, had either access to some documents which had not been seen by the other writers, whose works have come down to us, or he added many particulars from his own imagination. I should rather suspect the latter to have been the case. The work has been republished in 1677 and 1686.

The writer, who has treated the subject of heresies at most length, next to Epiphanius, is Theodoret, who was bishop of Cyrus in Syria, and composed a work in five books against all heresies, about the year 452. It may be found in the fourth volume of the edition of the works of Theodoret, published at Paris by J. Sirmondus in 1642. This writer, though he is much more concise than Epiphanius, appears in many respects to be more deserving of credit. His sources of information were evidently not the same; and he

has given proofs of being a much more judicious and critical compiler. Wherever Epiphanius and Theodoret differ, few persons would hesitate to follow the latter.

Leontius of Byzantium, a writer of some note at the end of the sixth century, wrote a work de Sectis, which is divided into ten parts, and contains an account of several early heresies. It has been published in 1578 by Leunclavius, and in the Bibliotheca Patrum, 1624, vol. I. p. 493.

Isidorus, bishop of Hispala, who flourished A. D. 595, wrote a work entitled Origenes; and in the third, fourth, and fifth chapters of the eighth book, a description is given of all the early heresies. The best edition of the works of Isidorus is that of Du Breul, 1617.

It is hardly necessary to mention the work of Anastasius, entitled Hodegus, which was composed towards the end of the sixth century; and in the fourth chapter of which there is a brief enumeration of all the heresies down to the time of Nestorius. It may be found in the Bibliotheca Patrum, and in Fabricius, Bibl. Gr. vol. VII. p. 480.

The same may be said of the circular Epistle written by Sophronius, patriarch of Jerusalem, about the year 629, in which he gives a long list of several heretics: but of some of them he mentions little more than the names. It may found in the Collections of general Councils, and in Fabricius, Bibl. Gr. vol. VII. p. 483.

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A more detailed account of the early heresies was given by Timotheus, a presbyter of Constantinople, who is placed by different writers at the beginning of the sixth or seventh centuries. The object of his work was to describe the process of admitting heretics into the church. It was published by Meursius in 1619: by Combefisius, in the second volume of his Auctarium Novum, Paris, 1648; and, lastly, by Cotelerius, in the third volume of his Monumenta Ecclesiæ Græcæ, p. 377: but this edition of the work differs very much from the preceding.

John Damascenus, as he is generally called from his native place, Damascus, was one of the most distinguished

writers of the eighth century, and he has left a work of some length, which treats of all heresies. But the greater part of it is in fact nothing else than a compilation from Epiphanius; and the account of the later heresies is alone the original work of Damascenus. The best edition of this author is that of Lequien, Paris, 1712.

Rabanus Maurus, who wrote in the ninth century, has given a list of early heresies in the 58th chapter of the second book of his work de Clericorum Institutione: but he has evidently copied Isidorus of Hispala.

We do not meet with any other heresiologist till the twelfth century, when Euthymius Zigabenus published his Panoplia Dogmatica Orthodoxa Fidei, in which the tenets of several heretics are refuted. The whole of this work has never been published in Greek: but copies of it exist in the Bodleian and other libraries.

Zonaras, who flourished at the beginning of the same century, composed, among many other works, a Tract, entitled Canon in Sanctissimam Deiparam, in which he briefly refutes several heresies. It was published for the first time entire by Cotelerius, in his Monumenta Ecclesiæ Græcæ, vol. III. p. 465.

In the same century, Honorius, a presbyter of Aucun in Burgundy, composed a work upon Heresies, which was published at Basle in 1544: at Helmstadt in 1611: and in the Bibliotheca Patrum, 1618. vol. XII. p. 1009. and Constantinus Harmenopulus wrote a book de Sectis Hæreticis, which was published by Fronto Ducæus, in his Auctuarium, 1624. vol. I. p. 533.

Nicetas Choniates, (whose history of the emperors of Constantinople is well known among the works of the Byzantine historians, and who fled to Nice in Bithynia, when Constantinople was taken by the Crusaders,) wrote also a long work in twenty-seven books, entitled Thesaurus Orthodoxa Fidei. The five first books were published in Latin by P. Morellus in 1580, but the Greek has never yet appeared in print, though MSS. of the entire work are preserved in the Bodleian and in the Laurentian library at

Florence. The fourth book contains an account of fortyfour heresies, which preceded the time of Arius.

It is hardly necessary to mention the works of later writers, who from the time at which they lived cannot be quoted with any confidence, when they differ from more ancient authors. Some of them, however, if they did not altogether invent the facts which they have recorded, must have had access to older works which are now lost. Ittigius mentions the names of the following writers who have given an account of early heresies: Guido de Perpiniano, (A. D. 1330.) Matthæus Blastares, (A. D. 1335.) Bernhardus Luxenburgensis, (A. D. 1520.) Gabriel Prateoli, (A. D. 1570.) Alphonsus a Castro, (A. D. 1540.) Theodorus Petreius, (A. D. 1594.) Bonaventura Malvasia, and Daniel Cramerus.

For the whole of this list of heresiologists, I am greatly indebted to the work of Ittigius, already referred to, and to the laborious collections of Fabricius and Cave.

The history of early heresies has been illustrated by several modern writers, who have either undertaken to compose a general ecclesiastical history, or have applied themselves specifically to a consideration of the subject, which occupies the following pages. In the department of ecclesiastical history, our own country does not hold so conspicuous a place as in some other branches of theological learning: and the French and German writers have perhaps been most laborious and most successful in throwing light upon those early times. I need only mention the names of Du Pin, Tillemont, and Mosheim: but the work of Tillemont, entitled Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire ecclesiastique des six premiers Siecles, will be found particularly valuable in an inquiry like the present. The reader will not want to be reminded, that the author of these Mémoires was a member of the Romish church: but Tillemont was not only an indefatigable compiler and scrupulous in giving references, but his candour and liberality are often worthy of admiration; and it is evident that he would have spoken more plainly, and given a more critical decision, upon some