OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 115 religion. Their belief and their trust was in the Father of Christ, of the human soul, and of the invisil)le world. But they likewise held the eternity of matter : a stubborn and rebellious substance, the orijjin of a second principle, of an active being, who has created this visible world and exercises his temporal reign till the final consummation of death and sin.^^ The appear- ances of moral and physical evil had established the two prin- ciples in the ancient philosophy and religion of the East ; from whence this doctrine was transfused to the various swarms of the Gnostics. A thousand shades may be devised in the nature and character of Ahrivuni, from a rival god to a subordinate daemon, from passion and frailty to pure and perfect malevolence : but, in spite of our efforts, the goodness and the power of Ormusd are placed at the opposite extremities of the line ; and everv' step that approaches the one must recede in equal proportion from the other. ^3 The apostolic labours of Constantine-Svlvanus soon multiplied tii« estabiish- 1 1 /-iT-ii f ^ ment of the the number of his disciples, the secret recompense of spiritual Pauucians
- - * * in Armenia,
ambition. The remnant of the Gnostic sects, and especially the Pontua, ac. Manichaeans of Armenia, were united under his standard ; many Catholics were converted or seduced by his arguments ; and he preached with success in the regions of Pontus^^ and Cappadocia, which had long since imbibed the religion of Zoroaster. The Paulician teachers were distinguished only by their scriptural n.imes, by the modest title of fellow-pilgrims, by the austerity of their lives, their zeal or knowledge, and the credit of some extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit. But they were incapable of desiring, or at least of obtaining, the wealth and honours of the Catholic prelacy : such antichristian pride they bitterly cen- sured ; and even the rank of elders or presbyters was condemned as an institution of the Jewish synagogue. The new sect was ^* Primum illoruni axioma est, duo rerum esse principia ; Deum malum et Deum bonum aliumque hujus mundi conditorem et principem, et alium futuri cevi (Petr. Sicul. p. 756 [c. 10, p. 1253, ed. Migne]). [One Rod was the Heavenly Father, who has not authority in this world but in the world to come ; the other was the world-maker (cosmopoietes), who governs the present world. Cp. George Mon. , p. 607, ed. Muralt.] I'Two learned critics, Beausobre (Hist. Critique du Manich^isme, 1. i. 4, 5, 6) and Mosheim (Institut. Hist. Eccles. andde Rebus Christianis ante Constantinum, sec. i. ii. iii.), have laboured to explore and discriminate the various systems of the Gnostics on the subject of the two principles. ^■^ The countries between the Euphrates and the Halys were possessed above 350 years by the Medes (Hcrodot. 1. i. c. 103) and Persians ; and the kings of Pontus were of the royal race of the .Achnemenides (.Snllust. Fragment. 1. iii. with the French supplement, and notes of the President de Brosses).
