quoted by Tillemont, they were the descendants of some of the families which established themselves at Pella. With an acknowledgment of the Messiahship of Jesus, the divine authority of the gospel-record, and the Christian sacraments, they held a firm adherence to all that could be practised of Judaism, after the ruin of the ceremonial apparatus. However correct may have been their early views of the Saviour, they were not long in falling into low and unworthy errors on the subject of his person. In this they were speedily outstripped by the Ebionites, who, from a rise apparently the same with that of the Nazareans, became distinguished for the gross extravagances both of their opinions and conduct. They are said to have concentrated in these the venom of the other Gnostic sects. Both the Nazareans and Ebionites retained the Jewish vernacular, and held in especial regard the Syriac Gospel of St. Matthew, which they soon rendered worthless by their corrupt treatment of the text. The Nazareans were yet found in the fourth century at Pella, in the Decapolis; at Cocaba, in the country of Basan; and at Berea, a celebrated city of Lower Syria. St. Jerome had intercourse with them at the latter place, where he says he made a transcript of their Gospel.
TRADITIONS OF EARLY ORIENTAL MISSIONARIES.
1. There is a prevailing and by no means ill-founded belief that the Magi, of whom we read in the second chapter of St. Matthew, communicated the first, though indistinct, evangelic tidings to the Gentiles of the East. It is impossible to dispel the obscurity which rests upon the questions of the country, station, and subsequent career of those devout and highly-favoured men, or to settle the titles of contending peoples who have laid claim to them as their countrymen. According to an Armenian tradition, the Magi came to the Holy Land from a part of Tartary called Tanguth, where, after their return, they prepared the way for the gospel. The Chaldeans, on the other hand, claim them as natives of, and
