philosophy came out of the East into Greece, where it was held in all its purity by Plato, but that it became corrupted and therefore Christ came to purify it. He considered the Deity and the Universe as one great whole, and he maintained the eternity of the world, the empire of Providence, and the government of mankind by demons. He commanded his disciples to mortify the flesh, in order that they might become Theurges, and able to see demons; and he asserted that Christ was the chief Theurge, or workman of God. This system of philosophy had a most injurious effect on Christianity, for its doctrines became mixed up with all kinds of theories arising out of Platonism, respecting the nature of the soul, the destiny of man, the use of reason, &c.

Manes, or Manichæus, a Persian and Magian priest, caused a great schism in the Church, and gave more trouble than any other heretics of that century. Manes asserted that he was the Comforter promised by Christ, and he taught doctrines which were a mixture of Christianity with the ancient religion of the Persians. He also insisted on the mortification of the body, and the suppression of all the natural appetites. His followers were called Manichæans, and were governed by a general assembly headed by a president who represented Christ; with him were joined twelve rulers who represented the twelve apostles, and these were followed by seventy-two bishops, representing the seventytwo disciples. These bishops had presbyters and deacons under them, and all the members of these religious orders were chosen out of the class of the elect or perfect Christians, the other class, or imperfect Christians styled "hearers" being ineligible. There were many other heresies, such as those of Noëtus, Sabellius, Hieron, Novatian, and others, which found full employment for the Christian writers of their day; but as we are not writing a history of the Church there is no occasion to give an account of them. The specimens already selected will suffice to give unlearned readers an idea of the notions which occupied the attention of the religious world in the first four centuries of the Christian

era.

The fourth century may be considered the culminating period of the literature of the early Church. In it flourished those great writers and gifted men who are by common consent preeminently styled "the Fathers," viz., Ambrose, Athanasius, Eusebius, Gregory of Nazianzen, Gregory of Nyssa, and Jerome. And there were others remarkable for learning and for their controversial powers, such as Arius, Ephraem the Syrian, Isidore of Alexandria, Methodius, Rufinus, Theodoret, Paulinus, &c.

After the subsidence of the great Arian controversy, the Melctian dispute, and the Donatist war, the literary genius of Christianity began to slumber. There were no longer the stimulants of persecution and poverty to call forth its energies. When the emperor Constantine publicly embraced Christianity persecution came to an end, and the religion of the despised Nazarene became all-fashionable as well as allprevading. Paganism died out, and the Church had only to fear those enemies which were of her own household. She put forth all her strength to crush Arianism, Sabellianism, Manichæism, Montanism, and a variety of other isms, and was successful in Europe, though less so in Asia and Africa. But her literature languished from want of stimulus, and finally subsided into a very mediocre state, from which it did not emerge until the religious movements in the 14th 15th and 16th centuries roused it from its lethargy, and gave rise to an entirely new phase of controversial writing.

The cultivation of early Christian literature has received a fresh impetus from the recent successful labours of Dr. Constantine Tischendorf, the illustrous German biblical scholar, in the east. This indefatigable man, after unheard of exertion, toil, and risk, has achieved the great object of his ambition, viz., the discovery among the concealed literary treasures of the East of a genuine manuscript of the Bible of the most ancient date and of undoubted authenticity. Among a number of old parchments in the convent of St. Catharine, situated at the foot of Mount Sinai, he found upwards of forty sheets of a copy of the Old Testament in Greek. Having been allowed to take possession of these he examined them closely and found enough to

induce him to prosecute further search, and this was rewarded by the ultimate finding of the rest of the manuscript. It proved to be a complete copy of the Greek translation from the Hebrew of the Old Testament, made by seventytwo of the most learned men employed by Ptolemy, king of Egypt, for that purpose; and also the New Testament in Greek, with the entire epistle of Barnabas, and a part of "the Shepherd of Hermas." Dr. Tichendorf has given to the world, in a little volume entitled Wann wurden unsere Evangelien verfasst? (When were our Gospels written?) a most interesting account of his discovery and of the difficulties which he had to overcome in making it, and in obtaining the manuscript. There can be no doubt that hundreds of precious manuscripts are still lying in obscure nooks in the ancient monasteries of that continent. Could these documents be brought to light and placed in the hands of such men as Tischendorf, there is no saying what service might be rendered to biblical knowledge, and to history. To those who are blessed with wealth and have enterprise to undertake such explorations here is a rich field for their labours. Throughout Asia Minor, Armenia, western Persia, Mesopotamia, Syria, Arabia, Egypt, northern Africa, and Ethiopia, which, in the early centuries of the Church and of the time of the rise of the Saracen empire in the 8th century, were the seats of flourishing churches, and were respectively under the jurisdiction of the patriarchs or presiding bishops of Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, and Carthage, exist the remains of many monasteries, once wealthy and influential communities, but now the shades of poor and ignorant recluses who live in constant dread of their Mahommedan oppressors, and of the predatory hordes which infest these lands.

Here the traveller may at the same time gratify his love of adventure and a desire to immortalize his name as a benefactor of literature and of humanity. Let any one so disposed take example by Dr. Tischendorf, and consider what may be achieved by strong determination to overcome obstacles and to carry out an idea, or crotchet if you will. A long course of severe study of the Scriptures in the lan

guages in which they were written convinced Dr. TischendorfTM that many serious errors had crept into the sacred text, owing to the fact of the original writings having been copied, recopied, and multiplied by hand during the centuries which elapsed previous to the invention of printing in the 15th century. In order to rectify these errors Dr. Tischendorf formed the design of revising and examining with the utmost possible care the most ancient manuscripts of the New Testament which were to be found in the libraries. of Europe, and of collecting all the Greek manuscripts which could be obtained that were more than a thousand years. old, and he extended his investigations to the Apocryphal books before mentioned, and, indeed, to any manuscript. which could throw light directly or indirectly on the text of Scripture. He commenced his labours in 1839 with the New Testament, using such materials as he had access to in Germany, and in the autumn of 1840 he produced his first critical edition of it. But he had become convinced that much more was to be done by a fresh examination of the original documents existing in foreign countries, and he accordingly cast about for the means of carrying out his design. He obtained a hundred dollars from the Saxon government to defray his travelling expenses for one year, and a promise of another hundred for the next. With this paltry sum he went to Paris, having when he reached that city but fifty dollars left, and not sufficient means to purchase a proper travelling suit. In Paris he continued to support himself by his pen, while he devoted his spare time to the explora-tion of the valuable libraries of that great city.

It was in Paris that Dr. Tischendorf made his first grand discovery. In one of the libraries was a parchment Greek manuscript, the writing of which, of the date of the fifth century, had been retouched and renewed in the seventh and again in the ninth century. In the twelfth century thisparchment had been washed and pumiced in order that some one might write on it a treatise of an old Father of the Church of the name of Ephraem. Five centuries later the Swiss theologian, Wetstein, had attempted to discipher a few traces of the original manuscript; and later still, another

theologian, Griesbach of Jena, came to try his skill on it, although the librarian assured him that it was impossible for mortal cye to rediscover a trace of the writing. The French government assisted him by having recourse to powerful chemicals in order to bring out the effaced characters. These attempts failed.

But in 1841 Dr. Tichendorf tried his hand at deciphering the manuscript and succeeded completely. This brought him into favourable notice; and the king of Saxony and several eminent patrons of learning at Frankfort, Geneva, Rome and Breslau, came forward with offers of assistance. He was thus enabled to visit the great libraries of England, Holland, Switzerland, and Italy, spending three years in his labour. In April, 1844, he pushed on to the East, and in the course of that year he visited Egypt and the Coptic convents, the convents of Mount Sinai, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, St. Saba, Nazareth, Smyrna, Patmos, Beyrout, Constantinople, and Athens.

In the convent of St. Catharine, at the foot of Mount Sinai, he made the discovery which has made him famous. In the middle of the great hall of that convent he perceived a great basketful of old parchments, and the librarian told him that two heaps of similar parchments had already been committed to the flames. In this heap he found a considerable number of sheets of a copy of the Old Testament in Greek, and was allowed to take possession of about fortyfive of them; but his eagerness to get possession of the rest aroused suspicions as to their value; so he was obliged to content himself with what he had got; and, having requested the monks to take care of the parchments, he returned to Germany with his treasure, which he deposited in the library of the University of Leipzig. In January, 1853, he returned to the Sinaitic convent and discovered more manuscripts. In 1856 he submitted to the emperor of Russia a plan for systematic researches in the East, and in 1858 that enlightened monarch placed the necessary funds at his disposal. In January, 1859, he again started for the East, and revisited the convent of Mount Sinai. There the steward of the convent privately showed him, not only the