true son of God, true God, who was made man and died for the salvation of the world. This faith, therefore, rests upon the eternal truth. The effects of grace and holiness which it produces in the soul are sure pledges of this; and as these effects proceed from the Spirit of God, all must, at length, be referred to his testimony. But besides this indirect testimony, there is another more direct one, which the Three Divine Persons have rendered to Jesus Christ, either in express terms or by miraculous signs. The apostle, naturally, would not omit mention of this, especially when giving a succinct statement of his proofs. But whatever opinion may be formed on this point, to which we shall be obliged to return, our present aim is to establish by this double analysis of the points common to all the Gnostic sects and of St. John's epistle, that this epistle, taken as a whole, is directed against them. Let any one read it again with a mind filled with what we have said, and it will be found that there is hardly a single verse which has not a new light thrown upon it, and which will not remind him of some error. Each blow of our powerful athlete strikes home with such precision and such force, that it leaves in the heart of heresy a deep and deadly wound.

We should be in a better position to see this, if we had a more accurate and fuller knowledge of the numerous branches that, from the days of the apostles themselves, sprang from the great Gnostic tree, and of the various shades special to each of them. I wish to draw attention to two of them in particular, which are undoubtedly very ancient, and which seem to have excited the zeal of the apostle. The first is that of the Naassenians or Ophites, to which I may add other kindred sects in which the worship of the serpent was largely practised, such as that of the Perates and of the Sethians; the second is that of the Docetes.

The antiquity of the Naassenians is proved by the testimony of the author of the Philosophumena, who describes them as the genuine parents of Gnosticism. "At a later date", says he," they called themselves Gnostics, pretending that they alone knew the depths. To these last words allusion is made in the Apocalypse (verse 24): Whosoever have not this doctrine, and who have not known the depths of Satan (as they say)", etc. Now this Now this proves that St. John combated the Naassenians under the name of Nicolaïtes, and that these two sects were one and the same, or at least very closely resembling each other. The figures by which the Naassenians described he Deity, representing Him by the symbol of generation and of life, and all the various speculations in which they indulged on this subject, are quite in keeping with the shocking dissoluteness with which the Nicolaïtes were reproached. I think therefore that I am quite correct in affirming that St. John either included these sectarians under the

generic name of Balaamites, Nicolaïtes, etc., or else fought against them without mentioning their name.

Now we are specially concerned with the doctrines held by these fanatics with respect to blood and water. Condemning the flesh as evil, and rejecting marriage, they could not but feel a repugnance and horror of blood. Hence we find that they explained in an allegorical sense our Saviour's words, "Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood", etc., (Philosoph. v. 8, p. 152). As to water, they saw therein the greatest mysteries. The recollection of the waters above, mentioned in Genesis; the frequent ablutions prescribed to the Jews from out of whom these fanatics came, inspired them with reverence and respect for this element. In their opinion, water was an intermediate and complex being, barren of itself, but destined to fertilise the superior or inferior beings with whom it was brought into relation. Water, as it rose or fell, aided the generation of gods or of men. They spoke too of a living water and of an ineffable oil of which they alone possessed the secret, with which they alone were baptized and anointed. They knew how to discover and take up into their own substance from the midst even of the waters of the Euphrates and of Babylon, the elements that were homogeneous with themselves, and which opened to them the gate of the kingdom of heaven (Ibid., p. 140, 175). As the Egyptians (from whom they borrowed much) distinguished between the earthly Nile and the heavenly Nile, so they too recognized a heavenly Jordan (p. 151), and in the Garden of Eden a heavenly Euphrates (p. 173).

The Perates, so called from Tepaw (to pass), because they believed that they alone had an infallible secret, by aid of which they might pass through all obstacles and hostile powers, and the Sethians, so called from Seth the patriarch, assigned in their mythology a very important place to the serpent. Their opinions concerning water, although apparently opposed to those of the Naassenians, were in reality not so unlike to them. They considered water to be the symbol of death, destruction, and darkness. Ἔστι δὲ ἡ φθορὰ, φησὶ, τὸ ὕδωρ (Phil., 190, 210). Water was for them also the principle of generation and of life, but of a mortal life; for, they said, whatever is born must die. Their attention was chiefly fixed upon the lower darksome waters of chaos. They admitted, however, as an allegory, the escape from Egypt through the Red Sea. Egypt was a figure of matter, of the body from which they should depart, passing through the waters to reach repose and happiness. This allegory would go to prove that they did not exclude baptism, and that, like the Naassenians, they made water the principle of pscychical or animal life, middle between body and spirit. This proof

is completed by the three terms of their first triad, the Father, the Son, and Matter; the second, intermediate between the first and the last, is identified with the good serpent (ökaloλIKòs Ópis) which in turn, is described as the water issuing from Eden. Τουτο, φησίν, ἐστὶ μυστηριον Εδέμ, τουτο ποταμὸς εξ Εδεμ (Philosoph., p. 192).i

Of blood, they said, that it was agreeable only to the Demiurge, the god of this world, who showed how greedy he is of it, when he was pleased with the blood sacrifice of Abel, while he rejected the fruits of the earth offered to him by Cain (Ibid., p. 192).

These are the traits which we have brought together as deserving of special attention in an exegetical study of the text of St. John. They are not all of equal antiquity. On the contrary, it seems as if those fanatics, accustomed to alter whatever they adopted, took from St. John himself some texts which they wrested into a support for their frantic dreams. But, even if they adapted new texts to old ideas and theories, our line of argument is conclusive, because, though the words may be new, the ideas are undoubtedly of a much older date.

We shall say the same of the Docetes, another Gnostic sect, which undoubtedly goes back to the first century, although they afterwards clothed their ideas in phrases perverted from St. John's writings. Ancient writers do not count them among the heretics refuted by St. John, and several of the moderns still refuse to count them among such. But, if it be certain that they existed in his time, as is now admitted; if the apostolic fathers St. Ignatius and St. Polycarp have fought against them with the arguments, and at times with the very words of St. John; if the expressions themselves of the evangelist bear the impress of a most direct contradiction of their doctrines, why should it be denied that St. John wished to reach them and to confute them? As long as we were confined to the imperfect details furnished concerning them by St. Irenaeus and other recent fathers, there was perhaps some excuse for the doubt. All that was known of their doctrines was that according to them Christ had not become incarnate, save in appearance, that He was not really united to flesh and blood, and had not really endured for us torments and death. What, then, was the body which had been crucified under Pontius Pilate? Was it a mere phantom, or the body of Simon the Cyrenean, or of some other

This same serpent, this Word which appeared in human form in the time of Herod, is also, according to the Gnostic dreams, the mark placed upon Cain's forehead that no one should kill him. Does not the predilection thus evinced by these heretics for the first murderer, give a special reason for the designation of children, or imitators of Cain, given them by St. John, St. Jude, St. Peter, etc.?

person? We had a vague knowledge that the Docetes had invented more than one hypothesis to solve this difficulty. The publication of the Philosophumena has furnished us with some precise information on these points. I omit all that concerns the divine emanations, the fall of souls, the captivity in the flesh, their final state of restoration-on these points their ideas were those common to all the Gnostics. I limit myself to what they say of our Saviour aud of His manifestation in the world. In our Saviour they recognize the only-begotten Son of the Father, who came down to the empire of darkness, and to the Virgin's womb, in which He was clothed with a human and gross body. But this garment was not a personal one, since it was but a device to deceive the prince of this world. The Saviour, at His Baptism, was born again, and put on a more subtle body, formed in the water, if such words can be applied to a purely fantastic form modelled upon that of His earthly body. In the Passion, it was only the body formed in the womb of Mary that was fastened to the cross. The great Archon, or Demiurge, whose handiwork it was, was thus deceived, and led to vent his rage upon his own production. For the soul, or spiritual and heavenly substance which had been enclosed in the Saviour's flesh, cast off that flesh as an inconvenient and hateful garment; and lending its own help to fasten it to the cross, triumphed by aid of that very flesh over the principalities and powers. However, after the separation, it did not remain naked, but was clothed in that subtle shape which it had taken at its second birth in baptism (Ibid., viii. 10).

There are some points in this theory which are remarkable, as bringing it near, partly to the error of Cerinthus, and partly to that of the Ophites. Firstly, the admission that the earthly body formed in the Virgin's womb, and afterwards fixed on the cross, was a real body; they deny only the reality and permanence of the union of this body with the heavenly spirit which dwells therein; and secondly, the importance attached to the Saviour's baptism, and the place assigned to water as an intermediate element between flesh and spirit, in this, as in the systems explained above.

With the help of these historical details, it will be easier for us to undertake the explanation we have promised, of the fifth and following verses.

SAVONAROLA.

A FEW months ago the representatives of the Protestant states of Germany assembled at Worms to inaugurate a national monument to Luther. Not content with commemorating the great father of Protestantism, they wished at the same time to register the names of those who were his precursors and the champions of his tenets in earlier times; and hence, around the pedestal of Luther's statue were grouped the portraits of Wickliffe, Huss, Peter de Vaux, and Savonarola.

It is strange, indeed, that in a country which boasts of its historical research, the name of the Italian religious should be allowed to remain for one hour inscribed on such a monument. However, France, England, and Germany had each a representative among the heroes of Protestantism, and it was deemed important to find a name from the now friendly kingdom of Italy. How different was the honour shown to Savonarola by his contemporaries and fellow-citizens !

Florence has ever been jealous of its Catholic faith, and yet it has never ceased to revere his memory. It cherishes as a sanctuary the dwelling-place of its holy bishop, St. Antoninus. It points with pride to the halls where the great council was celebrated, and to the apartments at San Marco, chosen for his residence by Pope Eugene the Fourth. And with no less reverence does it still guard the humble cell of Savonarola.

It was only a few years after the death of Savonarola when Raffaello received an order from Pope Julius the Second to execute that masterpiece of art which still adorns the Vatican, and in which the Catholic world is represented as grouped around the blessed sacrament of the altar. Now in the capital of holy Church, and under the eyes of the Pontiff, Jerome Savonarola was represented in that wondrous painting, united with St. Thomas of Aquin, as a doctor of the Catholic faith, and an ornament of the order of St. Dominick. Thus the monument of Worms shall be forgotten ere the Catholic fame of the Florentine Dominican shall cease to be proclaimed to the civilized world in this masterpiece of Raffaello.

In later times the memory of Savonarola was honoured by members of the Church remarkable alike for their sanctity and for the earnestness of their zeal in opposing heresy. St. Catherine de Ricci revered him as an apostle and martyr. St. Philip Neri venerated him as one who had achieved great things for holy Church, and had merited to suffer much in that sacred cause. In the year 1558 his eulogy was publicly pronounced in the presence of the then Pontiff, Paul the Fourth; and we may add