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    spurious book , entitled , the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs . Cave , in his Historia Literaria , calls the author a Judaizing Christian . Beausobre , in his History of Manichaeism , says , this

    book was forged in the second century by an Ebionite , tvho believed Jesus to be the son of Joseph and Mary . Thus , both these writers bear testimony to this being the work of an Unitarian . It is needless for ttie

    to mention particularly such persons or books as were considered as heretical in their own time . The Clementine Recognitions and Homilies , both written about the end of the second

    century , are acknowledged by all to have been written , the first by an A nan , the second by an JEbionite . Beryllus , bishop of Bosra , is said by Jerome , to have denied that Christ existed before his incarnation . It is

    universally allowed , that Noetus and Paul of Samosata believed that Christ was simply a man . But these were heretics . Theognostus , who lived in the year £ 72 , was not considered as a heretic ; yet Photius says , that he speaks of the Son as a creature . It is unnecessary to do more than barely mention the Arians . But Arnobius

    &nd Lactantius were not in their own time considered as heretics : yet bishop Warburton says , that they undertook the defence of Christianity before they understood it . Bishop Ball says , that Lactantius had very little knowledge of the Christian doctrine . And it is very common for

    learned moderns to speak in that manner of this writer and Arnobius . Jerome says of Lactantius , that in his epistles he denies the personality of the Holy Spirit ; and Gallaeus says of him , " that he is silent about the principal cause of Christ ' s i near nation , namely , his priestly office ; and conteftds , that Christ assumed human

    nature only that he might announce to all nations the one only true God , and might furnish an example of virtue to men . Every one nfiay see , adds Gallaeus , " how cold all these things are , since the principal end of Christ ' s incarnation is omitted ** From

    Ihese quotations , it is plain that these Trinitarian writers admit that Lqctantius was not a Trinitarian , and that he did not consider Christ ' s death a a propitiatory sacrifice for sirt , of a

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    satisfaction made to divine justice Tot the sins of the human race . Of Marcellus , bishop of Ancyra in the year 320 , Socrates says , " lie dared to say that Christ was a mere man . " Photinus , bishop of Sirmium in the year 341 , was deposed for maintaining that Christ was a mere man .

    Of Theodore , bishop of Mopsuestia in the year 3 J > 4 , Simeon Beth Arfcam says , that along with Diodorus of Tarsus , and Paul of Samosata , he maintained that Christ was a man , created mortal , of the same substance

    with ourselves ; that he is the adoptive son and temple of the eternal God ; that he is not the son of God by any peculiar nature , but by favour and adoption . Carpocratus about the year 120 , Cerinthus about the same time , Leucius about the year 140 ,

    Artemon about the year 200 , ahd Praxeas about the same time , are all allowed , by all Trinitarian writers , to have been believers in the simple humanity of Christ ; but , as they are generally considered as heretics , I shall say nothing more about them .

    What has now been brought forward , however , fully proves that many Trinitarians have admitted , that many of the early Christians were not Trinitarians , and have complained of the writings of the fathers as not sufficiently orthodox . With one other very

    striking proof of this 1 shall conclude . Matthias Flacius Illyricus , one of the first Lutherans , in the preface to his . Key to the Scriptures says , " Most Christian writers , wh 6 lived soofi

    after the apostles , discoursed philbsophically of the law and its moral precepts , of virtue add vice , but they were totally ignorant of man ' s natural corruption , of the mysteries of the gospel , and . the benefits of Christ . "

    "My country man Jerome , " adds he , " was well skilled in languages , and endeavoured to explain the Scriptures by versions and commentaries £ but he was able to do very littfe > being ignorant of the human disease , and of Christ the physician , and being

    destitute of the key necessary to open the Scriptures /* And in his preface to the Centuriae Magdeburgenses , h& says , ** Ensebius describes a Christian so , that if th £ knowledge of Christ bt omitted , he might seem to describe it virtuous Htatliep . For h £ says , that

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    Early Unitarian Christian Writers . 807

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1819, page 307, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1772/page/27/