Several of the texts of the Gospel histories were quoted with great plausibility by the Gnostics in support of their doctrine. The story of Jesus passing through the midst of the Jews when they were about to cast him headlong from the brow of a hill (Luke iv. 29, 30), and when they were going to stone him (John iii. 59; x. 31, 39), were examples not easily refuted.
The Manichean Christian Bishop Faustus expresses himself in the following manner:
"Do you receive the gospel? (ask ye). Undoubtedly I do! Why then, you also admit that Christ was born? Not so; for it by no means follows that in believing the gospel, I should therefore believe that Christ was born! Do you then think that he was of the Virgin Mary? Manes hath said, 'Far be it that I should ever own that Our Lord Jesus Christ . . . . . . .'" etc.[512:1]
Tertullian's manner of reasoning on the evidences of Christianity is also in the same vein, as we saw in our last chapter.[512:2]
Mr. King, speaking of the Gnostic Christians, says:
"Their chief doctrines had been held for centuries before (their time) in many of the cities in Asia Minor. There, it is probable, they first came into existence as Mystæ, upon the establishment of direct intercourse with India, under the Seleucidæ and Ptolemies. The college of Essenes and Megabyzæ at Ephesus, the Orphics of Thrace, the Curets of Crete, are all merely branches of one antique and common religion, and that originally Asiatic."[512:3]
These early Christian Mystics are alluded to in several instances in the New Testament. For example:
"Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God; and every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God."[512:4] "For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh."[512:5]
This is language that could not have been used, if the reality of Christ Jesus' existence as a man could not have been denied, or, it would certainly seem, if the apostle himself had been able to give any evidence whatever of the claim.
The quarrels on this subject lasted for a long time among the early Christians. Hermas, speaking of this, says to the brethren: