until the primitive group separated in two distinct branches--which, we may correctly term the Christian kabalists of the Jewish Tanaïm school, and the Christian kabalists of the Platonic Gnosis.[364] The former were represented by the party composed of the followers of Peter, and John, the author of the _Apocalypse_; the latter ranged with the Pauline Christianity, blending itself, at the end of the second century, with the Platonic philosophy, and engulfing, still later, the Gnostic sects, whose symbols and misunderstood mysticism overflowed the Church of Rome. Amid this jumble of contradictions, what Christian is secure in confessing himself such? In the old Syriac _Gospel according to Luke_ (iii. 22), the Holy Spirit is said to have descended in the likeness of a dove. “Jesua, full of the sacred Spirit, returned from Jordan, and the Spirit led him into the desert” (old Syriac, _Luke_ iv. 1, _Tremellius_). “The difficulty,” says Dunlap, “was that the Gospels declared that John the Baptist saw the Spirit (the Power of God) descend upon Jesus after he had reached manhood, and if the Spirit then first descended upon him, there was some ground for the opinion of the Ebionites and Nazarenes who denied his _preceding_ existence, and refused him the attributes of the LOGOS. The Gnostics, on the other hand, objected to the flesh, but conceded the Logos.”[365] John’s _Apocalypsis_, and the explanations of sincere Christian bishops, like Synesius, who, to the last, adhered to the Platonic doctrines, make us think that the wisest and safest way is to hold to that sincere primitive faith which seems to have actuated the above-named bishop. This best, sincerest, and most unfortunate of Christians, addressing the “Unknown,” exclaims: “Oh Father of the Worlds ... Father of the Æons ... _Artificer of the Gods_, it is holy to praise!” But Synesius had Hypatia for instructor, and this is why we find him confessing in all sincerity his opinions and profession of faith. “The rabble desires nothing better than to be deceived.... As regards myself, therefore, _I will always be a philosopher with myself_, but I _must be priest_ with the people.” “Holy is God the Father of all being, holy is God, whose wisdom is carried out into execution by his own Powers!... Holy art Thou, who through the Word had created all! Therefore, I believe in Thee, and bear testimony, and go into the LIFE and LIGHT.”[366] Thus speaks Hermes Trismegistus, the heathen divine. What Christian bishop could have said better than that?