The earliest corrupters of the gospel were unquestionably those who endeavoured to impose the observance of the Mosaic law on the converted Gentiles. Their proceedings were condemned in the Council of Jerusalem, mentioned in the fifteenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles; and Paul, in his letter to the Galatians, subsequently exposed their infatuation. But evangelical truth had, perhaps, more to fear from dilution with the speculations of the Jewish and pagan literati. [202:1] The apostle had this evil in view when he said to the Colossians-- "Beware lest any man spoil you through _philosophy_ and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the _rudiments of the world_, and not after Christ." [202:2] He likewise emphatically attested the danger to be apprehended from it when he addressed to his own son in the faith the impassioned admonition--"O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and _oppositions of science_ falsely so called." [202:3] There is no reason to doubt that the "science" or "philosophy" of which Paul was so anxious that the disciples should beware, was the same which was afterwards so well known by the designation of _Gnosticism_. The second century was the period of its most vigorous development, and it then, for a time, almost engrossed the attention of the Church; but it was already beginning to exert a pernicious influence, and it is therefore noticed by the vigilant apostle. Whilst it acknowledged, to a certain extent, the authority of the Christian revelation, it also borrowed largely from Platonism; and, in a spirit of accommodation to the system of the Athenian sage, it rejected some of the leading doctrines of the gospel. Plato never seems to have entertained the sublime conception of the creation of all things out of nothing by the word of the Most High. He held that matter is essentially evil, and that it existed from eternity. [202:4] The false teachers who disturbed the Church in the apostolic age adopted both these views; and the errors which they propagated and of which the New Testament takes notice, flowed from their unsound philosophy by direct and necessary consequence. As a right understanding of certain passages of Scripture depends on an acquaintance with their system, it may here be expedient to advert somewhat more particularly to a few of its peculiar features.