The fundamental doctrine of the Gnostic philosophy was, that all mind is ultimately derived from the Supreme mind; that the souls of all men have therefore pre-existed; that there is a higher order of spirits, more immediately emanating from the Supreme; that these superior intelligences descend occasionally to inhabit the bodies of men, or to assume their apparent form. This doctrine, to which they were much attached, the Gnostic converts easily contrived to connect with their new theology, believing Jesus to be one of these superior intelligences in a visible form, or that the man Jesus was animated by such a spirit, who was in reality the Christ. Against this corruption of the simplicity of the faith the Apostle John protested in his First and Second Epistles, in which he followed the example of Peter, Paul, and Jude. That the Gnostics were the persons he had in view, is evident from the fact that no other schismatics at that period troubled the peace of the church, and also from his own application of his censure to such as 'confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.' (2 John 7.) The 'fables and endless genealogies' which Paul reprobates (1 Tim. i. 4.) had the same origin; and the practices to which they led, of 'forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats,' are condemned by him as the work of 'seducing spirits.' Of the same class were the 'false teachers,' accused by Peter of bringing in fatal heresies, 'by reason of whom the ways of truth shall be evil spoken of.' All the opinions and practices denounced by Jude, were either publicly maintained by the Gnostics, or generally ascribed to them. In order to disprove the truth of this representation, it will be necessary to show who besides the Gnostics denied that the man Jesus was the true Christ; who besides the Gnostics propounded fables, originated schisms, and were addicted to superstitious practices, at the times in which the Apostles wrote. This, we conceive, cannot be done.