[Footnote A: The Gnostics were a sect which arose in the Christian Church in the first century, flourished in the second, and had almost entirely disappeared by the sixth. The Gnostics held that knowledge rather than faith was the road to heaven, and professed to have a peculiar knowledge of religious mysteries. They rejected the literal interpretation of the scriptures, and attempted to combine their teachings with those of the Greek and Oriental philosophies and religions. They held that God was the unknowable and the unapproachable; that from him proceeded, by emanation, subordinate deities termed "eons," from whom again proceeded other still inferior spirits (Cent. Dict.--Gnostics).] [Footnote B: The Ebionites were a party of Judaizing Christians which appeared in the church as early as the second century and disappeared about the fourth century. They agreed in (1) the recognition of Jesus as the messiah; (2) the denial of the divinity; (3) belief in the universal obligation of the Mosaic law, and (4) rejection of Paul and his writings The two great divisions of Ebionites were the Pharisaic Ebionites, who emphasized the obligation of the Mosaic law, and the Essentic Ebionites, who were more speculative and leaned toward Gnosticism (Cent. Diet.--Ebionites).] The Gnostic heresy as affecting the Atonement brought against the scripture doctrine on that subject two contradictions; the first by one Basilides (A. D. 125), who affirmed only a human suffering in the Redeemer, which was not expiatory for the reason, first, because as merely human it was finite, and inadequate to atone for the sins of the whole world; and, second, because the idea of substituted penal suffering is inadmissible. "Suffering for the purposes of justice," their teacher said, of necessity implied personal criminality in the sufferer," and therefore can never be endured by an innocent person like Christ." "The principle of vicarious substitution, in reference to justice, he held to be untenable. The other contradiction of Gnosticism was made by Marcion (A. D. 150). He affirmed a divine suffering in the Redeemer, which was but apparent, however, because the "Logos," or "Word"--Christ--having assumed a phantom, not a real body, only a seeming suffering could occur, and could not, of course, be expiatory. "It was merely emblematical--designed to symbolize the religious truth, that man, in order to attain his true and highest life must die to his earthly life." "If now we examine these Gnostic and Judaizing theories," says Shedd, from whom I am condensing this account, "we find that they agree in one capital respect, viz., in the rejection of the scripture doctrine of a real and true expiation of human guilt."