light. They must first undergo a two-fold
purification; one, by _water_ in the moon; another, by _fire_
in the sun.

Mani had provoked the enmity of the Magians; and, at their instigation,
he was consigned, about A.D. 277, by order of the Persian monarch, to a
cruel and ignominious death. But the sect which he had organized did not
die along with him. His system was well fitted to please the Oriental
fancy; its promise of a higher wisdom to those who obtained admission
into the class of the Elect encouraged the credulity of the auditors;
and, to such as had not carefully studied the Christian revelation, its
hypothesis of a Good and of an Evil Deity accounted rather plausibly for
the mingled good and evil of our present existence. The Manichaeans were
exposed to much suffering in the country where they first appeared; and,
as a sect of Persian origin, they were oppressed by the Roman
government; but they were not extinguished by persecution, and, far down
in the middle ages, they still occasionally figure in the drama of
history.

Synods and councils may pass resolutions condemnatory of false doctrine,
but it is somewhat more difficult to counteract the seduction of the
principles from which heresies derive their influence. The Gnostics, the
Montanists, and the Manichaeans, owed much of their strength to
fallacies and superstitions with which the Christian teachers of the age
were not fully prepared to grapple; and hence it was that, whilst the
errorists themselves were denounced by ecclesiastical authority, a large
portion of their peculiar leaven found its way into the Church, and
gradually produced an immense change in its doctrine and discipline. A
notice of the more important of the false sentiments and dangerous
practices which the heretics propagated and the catholics adopted, may
enable us to estimate the amount of the damage which the cause of truth
now sustained.

The Montanists recognised the distinction of _venial_ and _mortal_ sins.
They held that a professed disciple, who was guilty of what they called
mortal sin, should never again be admitted to sealing ordinances.
[441:1] It is apparent from the writings of Hippolytus, the famous
bishop of Portus, that, in the early part of the third century, some of
the most influential of the catholics cordially supported this
principle. Soon afterwards it was openly advocated by a powerful party
in the Church of Borne, and its rejection by Cornelius, then at the