It is thus with 'Gnostic' and 'Gnosticism'; in the prominence
given to _gnosis_ or knowledge, as opposed to faith, lies the key to
the whole system. The Greek Church has loved ever to style itself the
Holy 'Orthodox' Church, the Latin, the Holy 'Catholic' Church. Follow
up the thoughts which these words suggest. What a world of teaching
they contain; above all when brought into direct comparison and
opposition one with the other. How does all which is innermost in the
Greek and Roman mind unconsciously reveal itself here; the Greek Church
regarding as its chief blazon that its speculation is right, the Latin
that its empire is universal. Nor indeed is it merely the Greek and
Latin Churches which utter themselves here, but Greece and Rome in
their deepest distinctions, as these existed from their earliest times.
The key to the whole history, Pagan as well as Christian, of each is in
these words. We can understand how the one established a dominion in
the region of the mind which shall never be overthrown, the other
founded an empire in the world whose visible effects shall never be
done away. This is an illustrious example; but I am bold to affirm that,
in their degree, all parties, religious and political, are known by
names that will repay study; by names, to understand which will bring
us far to an understanding of their strength and their weakness, their
truth and their error, the idea and intention according to which they
wrought. Thus run over in thought a few of those which have risen up in
England.
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