constituted the basis of the scriptures of modern Christianity we have
the authority of Eusebius, the church historian of the fourth century,
from whom we learn nearly all that is reliable of its history during
the first three centuries. In his Ecclesiastical History, Book II.
chapter 17, he makes the important admission that "Those ancient
Therapeutae were Christians, and that their writtings are our Gospels
and Epistles." As further evidence that modern Christianity is but a
survival of the Eclectic philosophy of the ancient Therapeutae, we have
another important admission by the same historian, who, in quoting from
an apology addressed to the Roman Emperor, Marcus Antoninus, in the
year 171, by Melito, Bishop of Sardis, in Lydia, a province of Asia
Minor, makes that apologist say, in reference to certain grievances to
which the Christians were subjected, that "the philosophy which we
profess truly flourished aforetime among the barbarous nations; but
having blossomed again in the great reign of thy ancestor, Augustus, it
proved to be, above all things, ominous of good fortune to thy
kingdom." Thus we have indubitable evidence that it was the Eclectic
philosophy of the Jewish, or ancient Christianity, which "blossomed
again," in its modern form, during the reign of Augustus.

From the testimony of Philo, as referred to by Eusebius, and from the
writings of Josephus, the Jewish historian, we learn that, at the
beginning of our era, the descendants of the ancient Essenes were still
observing the practices and customs of monasticism. But as Josephus
refers to them only as descendants of the ancient Essenes, and makes no
mention of Christ or Christians--except in one paragraph which has been
conceded by the best authorities to be an interpolation it is evident
that, at that time, they had no connection with the University of
Alexandria, and nothing whatever to do with the institution of modern
Christianity. It is also apparent that the Jews of Judea had no hand in