htodam OrliicitHl Woodea L(K'k*tnakcr.
Carpenter, Charlea 'W,, a Methodist Episcopal minister, was bom in New York, Dec. 16, 1792, where his parents were members of the John Street Church. He entered Columbia Collef^e, but was compelled by ill health to quit before graduation. He was convert- ed in his eighteenth year, and was licensed by Free- bom Garretson to preach in 1812. He entered the itinerant ministry in the New York Conference in 1814, but in 1816 he was obliged, by the weakness of bis health, to go to Savannah, where he was engaged in business for ten years. During this time he la- bored as a local preacher, and was ordained deacon in 1820, and elder in 1826. In 1828 he returned to the North, and was readmitted into the New York Confer- ence, in which he filled important appointments, as pastor and presiding elder, until 1850, when be was compelled by ill health to become supemnmerarv. He died May, 185S, at Pkttekill, N. Y. He was of very uniform character, good Uterary acquirements,
CARPENTER
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ndgreftt loveliness of disposition. As a minister he was able and sonnd, and his influence was great and durable. He was several times delegate to the Gen- eial Conference, and as presiding elder his adminis- tntive talent was remarkable. He "was secretary of the New York Conference for several years, and in all posts he was efficient and sncoessful. His death was joyfiil. — MwnOet of Coitfertnoea^ v, 194 ; Spragne, AmaU^ vii, 568; Wightman, Itfe of Bi$kop Caper$, p. 211.
Carpenter, Coles, a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Chnrch, was bom in Westchester coonty, N. T., ICarch 17, 1784. His parents were earnest Methodists, and he was carefblly trained in religion. At seventeen h« was converted, and began at once to exhort his yoong neighbors. In 1809 he was admitted on trial in the Kew York Conference ; ordained deacon in 1811, and elder in 1818. He filled various impor- tant appointments in the New York Conference until 18S2, when the Troy Conference was organized, and he remained in it. In 1888 he was appointed presid- ing elder of the Troy District, in which service he la- bored acceptably until his deatii, Feb. 17, 1884. In direct appeals to the heart and conscience he had few Boperiors. — Sprague, AimalBj vil, 466 ; HimUet of Con- /emMM^ 1884.
Carpenter, laant, LL.D., an English Unitarian minister, was bom Sept 2, 1780, at Kidderminster, and educated at Noitharopton and Glasgow. In 1805 he became pastor of a Unitarian congregation at Exeter, and in 1817 removed to Bristol, where he remained as pastor and classical teacher till 1889, when, his health Ming, he undertook a Continental tour. While going m a steam-boat from Naples to Leghorn, he fell over- board and was drowned, in the night of April 5, 1840. Dr. Carpenter was an industrious writer. His publi- cations, including posthumous ones, amounted to forty- foor. The more important are: Introduction to the Gtognphf of ike New Tettcunent (12mo, 1806):— CTm- tanamem the Doctrine of the Gotpel (12mo, 1809) i—An ExtttmaHon oftke Charges made agamet Umtariamtm by Dr. Magee (8vo, 1820) :— ^ Harmomf of the Goepeit (Bvo, 1836, of which a second edition, under the title of Ja ApoetoScal ffarmong of the Goepele^ was published in 1838) i—Sermone on PracticcU Subjectt (8vo, 1840, posthamoua) i—Lectttree on the Scripture Doctrine of AUmemeal (12mo, 1848, posthumous). He was a con- tributor to Rees's Cydopmdia, and to the Unitarian journals. There is a memoir of him by his son, the Bev. R. L. Carpenter (Lond. VMff),^En^uh Cgdopn- <&!, 8. V. ; Darling, Cgclcpadia BibUogrQpbicOy i, 682.
Caipooratee, a Gnostic of Alexandria in the sec- ond century, probably during the reign of Hadrian (A.D. 117-138). Of his personal history little is Imown. Clement of Alexandria speaks of his son Epiphanes, who died at seventeen, and was honored as a god at Sama, in Cephallenia.— Clemens, Strom, iii, 428; Lardner, Wcrh, viii, 898. See Cabpocba-
Caipooiatians, Gnostic heretics of the second century, so named from Carpocrates of Alexandria (q. v.). In common with the Gnostics generally, they held tbe existence of one Supreme Pr&dple, tiie Pri- Bsl Bemg, or Monas, toward which all finite thhigs are striving to return. They taught that the visible ^rorid was formed by angels, inferior to the Father (Efiiphan. Haree. xzvii, c xi; Iren. Haree. i, 26). Tbsx regarded Christ as a religions Genius, bom, in the ovdinary course of nature, of Joseph and Maiy, but at liaving excelled other men not only by the holiness and virtue of his life, but by the wonderful elasticity of bit mind (f vrovoc), whidi retained the remembrance of what he had seen when circling in the train of the Father. They admitted that he had been educated amonjc the Jews, but had despised them, and had there- five obtained the power to surmount his suflbrings, II.-I
and afterward asoended to the Father (Iren. JETor. i, 26). The Carpocratians boasted of resembling Christ, and even allowed, hypothetically speaking, that if any person had a purer soul, or despised in a greater de- gree the things here below, he might excel him. They had statues and images of Clirist and his apostles, and also of Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, and other emi- nent men, whom they are said to have honored with superstitions rites in the temple of Epiphanes in Ceph- allenia. Carpocrates maintained the transmigration of the soul, which must perform all to which it was des- tined before it can obtain rest. In support of his doc- trine he cited the words of our Lord, ** Verily then shalt not depart hence until thou hast paid the utters most ferthing.*' Those souls, however, which are deeply impressed with the remembrance of their for- mer existence, are enabled to defy the infiuence of the spirits governing this world, and, soaring to the con- templation of the Supreme Being, finally reach a state of eternal rest In proof of this, Carpocrates adduced the examples of I^thagoras, Plato, and Aristotle among the heathen, and Jesus among the Jews. To the latter he ascribed extraordinary strength of soul, which, aninuted by the remembrance of its former existence, soared to the highest flights of contempla- tion, and enabled him to obtain a divine power, by which, in working miracles, he set at naught the spir- its of this world, cast off the thraldom of the God of the Jews, and overturned the religion which this god had devised. Every human soul was supposed by contemplation capable of becoming equal in every re- spect with Jesus Christ The Carpocratians are stig- matized on account of the consequences which they , drew from their principles. They are charged wi^ asserting that there was nothing good or evil in itself; that the distinction between right and wrong was not real, but depended merely on human opinion — an as- sertion which appears inconsistent with their view of the character of Christ, and which was, perhaps, ap- plied, not to moral duties, but to positive rites. They are also said to have taught the community of women ; a doctrine whicli, together with their notions of a pre- existent state, and of metempsychosis, may be traced to Plato, in whose writings Carpocrates and his son Epiphanes (by whom the opinions of this sect were much amplified, and to whom extraordinary honor was paid) were fEuniliarly versed (Clement, Strcfm, iii, 428). As the fruit of these last opinions, they are represented as having indulged in the grossest licen- tiousness, and as having given occasion to the dread- ful calumnies by which ^e early Christians were as- saUed. The reproach of licentiousness is not confirmed by Irenaeus, who is the oldest source of our knowledge of the Carpocratians. Epiphanius says the Carpocra- tians rejected the Old Testament. It appears not cer- tain that they rejected any part of the New (Euseb. Eoc. Higt, iv, 7; Epiplian. ff<Kr, xxvil). — Jeremie, Church Hist, 164 ; Neander, Ch. HtMt, i, 449-461 ; Lard- ner, Worke^ viii, 891-408 ; Domer, Perton of Chritty div. i, voL i, p. 186 ; Hase, Church Hittory, § 78 ; espe- cially Mosheim, Commeniariesy etc, cent ii, § 60.