In a certain laboured work of one of these men, composed against the heresy of Artemon—which Paul of Samosata, in our own day, has again attempted to revive—there is current a certain narrative pertinent to the histories we are examining.
For, correcting the aforesaid heresy—which asserts that the Saviour was a mere man, and which was innovated not long before—since the introducers of it wished to dignify it as ancient, the discourse, after setting forth many other things also for the refutation of their blasphemous false speaking, relates these things word for word:
「For they say that all those of former times, and the apostles themselves, both received and taught these things which these men now say, and that the truth of the preaching was preserved until the times of Victor, who was the thirteenth bishop at Rome from Peter; but that from his successor Zephyrinus the truth was corrupted.」
「Now what is said might perhaps have been plausible, were it not, first, that the divine Scriptures contradict them. And there are also writings of certain brethren, older than the times of Victor, which those men wrote against the Gentiles on behalf of the truth and against the heresies of their day—I mean those of Justin and Miltiades and Tatian and Clement and several others—in all of which Christ is spoken of as God.」
「For who does not know the books of Irenaeus and Melito and the rest, which proclaim Christ as God and man? And how many psalms and odes of the brethren, written from the beginning by the faithful, hymn Christ the Word of God, speaking of him as God?」
「How then, when the mind of the church has been proclaimed for so many years, is it possible that those up to Victor preached in the manner these men say? And how are they not ashamed to utter these falsehoods against Victor, knowing accurately that Victor excommunicated Theodotus the cobbler, the leader and father of this God-denying apostasy, who first said that Christ was a mere man? For if Victor held their views, as the blasphemy of these men teaches, how would he have cast out Theodotus, the inventor of this heresy?」 And so much concerning Victor.
After he had presided over the ministry for ten years, Zephyrinus was established as his successor, about the ninth year of the reign of Severus. The author of the aforementioned book concerning the founder of the heresy already indicated adds also another action that took place in the time of Zephyrinus, writing in these very words:
「I will remind, then, many of the brethren of a thing that happened in our own day, which I think, had it happened in Sodom, would perhaps have admonished even them. There was a certain Natalius, a confessor—not long ago, but one who lived in our own times.」
「This man was once deceived by Asclepiodotus and a certain other Theodotus, a banker. These two were both disciples of Theodotus the cobbler, who was the first to be cut off from communion by Victor, the bishop at that time, as I said, on account of this notion—or rather this folly.」
「Now Natalius was persuaded by them to be appointed bishop of this heresy at a salary, so as to receive from them a hundred and fifty denarii monthly.」
「Having therefore become one with them, he was often admonished by the Lord through visions; for the compassionate God and our Lord Jesus Christ did not wish that a witness of his own sufferings should be lost by being outside the church.」
「But when he gave too careless heed to the visions, being enticed both by the first seat among them and by the shameful greed of gain which destroys very many, at last he was scourged by holy angels, being grievously chastised throughout the whole night; so that at dawn he rose up, and putting on sackcloth and sprinkling himself with ashes, with much haste and tears he fell down before Zephyrinus the bishop, rolling at the feet not only of those in the clergy but also of the laymen, and confounded with his tears the compassionate church of the merciful Christ. And after using much entreaty, and showing the weals of the blows which he had received, he was scarcely admitted to communion.」
To these let us join also other utterances of the same writer concerning the same persons, running in this manner: 「The divine Scriptures they have fearlessly tampered with, and the rule of the ancient faith they have set aside, and Christ they have not known, not inquiring what the divine Scriptures say, but laboriously practising what form of syllogism may be found for the establishment of their godlessness; and if anyone sets before them a saying of divine Scripture, they examine whether it can be made a conjunctive or a disjunctive form of syllogism.」
「And forsaking the holy Scriptures of God, they practise geometry, as being from the earth and speaking from the earth, and being ignorant of him who comes from above. Euclid, at any rate, is laboriously studied in geometry by some of them; and Aristotle and Theophrastus are admired; while Galen, it may be, is even worshipped by some.」
「But as for those who abuse the arts of the unbelievers to serve the opinion of their heresy, and who, by the craftiness of the godless, adulterate the simple faith of the divine Scriptures—what need is there even to say that they are not even near the faith? For this reason they laid their hands fearlessly upon the divine Scriptures, saying that they had corrected them.」
「And that I say this not falsely against them, whoever wishes is able to learn. For if anyone should be willing to gather together the copies of each of them and to examine them against one another, he would find them disagreeing in many places. At any rate, those of Asclepiades will be at variance with those of Theodotus.」
「And one can come by many of these, because their disciples have ambitiously written down what has been, as they themselves call it, ‘corrected’ by each of them—that is, mutilated. And again with these the copies of Hermophilus do not agree. For those of Apollonides are not even in harmony with themselves. For it is possible to compare those previously prepared by them with those again later perverted, and to find them much at discord.」
「And how great is the audacity of this sin, it is likely that not even they are ignorant. For either they do not believe that the divine Scriptures were spoken by the Holy Spirit, and they are unbelievers; or they think themselves wiser than the Holy Spirit—and what else is this than to be possessed by demons? For neither can they deny that the audacious deed is their own, since the manuscripts are written in their very own hand, and they did not receive the Scriptures thus from those by whom they were instructed; nor can they show the copies from which they made their transcriptions.」
「But some of them did not even deign to falsify the Scriptures, but, simply denying the law and the prophets, under the pretext of a lawless and godless teaching of grace, slid down to the uttermost ruin of perdition.」 And let these things have been recorded after this manner.