Panarion (Against Heresies) 1 part 36/82

So too this heresy appears to those who first hear about these matters to be as nothing to the mind, but as its prolixity of arguments rubs in and produces difficulties, it works, as it were, a wasting-away in those who do not obtain the help of this antidote — namely, the refutation and counter-argument made by us against it.

Now the creature does not appear quickly.

For it travels by night, and thus does its harm, especially in the land of the Egyptians, as is known to those acquainted with knowledge of the creature — so that it is not carelessly nor falsely that we have made mention of the matter of this creature, having likened it to the harm coming from this heresy;

for such is indeed the wrong it does.

And next I shall proceed to the others, so that, having been counted worthy to fulfill our promise in God, we may give thanks to God.

Against the Bardesianites, the thirtieth heresy, and the fiftieth in the sequence.

Following these in order comes a certain man called Bardesanes.

Now this Bardesanes, from whom the heresy of the Bardesianites arose, was by race from Mesopotamia, one of those dwelling in the city of the Edessenes.

who at first happened to be an excellent man, and he composed no small number of treatises, at the time when he had a sound mind.

For he set out from the holy Church of God, being a man learned in both languages, the Greek dialect and the tongue of the Syrians.

Becoming intimate at first with Abgar, the ruler of the Edessenes, a most pious and most learned man, and working together with him, and also sharing in his education, he continued on after that man's death until the times of Antoninus Caesar — not the one called 'the Pious,' but Verus.

who, speaking much against fate to Abidas the astronomer, reasoned it out, and other treatises of his are also extant in accordance with the pious faith.

And he resisted Apollonius, the companion of Antoninus, refusing to deny that he called himself a Christian.

And he stood, as it were, almost in the position of a confessor, and gave intelligent answers, defending himself bravely on behalf of piety, saying that he did not fear death, which, he said, would come by necessity even if he did not oppose the emperor.

And thus the man was greatly adorned in all respects, until he fell into the error of his own heresy, having become like a most beautiful ship that, though laden with an incomparable cargo, was wrecked at the banks near the harbor, losing its entire freight and bringing death also to the other passengers.

For this man was corrupted by association with the Valentinians, and from their depravity he drew up this poisonous and weed-like teaching, himself also introducing many principles and emanations, and denying the resurrection of the dead, he formulated this heresy as doctrine.

And he makes use of the Law and the Prophets, the Old and the New Testament alike, and likewise of certain apocryphal books.

And this man too will be overthrown, along with all who came before him and after him, having alienated himself from the truth, and having been changed, as it were, from a bright, shining torch into soot.

For concerning the resurrection of the dead we have already spoken in the case of many heresies;

but it will do no harm to use a few words again in refuting this man.

For if you accept the Old Testament, O man, and likewise the New, how will you not be convicted of corrupting the way of truth and estranging yourself from the true life of the Lord? For it is clear that the Lord himself first died on our behalf and rose again, so that he might become for us the pledge of the resurrection and the firstborn from the dead.

and he did not suffer merely in appearance;

for he was buried, and they carried his body.

There was a weighty proof, that it was not semblance nor illusion.

And the angels also bear witness, having appeared to the women, that 'he is risen, he is not here;'

'Why do you seek the living among the dead?' And they did not say that he had not died, but that he had risen — he who suffered in the flesh, yet lives forever in the Spirit and is impassible in his own divinity, who exists as ever begotten from the Father from above, who in the last days was well-pleased to become man from Mary the Virgin, as the holy Paul testifies, saying, 'born of a woman, born under the law.'

Have you then not yet heard the saying which declares that this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality? Or has Isaiah the prophet not persuaded you, saying, 'And the dead shall rise, and those in the tombs shall be raised'? Or the Lord himself, saying that these shall rise to eternal life, and these to eternal punishment? Or do you not remember Abel's converse with God after death — how it says that it is not the soul that pleads and cries out to God, but the blood? Yet blood is not the soul; rather, the soul is in the blood.

For the blood is a visible body, while the soul, being something invisible, has its dwelling-place in the blood.

And from every side your false belief, O Bardesanes, has been refuted, overturned by the truth itself.

Now concerning the many first principles: since I have on many occasions already said much against those who speak in this way, here I will not make a lengthy discussion of it, but, as if in a digression, I will recall the saying of the holy apostle, that for us there is one God the Father, from whom are all things and we unto him, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and we through him.

How then will there be polytheism and many first principles, if there is one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and we through him? Therefore the Maker is one, and there are not many gods, nor many aeons.

For he said, 'If indeed there are those who are called gods.'

But the word 'called' he pronounced with reference to things that do not actually exist.

And because of those so called by the Greeks, whom they deified — the sun and the moon, the stars, and things like these — by this declaration he shut off the understanding of all who were deceived.

And since the sound faith is preserved from every side, being the foundation and salvation of the faithful, the empty talk devised by all the heresies has readily been overturned as well.

just as this man too has been overturned, has made himself pitiable, and has estranged himself from life.

For the prophet says to the holy church of God: 'I will make your stones of carbuncle, your foundations of sapphire, your walls of choice stones, and your battlements of jasper.'

Then afterward he says: 'Every tongue that rises up against you, you shall vanquish them all; but against you it shall not succeed.'

For nothing shall prevail against the faith of the truth, since it has been built upon the rock, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it, as the holy God the Word promised her — her king and bridegroom, her lord and master — to whom be glory, honor, and dominion, to the Father in the Son together with the Holy Spirit, unto the ages of ages, amen.

Now that this heresy too has been trampled underfoot — like a serpent's head cut off yet still writhing, struck by the tree of life — let us, giving thanks to God, go on again to examine the others, beloved.

Against the Noetians, [Heresy] 37, but 57 in the sequence.

And again after him another man arose, Noetus by name, not many years ago, but about a hundred and thirty years past, more or less — a native of Asia, from the city of Ephesus.

He, being carried along by an alien spirit, wished of his own accord to say and teach things which neither the prophets proclaimed, nor the apostles, nor did the church hold from the beginning, nor were ever even conceived; but he himself, of himself, lifted up by the elation of madness, dared to say that the Father suffered.

But meanwhile, on account of the report circulating about him, the blessed presbyters of the church summoned him and examined him concerning all these things, and whether he had put forward this blasphemy concerning the Father.

At first he denied it, when brought before the presbytery, because no one before him had vomited forth this dreadful and destructive bitterness.

But afterward, having, so to speak, infected certain others with the madness he possessed, and bringing with him about ten men, he was lifted up into greater conceit and boldness; and having grown audacious, he thereafter openly proclaimed the heresy as doctrine.

Again the same presbyters summoned both him and the men who had been corrupted along with him, and once more questioned them concerning the same matters.

But he, together with those who had been led astray by him, having hardened his brow, thereafter contradicted them openly, saying, 'What evil have I done, in that I glorify one God? I know one God, and no other besides him, who was born, who suffered, who died.'

Since, then, he persisted in these things, they expelled him from the church, together with those who had been made his disciples in his own doctrine.

And he died not long ago, together with his own brother; he was not buried in glory like Moses, nor was his brother buried in honor like Aaron.

For they were cast out like transgressors, and none of the God-fearing gave them burial rites.

After this, those whose minds had been corrupted by him strengthened this doctrine, being led by the very same texts by which their evil teacher had been led from the beginning.

For when, being questioned by the presbytery, he said that he glorified one God, he heard from them, in love of the truth: 'We too glorify one God, but as we know how to glorify him rightly;

and we have one Christ, but as we know one Christ, the Son of God, who suffered as he suffered, who died as he died, who rose, who ascended into heaven, who is at the right hand of the Father, and who is coming to judge the living and the dead.

These things we say, having learned them from the divine Scriptures, which we also understand.'

From this man, then, the Noetians, being an offshoot of him, and those who descend from them, hold this same doctrine, attempting, from these very texts, to establish their frenzied teaching.

[Drawn] from what God said to Moses: 'I am the God of your fathers;'

'I am the first, and I am hereafter;'

'You shall have no other gods,' and so forth.

'We therefore know him alone.'

'If, then, Christ, having come, was born, he himself is the Father, he himself is the Son;'

'Therefore he is the same God, the one who ever exists and who has now come;'

as the Scripture says, 'This is your God; no other shall be reckoned beside him;'

'He found out every way of knowledge, and gave it to Jacob his servant, and to Israel his beloved;'

'after this he appeared upon the earth and lived among men.'

'You see,' he says, 'again how divine Scripture instructs us not to think of one God and then another, declaring that he who alone exists is the same God who was later seen?' And again they make use of this other text, as it says: 'Egypt has labored, and the merchandise of the Ethiopians, and the Sabeans, men of stature, shall pass over unto you and shall become your servants, and they shall walk behind you bound in fetters, and shall bow down to you, and shall pray to you, because God is in you, and there is no God besides you.'

'For you are God, and we did not know it — the God of Israel, the Savior.'

'You see,' he says, 'how the divine Scriptures point to one God, and proclaim him as having become manifest? And admittedly he is one, the very same one who always exists.'

'And for this reason we do not speak of many gods, but of one God, the same one impassible, himself the Father of the Son, himself the Son who also suffered, that he might save us by his own suffering; and we cannot speak of another.'

having, as it were, learned this confession from their master, along with this wicked notion and destructive madness.

Then they bring forward other texts to support themselves, as their teacher said, claiming that the apostle too bears witness to these words, saying:

'...according to the flesh, he who is God over all, blessed forever, amen.'

And they wish to interpret it as a single, unbroken clause, in the same manner as Theodotus.

That man, on the one hand, interpreted Christ, in the most extreme degree, as by nature a mere man; this man, on the other hand, went to another extreme in a single, undifferentiated way.

considering the very same one to be Father, God, and Son and Holy Spirit, having suffered in the flesh and having been born.

So then, neither did those who follow Theodotus speak any truth, nor did this Noetus and his followers — 'the Unintelligent' rather than 'the Intelligent' in his very power — since the divine Scriptures refute both parties and all who have gone astray.

To everyone whose mind is fixed on God and who is illumined both in divine Scripture and in the Holy Spirit, their argument will appear easily refuted and full of every folly.

For it is a work of audacity, and their reasoning is one of blindness, to assert that the same one is both Father and Son and the same one who suffered;

so that those who assert such things will be condemned even by right reasoning and by sound argument.

For how could the same one be Father while also being Son? For if he is Son, he must surely be the son of someone, from whom he has been begotten.

But if he is Father, it is impossible for him to beget himself.

And again, that which is called the Son did not beget itself, but has been begotten from the Father.

O the great derangement of men, and their incorrigible reasoning!

For the reasonable account does exist, indeed it does — not as these men suppose, but as the truth shows us through the divine Scripture.

For immediately the Lord declares, saying: 'Behold, my servant shall understand, my beloved, whom I have chosen, whom my soul has loved;'

'I will put my Spirit upon him.'

And you see how the voice of the Father shows the Son to be Son by nature, upon whom he also places his Spirit.

Then the Only-begotten himself says: 'Glorify me, Father, with the glory which I had with you before the world came to be.'

Now he who says, 'Father, glorify me,' does not call himself Father, but acknowledges the Father as his own.

And again, in another place, there came a voice from heaven: 'This is my Son; hear him.'

And it did not say, 'I am my son, hear me,' nor again, 'I have become a son,' but 'This is my Son; hear him.'

And in saying, 'I and my Father are one,' he did not say, 'I and my Father, I am one' (using the singular verb, as of a single person), but 'I and my Father, we are one' (using the plural verb, as of a shared reality, not a single person).

And the phrase 'I and the Father,' since the article 'the' and the conjunction 'and' stand between the two terms, signifies the Father as Father by nature, and the Son as Son by nature.

And again, concerning the Holy Spirit: 'If I go away, he will come, the Spirit of truth.'

And clearest of all is this: 'I go away, and he comes.'

He did not say, 'I go away and I come,' but by 'I' and 'he' he signified the Son as subsistent, possessing his own hypostasis, and the Holy Spirit as subsistent.

And again, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father and receives from me, in order to show the Father to be personally subsistent, the Son to be personally subsistent, and the Holy Spirit to be personally subsistent.

And again, at the Jordan the Father spoke from above, while the Son descended into the Jordan, and the Spirit appeared in their midst in the form of a dove and came upon him, although the Spirit did not bear flesh nor put on a body.

But so that it should not be thought that there is a fusing together with the Son, the Holy Spirit is shaped in the form of a dove, so that the Spirit might be seen to be by nature personally subsistent.

And from what other quarter can we demonstrate this against those who breed derangement of mind in themselves? For if their thinking is true, and their stale argument — which has neither coherence, nor force, nor any trace or hint of intelligent reasoning — then the Scriptures must be thrown out, the Scriptures which everywhere without exception acknowledge the Father as Father, the Son as Son, and the Holy Spirit as Holy Spirit.

But what are you saying, you there? Would those who truly offer worship to the Trinity — who are sons of the truth and of the one apostolic and catholic Church — suppose it to be polytheism? Surely not.

[They confess] the Father almighty, from whom the only-begotten Son, truly God the Word, the personally subsistent Word, is truly begotten of him without beginning and without time. Therefore the Church surely proclaims one God, Father and Son.

For 'I am in the Father, and the Father is in me,' and the two of us are one; that is, one Godhead, one will, and one lordship.

And from that same Father the Spirit also proceeds, being personally subsistent and truly perfect — the Spirit of truth, who illumines all things, who receives from the Son, the Spirit of the Father.

Therefore the Church knows one Godhead.

One God, the Father of truth — a Father perfect and personally subsistent; and the Son, a Son perfect and personally subsistent; and the Holy Spirit, a Holy Spirit perfect and personally subsistent: one Godhead, one sovereignty, one lordship.

Therefore the divine Scriptures have everywhere clearly proclaimed one God, that is, a Trinity of one substance, ever existing of the same Godhead, of the same lordship.

And so your foolish argument, O Noetus, has collapsed from every side.

Now that these things have been said in opposition to the aforesaid statements of Noetus, we must examine his propositions from the beginning and thus overturn them one by one.

First, then, since he adduced the proposition that 'there is one God, from whom are all things and we for him, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and we through him' — do you not see how, in saying 'one God, from whom are all things and we for him,' he signifies the one first principle, so that he might not turn the mind toward many first principles and again lead the deceived mind of men into polytheism through the empty talk of polytheism? For you see how he uses one name and one designation, not thereby denying the only-begotten God.

For he knows him to be Lord, and he knows him to be God.

Therefore, to make this secure, he also says, 'and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things.'

And in saying this concerning the Lord, he did not signify that the same one is both Father and Son, but showed that the Father is truly Father and the Son is truly Son, since in saying 'one God' with reference to the Father he was not thereby denying that the Son is God — for if he is not God, neither is he Lord.

But since he is Lord, he is also God; yet the holy apostle, being constrained by the Holy Spirit to express things under a single designation, set forth the faith to us, clearly signifying one Lord, and therefore also God.

But let no one suppose, because he says 'one' and 'one,' that he has thereby omitted the number of the Trinity, on the ground that he did not name the Holy Spirit.

For having named the Father and the Son as God and Lord, he named them in the Holy Spirit.

For it is not that, because he said 'one God' concerning the Father,

'from whom are all things,' that he denied him to be Lord;

nor again, because he also said 'one Lord Jesus Christ,' did he deny that he is God; but just as with the Father he was content with the one designation, saying 'one God' — and along with 'God' it is clear that he is also 'Lord' —

so likewise, with the Son, he was content with 'one Lord';

and along with 'one Lord' is also implied 'God.'

So then, in speaking of the Father and the Son, he was not devoid of the Holy Spirit, but, as I have said, spoke in the Holy Spirit.

For the Holy Spirit is always accustomed not to make display of itself, lest it give us a pattern for speaking of ourselves, and we too make display of ourselves.

Therefore there is one God the Father, from whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, or for whom are all things, and one Holy Spirit, not alien to God, but personally subsistent, because it is the Spirit of God and the Spirit of truth and the Spirit of the Father and the Spirit of Christ.

But if it is also necessary to speak concerning the text, 'The labor of Egypt and the merchandise of the Ethiopians, and the Sabaeans, men of stature, shall pass over to you, and you shall say, You are God, and we knew it not; and they shall be your servants, and shall walk behind you bound in fetters, and shall bow down to you and pray to you, because God is in you, and there is no God besides you' —

'for you are God, and we knew it not, the God of Israel, the Savior.'

And he will say, 'Do you not see,' he says, 'that he is one God?'

as we have shown — not understanding what has been said, but craftily cutting the Scriptures short, expounding them crookedly, and introducing the words in a distorted transposition, Noetus does not speak coherently or in due order, nor do the Noetians who follow him understand things in sequence.

For just as they give a wretched dog the name 'Lion,' and call those who cannot see at all 'sharp-sighted,' and say that bitter things are sweet, and some have named vinegar 'honey,' and some have called the Furies 'the Kindly Ones,' so also this man and those descended from him — bearing the name Noetus, meaning 'intelligent' — is in fact unintelligent, as are those from him who are likewise unintelligent, understanding not at all the coherence of what they say or what they put forward, so that in them is fulfilled what was said by the holy apostle: 'understanding neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertions.'

For see, men and brethren, how the divine Scripture said above — or rather, the Lord himself, as the beginning of the chapter has it —

whence also we must show, concerning the whole truth and subject matter contained in that very chapter, that 'ask me concerning my sons and my daughters, and concerning the works of my hands command me.'

'I made,' he says, 'the earth and man upon it; I with my hand established the heaven.'

'I gave commandment to all the stars; I raised up a king in righteousness, and all his ways are straight.'

'He shall build my city and shall turn back the captivity, not for ransoms nor for gifts, says the Lord Sabaoth.'

Then follows further, 'The labor of Egypt and the merchandise of the Ethiopians,' and so on, 'because God is in you.'

In whom shall we say [God is present] but in the Word of the Father? For indeed the Son is truly God the Word, and in him the Father is known, as he says, 'He who has seen me has seen the Father,' and 'I have glorified your name upon the earth.'

Then again, 'I raised up a king.'

Do you not see that this is the Father's own particular voice, which raised up from itself the true Word as king over all — him who was truly begotten from him without beginning and without time? And this same one, the King, he also raised up again, as the holy apostle says, declaring, 'But if the Spirit of him who raised Christ from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you' — so that the prophetic writings might harmonize with the apostolic, and the apostolic with the evangelic, and the evangelic with the apostolic, and the apostolic with the prophetic.

For there [it says], 'I raised up a king,' and here [it says]:

'he who raises Christ from the dead.'

And 'God is in you' shows how mysteriously and wondrously the divine Scripture recounts all things.

For just as, dwelling as in a temple in the flesh, the Godhead was foreseen and foretold beforehand to the hope of mankind through their turning toward God,

for the Son of God, God the Word, dwelling as God in a holy city and a holy temple — that is, in the holy incarnation and fleshly presence — speaks concerning the holy temple: 'Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.'

Because God the Word, sent in the flesh from the Father, mysteriously arranges all things; and, displaying a bond of spiritual love, he draws flesh to himself, making himself small though he is great, being God — the Word himself, begotten of a virgin through the Holy Spirit, being one Son of God, having made himself one in flesh and Spirit, as it says, 'He who descended is himself also he who ascended, the Son of man who is in heaven.'

What then will Noetus say in his folly? Was there flesh in heaven? Clearly there was not.

How then is the one who descended from heaven the same as the one who ascended? Rather, it is to signify that the Word who came was not from below, but descended from above — since he became man in the flesh, not from the seed of a man, but having completed his dispensation from the Spirit and the flesh. For this reason, signifying the one unity of the union of the Word and the incarnation, he says that the one who came from above ascends again above, in the perfection of Godhead.

But he who was Spirit became flesh from the Spirit and a virgin — the perfect Word offered to the Father — who before this, in heaven, was not flesh.

What then was he who was in heaven, but the Word sent from heaven, having a union into one Godhead, united according to the power of the Father — that he might show that on earth and in heaven the same God the Word existed, being unchangeable and unalterable.

For he was the Word, he was always God, he was Spirit, he was power; and he took upon himself the common name that is comprehensible among men, thus being called Son of man, while being Son of God.

Therefore, rightly did the prophet, who by the Holy Spirit saw the Word who was in heaven, call him by this name, 'Son of man,' beholding beforehand what was to be, and calling him Son of man before he became so in the flesh.

Therefore, signifying the first things by the later, the only-begotten says, 'No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of man';

not that flesh was above, but that he was descending from above — he who was to be called by this name.

You there — consider that, as it says, 'this is our God, and no other shall be reckoned besides him.'

And this was very well said, just as the apostle also affirms, saying, 'whose are the fathers, and from whom, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all.'

For this one who is, is God over all;

for since he himself teaches us, saying, 'All things have been delivered to me by my Father,' therefore he is God over all.

For thus John also testifies, saying, 'That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, and have seen with our eyes, and our hands have handled'; and again he says in the Revelation, 'he who is from the beginning and is coming, the Almighty.'

For in saying, 'All things have been delivered to me by my Father,' he was also precisely presupposing the Father.

Being, then, God over all, yet having his own Father, in saying, 'I go to the Father.'

But if he himself were the Father, to what Father, then, is he going, O senseless one?

Or again, does he not say, 'that they may be one, as I and you are one'? For the Scripture, always guarding against men's falling into extremes, draws the mind together from every side onto the middle way of truth.

And against those who suppose the Son to be alien to the Father — I mean, as Arius supposes, and other heresies — he says, 'I and the Father are one';

but against those who, because he said, 'I and the Father are one,' suppose that the same one is both Father and Son, he says, 'Make them to be one, even as I and you are one' — so as to put Noetus and his school to shame, bringing forward the unity of the disciples as an example.

For how could Peter and John and the rest be one by way of fusion? Rather, it is because they are in one unity of purpose, and in one mind and power — this in order to repel every suspicion that might arise against the truth from either extreme.

And the holy apostle Philip, saying, 'Show us your Father,'

and he said, 'He who has seen me has seen the Father'; and he did not say, 'I am the Father,' but by saying 'me,' he was referring to himself.

But in saying 'he has seen the Father,' he was not speaking of himself.

For 'the Father' is one thing, and 'me' is another, and 'I' is another, and 'me' is yet another.

For if he himself were the Father, he would have said, 'I am.'

But since he himself is not the Father but the Son, he truly says, 'He who has seen me has seen the Father,' in order to repel the blasphemy of Arius that alienates the Son from the Father.

Bending neither to the right nor to the left in pursuing this man, having turned away both from him and from the wickedness of his school, let us, by the power of God, direct our mind to what follows, for the narration and refutation of the strange doctrines devised therein against the truth.

Against the Valesians: the thirty-eighth heresy, but the fifty-eighth in order.