Refutation of All Heresies 10 part 2/2

Cerinthus, who was trained in Egypt, himself wished [to hold] that the cosmos was made not by the first God, but by a certain angelic power, far separated and set apart from the authority that is over all things, and ignorant of the God who is above all.

And he says that Jesus was not born of a virgin, but that he came to be, as the son of Joseph and Mary, just like the rest of mankind; and that he excelled all the rest in righteousness and prudence and understanding.

And [he says] that after the baptism, Christ descended upon him from the authority that is over all things, in the form of a dove, and that then he proclaimed the unknown Father and performed mighty works; but that at the end, at the [approach of the] Passion, Christ flew away from Jesus; that Jesus suffered, but that Christ remained impassible, being [the] spirit of the Lord.

The Ebionites say that the cosmos was made by the truly existing God, but concerning Christ they [hold] similarly to Cerinthus. They live entirely according to the Law of Moses, claiming that thus they are justified.

Theodotus of Byzantium introduced a heresy of the following kind, asserting that all things were made by the truly existing God, but that Christ appeared to the aforementioned Gnostics in some such manner as this: that Christ is a man common [in nature] to all, but differs in this respect, that he came into being, according to the will of God, from a virgin, the Holy Spirit having overshadowed her — not having been made flesh within the virgin.

Later, at the baptism, Christ descended upon Jesus in the form of a dove, whence they say that the powers were not at work in him before. And he holds that Christ is not God. Such, then, are the [teachings] of Theodotus.

But others, from among these same [people], say everything similarly to those spoken of before, having changed only one thing: in that they suppose Melchizedek to be a certain power, asserting that he exists above every power; and that Christ exists in his image.

The Phrygians, having taken the origins of their heresy from a certain Montanus and Priscilla and Maximilla, regarding these women as prophetesses and Montanus as a prophet, think rightly concerning the first principle of the universe and its creation, and have not taken up alien views concerning Christ; but they err in the matters already mentioned, attending to the words of these [prophets] above the Gospels, and thereby go astray, establishing new and strange fasts.

But others of them, being attached to the heresy of the Noetians, hold similarly concerning the women and Montanus, but blaspheme concerning the Father of all, saying that he himself is [also] the Son, visible and invisible, begotten and unbegotten, mortal and immortal; these took their starting points from a certain Noetus.

Similarly, Noetus too, a man of Smyrnaean origin, a man of confused speech and inconsistent, introduced a heresy of this kind, which passed from a certain Epigonus to Cleomenes, and thus has continued down to the present among their successors — saying that the Father and God of all is one; that this one, having made all things, became invisible to the things that exist whenever he willed, but appeared then, whenever he wished.

And [they say] that this one is invisible whenever he is not seen, visible whenever he is seen; unbegotten whenever he is not begotten, but begotten whenever he is begotten of a virgin; impassible and immortal whenever he does not suffer nor die; but when he comes to suffering, [he does] suffer and die. They hold that this Father himself is the Son, called by different names according to the circumstances that befall him.

The heresy of these men was strengthened by Callistus, whose life we have set forth with certainty; he himself also gave birth to a heresy — having taken his starting points from these, himself likewise confessing that the Father and God is one, this one being the demiurge of all, and that this same one is the Son, spoken of and named [as such] in name only, but in substance being one Spirit; for God, [being] Spirit, is not other than the Word, nor the Word other than God.

There is, then, one person, divided in name, but not in substance. He names this Word to be one God, and says that it has been made flesh. And he wishes that the one seen and grasped according to the flesh be the Son, but that the Father dwells within; being torn in different directions, at one time toward the doctrine of Noetus, at another toward that of Theodotus, holding to nothing securely. Such, then, are the [teachings] of Callistus.

A certain Hermogenes, he too wishing to say something [of his own], said that God made all things out of matter that was co-eternal [with him] and lying at hand as substrate; for [he held that] it was impossible for God to make the things that came to be otherwise than out of things that [already] exist.

But certain others, as though introducing something new, having gathered contributions from all the heresies, and having prepared a strange book called Elchasai, these confess likewise that the first principles of the universe were made by God.

But they do not confess Christ to be one; rather, [they hold] that there is one above, and that he himself is transferred into many bodies, many times, and now [is] in Jesus, likewise having come to be at one time from God, at another having become spirit, at another from a virgin, at another not; and that this one, thereafter, is continually transferred into bodies and is shown forth in many at [different] times.

They make use of incantations and baptisms, upon the confession/invocation of the elements. They are wildly excited about astrology and mathematics and magic. And they call [themselves] foreknowers.

... of God, [he] migrates from the city of Harran in Mesopotamia into the land now called Palestine and Judaea, but at that time called the land of Canaan — concerning which, in this section [of our work], we have also given an account, not carelessly, in other treatises.

Through this one, then, comes the beginning of the increase [of the people] throughout Judaea, which took its name from Judah, the fourth son of Jacob, who is also called [...] because the royal line was born from him.

Abraham migrates from Mesopotamia ... having become a hundred years old, begets Isaac; and Isaac, having become sixty years old, [begets] Jacob; and Jacob, at eighty-seven years, begets Levi; and Levi, at [...] years, begets Kohath; and Kohath was [three] years old when Jacob [went] into Egypt.

The whole time, then, during which Abraham and all his line, [continuing] through Isaac, sojourned in the land called Canaan, comes to two hundred and fifteen years. And the father of this one [Abraham] is Nahor, [and] of this one Serug, [and] of this one Reu, of this one Peleg, of this one Eber — whence also [they] came to be called Hebrews. And these were seventy-two nations.

The names of these we have also set forth in [our] books, not omitting this either, each in its place, wishing to show to those who love learning the affection we have for the divine, and the unhesitating knowledge which we have acquired, through labors, concerning the truth.

And the father of this Eber is Shelah; and of this one, Cainan; [and of this one] Arphaxad, whose [son] is Shem; and of this one, Noah, in whose time occurred the flood over the whole world — which neither the Egyptians nor the Chaldeans nor the Greeks record, [although] they have, each in their own regions, the floods that occurred in the time of Ogyges and of Deucalion. There are, then, also up to this point five generations, [and] four hundred and five years.

This man, having become most pious and beloved of God, together with [his] wife and children and their three wives, escaped the flood that occurred, being preserved safe in an ark, whose measurements and remains, as we have set forth, are shown even to this day in the mountains called Ararat, which lie toward the region of the Adiabenians. It is possible, then, for those who wish to investigate diligently, to see how clearly it has been demonstrated that the race of the god-fearing is more ancient than [that of] all the Chaldeans, Egyptians, [and] Greeks. And why is it now necessary [for us] also to name those before Noah who were god-fearing and companions of God, since this testimony concerning antiquity is sufficient for the matter now before us?

But since it does not seem unreasonable to demonstrate that those nations occupied with wisdom [philosophy] are more recent than those who reverenced God, it is fitting also to say from where their race [descended], and when, having migrated, they [settled] in these lands — [lands which] did not give them their name from the regions themselves, but they themselves took [their name] from those who first ruled and settled [there].

To Noah are born three sons: Shem, Ham, [and] Japheth; from these the whole race of mankind has multiplied and every land has been inhabited; for the word of God, which said, 'Increase and multiply and fill the earth,' prevailed over them. So great was the power of this one word that from the three sons children were born, by nation, [to the number of] seventy-two: from Shem twenty-five, from Japheth fifteen, and from Ham thirty-two.

To Ham, from among the aforementioned thirty-two, are born these [sons]: Canaan, from whom [come] the Canaanites; Mestraim, from whom [come] the Egyptians; Cush, from whom [come] the Ethiopians; Phut, from whom [come] the Libyans. These, in their own tongue, are called, even to this day, by the appellation of their ancestors; but in Greek they are called by the names by which they are now [commonly] called.

But if the inhabiting of these lands did not exist previously, nor is the beginning of the race of mankind [there] demonstrated, while these [nations] are sons of Noah, a god-fearing man, who himself also became a disciple of god-fearing men, for whose sake he escaped the great and temporary threat of water — how were not the god-fearing more ancient than all the Chaldeans [and] Greeks, whose father is born from this [same] Japheth, by name Iouan, from whom [come] the Greeks and Ionians?

But if the nations occupied with philosophy are shown, in every respect, to be far more recent than the race of the god-fearing and than the flood, how shall not [all the other nations] — both barbarian and however many, in the world, are known and unknown — appear more recent than these?

Holding fast, then, to this account, learn, O Greeks, Egyptians, Chaldeans, and every race of mankind, what the divine is and what its creative work is — [learn this] from us, the friends of God, who have practiced this not with boastful speech, but who compose our discourses in the knowledge of truth and in the discipline of self-control, for the demonstration of it.

God is one, the first and only [God] and Lord, maker of all things; he had nothing coexistent with himself — not boundless chaos, not immeasurable water, or solid earth, not dense air, not hot fire, not fine spirit, not the deep-blue vault of the great heaven; but he was one, alone, by himself, who, having willed, made the things that exist, which did not exist before, except in that he willed to make them, as one experienced of the things that would be; for foreknowledge too is present with him.

And [he made] beforehand, as diverse principles for the things that would be, fire and spirit, water and earth, out of which diverse [elements] he made his own creation, binding together some things of a single substance, others out of two, others out of three, and others out of four.

And the things made out of one [element] were immortal — for dissolution does not attend upon them; for what is one will never be dissolved — but the things [made] out of two or three or four are dissoluble, wherefore they are also called mortal; for this is what is called death: the dissolution of the things bound together.

It is sufficient, then, for now, for those who think rightly, that this much has been set forth in answer; and if they shall love learning and shall seek out the substances of these things and the causes of the creation of all things, they will come to know [them] upon encountering our book which contains [the treatise] Concerning the Substance of the Universe.

But for now it is sufficient to set forth the causes which the Greeks, not knowing, glorified, with elegant speech, the parts of creation, being ignorant of the Creator; and it is from these that the heresiarchs, having taken their starting points, reshaping with similar arguments the things previously stated by those [Greeks], have put together laughable heresies.

This one, then, alone, God over all, having first conceived a Word, begets [him] — not a word as [mere] utterance, but the indwelling reasoning of the universe. This one alone he begot out of that which is; for the Father himself was 'that which is,' out of whom [came] that which was begotten.

And the Word was the cause for the things that came to be, bearing in himself the will of the one who begot him, [and] not without share in the Father's own understanding; for at the very moment of coming forth from the one who begot him, having become his firstborn, he had within himself, as a voice, the ideas that had been conceived beforehand in the Father; wherefore, when the Father commanded that the cosmos come to be, the Word, point by point, accomplished that which was pleasing to God.

And the things that were to multiply through generation he made male and female; but as many as were for service and ministry, [he made these] either male [alone], not requiring females, or neither male nor female.

For indeed their first substances—fire and spirit, water and earth—having come into being out of what is not, are neither male nor female; nor can male and female proceed from any of these, except the commanding God should so will it, that the Word might serve that end.

I confess that angels are made of fire, and I say that females are not found among them. Sun, moon, and stars likewise I hold to be of fire and spirit, and I have judged them to be neither male nor female.

But I hold that from water are swimming and flying creatures, male and female—for so the God who willed it commanded the moist substance to be fruitful; and likewise from earth, reptiles and beasts and every kind of animal, male and female—for such was the nature of the things that came to be. For whatever he willed, God made; these things he fashioned by his Word, unable to have come into being otherwise than as they came into being.

And when—or as—he willed and made, he signified it by calling it by name. After these things, fashioning the ruler of all, he made him out of all the composite substances. In not willing to make him a god he committed no error, nor in not willing to make him an angel—be not deceived—but a man. For if he had willed to make you a god, he was able; you have the proof of this in the Word. Willing a man, he made you a man; but if you wish also to become a god, obey him who made you and do not now resist, so that, being found faithful in the small thing, you may also be entrusted with the great. Of this the reckoning rests with him alone.

Wherefore he is also God, being of the substance of God; but the world is out of nothing, wherefore it is not God; this world also admits of dissolution, whenever the Creator wills. But the God who created has made nothing evil, nor does he make it, but what is good and beautiful.

For he who makes is good. But man, having come into being, was a creature possessed of free will, not ruling, not possessing mind, not holding sway over all things by contrivance and authority and power, but a servant, and possessing all things contrary to this; who, by virtue of being self-determined, engenders evil—brought about as a mere accident, and nothing in itself, unless you do it; for it is in the willing and reckoning of something as evil that evil is named, not existing from the beginning, but supervening afterward.

Since he is self-determined, was law appointed by God in vain? For if man did not possess the will and the not-willing, would law even have been appointed? For law will not be appointed for an irrational creature, but rather bridle and lash; whereas for man, commandment and penalty, for doing what is commanded and for not doing it. For him a law was appointed of old through righteous men; nearer to us, through the aforementioned Moses, a man reverent and beloved of God, a law was appointed full of solemnity and righteousness.

And all things the Word of God administers, the firstborn Child of the Father, the light-bringing Voice that was before the Morning Star. Thereafter righteous men became friends of God. These are called prophets, because they made manifest beforehand the things to come.

To them the word of prophecy did not come for one occasion only, but through all generations the voices of those who foretold stood forth as easily demonstrable—not only there, when they answered to those present, but also through all generations they declared beforehand the things that would be; for in telling the things past, they reminded mankind; and in showing the things present, they persuaded men not to be negligent; and in foretelling the things to come, seeing beforehand what had long been spoken of, they rendered each one of us reverently fearful, as we look also for the things still to come.

Such is our faith, O all mankind—we who are not persuaded by empty words, nor carried away by improvisations of the heart, nor beguiled by the plausibility of eloquent speech, but who are not disobedient to words spoken by divine power. These things God commanded by the Word, and the Word spoke, declaring them, through them turning man back from disobedience—not enslaving him by the force of necessity, but calling him to freedom by voluntary choice.

This Word, in the last times the Father sent forth, no longer willing him to speak through a prophet, nor wishing him to be surmised as one proclaimed obscurely, but declaring that he should be manifested to the very sight, so that the world, seeing him, might be struck with reverent awe—not one commanding through the person of prophets, nor terrifying the soul through an angel, but he himself present, the very one who had spoken.

This one, this one who took a body from a virgin, and who bore the old man through a new formation, having passed through every age of life in his living—so that he himself might become a law for every age, and might display his own manhood as a pattern to all men, being present among them, and through himself might prove that God made nothing evil, and that man, being self-determined, has the power to will and not to will, being capable in both.

We know that this man came to be of the same lump as ourselves; for if he did not exist of the same substance, he legislates in vain that we should imitate the Teacher. For if that man happened to be of a different substance, why does he command the same things to me, who am by nature weak, and how then is he good and just?

But so that he might not be reckoned other than ourselves, he endured toil, and did not refuse to hunger and thirst, and rested in sleep, and did not refuse suffering, and was obedient unto death, and manifested the resurrection—offering up in all these things his own manhood as firstfruits, so that you, suffering, might not lose heart, but confessing yourself to be a man, you too may look for what you have furnished to him†.

Such is the true account concerning the Divine, O men—Greeks and barbarians, Chaldaeans and Assyrians, Egyptians and Libyans, Indians and Ethiopians, Celts and the Latins who hold command, and all who dwell in Europe, Asia, and Libya—to whom I become a counselor, being myself a disciple of the Word who loves mankind, and myself a lover of mankind, so that, running to us, you may be taught by us,

who is the God who truly exists, and what is his well-ordered creation—not giving heed to the sophistries of artful words, nor to the vain promises of heretics who steal words, but to the solemn simplicity of unadorned truth, through the knowledge of which you shall escape the impending threat of the judgment of fire, and the murky eye of Tartarus, unlit, not illumined by the voice of the Word, and the surging of the ever-flowing lake of the flame of Gehenna, and the eye of the tormenting angels, wardens of Tartarus, ever remaining in menace, and the worm of the body†..., turning back upon the body that cast it forth, as in a returning.

And these things you shall escape, having been taught the God who truly is; and you shall have an immortal body, incorruptible together with the soul, and you shall obtain the kingdom of heaven—you who, having lived on earth, have come to know the heavenly King—and you shall become an equal companion of God and a joint-heir with Christ, no longer enslaved by desires or passions and diseases.

For you have become god; for whatever sufferings you endured as a man, these he permitted because you are a man; but whatever things accompany God, these God has promised, when you shall have been made divine, having been begotten immortal. This is the meaning of 'know thyself'—having come to know the God who made you. For to know oneself happens together with being known by him who calls you. Do not, therefore, be at enmity with one another, O men, nor hesitate to turn back.

For Christ is the God over all, who commanded that sin be washed away from mankind, making the old man new, having called him 'image' from the beginning, displaying through a type the affection he has toward you—that affection—obeying whose solemn commands, and having become a good imitator of the Good One, you are honored by him as his equal in likeness. For God is not impoverished, even by making you a god unto his own glory.