Compendium of Heretical Fables 1 part 3/10

"For this charge," he says, "I commit to you, my child Timothy, in accordance with the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you may wage the good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience, which some having rejected have made shipwreck concerning the faith;"

"among whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have delivered to Satan, that they may be taught not to blaspheme." By these words he clearly taught that a lawless life is the foundation of impiety.

For by "a good conscience" he meant a pure life.

And he said that those who had rejected this made shipwreck concerning the faith.

"But refuse profane and old wives' fables." And again:

"If anyone teaches otherwise, and does not consent to wholesome words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up, knowing nothing, but is obsessed with disputes and arguments," and so forth.

"The love of money is the root of all evils, which some having coveted have strayed from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows." And at the very end he cries out exhortingly:

"O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you, turning away from profane empty talk and the contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge, which some professing have missed the mark concerning the faith." This clearly shows that, while they were still preaching, many founders of the abominable heresies had already appeared.

He also foretells that, after their departure, some will teach empty doctrines to those persuaded by them.

"For the Spirit," he says, "expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, through the hypocrisy of liars whose own conscience has been seared, forbidding to marry, commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth." And in the second Epistle, having foretold many charges against the men who would come after them, he added these words as well:

"For of these are those who creep into houses and take captive weak women laden with sins, led away by various lusts, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth;"

"As Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so also these withstand the truth, men corrupt in mind, disapproved concerning the faith." Then he further foretells the plain exposure of their false teaching:

"But they will not progress very far;"

"for their folly will be manifest to all, as theirs also came to be." I have adduced these apostolic testimonies, wishing to show that, while they were still tilling the ground, the common enemy sowed among it the tares of the heresies.

but most of the tares he changed into wheat;

perhaps to the reproach of those now entrusted with the governance of the Churches, who are unable to change even the small remnants of the impious heresies.

But the demon who is opposed to God was unwilling to be satiated with his war against godliness;

but again marshaled others against the truth, heretics who held beliefs directly opposite to those aforementioned.

This phalanx was begun by Ebion; the Hebrews use this word to designate "the poor man."

This man asserted, like us, that there is one unbegotten God, and declared him to be the creator of the world;

but he said that the Lord Jesus Christ was born of Joseph and Mary, being a man, yet surpassing others in virtue and purity;

and they conduct their lives according to the Mosaic law.

They accept only the Gospel according to the Hebrews, and they call the Apostle an apostate.

Of this number was Symmachus, who translated the Old Scripture from the Hebrew into the Greek tongue.

There is another band besides this one, bearing the same name;

for these too are called Ebionites;

in all other respects they agree with the former, but they say that the Savior and Lord was born of a Virgin.

They use only the Gospel according to Matthew, and they honor the Sabbath according to the law of the Jews, while consecrating the Lord's Day just as we do.

The Nazoraeans are Jews who honor Christ as a righteous man, and they use the Gospel called according to Peter.

Against these wrote Justin the philosopher and martyr, and Irenaeus the successor of the apostles, and Origen.

At the same time Cerinthus also originated another heresy.

This man, having spent a very long time in Egypt and having been trained in the philosophical sciences, later came to Asia, and named his own disciples after his own name.

This man taught that there is one God of all things, but that he is not the creator of the world; rather, certain separated powers created it, powers wholly ignorant of him.

Like the Hebrews, he said that Jesus was born by nature of a man and a woman, Joseph and Mary, and that he excelled in temperance, righteousness, and other good qualities.

But Christ, he said, descended upon him from above in the form of a dove, and only then did he proclaim the God who had been unknown, and perform the recorded wonders.

At the time of the passion, Christ departed, while Jesus underwent the suffering.

This man also fabricated certain revelations, as though he himself had beheld them, and composed teachings involving certain threats, and said that the kingdom of the Lord would be earthly;

and he dreamed of eating and drinking, and imagined pleasures, and marriages, and sacrifices, and feasts celebrated in Jerusalem, and that these things would go on being carried out for a thousand years.

For he supposed that the kingdom of the Lord would last that long.

This man, as they say, the divinely-inspired John the Evangelist saw while he was bathing;

for it happened that John too was using the bath-house on account of illness;

"...having fallen in, lest we too share in the harm."

And a certain Artemon, whom some call Artemas, held opinions concerning the God of all things similar to ours, saying that he is the maker of the universe;

but he said that the Lord Jesus Christ was a mere man, born of a virgin, though superior to the prophets in virtue.

He also said that the apostles had preached these very things, misinterpreting the sense of the divine Scriptures, and that those who came after them had wrongly declared Christ to be God, though he was not God.

And Theodotus of Byzantium, the cobbler, holding the same views as this man, led another band of followers.

This man the thrice-blessed Victor, bishop of the Romans, excommunicated, as one who had attempted to falsify the doctrines of the Church.

Against the heresy of these men the "Little Labyrinth" was written, which some suppose to be a work of Origen, but the style refutes those who say so.

But whether that man or another wrote it, it relates therein a story of the following kind:

It says that a certain Natalius, who had been one of the noble confessors, was deceived by Asclepiades and another Theodotus, who belonged to the same heresy, so that for a wage he presided over the sect, on account of the renown of his confession.

And they promised to give him a hundred and fifty denarii each day.

The physician of souls often exhorted this man to free himself from the error, telling him that he had contended not for these things, but for the doctrines of the Gospel.

But since he did not yield, being enslaved to the honor which he supposed he possessed as leader of those who had been deceived, God inflicted grievous scourges upon him through angels.

Having learned by experience what consequences result from resisting God, he came quickly to the church at dawn;

And that one, seeing him wailing and beseeching, took pity on him, and extended a hand toward repentance.

Having said these things about this man, the aforementioned author added that those who composed the heresy dared to tamper fraudulently with the divine Scripture, cutting away some parts and adding others;

claiming to have corrected what was not in good condition, and declaring themselves wiser than the all-holy Spirit.

He says that not even in this did they act in agreement, but Theodotus did it one way, Asclepiades another, Hermophilus yet another, and Apollonides differently still;

and each of these made further revisions of his own, so that there was great disagreement among the copies.

Concerning these men, then, this is what we have learned.

They say that the Melchisedekians are a branch of these, differing in only one point: that they suppose Melchizedek to be a certain divine and greatest power, and that Christ came into being after his image.

This heresy was begun by another Theodotus, a money-changer by trade.

Concerning the origin of all things, they agree with us.

But they say that Christ is not one, but rather that there is one above and one below;

and that this one had of old dwelt in many, and later had descended;

and he says that Jesus is at one time from God, at another time he calls him spirit, and at another time says that he had a virgin for a mother.

But in other writings, not even this.

And again he says that this one is reincarnated, and passes into other bodies, and is shown differently at each period of time.

These men also make use of incantations and invocations of demons, and of baptisms accompanied by a confession of the elements.

They embraced astrology, magic, and the erring art of the mathematici [astral calculators], and styled themselves "Prognostics."

But they rejected the Apostle entirely;

and they composed a certain book, which they claimed had fallen from the heavens,

holding that whoever had heard this book received a remission of sins beyond that which Christ bestowed.

Against this heresy Origen indeed wrote a genuine treatise.

It was organized by Alcibiades, who came from Apamea in Syria.

Concerning Paul of Samosata

Paul of Samosata was bishop of the church of the Antiochenes,

and at that time Zenobia held local rule over the region;

(for the Persians, having defeated the Romans, had handed over to her the government of Syria and Phoenicia) — he ran aground on the heresy of Artemon, thinking by this to win the favor of her who held Jewish opinions.

When those who governed the churches learned of this, they did not consider it safe to overlook so great a disease creeping and pressing forward, having as its ally the renown of that greatest of cities.

By letters he exhorted him as was fitting, and roused to zeal on behalf of piety the bishops who had assembled.

Among those assembled, foremost were Gregory the Great, the celebrated one, who performed the wonders sung of by all through the grace of the indwelling Spirit, and Athenodorus his brother, and Firmilian, bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, a distinguished man possessing both kinds of knowledge, both secular and divine;

and besides these, Helenus, who governed the metropolis of the Cilicians.

These men, though many had assembled, took the lead.

And at first they attempted, by proposals and counsels, to turn Paul away from his false doctrine.

But as time passed, the report, running everywhere again, made known to all Paul's deviation [from the faith].

But not even then did those most renowned men proceed rashly to the man's excision;

but first they attempted to heal the disease by letters;

but when they saw the malady was hard to cure, they eagerly came again to Antioch, and again applied gentle remedies, exhorting and entreating, and reminding him of the agreements that had been made.

Then, seeing that he denied [the charges], while his accusers persisted and undertook to refute him, they convened in council.

And when a certain Malachion, who had formerly been a sophist and was later honored with ordination to the presbyterate, held a debate with Paul, he was caught out declaring Christ to be a mere man who had been especially deemed worthy of divine grace.

they issued a unanimous verdict.

But since he resisted and continued to hold control of the church, they informed Aurelian, who was then emperor, of Paul's presumption, and persuaded him to drive him out of the church [building].

For being himself enslaved to the worship of idols, he deemed it just that the one who was rejected by the vote of his co-religionists should be cut off from their fellowship.

Sabellius the Libyan, from Pentapolis, originated a heresy of the following kind:

He asserted that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one hypostasis, and one person bearing three names, and that the same [being] is called at one time Father, at another Son, at another Holy Spirit;

and that in the Old [Testament] he gave the Law as Father, while in the New he became incarnate as Son;

and as Holy Spirit he descended upon the apostles.

Marcellus the Galatian likewise denied the Trinity of hypostases,

and he asserted that a certain extension of the Father's godhead had come into Christ, and this he called God the Word;

and that after the whole dispensation [had been accomplished], it was again drawn back and contracted toward God, out of whom it had been extended.

The all-holy Spirit he calls an extension of the extension, and says this was granted to the apostles.

In short, he posited a Trinity that expands and contracts according to the different dispensations.

Photinus spoke of one activity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, proclaiming under other names the same thought as the doctrines of Sabellius.

All these heresies the destroyer of mankind devised for the overthrow of the godhead of the Only-begotten;

but he who rebukes the deep and dries it up, who says to the deep:

"You shall be laid waste, and I will dry up your rivers." For not even a small remnant of these [heresies] has remained;

not of the Cerinthians, not of the Ebionites, not of the Theodotians, not of the Elchasaites, not of the Melchisedekians, not of the Sabellians, not of the Paulianists, not of the Marcellians, not of the Photinians;

but all have been given over entirely to the darkness of oblivion, and not even their names are known to most people.

For the word of our Savior is without falsehood, that "Every plant which my heavenly Father has not planted shall be uprooted." But the divine doctrines of the Gospels have flourished, and the branches of the apostles have extended even to the sea, and their shoots have filled the inhabited world, and the whole earth has been filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as abundant water covers the seas; and the testimony of events has demonstrated the truth of the prophecy.

Concerning Noetus of Smyrna

Concerning the Quartodecimans

Since in the previous books we have made clear the heresies that stand opposed to one another, come now, let us also instruct those who are ignorant concerning the other [heresies] which have sprung up between these and those.

For just as field mice are produced from the earth out of a certain distemper of the air and a foul-smelling quality of putrefaction, and they ravage the seed-crops, and ravage the plants, while the farmers hunt them down and destroy them;

so also, out of the evil craft of the devil, heresies have appeared which have harmed the more light-minded among men;

but these the best farmers of piety have driven out from the divine crops, and rendered extinct.

and at other times [he charged them] to be on their guard, enjoining this upon them, and adding:

"Many will come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves." Then he teaches how one ought to discern the difference between the sheep and the wolf clothed in its fleece.

"By their fruits," he says, "you shall know them." Then, by means of an image, he sets forth the statement more clearly.

"Do men gather grapes from thorns," he says, "or figs from thistles? So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit." And having expanded the statement, he added:

"So then, by their fruits you shall know them." Indeed, these impious and utterly abominable doctrines are, of themselves, sufficient to reveal their own father.

"For by its fruit," he says, "the tree is known." And their end [outcome] is also sufficient to expose the falsehood.

For falsehood is easily dissolved, but the power of truth is enduring.

and the doctrines of the Gospels blossom and flourish.

And though many peoples, demagogues, generals, and kings have warred [against it], the foundations of the Church have remained fixed firmly upon the rock;

while the heralds of the ill-named heresies have fled, according to the Wise One who said, "though none pursued."

"I let go my hands, and they were withered, and they became like dry grass upon the housetops;"

"but my salvation shall be forever, and my righteousness shall not fail." But let us pass on to the narration of the remaining doctrines.

The heresy of the Nicolaitans arose not only from folly, but also from licentiousness.

Clement taught more clearly the facts concerning it.

He said that Nicolaus had been one of the seven deacons whom the company of the apostles had ordained for the care of the widows.

Having a beautiful wife, he was accused by the apostles of harboring the passion of jealousy.

And he, attempting to refute this opinion, brought his wife into their midst and permitted whoever wished to have intercourse with her;

not thereby laying down a law, but exposing the false accusation of his accusers.

From this, certain persons, wickedly seizing upon what he had done for the aforesaid reason, made it a law to hold wives in common.

he trained [his household] in a nature of chastity, so that his son remained unmarried, and his daughters remained virgins.

By these facts, those who practice the aforesaid licentiousness and falsely call themselves by his name are not least of all convicted.

Against these the aforementioned Clement wrote, as did Irenaeus, Origen, and Hippolytus, bishop and martyr.

Montanus began the heresy called "according to the Phrygians," setting out from a certain village situated there, called Ardaban.

This man, goaded by a passion for pre-eminence, styled himself the Paraclete, and made two women, Priscilla and Maximilla, prophetesses, and called their writings prophetic books, and named the village of Pepuza "Jerusalem."

This man also legislated the dissolution of marriage, and introduced new fasts contrary to the custom of the Church.

But he did not corrupt the doctrine concerning the divine Trinity, and concerning the creation of the world he held the same teaching as we do.

Those who are attached to his teaching are called, after him, Montanists; they are also called "according to the Phrygians" after the nation, and Pepuzians after the village which he named Jerusalem.

The prophecies of Priscilla and Maximilla are honored among them above the divine Gospel.

Concerning their mysteries, some spread certain rumors, but they themselves do not admit them, but call the accusation slander.

But some of them, in a manner similar to Sabellius, denied the three hypostases of the Godhead, saying that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are the same, in a manner similar to Noetus of Asia.

Against these Apolinarius wrote, who became bishop of the sacred city in Phrygia, a man worthy of praise, who to the knowledge of divine things had also added secular learning.

Likewise also Miltiades, and Apollonius, and other writers.

And against Proclus, who presided over the same heresy, Gaius wrote, whom we have also mentioned before.

Concerning Noetus of Smyrna.

Noetus was by birth a Smyrnaean, and he renewed the heresy which a certain man called Epigonus had first brought forth, and which Cleomenes, taking it up, confirmed.

These are the main points of the heresy.

They say that there is one God and Father, the creator of all things;

invisible when he wills, but visible whenever he chooses;

and that the same one is both invisible and seen, both begotten and unbegotten;

unbegotten from the beginning, but begotten when he willed to be born of the Virgin;

impassible and immortal, and again in turn passible and mortal.

For being impassible, they say, he willingly endured the suffering of the cross.

This one they call both Son and Father, being named the one or the other according to the needs of the occasion.

Those who embraced this heresy were called Noetians.

After Noetus, Callistus championed this heresy, he too having devised certain additions to the impiety of the doctrine.

Concerning the Quartodecimans.

The heresy of the Quartodecimans has this basis.

They say that John the Evangelist, when he preached in Asia, taught them to celebrate the feast of Pascha on the fourteenth day of the moon;

sometimes on the third day, sometimes on the fifth, sometimes on the Sabbath, or on whatever day it happens to fall, they keep the festival of the memory of the Passion.

They also make use of the erroneous Acts of the Apostles, and of the other spurious writings — or rather, writings alien to grace — which they call apocryphal.

They also agree with the followers of Novatus;

for these too reject the teaching concerning repentance.

Novatus was a presbyter of the Church of the Romans.

When a most severe storm fell upon the Churches, it happened that some who had been reared in piety grew faint after many torments, and made use of words of denial.

These, when calm had returned, entreated to obtain the remedies of repentance.

For indeed the Lord said to the great Peter:

"Simon, Simon, Satan has demanded to sift you as wheat;"

"but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail." Novatus was not pleased with these counsels, but flatly opposed them, saying that those who had denied ought not to obtain salvation;

acting in a manner similar to those who prevent the sick from enjoying medicinal remedies.

Those who entreated to obtain healing convicted him of this: that, though often exhorted to run to them, and at least to support with words those who were being assailed by the machinations of the tyrant,

he had hidden himself, and, trying to escape notice, had denied even that he was a presbyter.

But nevertheless, the bishops who had assembled at Rome, on hearing these words, attempted to persuade him to agree with what had seemed best.

But when they saw him raging, and legislating a cruelty hateful to God, they separated him from the body of the Church, Cornelius at that time governing Rome.

This Novatus, having persuaded a few, very easily numbered, to share in his heresy, went out into Italy, and, deceiving three bishops of small towns, brought them along, as if they were to intercede on his behalf with the bishop of Rome.

And on arriving with them at a certain village, he compelled them to bestow episcopal ordination upon him; and they themselves, on reaching Rome and reporting what had happened, lamented this violence.

Thus this wretched man, having stolen his ordination, became the founder of the heresy.

Those of his own faction he called not only Novatians, but also Cathari.

"I am pure, do not touch me;" and he added:

"This is the smoke of my wrath, a fire that burns in it all the days." For the Lord resists the proud. And his successors have added other things to the doctrine as well;

for they drive out those who have entered upon second marriages from the sacred mysteries;

and they altogether banish the teaching of repentance from their own assemblies;

and they do not offer the all-holy chrism to those baptized by them.

Nepos, bishop of an Egyptian city, agreed with the doctrines of the Church in all other respects, but erred concerning the divine promises, holding that these would be fulfilled on earth, with eating and drinking, and Jewish festivals, and periods of a thousand years to be spent in these things.

These, then, are the doctrines that sprang up midway between those who deny the humanity of our God and Savior, and those who call him — though he is God existing before the ages — a mere man.

And of these, most, as soon as they sprouted, withered away, and have remained dried up.

For who now knows anyone called after Nepos, or Nicolaus, or Noetus, or Proclus? The East is entirely rid of the Montanists, the Novatians, and the Quartodecimans; Egypt too is rid of them, and Libya, and the West is likewise free of them;

only small portions of Asia and Pontus still contain their tares.

For neither Pontus Polemoniacus, nor Helenopontus, nor the Armenian provinces, nor the Cappadocian provinces, nor Lycaonia, nor Pisidia, nor Pamphylia, nor Lycia, nor Caria have received these heresies.

But of those who profess the truth, the continents are full, and even the very ends of the inhabited world are full.

For true is the prediction of the God of all, which he made through the tongue of prophecy, speaking to the Savior:

"For he shall have dominion," it says, "from sea to sea, and from the rivers to the ends of the earth. Before him the Ethiopians shall fall down, and his enemies shall lick the dust."

"The kings of Tarshish and the isles shall bring gifts;"

"the kings of the Arabians and of Sheba shall offer gifts."

"And all the kings of the earth shall worship him, all nations shall serve him." And these predictions received their fulfilment through the Church.

But the teaching of the heretics has, in part, been uprooted entirely, and, in part, differs in no way from half-withered plants, remaining in a few cities and villages, and betraying the weakness and falsity of those who composed it.

"but the counsel of the Lord endures forever;"

"the thoughts of his heart to all generations."

"Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom he has chosen for his own inheritance." Book Four of the Compendium of Heretical Fables.

Concerning the Psathyrians, and the other sects descended from the heresy of Arius.

Concerning the Polemians, and the other Apolinarists.

Concerning the Messalians, that is, the Euchites, and the Enthusiasts.

That most of the ill-named heresies were handed over to the primordial gods of Valentinus, Bythos and Sige, has been shown in the books already written.

And cities and villages, freed from these errors, bear witness to the account.

But the father of lies, whom the Lord fittingly called a murderer (for he is always plotting against the souls of men), devised other engines of plots.

For perceiving that the things said about the God of all by that man's disciples seemed abominable to everyone, and that the accounts of the dispensation did not carry conviction;

for some said that a bare Godhead had appeared, while others said that humanity alone, bereft of Godhead, wrought the dispensation;

he mixed together an impiety free from either extreme.

And finding Arius reaching after human glory, he kindled in him the passion of arrogance, and implanted in him the delusion of the heresy.

For this man, belonging to the roll of presbyters of the Church of the Alexandrians, and seeing the great Alexander established upon the high-priestly throne, received the sting of envy, and, seeking occasions for a quarrel against him, found as his pretext the impiety of his doctrines.

For while that man was offering the apostolic pasture to the flock, and guiding the sheep to the evangelic springs, this man spoke against