Book of Heresies 1 part 2/9

'You do not know what you desire. For Christ,' he says, 'did not suffer, nor was he crucified. How then can you confess this one as crucified,' he says, 'when he was not crucified, and you do not even know who it was that suffered?' Let us also consider by what madness Nicolaus the stranger of Antioch was deceived. He was under the apostles and was chosen by them as the seventh deacon, as it is written in the Acts of the Apostles; but afterward, withdrawing from them and from sound doctrine, he was ruined by various errors and deceits. Though he was at first with the apostles and with Stephen the most blessed martyr, he himself also says that there are very many powers; and from him especially arose the Gnostics, who suppose that they know something.

These venerate Barbelo and a certain woman named Nora; others among them venerate a certain Ialdabaoth, and others a man called Calacau. They also set forth this teaching, saying: 'Before, there was only darkness and the deep and water; and from these a division was made in the midst, and the spirit separated these elements. Then the darkness, rushing in upon the spirit, begot four Aeons, and these four begot four other Aeons.' This—the right hand and the left—they say is light and darkness. They say also that a certain one lay with that woman and Power, from whom gods and men and angels and seven spirits of demons were born. They add too that certain prophets were born of her, one Speciosus by name, and Barcaba.

Others, raving, assert that they behold a 'gospel of consummation' and empty visions full of deceit and various dreams. Others again established a heresy derived from Judas the betrayer, saying that Judas did a good work in betraying the Saviour. 'For this man,' they say, 'became for us the author of all good knowledge, through whom the heavenly mysteries were made manifest to us. For since the Powers in heaven did not wish Christ to suffer'—he says—'and knew that, if he suffered, he would bestow life upon men, Judas, knowing this'—he says—'that if Christ suffered he would bring salvation to men, thereupon betrayed the Saviour.'

But this evil of impious assertion sometimes seems to certain vain and senseless people to be plausible, although in all respects it is contrary and detestable—since the blessed prophet David before, and the Lord and Saviour, condemned him, and the blessed apostles confirmed the Lord's sentence against him in their teaching. After this one there arose a man named Carpocrates, who likewise says that there is one first principle, from which principle—that is, from God—were produced, he says, emanations of angels and powers; and those powers which are below made this visible creation in which we, he says, dwell.

He says, moreover, that Christ was not born of the Virgin Mary and the divine Spirit, but he supposes that he was born a man from the seed of Joseph, and he imagines that he was born of him carnally, just like all men. After the passion, he says, he was found better among the Jews, of upright life and conduct; and they proclaim that his soul was taken up into heaven, but reckon that his flesh was left behind on earth, holding the opinion that there is salvation of the soul but no salvation of the flesh.

Cerinthus followed in this man's error and likeness of vanity, teaching likewise about the generation of the Saviour and the creation of the angels, in no way differing from him, except that he assents only in part to the Law, namely that it was given by God, and reckons that the very God of the Jews is the one who gave the Law to the sons of Israel. He teaches, moreover, that men should be circumcised and keep the Sabbath, and announces that Christ has not yet risen from the dead but is to rise. He does not accept the blessed apostle Paul, honors Judas the betrayer, and accepts only the Gospel according to Matthew, spurns three Gospels, casts away the Acts of the Apostles, and blasphemes the blessed martyrs.

This man, under the blessed apostles, stirred up a question of sedition, saying that men ought to be circumcised; on whose account, and against his heresy, the blessed apostles decreed a sentence in their Acts: that men who came from the Gentiles and believed in Christ our Lord and Saviour ought no longer to obey Judaism—that is, the carnal observances of circumcision and other such things of empty superstition. Hebion, this Cerinthus's disciple, in many things [erred] like him.

Erring in like manner, he reckoned that our Saviour was a man born carnally of Joseph, and taught that there was no divinity in him; but he asserted that, just as all the prophets, so also he possessed the grace of God—yet he did not believe that he was the God of majesty and the eternal Son of God the Father together with the Father, whereas the divine Scriptures everywhere testify and proclaim that he is the eternal God together with the true and eternal Father. After this one there arose a certain Valentinus, more a Pythagorean than a Christian, belching forth a certain vain and pernicious doctrine and, as it were, an arithmetic—that is, preaching a most deceitful knowledge of numbers—and he took captive the souls of many ignorant people. And at first indeed he was in the Church.

But afterward, becoming more puffed up and deceived by no small error, and living in the province of Cyprus, he began to define this: 'There was nothing else before,' he says, 'in the world, except the Deep of the sea and Silence'—which the vain poets assert and teach is Chaos—'and from this Deep and Silence proceeded Mind and Truth; from Mind and Truth, Word and Life; from Word and Life, Man and Church; from Man and Church proceeded twelve Aeons, that is, Ages; and from Word and Life proceeded ten Aeons; and from Mind and Truth, eight Aeons; and this is the Triacontad of Ages, that is, thirty Aeons of Aeons.' From the ogdoad, then, and the decad and the duodecad, he raves that thirty Aeons subsist.

He says, moreover, that Christ was sent by the Father—whom he calls by the name Deep—for the salvation of the whole world, and that he brought flesh down from heaven, but received nothing from the holy Virgin; rather, he affirms that he passed through her as water through a channel. He reckons, therefore, that the soul alone is saved, but that the body of man is not saved. There are others, his successors: Ptolemy, who introduced an equally vain doctrine, saying that there are four Aeons and another four, wishing to decree some new fabrication of falsehood other than what Valentinus, his teacher, had counterfeited.

After him a certain man named Secundus, teaching similarly about Aeons, asserts that they were made infinite in number; but he supposes that Christ appeared as if by fantasy—that is, as a shadow to the human race—and that he did not have the true flesh of a man. After him there arose Heracleon, his disciple, saying that there is one first principle, which he calls God; then that from this another was born; and from these two he asserts the generation of many principles, raving likewise along with his teachers.

But after this one his successor, a certain Marcus, making out number and measure and reckoning, and also a system of computation of letters, as though a plausible discoverer of some novel thing—since he supposed that he could be praised by certain people—fell likewise into no small madness of error. For he says thus: 'There are twenty-four letters,' he says, 'which possess the perfection of all things. On account of which Christ too,' he says, 'said: I am Alpha and Omega.' He said also that in the last time Christ descended upon Jesus in the figure and likeness of a dove, and he taught that Christ himself was the dove, which descended, he says, upon the twelve Aeons, that is, upon the twelve apostles; and he reckoned that one of them fell, that is, Judas.

He says, moreover, that Christ appeared only in semblance and suffered as if through a shadow, yet he reckons that he did not truly suffer in body. After him came Colorbasus, who likewise asserted that the life and generation of all men consists in the letters and the number of the elements and of the seven stars, and did not perceive that the true salvation of men is to be hoped for in the majesty and power of Christ, nor in his bodily presence. After these there arose a certain Cerdo, preaching worse than his teachers; who, when he had come to Rome from Syria, dared to say that there are two first principles, that is, one good God and one evil, and that the good God does good things, and the evil one evil things.

He asserts, moreover, that Jesus the Saviour was not born of a virgin, nor appeared in the flesh, nor descended from heaven, but only seemed to men in semblance—one who was not, he says, truly seen, but was a shadow; whence by some he was thought to suffer, yet he did not truly suffer. Marcion, his disciple, a Pontic by birth, from the city of Sinope, came to the city of Rome, and dwelling there sowed his wicked heresy, and, questioning the holy presbyters of the catholic Church, he set before them the meanings of his deadly error, saying thus: 'What is it,' he says, 'that is written in the Gospel where the Lord says: No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth onto an old garment, nor new wine into old wineskins, otherwise the wineskins burst and the wine is spilled?'

And again: 'A good tree does not bear bad fruit, nor a bad tree bear good fruit.' And receiving an interpretation of this from the holy presbyters, he did not acquiesce in the truth, but rather confirmed the lie of Cerdo his teacher; and this man likewise announced one good God and one evil. He believed that Christ appeared only in semblance—that is, as if through a shadow—and that he suffered in shadow, yet not in true flesh. He accepts only the Gospel according to Luke, not the other Gospels, nor the epistles of the blessed apostle Paul, except those to Timothy and to Timothy.

For whatever the Scriptures say of Christ as of true God, he passes over; but whatever they say of him as of a man, those passages he accepts; and he does not even confess that Christ is the judge of all. Having been overcome and put to flight by the blessed John the evangelist and by the presbyters of the city of Ephesus, he was sowing this heresy at Rome. A certain Lucanus after this one, establishing and decreeing things similar to Marcion, just as that teacher of his, Marcion, counterfeited in all things. There was Apelles, his disciple, preaching things similar in some respects to Marcion; who, when asked by some how he held the faith, replied: 'I have no need to say, with Marcion, that I assert two co-eternal principles;

for I proclaim that there is one principle, whom I acknowledge as God, which God made the angels, and also made another power, whom I know to be a second God, who is also a power of God, which made the world. But this God who made the world is not,' he says, 'good, like the one who made him: he is subject to that God by whom this one too was made, and obeys his nod and command and precepts in all things.' Of this man the Arians are now associates and supporters, preaching and thinking thus. He says, moreover, that Christ appeared in the flesh, yet not, as Valentinus held, that he brought flesh down from heaven. He also says that after the passion the flesh did not rise, but that from the four elements—

that is, from the dry, hot, moist, and cold—Christ received [a body], and in the resurrection rendered back again to the elements what he had received from the world, and let it down into the earth, but he himself ascended into heaven without flesh. So under the apostles these were the heresies, in order. NOW AFTER THE PERSECUTION OF DECIUS there was a certain Tatian, a disciple of the holy martyr Justin, who after Justin's passion departed from the truth and despised in all things the doctrine of so great a holy and blessed martyr and master, saying that certain Aeons had been put forth from heaven, adding also this, that Adam our forefather, the first-formed, is not saved. And concerning the Aeons he raved like Marcion.

He also abhors the generation of men, and casts away the lawful right of marriage, and does not confess that this right was established by God. Others again arose after these, the Cataphrygians, dwelling in the province of Phrygia. These accept the prophets and the Law, confess the Father and the Son and the Spirit, await the resurrection of the flesh—things which the catholic Church also proclaims; but they announce certain prophets of their own, namely one named Montanus, and Priscilla and Maximilla, whom neither the prophets nor Christ announced.

They add too that the fullness of the Holy Spirit was not granted through the blessed apostles by Christ's gift, but they imagine it was imparted through those pseudo-prophets of theirs; and they separate themselves from the catholic Church on account of those pseudo-prophets and false teachers of theirs. These baptize the dead, celebrate the mysteries publicly, and call Pepuza—their village, so named in Phrygia—Jerusalem, where Maximilla and Priscilla and Montanus himself are known to have spent a vain and unfruitful span of life. There too the cynic mystery and the abominable impiety concerning an infant is celebrated. For they say that these people mix the blood of an infant at Passover into their sacrifice, and thus send it out everywhere to their pernicious and false confederates.

After these there was a certain Theodotus, a Byzantine by birth, a denier of Christ our God, who in the persecution stood forth as a denier of the Saviour, and began to say, teaching thus: 'Christ,' he says, 'was a common man like all men.' He said this so that he might no longer endure from men the reproach of his denial, reasoning that if anyone should say to him: 'Why did you deny Christ as God and Lord?' he might answer: 'I denied a man, not God.' These people use chapters of the Scriptures which teach about Christ as about a man, but those which speak of him as of God, those they do not accept—reading and in no way understanding, and showing themselves rather to be associates of pagan impiety and Jewish blindness than partakers of Christian salvation.

There are others who speak of a 'metangismos'—that is, that the Son enters into the Father and is contained in him as a vessel within a vessel—not knowing what they assert, since the Saviour did not say that the Son enters into the Father, but taught it for the sake of equality in divinity and power, not an entering-in or containment, as those madmen imagine, holding this opinion and not understanding that, just as the Father is immeasurable, so too is the Son, and so too is the Holy Spirit, equal in all things; so that the Trinity is immovable, immeasurable and almighty and eternal everywhere, which is most plainly announced to us from the holy Scriptures—that there are three Persons living forever, equal in all majesty and power, yet the Son and the Holy Spirit are properly from the Father.

After these, others, departing from them, said similar things, and add too that Melchizedek the priest is a great power of God, and assert certain diverse names of men, dissenting from the catholic faith. Others again are the Noetians, named after a certain senseless Noetus, who said that the almighty Father himself is Christ, and that he himself was born and he himself suffered and he himself died in the body. This man also said that he was Moses, and that his brother was Elijah the prophet.

Sabellius after this one, from Libya, his disciple, likewise followed the likeness and error of his teacher, whence afterward they were called Sabellians, who are also Patripassians, and Praxeans, from Praxeas and Hermogenes, who were in Africa, who also, holding such opinions, were cast out of the catholic Church. What is this vanity of the Galatians, of Seleucus and Hermias the heretics? Who, while they wish God to be incorporeal, also assert that hyle—that is, the matter of the world—is co-eternal with God; and they do not accept the matter of the elements—which is without soul, that is, irrational, which was made by God the Father through the Son out of nothing, so that what was not before might come to be—in this proper way.

But they say that the spirit of man—that is, the soul—was not made by God through the Son, but is from the earth; and they assert that evil is at one time from God, at another time from matter. They deny that the Saviour sits in the flesh at the right hand of the Father, but reckon that he stripped off the flesh and placed it in the sun; because the prophet said—though they do not know what he meant—'In the sun he set his tabernacle.' They deny, following Plato, that paradise is visible, these too being servants of vanities, and reckoning that the souls of men are of fire and spirit. These people do not use baptism, on account of this word which the blessed John the Baptist said: 'He himself will baptize you in the Spirit and in fire.' These say that the angels are the creators of our souls, not Christ the Saviour;

moreover, they assert that this world is hell, and they preach that the resurrection is this procreation of children which takes place daily in the human race, and they do not announce, in expectation, that future and glorious resurrection of immortality. There are others, disciples of these, who are called Proclianites and Hermeonites. They add too various errors, teaching that what is written in the prophet Ezekiel, he says, about four living creatures, they reckon that the lion holds the likeness of the king of the Parthians, the calf of the Egyptians, the eagle of the Romans, but the man of the most pious.

These use the book of Wisdom of that Sirach who wrote after Solomon—that is, after many ages—one book of Wisdom; but they deny that Christ came in the flesh, do not hope for resurrection and judgment, and do not believe that he was born of a virgin. They dwell in the regions of Galatia and, lurking like foxes, plunder very many, just as Solomon testified, saying: 'Catch us the little foxes that destroy the vineyards of the Lord and Saviour.'

There are others who are called Florians or Carpocratians, who are also called Soldiers, because they were of the military; denying judgment and resurrection, not believing that Christ was born of a virgin, and reckoning that the whole resurrection consists in the procreation of children through abominable intercourse, so that in their church, after sunset, with the lamps extinguished, they do not hesitate to mingle with loose women—supposing that they are fulfilling the precept of the Law: 'Be born and multiply'—hastening to obey rather Judaism and abominable paganism than to acquiesce in Christian truth, and clinging rather to the life and folly of beasts, to whom the Scripture also compared the life of beasts.

There are others who, concerning the most salutary day of Passover, are in doubt, asserting that Passover is to be celebrated on the fourteenth moon, not as the catholic Church celebrates it, and they assert that it must always be celebrated in the month of March; and when they do this, they do not always keep Passover on the Lord's day, not reckoning the hours and days, but celebrate it on the second or third or fourth or fifth or sixth day, and by this error they do not recognize the one true and salutary day of the Passover of our Lord, established and confirmed for the whole world by the Lord's course, by the number of the moon, by months, by intercalations; and since they do not compute these things, they do not know what they celebrate. Another heresy is that of the Chiliasts—that is, of the thousand years—which teaches thus:

'When Christ comes from heaven,' he says, 'those thousand years will be for us again for living carnally, begetting and eating, just as is done now in this age every day'—being ignorant that the heavenly food, that is, the reward of immortality, is to be present, not this perishable and transient one—whereas the Lord too, in the Gospel, [answered] certain Jews who supposed this: 'You do not know the Scriptures,' he says, 'and are ignorant of their power: for on the day of judgment they will neither marry nor be given in marriage, but will be like the angels.' And again the apostle says: 'The kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the eternal Spirit of the Lord.' There are others after these, heretics, who do not accept the Gospel according to John and his Apocalypse.

And since they do not understand the power of the Scripture nor desire to learn, they persist in heresy, perishing, so that they even dare to say that it is the work of that heretic Cerinthus, and likewise that his Apocalypse is not that of the blessed John the evangelist and apostle, but of Cerinthus the heretic—who at that time, having been exposed by the blessed apostles as a heretic, was cast out of the Church.

The Manicheans arose after these, from Persia, from one called Manes or Turbo, taking pernicious fuel from their predecessors; asserting two gods, one good and one evil, and preaching that there is a battle between god and god; and supposing that the soul of man is properly from god, but reckoning that the body was made by the devil; denying the resurrection, not hoping for judgment, worshipping demons, adoring the elements, invoking the names of gods and goddesses like the pagans, and teaching that there are certain male-females, partakers of both natures, and serving abominable filthiness.

These, having been overcome by the holy bishop Archelaus in a disputation, were cast out and branded, and were exposed to all at that time; and like robbers, now under the guise of Christian confession, they do not cease to take captive the souls of many by lying and bestial filthiness: who are said to lie hidden both in Spain and in five provinces, and to take captive many by this deceit daily. There are others, the Patricians, named after a certain Patricius, who was in the city of Rome. These assert that the flesh of man was not made by God, but reckon that it was made by the devil. They decree that it is to be despised and cast away in every manner, so that some of them have not even hesitated to bring death upon themselves of their own accord.

The Symmachians, other disciples of this man, holding the same opinions in all things, not hoping for judgment, preach that one must serve worldly vices and carnal lusts. A certain Paul of Samosata came after these in Syria, who denied that the Word of God—that is, Christ, God, the Son of God—is substantial and personal and eternal with the Father, but called him 'prolative,' that is, as it were a certain breath of air, and did not teach that the living Person of the Son is to be believed eternal together with the eternal Father. This man preached that Christ was a righteous man, not true God, judaizing rather; he also taught circumcision; whence he also taught a certain queen Zenobia, then in the East, to judaize.

After this one, Photinus, following his doctrine, preached in like manner in all things, and persisting in this lie was cast out of the church of the city of Sirmium, overcome by the holy bishops. THERE ARE THE ARIANS, named after Arius, a presbyter of the city of Alexandria, who was under bishop Alexander of good memory and under the holy emperor Constantine of good memory, saying that the Son of God is similar to God—but calling him similar in name only, and not believing him to be of the very divine substance of the Father, he fell into a perilous heresy. For even a creature is said to be similar to God, since the Scripture says: 'Let us make man after our image and likeness.'

Yet man or angel is not properly and naturally from God—that is, begotten of that ineffable and eternal divine substance of the Father—as the only-begotten Son is, who was begotten of the Father, properly eternal; but man and angel were made out of nothing. The Son, however, since he is true [God], must be acknowledged as begotten of that divine substance of the Father. For the true God, the only-begotten Son, cannot exist in any other way unless he is properly begotten of that divine substance of the Father.

The eternal likeness of the Son, therefore, is according to his works, because just as the Father does, so the Son likewise does all things, being begotten of the divine substance of that same quality, since he was born of him, properly eternal, not made out of nothing—as man and angel or any creature, which is in all things perishing. There are others, the Semi-Arians.

These men think rightly concerning the Father and the Son, believing that there is one substance of nature, one Godhead; but concerning the Spirit they preach that He is not of the divine substance, nor true God, but a made and created spirit, so as to join Him with and liken Him to a creature — although Christ the Lord joined Him to the Father and to Himself in the faith of the baptism of eternal salvation, and commanded that He be adored together with the Father and the Son by all believers, and established that He be proclaimed true God throughout every age; for they do not understand that when the Evangelist says, 'All things were made through Him, and without Him was made nothing that was made,' he does not speak of the Holy Spirit, as though the Spirit were made through the Son. For the prophet defines that the Trinity made all things visible and invisible, saying:

'By the word of the Lord were the heavens established, and all their power by the spirit of His mouth.' Therefore in every creature that was made through the Spirit, He left out nothing that was not made through Him; otherwise the servant would not be joined with the Lord in faith, if the divine and Holy Spirit were a creature. For this reason all Scripture and the Lord Himself had pronounced, by a heavenly decree, that all sins may be granted forgiveness to men except the blasphemy against the divine and adorable Spirit. The Eunomians arose after these, from Eunomius the disciple of Arius, enemies in all things of the true faith; they say that there are three different substances of nature, like those of gold, silver, and bronze, and that the Father indeed made the Son, and again the Son, who is a creature, made (they say) the Holy Spirit:

and they assert that the Son is not like the Father, because He is a creature, nor the Spirit like the Son, because He was made by the Son — most openly consenting to pagan impiety and Jewish iniquity rather than willing to obey Christian teaching and the catholic faith. There are others who go astray concerning the Incarnation, saying that the Saviour did not take a true rational human soul, but only the body of a man; and when they take away the soul from the body, they deny the true wholeness of His manhood. How then can it be called a soul, which was not taken up by the Saviour? — when the Saviour says, 'My soul is sorrowful even unto death.' Otherwise it could not have been called a soul, unless it were in Him for whose sake also it had come.