異端錄 第 1 章

Concerning the manifold pestilence of heresies, and the various errors which have arisen from the beginning of the world, and flowed down among the Jews, and have sprouted up since our Lord Jesus the Saviour came in the flesh, it is fitting to speak, and gradually to set forth their number, and to recognize that the enemy of the human race, the devil, has not without reason been compared by the holy prophet to the partridge: for that bird, since it often suffers barrenness, broods stealthily over the eggs of others and cherishes and claims them as its own offspring for a certain time; but when, as their age advances and brings discernment, the time has grown ripe for them, then, having lost their false parents, recalling by their own perception the rights of their true parents and beholding them plainly with their eyes, they no longer delay to follow them.

For whose sake has this likeness been declared to us? Because, when the devil has been forsaken—he by reason of whose impiety, while he thought to hold the whole world under his sway and power—yet afterward, when Christ our Parent had been seen and recognized by us, every man, having lost the falsehood of that most lying parent, no longer delays to follow the footsteps of his true parent Christ, recognizing him. For daily we perceive that the prophecy of the most blessed Jeremiah is fulfilled, as in an enigma, speaking thus:

«The partridge cried out, it gathered what it did not bring forth, making for itself riches not with wisdom; in the midst of its days they shall forsake it, and at the last it shall be foolish»—which now is fulfilled, when all the nations, daily forsaking the deadly idolatry of the enemy, hearing from the law and the prophets that Christ is now the true God, and believing and remembering that he is forever with the Father, hasten alike to fly to him as suppliants in every way, that the prophecy may be fulfilled: «All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord Christ.» THIS, THEN, IS THE NUMBER OF THE HERETICS FROM THE BEGINNING AND ORIGIN OF THE WORLD: FIRST are the Ophites, who are also called Serpentines.

These venerate the serpent, that is, the snake, saying that it first brought us the beginning of the knowledge of good and evil. Hence they assert that God envied it, because, they say, it first conveyed to the woman the knowledge of good and evil things, and through her it thus spread to the whole race of mankind; on which account, they say, it was first cast down from heaven into another; whence they also say it will come from heaven, and they reckon it to be a kind of power of God, and they proclaim that it must be adored.

Others are the Cainites, who praise Cain the fratricide, the firstborn of our father, the blessed first-formed Adam, saying that Cain was made by another power, that is, of the devil, while the most blessed Abel was born of the other power; and they say that the greater power, which was in Cain himself, prevailed, so that he killed his own brother. There is also another heresy, that of the Sethians, who venerate Seth, the son of Adam afterward begotten and so named, who was born after the slaying of the most blessed Abel; from whom they are called Sethians, worshipping him and saying that, when two men were created at the beginning and the angels were set in dissension, a feminine power prevailed in heaven; for among them males and females, gods and goddesses, are supposed to exist.

Perceiving this, they say, the mother, because the righteous Abel had been slain, devised to bring forth the righteous Seth, in whom she also placed a spirit of great power, that the hostile powers might be destroyed. And from Seth himself, they say, Christ the God draws his lineage. But certain of them assert and suppose not only that he draws his lineage from him, but that Seth himself is the Christ. A certain Dositheus, afterward, a Jew by race, dared to say that one must live according to the flesh alone, hoping for no future resurrection in the law of God concerning it, believing neither in the Spirit of God nor in an angel, nor awaiting a future judgment from the law and the prophets.

After him the Sadducees, named from a Jewish man Sadoc, who was called by this name—who was a disciple of that man, and who confirmed this heresy, so that from him they were called Sadducees—likewise preach that one must live according to the flesh alone, that one must be circumcised and the body baptized, but expecting nothing else from the divine law, following Epicurean madness rather than the ordinances of the divine law. Concerning these it is also written in the Gospel, the Lord teaching and preaching against this pestilential heresy. And there is another, that of the Pharisees, which confesses a future resurrection, accepts the law and the prophets, but awaits Christ as a righteous man.

These judaize and do not accept the Gospels, and they assert that certain times are contrary to Christ our Lord. But others are the Samaritans, so named from a king Samareus. Others, however, say that they are named from a son of Canaan, who was called by this name Samareus, from whom the Samaritans are called.

These accept the law of Moses, that is, only the four books, not awaiting a future judgment, denying the resurrection, not believing that Christ the God, the Son of God, was foretold in the law and the prophets; not holding, according to the law, that man has an immortal soul, but supposing that one must live only in this body, and reckoning that the future resurrection is in the procreation of children, which happens daily in this age—esteeming and preaching this vanity, being indeed compared to senseless beasts, as it is written in the prophet: «Man, being set in honour, did not understand; he was compared to senseless beasts, and was made like to them.»

There is another heresy of the Jews who are called Nazoreans, which accepts the law and the prophets, yet affirms that one must live carnally, and supposes that all justification consists in carnal observance; they even let the hair of the head grow, thinking that all the power of righteousness consists in it, presuming this for themselves as a sign, as it were from that judge Samson, because they were called Nazoreans: from which afterward the pagans, taking over strong men after his figure, named them Hercules. But the Essenes are others, who are called by this name. These practise the life of monks, taking no delicate foods, nor showing zeal in clothing, nor possessing anything,

but devoting themselves to reading and to good works, dwelling also in separated places; yet not awaiting Christ the God, the Son of God, nor recognizing him as the Lord proclaimed in the law and the prophets, but believing in and awaiting him only as a prophet or a righteous man. But others are the Heliognosti, who are also called Deinvictiaci, who adore the sun, saying that the sun knows all the things that are God's, and that nothing else but the sun gives light to men, and that the sun supplies them with all nourishment—not recognizing that, set in servitude, it daily traverses its course as appointed by God the Father through Christ the Lord in the Holy Spirit; concerning which it is written: «He who bids the sun to rise, and it rises; and not to rise, and it does not rise.»

This vain pagan, the famous Hermes Trismegistus, taught that after God the Almighty no other but the sun ought to be adored both by him and by men; and when he had gone to the province of the Celts, he is known to have taught them this, and to have persuaded them to succumb to this error. The captive Jews adored this sun, as the prophet Ezekiel condemns those same Jews by accusing them, and declares and convicts them as guilty of the crime of high treason, calling them to witness, as it is written. There are others who worship the frogs which, in the wrath of God under Pharaoh, at that time flowed forth upon the land of the Egyptians, to wear out the Egyptians with their stench; and in this wickedness they still persist, thinking that they can appease the wrath of God by this vain observance.

There are others by the name of Musiritae, who worship field-mice; these, when in the time of Eli the priest of old the ark of the covenant had been captured by the foreigners (Philistines), and the earth, by the wrath of God, brought forth mice to destroy their crops, being admonished by their own people, made golden mice, and sent them back with the ark and five golden seats; and the plague ceased from them. So these, accepting the law and the prophets, do not recognize that this thing is vain and abominable, which is despised by all and mocked in every way. There are others who worship the fly of Accaron (Ekron) in the city so called, as is written in the book of Kingdoms, just as King Ozias (Ahaziah) of the Jews, being sick, had sent to the fly of the city of Accaron to learn whether he could be healed of the sickness of his body;

for which cause the blessed Elias the prophet, kindled with divine zeal, because the king of the Jews chose to hope for the salvation of the Jews not from God-Christ, but rather from a fly and the city of Accaron, being thus angered, by the divine Spirit declared at once that he would not escape, but would die in his bed. There are the Troglodytes, who are so called among the Jews, who, dwelling in caves, did not cease to worship idols in hidden places, as the prophet Ezekiel says, the Lord showing how in hidden caves the elders of the people, holding censers, sacrificed to idols and adored them with blind minds.

There is another heresy among the Jews, which they call the Queen, and also the Fortune of Heaven, and whom in Africa they call Caelestis (the Heavenly One); and they do not hesitate to offer sacrifices to her, so that even to the prophet Jeremiah the Jews then said openly, when he admonished them to depart from idols and serve the Lord, and that they ought to adore him alone: enraged, they cried out, saying that, ever since, they say, they ceased to sacrifice to the Fortune of Heaven or the Queen, from that time all evils and dangers had befallen them. On which account blessed Jeremiah, going forth from the people and from their city, had written in a book his Lamentations because of that impiety, and was announcing that not long after, ruin would come upon them and upon their city.

There are others among them who, keeping in memory the name of Baal, king of the Tyrians, and adoring his very idol, sacrificed to it, as is contained in the book of Kingdoms, when Ahab, king of the Israelites, and Jezebel his wife did not cease to sacrifice to that idol. In which matter, led by divine zeal, the blessed prophet Elias, sent by Christ the Lord, said to them—who under the name of Judaism professed the law, but served a pernicious pagan impiety—and to all the people thus he said: «How long do you halt upon both your knees? Either to God, God, or to Baal, Baal!» And nonetheless the king and queen, favouring the priests of the groves, perished by various punishments and torments.

The people too, not departing from idols, perished in frequent captivities. There are others who venerated Asthar the man and Chamos, the abomination of the Canaanites and Sidonians—that is, idols of men and women—and offered to them various sacrifices; on whose account captivity often came upon those kings and the people, the Lord then permitting it, as is contained in the books of Kingdoms. Except for the blessed king David, and the holy Hezekiah, and Josiah, and Jehu the son of Nimshi, all the others permitted the peoples to sacrifice to idols, and often were themselves involved in their ruin, not destroying these things, but rather hastening to become abettors of their impiety, like the other kings, as the books of Kingdoms testify.

There is another heresy among the Jews, concerning which the Lord rebuked them through the prophets. And concerning it the blessed martyr Stephen reproached them, saying: «Did you offer to me victims and sacrifices for forty years, O house of Israel, says the Lord Almighty? And now you have taken up the tabernacle of Moloch and the star of the god Remphan, the forms of fixed idols and graven images?» On which account the Lord says: «I will cause you to be carried captive in migration into the land of Babylonia and of the Persians, and into other inner and arid places, and into the uttermost parts of all lands.» There are others who, setting up an altar so called by the name Topheth, after someone, in the valley of the son of Ennom (Hinnom), there immolated their sons and daughters to demons. Concerning whom the Lord says through the prophet Ezekiel:

«Behold, son of man, see what the people of Israel do: this one immolates his sons and his daughters in the valley of Topheth to demons, which I did not command them to do, this iniquity in Israel my people.» There are others, the Puteoritae, who worship wells, digging deep, and drawing from them as it were water of salvation, hoping for something in it; whereas the Lord says through the prophet, admonishing: «They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and have dug for themselves worn-out cisterns, which cannot hold the water of salvation.» What therefore he spoke before through the prophet, he fulfilled in his own divine presence, saying: «Everyone who shall drink of this earthly water shall thirst again; but of the water which I shall give him, if he drink, he shall not thirst forever, but it shall become in him a spring leaping up into eternal life.»

Indeed it was the Christian grace of saving baptism granted to the human race by the Lord and Saviour. There is another heresy among the Jews which sacrificed to the serpent, and celebrated this same impiety toward the serpent down to Hezekiah, that most blessed king of the Jews; as we read in the books of Kingdoms, that down to Hezekiah the Jewish people sacrificed to the bronze serpent which blessed Moses had been commanded to make at the exodus of Israel from Egypt, when the murmuring Jews were bitten by serpents and were perishing: and in this the Lord commanded that Moses make a bronze serpent and lift it up in the midst of the people upon a pole; and those who looked upon it were saved from the plagues and various wounds.

To that bronze serpent, then, the Jewish people sacrificed down to King Hezekiah; and there were also formations on a great stone, like an obelisk, which had been set in the temple in place of a column, and on it the Jews carved incisions and impressions by the hand of men, and as of certain letters, and taking various little figures and setting them on plates, they carried them about on their necks: teaching incantations also, and having as it were phylacteries—nay rather practising them as sorceries—they worshipped these same things, and from them they carried, and carry, on their body amulets and protective charms, which the Lord had everywhere forbidden in the law to be made, because this was the impiety of pagan blindness.

These impressions, then, or carvings, the most blessed King Hezekiah ordered to be destroyed, and to be utterly scraped away with iron and cut out; he also commanded the bronze serpent to be taken down and broken: for which act he was deservedly delivered by the Lord from so great a siege of the Persians and Assyrians, who at that time had come to take captive the people and city of the Jews; so that on that night when King Hezekiah feared the barbarians, an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and struck a hundred and eighty-five thousand of the foreigners besieging the city in the silent night, and in the morning showed all the men lifeless and dead to the king and to all the people of the Jews.

There is another heresy, as the prophet Ezekiel, by God's command, perceived: under the earth, in a cave, seventy elder men of the Jews standing, holding censers, and sacrificing to various graven figures and adoring these same things. There is another heresy of the Jews, which, by God's command, the prophet is compelled to perceive in a cave: women sitting and lamenting a certain Thamuz by name, who was the son of a king of the Gentiles, whose image the Jewish women adored with weeping, and, practising the impiety of the Gentiles, did not cease to offer sacrifices to him. For Thamuz was also the name of that Pharaoh, king of the Egyptians, who in the time of blessed Moses presided over the Egyptians at that time.

There is another heresy among the Jews which, as of many men, as it were, and many women, worshipping the idols of the Baalites, did not cease to offer to them sacrifices in hidden caves, the Scripture saying that there was, as it were, a number of many men and many women: but this was named either from King Belus, who held the East with a powerful rule for a long time, and from whose wife and sons and daughters, thus born of those parents, it showed that all their offspring proceeded, so that from them the Baalites were named in the plural. For just as there is a race either of the Greeks or of the Anicii and others, so from their own parents arose all their offspring, that from one name the impious generation should be called Baalites.

And so the dead, when they were placed in their tombs, and their offspring likewise buried in that place, deserved to be named by their own people, by their posterity, by this name, so that they were called Baalites from their original lineage. But Belus obtained this name or surname either from his proper name, or from his prowess in war, because at that time he overcame many: and concerning this matter the people of the Jews are accused by divine Scripture for following the impiety of the Gentiles, because, sacrificing to them—that is, to the kings and their sons and all their subsequent kindred—they were delivered into various captivities.

There is another heresy among the Jews, which asserts that the idol Baal, or Balaam the false prophet—who had come from Mesopotamia against the most blessed Moses—took its name; because Balak, then king of the Moabites, had asked him to come to him and curse the people of the Jews. And because, as a prophet, he was beforehand named in the Scriptures, but, despising the Lord's command, he afterward descended to the ruin of a false prophet by plotting against the people of God, the Jews, like pagans, making an idol of him under this name, did not cease to worship it. There is another heresy concerning the Pythoness (the witch with a familiar spirit), namely that, by covering a woman with garments, they hoped to be able to obtain certain responses from her.

Whence they say that that Pythoness raised up the soul of blessed Samuel from the dead; and from this very many even to this day chiefly suppose that it could be believed, because the things which the most blessed prophet, while yet living, had said to King Saul, those same things he is known to have said truly again, as it were, in the raising-up, as God's responses; and since very many prefer to acquiesce in this lie, they descend forever into ruin, although the prophet says: «The souls of the righteous are in the hand of the Lord, and death does not touch them.» How, then, could an impious soul raise up from the dead a holy and pious soul, and that of a prophet most of all?

But because they are ignorant that souls departing from the faith of Christ the Lord now give themselves over to impiety and subject themselves to it with all zeal—since every man is of his own free will, so that he may choose to do what he wishes, God permitting it—now, because such a soul has departed from the Lord, so that an unclean spirit now lorded it over him, among those who are doubtful and halting in the divine law, as blessed Elias said: «Either to God, God, or to Baal, Baal.» For he who cleaves to Christ is one body, and he who cleaves to an unclean spirit is one in consent.

And when Ahab, king of the Jews, believed Zedekiah and the other false prophets, and despised Micaiah, the true prophet of the Lord, the Lord questions the unclean spirit—a place of goodness having still been granted to the king by Christ the Lord up to a certain time, so that, if he were willing to believe the true prophet, he might avoid the storm of danger; but if he were unwilling and rather believed the false prophets, he would without doubt perish. For thus the Lord questions the unclean spirit, saying: «Who shall seduce King Ahab of the Israelites, that he may go into battle and there be slain?» And behold, the unclean spirit came, saying: «I will go and do it.» And the Lord said to the unclean spirit: «How will you do this?» And the unclean spirit said to the Lord:

«I make myself as it were an angel of light, and I will speak like words, and I will lead him into the fray, and there I will desert him, and so he shall die.» And the Lord said to him: «Go, so shall you do.» And therefore the Apostle also says: «It is no great thing if even Satan transforms himself as it were into an angel of light, since his servants are transformed.» And so they deceive many by sight, by word, or by persuasion—by nothing else, indeed, than by what is, as it were, similar and true; so that, when men are willing in due time to believe and to cleave to them with words, as it were, similar, and with appearances, as it were, good and not evil, they incur the inescapable sentence of eternal death, and after the departure of the body are cast down with various punishments and torments.

This danger befell the king of the Jews at that time, because he had preferred to believe false rather than the true prophets of God. There is a heresy among the Jews which, worshipping Asthar and Astharoth after the death of Moses and the succession of Joshua the son of Nun, were delivered over to the captivity of the Gentiles. For they worshipped Asthar and Astharoth, men and women, and their figures, which were the names of the kings of the Syrians and of the Egyptians: when their sons and daughters were worshipped by their own peoples, afterward also making temples for them, and after their death burying their offspring in that same place, they offered to them the names of gods and goddesses, with sacrifices likewise.

For there is an Astartium (temple of Astarte) in Syria, and various others, many in number, since from the nation of the Canaanites all this impiety then blazed up—the nation which Moses, with all his people, was commanded by the Lord to root out. Others are the Herodians, so called from Herod, king of the Jews. These confess the resurrection, accept the law and the prophets, but await Herod, king of the Jews, struck down by an angel, hoping for him as the Christ. NOW AFTER THE PASSION OF CHRIST OUR LORD AND HIS ASCENSION INTO HEAVEN, there was a certain Simon Magus, a Samaritan by race, a Gitthean, from a place which is an estate in Samaria so named:

who, devoting himself to magical arts, deceived many, saying that he was a certain power of God, which, he said, is above all powers. The Samaritans venerate him as it were a father, and extol him as the founder of their pernicious heresy, and strive to set him above many with praises. He, baptized by the blessed apostles, departed from their faith, and sowed a wicked and pernicious heresy, saying that he had been transformed in semblance—that is, as it were through a shadow—and had thus suffered, although, he said, he did not suffer. He even dared to say that the world was made by angels, and that the angels were made by certain senses endowed from heaven, and that they had deceived the race of men.

He asserts, moreover, that there is a certain other Intellect, which descended into the world for the sake of the salvation of men—that Helen, he says, who in the Trojan war is reported to have been produced by most vain poets. And the powers, he says, which had made the world, led by lust for that Helen, were stirring up sedition. For she, he says, giving lust to those powers, and appearing in feminine form, could not ascend into heaven, because the powers which were in heaven did not permit her to ascend; but she was awaiting another power—that is, the presence of the Magus Simon himself—which, coming, might save her.

He even asserts, by allegory, that the wooden horse, which the most vain poets say existed in the Trojan war, was that engine—the ignorance of all the impious nations—although it is established that that Helen, who was with the Magus, was a harlot from Tyre, and that this same Simon Magus had followed her, and with her had perpetrated various magic and various crimes. When he was fleeing from the blessed apostle Peter from the city of Jerusalem and came to Rome, and there contended with the blessed apostle before King Nero, being overcome on every side by the prayer of the blessed apostle and struck by an angel, he thus deserved to perish, so that his magic and his lie might be made manifest to all men as evident.

After him a certain man by the name of Menander, who, having become his disciple, followed his impiety in all things. After this man a certain Saturnilus, himself also taking from there the fuel of a deadly teaching, asserted, saying that the world was made by angels, and that the angels differed from that Power, and that the world was divided by rank among the angels, and that they had thought to make man. So they made man, and their work, he says, was man; for from the supernal Power a light had been sent down, which illumined this world and led the angels to lust, and at once it ascended into heaven. But they, made desirous of that very light, were eager to see its power; yet not prevailing, they said to one another:

'Let us make man after our image and likeness.' And once man had been made, because he was powerless, he could not be saved. So the heavenly Power, seeing what those beings had done to him, sent forth a spark, which set man right, raised him up, and made him live. Therefore they hold that the spark is to be saved, while the rest, they imagine, is dismissed and abandoned to those powers that fashioned it. They assert moreover that Christ appeared only in a shadowy fashion, that he did not take the true flesh and soul of a man, and that he thus fulfilled the whole economy of the Saviour's mystery. After these came Basilides, who is called a heresiarch by many, because, while setting forth and speaking of the Law and the Prophets and the Apostles yet thinking otherwise, he violated the laws of Christian truth.

When he had come to Egypt, he taught, laying down his teaching thus: that from the unbegotten and sole God was born Mind; from Mind, Word; from Word, Sense; from Sense, Power and Wisdom; and from Power and Wisdom were made various Principalities and Powers and angels. For these very angels, he says, made heaven; after them other angels made a heaven; and so, from some others being put forth, others made a third heaven. And in this order, he says, still others made three hundred and sixty-five heavens. He assigns angelic names to those powers, and, himself given over to magic arts, he likewise deceives many unlearned people. He further asserts that man was made by the angels.

He even dares to call the true, almighty God an angel, and says that this one received the Jewish nation as an inheritance and led them out of the land of Egypt. This one, then, having grown more bold, was lifted up—he says—against the rest of the angels, and, wishing to hold the others in subjection, he gained hostile nations, which his enemy powers stirred up. For this reason, he says, diverse nations rose up against the Jews. He says, moreover, that Christ suffered only in semblance, as if through a shadow. He affirms also that Simon of Cyrene came to the passion in his stead; for it was he, he says, who carried the cross. This man also wickedly permits loose living and gives license to cling to worldly vices. He even forbids men to suffer martyrdom for the name of Christ the Lord, speaking thus:

'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.

Therefore both these things were in the incarnation of the Saviour, that is, there was a body and a soul, which for our salvation He deigned to take. It behoves us to know that He had both a true human soul possessing understanding, and a human body likewise possessing carnal sense, so that He could both suffer in body and die. Yet this flesh is known to have been made of the Holy Spirit, and the soul likewise created, as it is written in the Gospel: 'The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee'; and that He had a true soul, He shows by saying, 'I lay down my soul for you'; and concerning the passible flesh He says to Thomas, that a spirit has not bones and flesh, as you see me to have. And the blessed apostle Peter testified concerning the Saviour, saying:

'His soul was not left in hell, neither did His flesh see corruption.' By that whereby He became incarnate, He is believed, acknowledged, worshipped, and proclaimed in the catholic Church as both man for the sake of our salvation and as true God. There are others, the Tropitae, who say that the Word was converted into flesh, not understanding what the blessed apostle John says: 'The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us'; not attending to this, that the Word is unchangeable and unconvertible, that is, God the Son of God; but the flesh which He took for our salvation, He Himself took and put on by forming it, for the sake of our incapacity.

Therefore, that He might be beheld, these realities joined together in one for our salvation declared not a changing of the Word into flesh, but rather the assumption of a visible thing, so that the Invisible might be seen, believed, and known through the visible flesh, and be worshipped in a way comprehensible to the human race. But there are other heretics who go astray concerning the Passion, saying that in the Passion our Lord Christ laid aside the flesh and so ascended into heaven, and that the divinity is now no longer in it. For (they say) neither did He rise in the flesh after the Passion, nor did He ascend into heaven with the flesh — although the whole salvation of man consists in the suffering of His very flesh, and in its rising and ascension into heaven, without any doubt for us and for all believers;

since the blessed angels also said to the apostles, for our faith and joy, in the Acts of the Apostles: 'As you have seen Him ascending into heaven, so hope that He shall come again from heaven.' There are others, the Aerians, so called from a certain Aerius, who give themselves to abstinences, and very many of whom dwell in the province of Pamphylia, who are also called Encratites, that is, abstainers. These possess nothing, abominate the foods which God with His blessing granted to the human race; they also condemn the marriages allowed by the Law, asserting them not to have been instituted by God. There is another heresy, that of the Borborians, who, entangled in the vices of the world and serving evil lusts, do not hope for a judgment to come, but rather praise the carnal lust of the world.

These, therefore, going into the mire and then, mindful of the mire, deforming their own faces and limbs, and thereby exhibiting these same things to all as though God's creature were to be blamed — whereas that whirlpool of faults and that pernicious damnation of vices descended from the will of men, not from the permission of the divine Law. There are others, named Artotyritae, in Galatia, who offer bread and cheese — not that which the catholic and apostolic Church celebrates in its offering.

There are again others, the Ascodrugitae, in Galatia, who set up an inflated wineskin and cover it in their church and go around it, raving and reveling rather, like those pagan Liberipatriani, frenzied with insane minds after the manner of the gentiles, and not understanding what the Saviour says, that new wineskins are to be taken, and into them new wine is to be put, not into the old. And while they hasten to serve their own blindnesses, they are found to be strangers in every way to Christian salvation, since the apostle casts down that Jewish justification and carnal vanity, but confirms the true and full sentence of Christ, saying: 'Old things have passed away; behold, all things are made new through Christ.'

For the Lord spoke of the Law and the shadow, and of the fulness of His own grace, and of two men, in that the apostle says: 'The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven, heavenly.' For what was through the shadow, and what was to come greater and better at the Lord's presence — this He announced by teaching and confirmed by witnessing realities. There are others, the Passalorhynchitae, who, placing a finger upon their nostrils and mouth and lips, practise as it were a perpetual silence, devoting their zeal to nothing else but to taciturnity. In doing this they desire to imitate the blessed prophets, as it were, because the blessed David says: 'Set, O Lord, a watch before my mouth, and a door round about my lips.'

And because the blessed prophets, giving themselves to fastings, often devoted themselves to silence, these men, usurping from this, suppose that they are observing something — hastening to follow rather the vanity of Pythagoras than the heavenly life and wisdom of the prophets. There are others, called Aquarians, who in the heavenly sacraments offer water, not that which the catholic and apostolic Church has been accustomed to do. There are other heretics who assert that there are prophets daily and preach that prophecies are being made, ignorant that the Law and the prophets were until the blessed John the Baptist, and that the end of the Law and the prophets was completed and consummated in the presence of Christ.