Chapter VI.—Cerdo, Marcion, Lucan, Apelles.

To this is added one Cerdo. He introduces two first causes,67    Initia duo. that is, two Gods—one good, the other cruel:68    Sævum. the good being the superior; the latter, the cruel one, being the creator of the world.69    Mundi. He repudiates the prophecies and the Law; renounces God the Creator; maintains that Christ who came was the Son of the superior God; affirms that He was not in the substance of flesh; states Him to have been only in a phantasmal shape, to have not really suffered, but undergone a quasipassion, and not to have been born of a virgin, nay, really not to have been born at all. A resurrection of the soul merely does he approve, denying that of the body.  The Gospel of Luke alone, and that not entire, does he receive. Of the Apostle Paul he takes neither all the epistles, nor in their integrity. The Acts of the Apostles and the Apocalypse he rejects as false.

After him emerged a disciple of his, one Marcion by name, a native of Pontus,70    “Ponticus genere,” lit. “a Pontic by race,” which of course may not necessarily, like our native, imply actual birth in Pontus. [Note—“son of a bishop:” an index of early date, though not necessarily Ante-Nicene. A mere forgery of later origin would have omitted it.] son of a bishop, excommunicated because of a rape committed on a certain virgin.71    Rig., with whom Oehler agrees, reminds us that neither in the de Præscr. nor in the adv. Marc., nor, apparently, in Irenæus, is any such statement brought forward. He, starting from the fact that it is said, “Every good tree beareth good fruit, but an evil evil,”72    See Matt. vii. 17. attempted to approve the heresy of Cerdo; so that his assertions are identical with those of the former heretic before him.

After him arose one Lucan by name, a follower and disciple of Marcion. He, too, wading through the same kinds of blasphemy, teaches the same as Marcion and Cerdo had taught.

Close on their heels follows Apelles, a disciple of Marcion, who after lapsing, into his own carnality,73    See de Præscr. c. xxx., and comp. with it what is said of Marcion above. was severed from Marcion. He introduces one God in the infinite upper regions, and states that He made many powers and angels; beside Him, withal, another Virtue, which he affirms to be called Lord, but represents as an angel. By him he will have it appear that the world74    Mundum. was originated in imitation of a superior world.75    Mundi. With this lower world he mingled throughout (a principle of) repentance, because he had not made it so perfectly as that superior world had been originated. The Law and the prophets he repudiates. Christ he neither, like Marcion, affirms to have been in a phantasmal shape, nor yet in substance of a true body, as the Gospel teaches; but says, because He descended from the upper regions, that in the course of His descent He wove together for Himself a starry and airy76    “Aëream,” i.e., composed of the air, the lower air, or atmosphere; not “aetheream,” of the upper air, or ether. flesh; and, in His resurrection, restored, in the course of His ascent, to the several individual elements whatever had been borrowed in His descent: and thus—the several parts of His body dispersed—He reinstated in heaven His spirit only. This man denies the resurrection of the flesh. He uses, too, one only apostle; but that is Marcion’s, that is, a mutilated one. He teaches the salvation of souls alone. He has, besides, private but extraordinary lections of his own, which he calls “Manifestations”77    Phaneroseis. Oehler refers to de Præscr. c. xxx. q. v. of one Philumene,78    φιλουμένη, “loved one.” a girl whom he follows as a prophetess.  He has, besides, his own books, which he has entitled books of Syllogisms, in which he seeks to prove that whatever Moses has written about God is not true, but is false.

VI.

Post haec Cerdonem, Marcionem, ejusque discipulos Lucanum et Apellem.

Accedit his Cerdon quidam; hic introducit initia duo, id est duos deos, unum bonum, et alterum saevum; bonum superiorem, saevum hunc mundi creatorem. Hic prophetias et legem repudiat, Deo creatori renuntiat, superioris Dei Filium Christum venisse tractat, hunc in substantia carnis negat, in 0070C phantasmate solo fuisse pronuntiat, nec omnino passum, sed quasi passum: nec ex virgine natum, sed omnino nec natum. Resurrectionem animae tantummodo probat, corporis negat. Solum Evangelium Lucae, nec tamen totum recipit. Apostoli Pauli neque omnes, neque totas Epistolas sumit. Acta Apostolorum et Apocalypsin quasi falsa rejicit. Post hunc 0071A discipulus ipsius emersit Marcion quidam nomine, ponticus genere, episcopi filius, propter stuprum cujusdam virginis ab Ecclesiae communicatione abjectus. Hic ex occasione qua dictum sit, Omnis arbor bona bonos fructus facit, mala autem malos, haeresin Cerdonis approbare conatus est, eadem dicere, quae ille superior haereticus ante dixerat. Extitit post hunc Lucanus quidam nomine, Marcionis sectator atque discipulus: et hic per eadem vadens blasphemiae genera, eadem docet quae Marcion et Cerdon docuerant. Post hos subsequitur Apelles, discipulus Marcionis, qui posteaquam in carnem suam lapsus est, a Marcione segregatus est. Hic introducit unum Deum infinitis superioribus partibus. Hunc potestates multas, angelosque fecisse: propterea et aliam 0071B virtutem quam dicit, Dominum dicit, sed angelum ponit. Hoc vult videri mundum institutum ad imitationem mundi superioris, cui mundo permiscuisse poenitentiam; quia non illum tam perfecte fecisset, quam ille superior mundus institutus fuisset. Legem et prophetas repudiat. Christum neque in phantasmate dicit fuisse, sicut Marcion, neque in substantia veri corporis, ut Evangelium docet; sed eo quod e superioribus partibus descenderet, ipso descensu sideream sibi carnem et aeream contexuisse: hunc in resurrectione singulis quibusque elementis, quae in descensu suo mutuata fuissent, in ascensu reddidisse, et sic dispersis quibusque corporis sui partibus, in coelo spiritum tantum reddidisse. Hic carnis resurrectionem negat; solo utitur et Apostolo, sed Marcionis, 0071C id est non toto. Animarum solarum dicit salutem. Habet praeterea privatas, sed extraordinarias lectiones suas, quas appellat phaneroseis Philumenes cujusdam puellae, quam quasi prophetissam sequitur. Habet praeterea suos libros, quos inscripsit Syllogismorum, in quibus probare vult, quod omnia quaecumque Moyses de Deo scripserit, vera non sint, sed falsa sint.