Chapter XXXIII.—Present Heresies (Seedlings of the Tares Noted by the Sacred Writers) Already Condemned in Scripture.  This Descent of Later Heresy from the Earlier Traced in Several Instances.

Besides all this, I add a review of the doctrines themselves, which, existing as they did in the days of the apostles, were both exposed and denounced by the said apostles. For by this method they will be more easily reprobated,341    Traducentur. when they are detected to have been even then in existence, or at any rate to have been seedlings342    Semina sumpsisse. of the (tares) which then were. Paul, in his first epistle to the Corinthians, sets his mark on certain who denied and doubted the resurrection.343    1 Cor. xv. 12. This opinion was the especial property of the Sadducees.344    Comp. Tertull. De Resur. Carnis, xxxvi. A part of it, however, is maintained by Marcion and Apelles and Valentinus, and all other impugners of the resurrection. Writing also to the Galatians, he inveighs against such men as observed and defend circumcision and the (Mosaic) law.345    Gal. v. 2. Thus runs Hebion’s heresy. Such also as “forbid to marry” he reproaches in his instructions to Timothy.346    1 Tim. iv. 3. Now, this is the teaching of Marcion and his follower Apelles. (The apostle) directs a similar blow347    Æque tangit. against those who said that “the resurrection was past already.”348    2 Tim. ii. 3. Such an opinion did the Valentinians assert of themselves. When again he mentions “endless genealogies,”349    1 Tim. i. 4. one also recognises Valentinus, in whose system a certain Æon, whosoever he be,350    Nescio qui. of a new name, and that not one only, generates of his own grace351    Charite. Sense and Truth; and these in like manner produce of themselves Word352    Sermonem. and Life, while these again afterwards beget Man and the Church. From these primary eight353    De qua prima ogdoade. [See Irenæus, Vol. I. p. 316, etc. this Series.] ten other Æons after them spring, and then the twelve others arise with their wonderful names, to complete the mere story of the thirty Æons. The same apostle, when disapproving of those who are “in bondage to elements,”354    Gal. iv. 9. points us to some dogma of Hermogenes, who introduces matter as having no beginning,355    Non natam, literally, “as being unbegotten.” and then compares it with God, who has no beginning.356    Deo non nato. By thus making the mother of the elements a goddess, he has it in his power “to be in bondage” to a being which he puts on a par with357    Comparat. God. John, however, in the Apocalypse is charged to chastise those “who eat things sacrificed to idols,” and “who commit fornication.”358    Rev. ii. 14. There are even now another sort of Nicolaitans. Theirs is called the Gaian359    Gaiana. So Oehler; the common reading being “Caiana.” heresy. But in his epistle he especially designates those as “Antichrists” who “denied that Christ was come in the flesh,”360    1 John iv. 3. and who refused to think that Jesus was the Son of God. The one dogma Marcion maintained; the other, Hebion.361    Comp. Epiphanius, i. 30. The doctrine, however, of Simon’s sorcery, which inculcated the worship of angels,362    Referred to perhaps in Col. ii. 18. was itself actually reckoned amongst idolatries and condemned by the Apostle Peter in Simon’s own person.

CAPUT XXXIII.

Quid quod jam tum ab Apostolis et demonstratae et 0045C ejeratae fuerint, ex quibus et reliquas haereses omnes sua semina sumpsisse.

Adhibeo super haec ipsarum doctrinarum recognitionem, quae tunc sub Apostolis fuerunt, ab iisdem Apostolis et demonstratae et dejeratae. Nam et sic facilius traducentur, dum, aut jam tunc fuisse deprehendentur, aut ex illis quae jam tunc fuerunt, semina 0046A sumpsisse. Paulus, in prima ad Corinthios (XV, 12), notat negatores et dubitatores resurrectionis. Haec opinio propria Sadducaeorum; partem ejus usurpat Marcion, et Apelles, et Valentinus, et si qui alii resurrectionem carnis infringunt. Et ad Galatas scribens (V, 2), invehitur in observatores et defensores circumcisionis et legis: Hebionis haeresis est. Timotheum instruens (I Tim., IV, 3.), nuptiarum quoque interdictores suggillat: ita instituunt Marcion et Apelles ejus secutor. Aeque tangit eos, qui dicerent factam jam resurrectionem (II Tim. II, 3): id de se Valentiniani asseverant. Sed et cum genealogias indeterminatas nominat (I Tim. I, 4), Valentinus agnoscitur; apud quem Aeon ille nescio qui novi, et non unius nominis, generat e sua Charite Sensum 0046B et Veritatem; et hi aeque procreant duos, Sermonem et Vitam; dehinc et isti generant Hominem et Ecclesiam: estque haec prima ogdoas aeonum. Exinde decem alii, et duodecim reliqui aeones miris nominibus oriuntur, in meram fabulam triginta aeonum. Idem apostolus, cum improbat elementis servientes, aliquid Hermogenis ostendit, qui, materiam non natam introducens, Deo non nato eam comparat, et ita matrem elementorum deam faciens, potest ei servire quam Deo comparat. Joannes vero, in Apocalypsi, idolothyta edentes et stupra committentes jubet castigare: sunt et nunc alii nicolaitae, Caiana haeresis dicitur. At in epistola eos maxime antichristos vocat, qui Christum negarent in carne venisse, et qui non putarent Jesum esse Filium Dei: illud Marcion, 0046C hoc Hebion vindicavit. Simonianae autem magiae disciplina, angelis serviens, utique et ipsa inter idololatrias deputabatur, et a Petro Apostolo in ipso Simone damnabatur.