Chapter I.—Earliest Heretics:1    [Routh says he inadvertently changed his title to read Advs. Hæreticos, but that it is better after all, in view of the opening sentence.] Simon Magus, Menander, Saturninus, Basilides, Nicolaus. [The Work Begins as a Fragment.]

Of which heretics I will (to pass by a good deal) summarize some few particulars. For of Judaism’s heretics I am silent—Dositheus the Samaritan, I mean, who was the first who had the hardihood to repudiate the prophets, on the ground that they had not spoken under inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Of the Sadducees I am silent, who, springing from the root of this error, had the hardihood to adjoin to this heresy the denial likewise of the resurrection of the flesh.2    See Acts xxiii. 8, and the references there. The Pharisees I pretermit, who were “divided” from the Jews by their superimposing of certain additaments to the law, which fact likewise made them worthy of receiving this very name;3    Pharisees = Separatists. and, together with them, the Herodians likewise, who said that Herod was Christ. To those I betake myself who have chosen to make the gospel the starting-point of their heresies.

Of these the first of all is Simon Magus, who in the Acts of the Apostles earned a condign and just sentence from the Apostle Peter.4    See Acts viii. 9–24. He had the hardihood to call himself the Supreme Virtue,5    I use Virtue in this and similar cases in its Miltonic sense. that is, the Supreme God; and moreover, (to assert) that the universe6    Mundum. had been originated by his angels; that he had descended in quest of an erring dæmon,7    Or, “intelligence.” which was Wisdom; that, in a phantasmal semblance of God, he had not suffered among the Jews, but was as if he had suffered.8    Or, “but had undergone a quasi-passion.”

After him Menander, his disciple (likewise a magician9    Magus.), saying the same as Simon. Whatever Simon had affirmed himself to be, this did Menander equally affirm himself to be, asserting that none could possibly have salvation without being baptized in his name.

Afterwards, again, followed Saturninus: he, too, affirming that the innascible10    Innascibilem;” but Fr. Junius’ conjecture, “innoscibilem,” is agreeable to the Greek “ἄγνωστος.” Virtue, that is God, abides in the highest regions, and that those regions are infinite, and in the regions immediately above us; but that angels far removed from Him made the lower world;11    Mundum. and that, because light from above had flashed refulgently in the lower regions, the angels had carefully tried to form man after the similitude of that light; that man lay crawling on the surface of the earth; that this light and this higher virtue was, thanks to mercy, the salvable spark in man, while all the rest of him perishes;12    The text here is partially conjectural, and if correct, clumsy.  For the sense, see de Anima, c. xxiii. ad init. that Christ had not existed in a bodily substance, and had endured a quasi-passion in a phantasmal shape merely; that a resurrection of the flesh there will by no means be.

Afterwards broke out the heretic Basilides. He affirms that there is a supreme Deity, by name Abraxas,13    Or, Abraxes, or Abrasax. by whom was created Mind, which in Greek he calls Νοῦς; that thence sprang the Word; that of Him issued Providence, Virtue,14    Or, Power. and Wisdom; that out of these subsequently were made Principalities, powers,15    Potestates. and Angels; that there ensued infinite issues and processions of angels; that by these angels 365 heavens were formed, and the world,16    Mundum. in honour of Abraxas, whose name, if computed, has in itself this number. Now, among the last of the angels, those who made this world,17    Mundum. he places the God of the Jews latest, that is, the God of the Law and of the Prophets, whom he denies to be a God, but affirms to be an angel. To him, he says, was allotted the seed of Abraham, and accordingly he it was who transferred the sons of Israel from the land of Egypt into the land of Canaan; affirming him to be turbulent above the other angels, and accordingly given to the frequent arousing of seditions and wars, yes, and the shedding of human blood.  Christ, moreover, he affirms to have been sent, not by this maker of the world,18    Mundum. but by the above-named Abraxas; and to have come in a phantasm, and been destitute of the substance of flesh:  that it was not He who suffered among the Jews, but that Simon19    i.e. probably “Simon the Cyrenian.” See Matt. xxvii. 32; Mark xv. 21; Luke xxiii. 26. was crucified in His stead: whence, again, there must be no believing on him who was crucified, lest one confess to having believed on Simon. Martyrdoms, he says, are not to be endured. The resurrection of the flesh he strenuously impugns, affirming that salvation has not been promised to bodies.

A brother heretic20    Alter hæreticus. But Fr. Junius suggests “aliter.” emerged in Nicolaus. He was one of the seven deacons who were appointed in the Acts of the Apostles.21    See Acts vi. 1–6. [But the identity is doubtful.] He affirms that Darkness was seized with a concupiscence—and, indeed, a foul and obscene one—after Light: out of this permixture it is a shame to say what fetid and unclean (combinations arose).  The rest (of his tenets), too, are obscene. For he tells of certain Æons, sons of turpitude, and of conjunctions of execrable and obscene embraces and permixtures,22    So Oehler gives in his text. But his suggestion, given in a note, is perhaps preferable: “and of execrable embraces and permixtures, and obscene conjunctions.” and certain yet baser outcomes of these.  He teaches that there were born, moreover, dæmons, and gods, and spirits seven, and other things sufficiently sacrilegious. alike and foul, which we blush to recount, and at once pass them by.  Enough it is for us that this heresy of the Nicolaitans has been condemned by the Apocalypse of the Lord with the weightiest authority attaching to a sentence, in saying “Because this thou holdest, thou hatest the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which I too hate.”23    See Rev. ii. 6.

I.

0061A Quorum haereticorum, ut plura praeteream, pauca perstringam. Taceo enim judaismi haereticos, Dositheum inquam Samaritanum, qui primus ausus est prophetas, quasi non in Spiritu Sancto locutos, repudiare. Taceo Sadducaeos, qui ex hujus erroris radice surgentes, ausi sunt ad hanc haeresim etiam resurrectionem carnis negare. Praetermitto Pharisaeos, qui additamenta quaedam legi adstruendo a Judaeis divisi sunt: unde etiam hoc accipere ipsum quod habent nomen, digni fuerunt: cum his etiam Herodianos, qui Christum Herodem esse dixerunt.

Deinde eos recenset, qui ex Evangelio haeretici esse 0061B voluerunt, Simonem magum, Menandrum, Saturninum, Basilidem, Nicolaum.

Ad eos me converto qui ex Evangelio haeretici esse voluerunt: ex quibus est primus omnium Simon Magus, qui in Actis Apostolorum condignam meruit ab apostolo Petro justamque sententiam. Hic ausus est summam se dicere virtutem, id est, summum Deum, mundum autem ab angelis suis institutum, a daemone se oberrante , quid esset sapientia, descendisse quaerendum apud Judaeos, se in phantasmate Dei non passum, sed esse quasi passum. Post hunc Menander discipulus ipsius, similiter magus, eadem dicens quae Simon ipse: quicquid se Simon dixerat, hoc se Menander esse dicebat, 0061C negans habere posse quemquam salutem, nisi in nomine suo baptizatus fuisset. Secutus est post haec et Saturninus, et hic similiter dicens, innascibilem 0062A virtutem id est Deum, in summis et illis infinitis partibus et in superioribus manere, longe autem distantes ab hoc angelos inferiorem mundum fecisse: et quia splendor quidam luminis desursum in inferioribus refulsisset, ad similitudinem illam superiorem propter illius luminis angelos hominem instituere, angelos curasse: hunc super terram jacuisse reptantem: cujus lumen illud et virtutem misericordiam , scintillam salvam esse, caetera hominis perire. Christum in substantia corporis non fuisse, et phantasmate tantum quasi passum fuisse; resurrectionem carnis nullo modo futuram esse. Postea Basilides haereticus erupit: hic esse dicit summum Deum nomine Abraxan, ex quo mentem creatam, quam graece ΝΟΥΝ appellat. Inde Verbum. Ex illo providentiam, 0062B ex providentia virtutem, et sapientiam: ex ipsis inde principatus, et potestates, et angelos factos, deinde infinitas angelorum editiones et probolas: ab istis angelis trecentos sexaginta quinque coelos institutos, et mundum in honore Abraxae, cujus nomen hunc in se habebat numerum computatum. In ultimis quidem angelis, et qui nunc fecerunt mundum, novissimum ponit Judaeorum Deum, id est, Deum legis et prophetarum; quem Deum negat, sed angelum dicit. Huic sortito obtigisse semen Abrahae, atque ideo hunc de terra Aegypti filios Israel in terram Chanaam transtulisse. Hunc turbulentiorem prae caeteris angelis, atque ideo et seditiones frequenter et bella concutere, sed et humanum sanguinem fundere. Christum autem, non ab hoc qui 0062C fecerit mundum, sed ab illo Abraxa missum venisse in phantasmate: sine substantia carnis fuisse: hunc passum a Judaeis non esse, sed vice ipsius Simonem 0063A crucifixum esse; unde nec in eum credendum esse qui sit crucifixus, ne quis confiteatur in Simonem credidisse. Martyria negat esse facienda. Carnis resurrectionem graviter impugnat, negans salutem corporibus repromissam. Alter haereticus Nicolaus emersit; hic de septem diaconis, qui in Actis Apostolorum allecti sunt, fuit. Hic dicit tenebras in concupiscentia luminis, et quidem foeda et obscena, fuisse: ex hac permixtione pudor est dicere quae foetida et immunda sunt.

Aeones enim refert quosdam turpitudinis natos , et complexus, et permixtiones execrabiles, obscenasque conjunctas, et quaedam ex ipsis adhuc turpiora: natos praeterea daemones, et deos, et spiritus septem, et alia satis sacrilega pariter et foeda: 0063B quae referre erubescimus, et jam praeterimus. Satis est nobis quod totam istam haeresim Nicolaitarum, Apocalypsis Domini gravissima sententiae auctoritate damnavit, dicendo: Quia hoc tenes, odisti doctrinam Nicolaitarum, quam et ego odi.