all; in like manner do ye also joy and rejoice with me." You see what he decides the bliss of martyrdom to be, in honour of which he is providing a festival of mutual joy. When at length he had come to be very near the at- 5 Should be Philippians: i.e. Phil. i. 29, 30. ePhil. ii. 17.
tainment of his desire, greatly rejoicing in what he saw before him, he writes in these terms to Timothy: " For I am already being offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith; there is laid up for me the crown which the Lord will give me on that day " ' — doubtless of his suffering. Admonition enough did he for his part also give in preceding passage.s: " It is a faithful saying: For if we are dead with Christ, we shall also live with Him; if we suffer, we shall also reign with Him; if we deny Him, He also will deny us; if we believe not, yet He is faithful: He cannot deny Him- self." ^ " Be not thou, therefore, ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner; "9 for he had said before: "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." '* For we suffer with power from love toward God, and with a sound mind, when we suffer for our blamelessness. But further, if He anywhere enjoins endurance, for what more than for sufferings is He providing it? If any- where He tears men away from idolatry, what more than martryrdoms takes the lead, in tearing them away to its injury?
CHAP. XIV.
CHAP. XIV.
No doubt the apostle admonishes the Ro- mans " to be subject to all power, because there is no power but of God, and because (the ruler) does not carry the sword without reason, and is the servant of God, nay also, says he, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. For he had also previ- ously spoken thus: " For rulers are not a terror to a good work, but to an evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of it. Therefore he is a minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid." Thus he bids you be sub- ject to the powers, not on an opportunity oc- curring for his avoiding mart)''rdom, but when he is making an appeal in behalf of a good life, under the view also of their being as it were assistants bestowed upon righteousness, as it were handmaids of the divine court of justice, which even here pronounces sentence beforehand upon the guilty. Then he goes on also to show how he wishes you to be sub- ject to the powers, bidding you pay "tribute to whom tribute is due, custom to whom cus- tom," " that is, the things which are Caesar's SCORPIACE.
[chap. XV.
to Caesar, and the things which are God's to God;' but man is the property of God alone. Peter,'' no doubt, had likewise said that the king indeed must be honoured, yet so that the king be honoured only when he keeps to his own sphere, when he is far from assuming divine honours; because both father and mother will be loved along with God, not put on an equality with Him. Besides, one will not be permitted to love even life more than God.
CHAP. XV.
Now, then, the epistles of the apostles also are well known. And do we, (you say), in all respects guileless souls and doves merely, love to go astray? I should think from eager- ness to live. But let it be so, that meaning departs from their epistles. And yet, that the apostles endured such sufferings, we know: the teaching is clear. This only I perceive in running through the Acts. I am not at all on the search. The prisons there, and the bonds, and^,the scourges, and the big stones, and the swords, and the onsets by the Jews, and the assemblies of the heathen, and the in- dictments by tribunes, and the hearing of i causes by kings, and the judgment-seats of pro-consuls and the name of Caesar, do not need an interpreter. That Peter is struck,' that Stephen is overwhelmed by stones,* that James is slain ^ as is a victim at the altar, that Paul is beheaded has been written in their own blood. And if a heretic wishes his con- fidence to rest upon a public record, the ar- chives of the empire will speak, as would the stones of Jerusalem. We read the lives of the Caesars: At Rome Nero was the first who stained with blood the rising faith. Then is Peter girt by another,* when he is made fast to the cross. Then does Paul obtain a birth suited to Roman citizenship, when in Rome ' Matt. xxii. 21.
3 It has bef.n thought that the allusion is to the breaking of the legs of the crucified to hasten their death, not to the beating to which the apostles were subjected by the Jewish council: Acts v.
5 James the brother of our Lord, not the James mentioned Acts ^John xzL zS.
he springs to life again ennobled by martyr- dom. Wherever I read of these occurrencer so soon as I do so, I learn to suffer; nor does it signify to me which I follow as teachers of martyrdom, whether the declarations or the deaths of the apostles, save that in their deaths I recall their declarations also. For they would not have suffered ought of a kind they had not previously known they had to suffer. When Agabus, making use of corresponding action too, had foretold that bonds awaited Paul, the disciples, weeping and entreating that he would not venture upon going to Jeru- salem, entreated in vain.' As for him, hav- ing a mind to illustrate what he had always taught, he says, " Why weep ye, and grieve my heart? But for my part, I could wish not only to suffer bonds, but also to die at Jerusa- lem, for the name of my Lord Jesus Christ." And so they yielded by saying, " Let the will of the Lord be done;" feeling sure, doubt- less, that sufferings are included in the will of God. For they had tried to keep him back with the intention not of dissuading, but to show love for him; as yearning for (the pres- ervation of) the apostle, not as counselling against martyrdom. And if even then a Pro- dicus or Valentinus stood by, suggesting that one must not confess on the earth before men, and must do so the less in truth, that God may not (seem to) thirst for blood, and Christ for a repayment of suffering, as though He besought it with the view of obtaining sal- vation by it for Himself also, he would have immediately heard from the servant of God what the devil had from the Lord: " Get thee behind me, Satan; thou art an offence unto me. It is written. Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve."* But even now it will be right that he hear it, seeing that, long after, he has poured forth these poisons, which not even thus are to injure readily any of the weak ones, if any one in faith will drink, before being hurt, or even immediately after, this draught of ours, 7 Acts xxi. II.
8 Matt. xvi. 23 and iv, 10,— '» mixing up of two passages of Scripture.
IX.
APPENDIX.
AGAINST ALL HERESIES.'
[TRANSLATED BY THE REV. S. THELWALL.]
CHAP. I. — EARLIEST HERETICS:' SIMON MAGUS, MENANDER, SATURNINUS, BASILIDES, NICO- LAUS. [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 Sad- ducees I am silent, who, springing from the root of this error, had the hardihood to adjoin to this heresy the denial likewise of the resur- rection of the flesh. ^ The Pharisees I pre- termit, who were "divided" from the Jews by their superimposing of certain additaments to the law, which fact likewise made them worthy of receivmg this very name;* 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 con- dign and just sentence from the Apostle Peter.5 pje had the hardihood to call himself the Supreme Virtue, * that is, the Supreme God; and moreover, (to assert) that the uni- verse' had been originated by his angels; that he had descended in quest of an erring dge- « |_On p. 14, this volume, see nearly all that need be said, of this spurious treatise. I add a few references to Routh, O/mscu/a, Vol. 1. p. 160 etc.. His honouring it with a place in his work must be my apology for not relegating it to the collection of spurious Tertulliana,sub/ine.']
■ = [Routh says he inadvertently changed his title to reaA Advs, Uiereticos^ but that it is better after all, in view of the opening sentence.]
3 See Acts xxiii. 8, and the references there.
•• Pharisees = Separatists.
5 See Acts viii. 9-24.
6 [ «se Virtue in this and similar cases ia its Miltonic sense.
7 Mundum.
mon,' which was Wisdom; that, in a phantas- mal semblance of God, he had tiot suffered among the Jews, but was as if he had suffered. » After him Menander, his disciple''(likewise a magician '°), 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 salva- tion without being baptized in his name.
Afterwards, again, followed Saturninus: he, too, affirming that the innascible " Virtue, that is God, abides in the highest regions, and that those regions are infinite, and in the re- gions immediately above us; but that angels far removed from Him made the lower world;" and that, because light from above had flashed refulgently in the lower regions, the angels had carefully tried to form man after the sim- ilitude 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; '^ 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, '* by whom was created Mind, which in Greek he calls Nw?; that thence sprang the Word; that of Him issued Provi- dence, Virtue, '5 and Wisdom; that out of 8 Or, " intelligence."
9 Or, *' but had undergone a ^Kaw-ZawiVw." 10 Magus.
" Innascibilem;" but Fr. Junius' conjecture, "jnn«»3cibilem," is agreeable to the Greek " oyi'Mo-Tos."
•2 Mundum.., '3 The text here is partially conjectural, and if correct, clumsy. For the sense,.see de Anima, c. xxiii. ad init, '* Or, Abraxes, or Abrasax. 'S Or, Power.
r^ AGAINST ALL HERESIES.
[chap. II.
these subsequently were made Principalities, Powers,' and Angels; that there ensued in- finite issues and processions of angels; that by these angels 365 heavens were formed, and the world, ^ 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, = 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 accord- ingly 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, ^ but by the above- named Vbraxas; 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 Simon '• was cruci- fied in His stead: whence, again, there must be no. believing on him who was crucified, lest one confess to having believed on Simon. Maityrdoms, 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 heretic ^ emerged in Nicolaus. He was one of the seven deacons who were appointed in the Acts of the Apostles.* He affirms that Darkness was seized with a con- cupiscence— and, indeed, a foul and obscene one — after Light: out of this permixture it is a shame to say what fetid and unclean (com- binations arose). The rest (of his tenets), too, are obscene. For he tells of certain ^ons, sons of turpitude, and of conjunctions of execrable and obscene embraces and per- mixtures,? and certain yet baser outcomes of these. He teaches that there were born, moreover, daemons, 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 con- demned by the Apocalypse of the Lord with the weightiest authority attaching to a sen- tence, in saying " Because this thou boldest, thou hatest the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which I too hate."* .See Matt, xxvii. 32; > Potestates. 3 Mundum.
3 Mundum.
4 i.e. probably " Simon the Cyrenian. Mark xv. 21; Inke xxiii. 26.
5 Alter hareticus. But Fr. Junius suggests " ahter. * See Acts vi. 1-6. [But the identity is doubtful.]
7 So Oebler gives in his text. But his suggestion, given in CHAP. II. OPHITES, CAINITES, SETHITES.
To these are added those heretics likewise who are called Ophites:^ for they magnify the serpent to such a degree, that they prefer him even to Christ Himself; for it was he, they say, who gave us the origin of the knowl- edge of good and of evil." His power and majesty (they say) Moses perceiving, set up the brazen serpent; and whoever gazed upon him obtained health." Christ Himself (they say further) in His gospel imitates Moses' serpent's sacred power, in saying: " And as Moses upreared the serpent in the desert, so it behoveth the Son of man to be upreared." '- Him they introduce to bless their eucharistic (elements). '3 Now the whole parade and doctrine of this error flowed from the follow- ing source. They say that from the supreme primary ^on 7vho7n meyi speak qf^^ there ema- nated several other inferior ^ons. To all these, however, there opposed himself an ^on who name is laldabaoth.^^ He had been conceived by the permixture of a second.^on with inferior ^ons; and afterwards, when he '* had been desirous of forcing his way into the higher regions, had been disabled by the permixture of the gravity of matter with him- self to arrive at the higher regions; had been left in the midst, and had extended himself to his full dimensions, and thus had made the sky. '7 laldabaoth, however, had descended lower, and had made him seven sons, and had shut from their view the upper regions bv self-distension, in order that, since (these) angels could not know what was above,'* they might think him the sole God. These in- ferior Virtues and angels, therefore, had made 7nati; and, because he had been originated by weaker and mediocre powers, he lay crawl- ing, worm-like. That /Eon, however, out of which laldaboath had proceeded, moved to the heart with envy, had injected into man as he lay a certain spark; excited whereby, he was through prudence to grow wise, and be able to understand the things above. So, again, the laldaboath aforesaid, turning indignant, had emitted out of himself the Virtue and similitude of the set pent; and this had been note, is perhaps preferable: "and of execrable embraces and permixtures, and obscene conjunctions." 9 Or, " Serpenlarians," from 6<^is. a serpent.
'3 Eucharistia (neut. pi.) = eVi;(api(rT«ia (Fr. Junius in Oehler): perhaps " the f>lace in ivliiilt they celebrate the cucharist."
'4 These words are intended 10 give the force of the " ilki " itf the original.
•5 Roberston (Ch. /fist. i. p. 30, note 2, ed. 2. 1858) seems to take this word to mean " Son of liarkness or Chaos."
•6 " Seque" Oehler reads here, which appears bad enough Latin, unless his " se" after " extendisse " is an error.
'7 Or, "heaven."
'8 Or, " what the upper regions were."
CHAP. III. J AGAINST ALL HERESIES.
the Virtue in paradise — that is, this had been the serpetit — whom Eve had believed as if he had been God the Son.' He= plucked, say they, from the fruit of the tree, and thus con- ferred on mankind the knowledge of things! good and evil.^ Christ, moreover, existed not in substance of flesh: salvation of the flesh; is not to be hoped for at all.; Moreover, also, there has broken out an- other heresy also, which is called that of the Cainitcs.* And the reason is, that they mag- nify Cain as if he had been conceived of some potent Virtue which operated in him; for Abel had been procreated after being conceived of an inferior Virtue, and accordingly had been found inferior. They who assert this likewise defend the traitor Judas, telling us that he is admirable and great, because of the advantages he is vaunted to have conferred on mankind; for some of them think that thanksgiving is to be rendered to Judas on this account: viz., Judas, they say, observing that Christ wished to subvert the truth, be- trayed Him, in order that there might be no possibility of truth's being subverted. And others thus dispute against them, and say: Because the powers of this worlds were un- willing that Christ should suffer, lest through His death salvation should be prepared for mankind, he, consulting for the salvation of mankind, betrayed Christ, in order that there might be no possibility at all of the salvation being impeded, which 7tias being impeded through the Virtues which were opposing Christ's passion; and thus, through the pas- sion of Christ, there might be no possibility of the salvation of mankind being retarded.
But, again, the heresy has started forth which is called that of the Sethi fes. ^ The doctrine of this perversity is as follows. Two human beings were formed by the angels — Cain and Abel. On their account arose great contentions and discords among the angels; for this reason, that Virtue which was above all the Virtues — which they style the Mother — when they said^ that Abel had been slain, willed this Seth of theirs to be conceived and born in place of Abel, in order that those angels might be escheated who had created those two former human beings, while this pure seed rises and is born. For they say that there had been iniquitous permixtures of two angels and human beings; for which reason that Virtue which (as we have said) they style ' Filio Deo.
2 Or, " she;" but perhaps the text is preferable.
SMundi.
*0r, Sethoites.
7 " Dicerent;" but Routh (I think) has conjectured " discerct ' " when she learned^' etc., which ^is very simple and apt.
the Mother brought on the deluge even, for the purpose of vengeance, in order that that seed of permixture might be swept away, and this only seed which was pure be kept entire. But (in vain): for they who had originated those of the former seed sent into the ark (secretly and stealthily, and unknown to that Mother-Virtue), together with those '* eight souls, "^ the seed likewise of Ham, in order that the seed of evil should not perish, but should, together with the rest, be preserved, and after the deluge be restored to the earth, and, by example of the rest, should grow up and diffuse itself, and fill and occupy tlie whole orb.' Of Christ, moreover, their senti- ments are such that they call Him merely Seth, and say that He was instead of the actual Seth.
C.x.'VP. in. CARPOCRATES, CERINTHUS, EBIOK.
Carpocrates, futhermore, introduced the following sect. He affirms that there is one Virtue, the chief among the upper (regions): that out of this were produced angels and Virtues, which, being far distant from the upper Virtues, created this world '° in tlie lower regions: that Christ was not born of the Virgifi Mary, but was generated — a mere human being — of the seed of Joseph, superior (they admit) above all others in the practice of righteousness and in integrity of life; that He suffered among the Jews; and that His soul alone was received in heaven as having been more firm and hardy than all others: whence he would infer, retaining only the salvation of souls, that there are no resurrec- tions of the body.
After him brake out the heretic Cerinthus, teaching similarly. For he, too, says that the world '° was originated by those angels;" and sets forth Christ as born of the seed of Josepii, contending that He was merely human, with- out divinity; affirming also that the Law was given by angels;'- representing the God of the Jews as not the Lord, but an angel.
His successor was Ebion, '^ not agreeing with Cerinthus in every point; in that he affirms the world '^ to have been made by God, not by angels; and because it s written, " No disciple above his master, nor servant above his lord, " '^ sets forth likewise the law 10 Mundum.
" " Ab illis " is perhaps an error for " ab angelis," by absf)rp- tion of the first syllable. So Routh had conjectured before me.
^^" Ab angelis:" an erroneous notion, which professed probably to derive support from John i. 17, Acts vii. 53, Gal. iii. 19, where, however, the Greek prepositions should be carefully noted, and ought in no case to be rendered by " ab."
'3W/. Hebion.
'4 See Matt..\. 24; Luke vi. 40; John xiii. lej.
AGAINST ALL HERESIES.
[chap. IV.
■tis binding^'' of course for the purpose of ex- cluding the gospel and vindicating Judaism.
CHAP. IV. VALENTINUS, PTOLEMY AND SECUN- DUS, HERACLEON.
Valentinus the heretic, moreover, intro- duced many fables. These I will retrench and briefly summarize. For he introduces the Pleroma and the thirty./Eons. These yEons, moreover, he explains in the way of syzygies, that is, conjugal unions * of some kind. For among the first, ^ he says, were Depth* and Silence; of these proceeded Mind and Truth; out of whom burst the Word and Life; from whom, again, were created Man^ and the Church. But (these are not all); for of these last also proceeded twelve ^ons; from Speech, * moreover, and Life proceeded other ten -^ons: such is the Triacontad of ^ons, which is made up in the Pleroma of an ogdoad, a decad, and a duodecad. The thirtieth -^on, moreover, willed to see the great Bythus; and, to see him, had the hardihood to ascend into the upper regions; and not being capable of seeing his mag- nitude, desponded, ^ and almost suffered dis- solution, had not some one, — he whom he calls Horos, to wit, — sent to invigorate him, strengthened him by pronouncing the word *'Iao."^ This.^on, moreover, which was thus reduced to despondency, he calls Acha- moth, (and says) that he was seized with certain regretful passions, and out of his pas- sions gave birth to material essences. ^ For • i.e., as Rig.'s quotation from Jerome's hidiculiis (in Oehler) shows, " because in so far as, Christ observed it."
= Conjugationes. Cowper uses our word " conjugation " in this sense in one of his humorous pieces. [" Pairing-time."] The " syzygies " consisted of one male and one female..ton each.
3 Oehler separates " in primis;" but perhaps they ought to be united^" inprimis," or " imprimis " — and taken as = " prime ab initio."
4 Bythus.
5 Hominem.
6 " Sermone:" he said " Verbum " before.
7 In defectione fuisse. *Cf. adv. Valctif. cc..\. xiv.
note 8) is wanting in the older editions the Adv. I'a/enihi. to eke out a defect.]
9 Such appears to be the meaning of this sentence as Oehler gives it. P>ut the text is here corrupt; and it seems plain there must either be sometliing lost relating to this " Achamoth," or else some capital error in the reading, or, thirdly,.some gross and unac- <:<mntuble confusion in the writer: for the sentence as it stands is wholly irreconcilable with what follows. It evidently makes " Ach- amoth " identical with " the thirtieth yEon " above-named; and yet, without introducing any fresh subject, the writer goes on to state that this despondent (Eon, who " conceived and bare," was itself the offspring <>f despondency, and made an infirm world out of the infirm materials whicli " Achamoth " supplied it with. Now it is apparent from other sources — as, for instance, from 'Jert. adi<. I'alentln. above referrfd to -that the "thirtieth.'F.oii " was sup- posed Xahe. female^ Sopliin (Wisdom) by name, and that she was said \.ohc the parent ui " Achamoth," or " Enthyniesis" (see rz^/?'. I'aleiitin. cc. ix. x..\i. xiv. xxv.), while " Achamoth " herself ap- pears by some accounts to be also called narrio 2o</)ia. The name '■Achamoth" itself, which Tertullian {adv. Valentin, c. xiv. ad init.) calls an " uninterpretable name," is believed to be a representation of a Hebrew word meaning " wisdom;" and hence, poss- ibly, some of the confusion may have arisen, -from a promiscuous use, namely, of the titles "Achamoth" and "Sophia." More- over, it would appear that some words lower down as to the pro- duction by " Achamoth " of " Demiurgus," must have dropped out. Unless these two oraiuions be supplied, the passage is