[Routh says that this lAO (see It was borrowed from he was panic-stricken, he says, and terror- stricken, and overcome with sadness; and of these passions he conceived and bare. Hence he made the heaven, and the earth, and the sea, and whatever is in them: for which cause all things made by him are in- firm, and frail, and capable of falling, and mortal, inasmuch as he himself was conceived and produced from despondency. He, how- ever, originated this world '° out of those ma- terial essences which Achamoth, by his panic, or terror, or sadness, or sweat, had supplied. For of his panic, he says, was made darkness; of his fear and ignorance, the spirits of wicked- ness and malignity; of his sadness and tears, the humidities of founts, the material essence of floods and sea. Christ, moreover, was sent by that First-Father who is Bythus. He, moreover, was not in the substance of our flesh; but, bringing down from heaven some spiritual body or other, passed through the Virgin Mary as water through a pipe, neither receiving nor borrowing aught thence. The resurrection of our present flesh he denies, but (maintains that) of some sister-flesh." Of the Law and the prophets some parts he approves, some he disapproves; that is, he disapproves all in reprobating some. A Gos- pel of his own he likewise has, beside these of ours.
After him arose the heretics Ptolemy and Secundus, who agree throughout with Valen- tinus, differing only in the following point: viz., whereas Valentinus had feigned but thirty ^'Eons, they have added several more; for they first added four, and subsequently four more. And Valentine's assertion, that it was the thirtieth JEon which strayed out from the Pleroma. (as falling into despon- dency,) they deny; for the one which de- sponded on account of disappointed yearning to see the First-P'ather was not of the original triacontad, they say.
There arose, besides, Heracleon, a broth- er '^-heretic, whose sentiments pair with Val- entine's; but, by some novelty of terminology, he is desirous of seeming to differ in sentiment. For he introduces the notion that there existed first what he terms (a Monad);'3 and then out of that Monad (arose) two, and then the wholly unintelligible. Can the fact that the Hebrew word which " Achamoth " represents isayVw.//. in any way explain this con- fused medley, or help to reconcile conflicting accounts? The avia and (coT<o 2oiJ>ta seem to point in some degree to some such solution of some of the existing difficulties. " lao," again, is a word which has caused much perplexity. Can it possibly be connected with iao/uat, " to heal?" [See note 8.]
'" Mundum.
" Oehler's suggestion is to vary the pointing so as to give this sense: " The resurrection of this flesh he denies. 15ut of a sister- Law and prophets," etc. But this seems even more harsh thao the other.
•'"'" Alter," i.e., perhaps another o////c sntite cla.ts.
't It seems almost necessary to supply some word here; and as " Monade " follows, it seemed simple to supply " Monada."
CUAI'.
vu] AGAINST Al.l. HERESIES.
'OJ rest of the -^ilons. Then he introduces the whole system of Valentine.
CHAP. V. MARCUS AND COLARBASUS.
After these there were not wanting a Mar- cus and a Colarbasus, composing a novel lieresy out of the Greek alpha])et. For they affirm that without those letters truth cannot be found; nay more, that in those letters the whole plenitude and perfection of truth is comprised; for this was why Christ said, " I am the Alpha and the Omega."' In fact, they say that Jesus Christ descended, =" that is, that the dwe came down on Jesus; ^ and, since the dove is styled by the Greek name TrrpiaTepa — (peristera), it has in itself this number DCCCI.* These men run through their o, ■J', X, ^, T, T — through the whole alphabet, in- deed, up to A and B — and compute ogdoads and decads. So we may grant it useless and idle to recount all their trifles. What, how- ever, must be allowed not merely vain, but likewise dangerous, is this: they feign a second God, beside the Creator; they affirm that Christ was not in the substance of flesh; they say there is to be no resurrection of the flesh.
CHAP. VI. CERDO, MARCION, LUCAN, APELLES.
To this is added one Cerdo. He introduces two first causes, 5 that is, two Gods — one good, the other cruel:* the good being the superior; the latter, the cruel one, being the creator of the world. ^ 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 quasi- passion, and not to have been born of a vir- gin, nay, really not to have been born at all. A resurrection of the soul merely does he ap- 2 Denique Jesum Christum descendisse. So Oehler, who does not notice any conjectural emendation, or various reading, of the words. If correct, his reading would refer to the views of a two- fold Jesus Christ — a real and a phantasmal one — held by docetic Gnostics, or to such views as Valentine's, in whose system, so far as it is ascertainable from the confused and discrepant accounts of it, there would appear to have been one.■Eon called Christ, anoth- er called Jesus, and a human person called Jesus and Christ, with whom the true Jesus associated Himself. Some such jumble of ideas the two heretics now under review would seem to have held, if Oehler's be the true reading. But the difficulties are some- what lessened if we accept the very simple emendation which nat- urally suggests itself, and which, I see, Semler has proposed and Routh inclines to receive, " in Jesum Christum descendisse," i. e. " that Christ descended on Jesus."
< Habere secum numerum DCCCI. So Oehler, after Jos. Scaliger. who, however, seems to have read " secum /tunc numerum," for the ordinary reading, " habere secundum numerum," which would mean, " represents, in the way 0/ numericai value, CCCI."
5 Initia dno.
' Sajvum.
7 Mundi.
prove, denying that of the body. The Gosj)el 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 ^L'lrcion by name, a native of Pontus,^ son of a bishop, excommunicated because of a rape committed on a certain virgin.' He, starting from the fact that it is said, " FLvery good tree beareth good fruit, but an evil evil,"'° 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 fol- lower and disciple of Marcion. He, too, wad- ing through the same kinds of blasphemy, teaches the same as Marcion and Cerdo had taught.
Close on their heels follows Apelles, a di.s- ciple of Marcion, who after lapsing, into his own carnality," 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 Vir- tue, which he affirms to be called Lord, but represents as an angel. By him he will have it appear that the world" was originated in imitation of a superior world. '^ With this laiver world he mingled throughout (a princi- ple 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 Marcior affirms to have been in a phantasmal shape, nor yet in substance of a true body, as the Gospel teaches; but says, because He de- scended from the upper regions, that in the course of His descent He wove together for Himself a starry and airy'* 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 dis- persed— He reinstated in heaven His spirit only. This man denies the resurrection of the flesh. He uses, too, one only aposLle; but that is Marcion's, that is, a mutilated one. He teaches the salvation of souls alone.
8 " Ponticus genere," lit. " a Pontic by race" which of course may not necessarily, like our native, imply actual 6irt/t in Pontus. [Note — " son of a bishop:'' an inde.x of early date, though n<)l necessarily Ante-Nicene. A mere forgery of later origin would have omitted it.]
9 Rig., with whom Oehler agrees, reminds us that neither in the de Pmscr. nor in the adv. Marc, nor, apparently, in lrena;us, is any such statement brought forward.
'"See Matt. vii. 17, " See de Prcescr, c. xxx., andcomp. with it what is said of Mar- cion above. j '= Mundum.
1 '4 " Aeream," i.e., composed of the air, the tower air, or atmos- phere; not " aetheream," of the upper air, or ether.
AGAINST ALL HERESIES.
[chap, vin.
He has, besides, private but extraordinary lections of his own, which he calls " Manifes- tations,"' of one Pliilumene,- a girl whom be 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.
CHAP, VII. — TATIAN, CATAPHRVGIANS, CATA- PROCLANS, CAT.t:SCHINETANS.
To all these heretics is added one Tatian, a brother-heretic. This man was Justin Martyr's disciple. After Justin's death he l)egan to cherish different opinions from his. For he wholly savours of Valentinus; adding this, that Adam cannot even attain salvation: as if, when the branches become salvable,3 the root were not!
Other heretics swell the Ust who are called Cataphrygians, but their teaching is not uni- form. For there are (of them) sorne who are called Cataproclans;'' there are others who are termed Cataeschinetans.^ These have a blasphemy common, and a blasphemy not common, but peculiar and special. The com- mon blasphemy lies in their saying that the Holy Spirit was in the apostles indeed, the Paraclete was not; and in their saying that the Paraclete has spoken in Montanus more things than Christ brought forward into (the compass of) the Gospel, and not merely more, but likewise better and greater. But the particular one they who follow ^schines have; this, namely, whereby they add this, that they affirm Christ to be Himself Son and Father.
CHAP. VIII. BLASTUS, TWO THEODOTI, PRAXEAS.
In addition to all these, there is likewise Blastus, who would latently introduce Juda- ism. For he says the passover is not to be kept otherwise than according to the law of Moses, on the fourteenth of the month. But who would fail to see that evangelical grace is escheated if he recalls Christ to the Law?
' Phaneroseis. Oehler refers to de Prtescr. c. xxx 2<^iAou>i«'ioj, "loved one."
^Salvi. Perhaps if it be questionable whether this word may be so rendered in a correct I.atinist, it may be lawful to render it so in so incorrect a one as our present author.
4 i.e. followers of Proclus.
5 I.e. followers of >Eschines. So this writer takes " Cataphry- ges " to mean followers of the Phrygians."
Add to these Theodotus the Byzantine, who, 'after being apprehended for Christ's Name, and apostatizing,*^ ceased not to blaspheme against Christ. For he introduced a doctrine by which to affirm that Christ was merely a human being, but deny His deity; teaching that He was born of the Holy Spirit indeed of a virgin, but was a solitary and bare human being,Mvith no pre-eminence above the rest (of mankind), but only that of righteousness.
After him brake out a second heretical Theodotus, who again himself introduced a sister-sect, and says that the human being Christ Himself ^ was merely conceived alike, and born, of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, but that He was inferior to Melchizedek; because it is said of Christ, " Thou art a priest unto eternity, after the order of Mel- chizedek." ^ For that Melchizedek, he says, was a heavenly Virtue of pre-eminent grace; in that Christ acts for human beings, being made their Deprecator and Advocate: Mel- chizedek does so '° for heavenly angels and Virtues. For to such a degree, he says, is he better than Christ, that he is aitarup (father- less), (Lfif/Tup (motherless), a}evea?u)yT/To^ (without genealogy), of whom neither the beginning nor the end has been comprehended, nor can be comprehended."
But after all these, again, one Praxeas introduced a heresy which Victorinus" v/as careful to corroborate. He asserts that Jesus Christ is God the Father Almighty. Him he contends to have been crucified, and suffered, and died; beside which, with a profane and sacrilegious temerity, he maintains the prop- osition that He is Himself sitting at His own right hand. '3 *Negavit. See de Idol. c. xxiii. note i.
7 Hominem solitarium atque nudum. The words seem to mean, destitute of anything super\\wvaa.n.
8 Et ips;<»/ hominem Christum tantummodo. I rather incline to read, as in the preceding sentence, " et ipjt".•" "and bimsell affirms Christ to have been merely human, conceived alike," etc.
9 See Ps. ex. 4, and the references there.
'o The Latin here is very careless, unless, with Routh, we sug- gest " et" for " eo," and render: "and that what Christ does," etc., " Melchizedek does," etc- '2 Who he is, no one knows. Oehler (following the lead of Fabricius on Philaster, cap. 49, p. 102) believes the name to be a mistake for Victor, a bishop of Rome, who (see Ad7i. Frax. c. i.) had held the episcopate when Praxeas was there. His successor was Zephyrinus; and it is an ingenious conjecture of Oehler, that these two names, the one written as a correction of the other, may Victor \ have been confused: thus, yeohv-jnus l • ^"^ thus of the two may have made Victorinus.
'3 The form and order of the words here used are certainly re- markably similar to the ezpressioas and order of the " Apcstles' Creed."
TERTULLIAN PART THIRD.
ON REPENTANCE/ [TRANSLATED BY THE REV. S. THELWALL.]
CHAP. I. OF HEATHEN REPENTANCE.
Repentance, men understand, so far as nature is able, to be an emotion of the mind arising from disgust'' at some pranously c heris /led ^orse sentiment: that kind of men / jnean which even we ourselves were in days gone by — blind, without the Lord's light. From the reason of repentance, however,- they are just as far as they are from the Author of reason Himself. Reason, in fact, is a thing of God, inasmuch as there is nothing which God the Maker of all has not provided, dis- posed, ordained by reason — nothing which He has not willed should be handled and under- stood by reason. All, therefore, who are ignorant of God, must necessarily be ignorant also of a thing which is His, because no treasure-house ^ at all is accessible to stran- gers. And thus, voyaging all the universal course of life without the rudder of reason, they know not how to shun the hurricane which is impending over the world.* More- over, how irrationally they behave in the practice of repentance, it will be enough briefly to show just by this one fact, that they exercise it even in the case of their good deeds. They repent of good faith, of love, of simple- heartedness, of patience, of mercy, just in proportion as any deed prompted by these feel- ings has fallen on thankless soil. They execrate their own selves for having done good; and that species chiefly of repentance which is applied to the best works they fix in their heart, making it their care to remember never again to do a good turn. On repentance for evil deeds, on the contrary, they lay lighter » [We pass from the polemical class of our author's writings to those of a practical and ethical character. This treatise on Peni- tence is the product of our authoi's best days, and may be dated A. D. igaj = " Offensa s«sntentia: pejoris;" or possibly, " the miscarriage of some," etc.
3 Thesaurus.
4 Saculo. LErasmus doubted the genuineness of this treatise, partly because of the comparative purity of iu style. Sec Kaye, p.
43 Stress. In short, they make this same (virtue) a means of sinning more readily than a means of right-doing.
CHAP. II. — TRUE repentance A THING DIVINE, ORIGINATED BY GOD, AND SUBJECT TO HIS LAWS.
But if they acted as men who had any part in God, and thereby in reason also, they would first weigh well the importance of re- pentance, and would never apply it in such a way as to make it a ground for convicting themselves of perverse self-amendment. In short, they would regulate the limit of their repentance, because they would reach (a limit) in sinning too — by fearing God, I mean. But where there is no fear, in like manner there is no amendment; where there is no amend- ment, repentance is of necessity vain, for it lacks the fruit for which God sowed it; that is, man's salvation. For God — after so many and so great sins of human temerity, begun by the first of the race, Adam, after the con- demnation of man, together with the dowry of the world, 5 after his ejection from paradise and subjection to death — when He had hasted back to His own mercy, did from that time onward inaugurate repentance in His own self, by rescinding the sentence of His first wrath, engaging to grant pardon to His own work and image.* And so He gathered to- gether a people for Himself, and fostered them with many liberal distributions of His bounty, and, after so often finding them most ungrateful, ever exhorted them to repentance and sent out the voices of the universal company of the prophets to prophesy. By and by, promising freely the grace which in the last times He was intending to pour as a flood of light on the universal world ^ through His 5 Saeculi dote. With which he had been endowed. Comp. Gen *i.e., man. 7 Orbi.
ON REPENTANCE.
[chap. III.
Spirit, He bade the baptism of repentance ,ead tiie way, with the view of first prepar- ing,' by means of the sign and seal of repen- tance, them whom He was calling, through grace, to (inherit) the promise surely made to Abraham. John holds not his peace, saying, -'*' Enter upon repentance, for now shall sal- vation approach the nations"- — the Lord, that is, bringing salvation according to God's promise. To Him John, as His harbinger, directed the repentance (which he preached), whose province was the purging of men's mindsjthat whatever defilement inveterate error had imparted, whatever contamination in the heart of man ignorance had engendered, ///«/ repentance should sweep and scrape away, and cast out of doors, and thus prepare the home of the heart, by making it clean, for the Holy Spirit, who was about to supervene, that He might with pleasure introduce Himself there- into, together with His celestial blessings. Of these blessings the title is briefly one — the salvation of man — the abolition of former sins being the preliminary step. Thi^s^ is the -.(final) cause of repentance, this Ker work, in taking in hand the business of divine mercy. What is profitable to man does service to God. The r/^/(? of repentance, however, which we learn when we know the Lord, retains a definite form, — viz., that no violent hands so to speak, be ever laid on good deeds or thoughts.'' For God, never giving His sanction to the reprobation of good deeds, inasmuch as they are His own (of which, being the author. He must necessarily be the defender too), is in like manner the acceptor of them, and if the acceptor, likewise the re- warder. Let, then, the ingratitude of men see to it,^ if it attaches repentance even to good works; let their gratitude see to it too, if the desire of earning it be the incentive to well-doing: earthly and mortal are they each. For how small is your gain if you do good to a grateful man! or your loss if to an ungrate- ful! A ^<?^^ deed has God as its debtor, just as an evil has too; for a judge isarewarder of every cause. Well, since, God as Judge pre- sides over the exacting and maintaining* of justice, which to Him is most dear; and since it is with an eye to justice that He appoints all the sum of His discipline, is there room for dou])ting that, just as in all our acts universally, so also in the case of repentance, justice must be rendered to (}od? — which duty can indeed only be fulfilled on the con- ' Componerct.
5 Viderit.
*<)r, " defending."
Luke iii. 4-6.
ditiori that repentance be brought to bear only on sins. Further, no deed but an evil one deserves to be called siti, nor aoes any one err by well-doing. But if he does not err, why does he invade (the province of) repen- tance, the private ground of such as do err? Why does he impose on his goodness a duty proper to wickedness? Thus it comes to pass that, when a thing is called into play where it ought not, there, where it ought, it is neglec- ted.
CHAP. III. — SINS MAY BE DIVIDED INTO CORPO- REAL AND SPIRITUAL. BOTH EQUALLY SUB- JECT, IF NOT TO HUMAN, YET TO DIVINE IN- VESTIGATION AND PUNISHMENT.'
What things, then, they be for which repen- tance seems just and due — that is, what things are to be set down under the head of sin — the occasion indeed demands that I should note down; but (to do so) may seem to be unnecessary. For when the Lord is known, our spirit, having been " looked back upon" * by its own Author, emerges unbidden into the knowledge of the truth; and being admitted to (an acquaintance with) the divine precepts, is by them forthwith instructed that "that from which God bids us abstain is to be ac- counted j///;" inasmuch as, since it is gener- ally agreed that God is some great essence of good, of course nothing but evil would be displeasing to good; in that, between things mutually contrary, friendship there is none. Still it will not be irksome briefly to touch upon the facf that, of sins, some are carnal, that is, corporeal; some spiritual. For since man is composed of this combination of a two-fold substance, the sources of his sins are no other than the sources of his composition.' But it is not the fact that body and spirit are two things that constitute the sins mutually different — otherwise they are on this account rather eqtial, because the hvo make up one — lest any make the distinction between their sins proportionate to the difference between their siibstatices, so as to esteem the one lighter, or else heavier, than the other: if it be true, (as it is,) that both flesh and spirit are creatures of God; one wrought by His hand, one consummated by His afflatus. Since, then, they equally pertain to the Lord, which- ever of them sins equally offctids the Lord. Is it for you to distinguish the acts of the flesh and the spirit, whose communion and conjunc- tion in life, in death, and in resurrection, are 7 [Without reference to Luther's theory of justification, we must all adopt this as the test of " a standing or falling church," viz. " How does it deal with sin and the sinner."]
9 Or, " bricHy to lay down the rule."
CHAP.
iy.3 ON REPENTANCE.
so intimate, that "at that time"' they are equally raised up either for Hfe or else for judg- ment; because, to wit, they have equally either sinned or lived innocently? This we Vould (once for all) premise, in order that we may understand that no less necessity for repent- ance is incumbent on either part of man, if in anything it have sinned, than on both. The guilt of both is common; common, too, is the Judge — God to wit; common, therefore, is withal the healing medicine of repentance. The source whence sins are named "spirit- ual " and " corporeal " is the fact that every ^ sin is matter either of act or else of thought: so that what is in deed is "corporeal," be- cause a deed, like a 'boiiy, is capable of being seen and touched; wliat is in the mind is " spiritual," because spirit is neither seen nor hafidled: by which consideration is shown that sins not of deed or\\y, but of will too, are to be shunned, and by repentance purged. For if human finitude - judges only sins of deed, be- cause it is not equal to (piercing) the lurking- places of the 7i>iil, let us not on that account make light of crimes of the will in God's sight. God is all-sufficient. Nothing from whence any sin whatsoever proceeds is remote from His sight; because He is neither ignorant, nor does He omit to decree it to judgment. He is no dissembler of, nor double-dealer with,^ His own clear-sightedness. What (shall we say of the fact) that will is the origin of deed? For if any sins are imputed to chance, or to necessity, or to ignorance, let them see to themselves: if these be excepted, there is no sinning save by will. Since, then, will is the origin of deed, is it not so much the rather amenable to penalty as it is first in guilt? Nor, if some difficulty interferes with its full accomplishment, is it even in that case exon- erated; for it is itself imputed to itself: nor, having done the work which lay in its own power, will it be excusable by reason of that miscarriage of its accomplishment. In fact, how does the Lord demonstrate Himself as adding a superstructure to the Law, except by interdicting sins of the 7vill as well (as other sins); while He defines not only the man who had actually invaded another's wedlock to be an adulterer, but likewise him who had con- taminated (a woman) by the concupiscence of his gaze?* Accordingly it is dangerous enough for the mind to set before itself what it is forbidden to perform, and rashly through the will to perfect its execution. And since the power of this will is such that, even with-