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| 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. PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP
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,2191 when they are
detected to have been even then in existence, or at any rate to have
been seedlings2192 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.2193 This opinion was the especial property of
the Sadducees.2194
2194 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.2195 Thus runs
Hebion’s heresy. Such also as “forbid to marry” he
reproaches in his instructions to Timothy.2196
Now, this is the teaching of Marcion and his follower Apelles. (The
apostle) directs a similar blow2197 against those
who said that “the resurrection was past already.”2198 Such an opinion did the Valentinians assert
of themselves. When again he mentions “endless
genealogies,”2199 one also recognises
Valentinus, in whose system a certain Æon, whosoever he
be,2200 of a new name, and that not one only,
generates of his own grace2201 Sense and Truth;
and these in like manner produce of themselves Word2202 and Life, while these again afterwards beget
Man and the Church. From these primary eight2203
2203 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,”2204
points us to some dogma of Hermogenes, who introduces matter as having
no beginning,2205
2205 Non natam, literally,
“as being unbegotten.” | and then compares
it with God, who has no beginning.2206 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 with2207 God. John, however, in the Apocalypse is
charged to chastise those “who eat things sacrificed to
idols,” and “who commit fornication.”2208 There are even now another sort of
Nicolaitans. Theirs is called the Gaian2209
2209 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,”2210 and who refused to
think that Jesus was the Son of God. The one dogma Marcion maintained;
the other, Hebion.2211
2211 Comp. Epiphanius, i.
30. | The doctrine,
however, of Simon’s sorcery, which inculcated the worship of
angels,2212 was itself actually
reckoned amongst idolatries and condemned by the Apostle Peter in
Simon’s own person.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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