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| Marcus and Colarbasus. PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP
Chapter
V.—Marcus and Colarbasus.
After these there were not wanting a Marcus and a
Colarbasus, composing a novel heresy out of the Greek alphabet. 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.”8393
8393 See Rev. i. 7; xxi. 6; xxii. 13. | In fact, they say
that Jesus Christ descended,8394
8394 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 twofold 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 account of it, there would appear to have
been one Æon called Christ, another 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 somewhat lessened if we accept the very simple
emendation which naturally 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.” | that is, that
the dove came down on Jesus;8395
8395 See Matt. iii. 13–17; Mark i.
9–11; Luke iii. 21–22; John i. 29–34. | and, since the
dove is styled by the Greek name περιστερά
—(peristera), it has in itself this number DCCCI.8396
8396 Habere
secum numerum DCCCI. So Oehler, after Jos. Scaliger, who,
however, seems to have read “secum hunc numerum,”
for the ordinary reading, “habere secundum
numerum,” which would mean, “represents, in
the way of numerical value, DCCCI.” | These men run through their
Ω,
Ψ,
Χ, Φ, Υ, Τ—through
the whole alphabet, indeed, up to Α and
Β—and compute ogdoads and
decads. So we may grant it useless and idle to recount all their
trifles. What, however, 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.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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