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| Blastus, Two Theodoti, Praxeas.
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Chapter VIII.—Blastus, Two Theodoti, Praxeas.
In addition to all these, there is likewise Blastus, who
would latently introduce Judaism. 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?
Add to these Theodotus the Byzantine, who, after
being apprehended for Christ’s Name, and apostatizing,8412
| 8412 Negavit. See de
Idol. c. xxiii. note 1. | 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,8413
| 8413 Hominem solitarium
atque nudum. The words seems to mean, destitute of anything
superhuman. | with 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 Himself8414
| 8414 Et ipsum
hominem Christum tantummodo. I rather incline to read, as in the
preceding sentence, “et ipse”:
“and himself affirms Christ to have been merely human, conceived
alike,” etc. | 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
Melchizedek.”8415
| 8415 See Ps. cx. 4, and the references there. | 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: Melchizedek does so8416
| 8416 The Latin here is very
careless, unless, with Routh, we suggest “et” for
“eo,” and render: “and that what Christ does,”
etc., “Melchizedek does,” etc. | for heavenly
angels and Virtues. For to such a degree, he says, is he better than
Christ, that he is ἀπάτωρ (fatherless), ἀμήτωρ (motherless), ἀγενεαλογητον
(without genealogy), of whom neither the beginning nor the end
has been comprehended, nor can be comprehended.8417
But after all these, again, one Praxeas introduced
a heresy which Victorinus8418
| 8418 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 Adv. Prax. 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 have been confused: thus,
Victor/Zephrynus; and thus of the two may have been made
Victorinus. | was 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 proposition that He is Himself sitting at His own right
hand.8419
| 8419 The form and order of
the words here used are certainly remarkably similar to the expressions
and order of the “Apostles’ Creed.” | E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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