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| Sect of the Elchasaites; Hippolytus' Opposition to It.
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Chapter VIII.—Sect of the
Elchasaites; Hippolytus’ Opposition to It.
The doctrine of this Callistus having been
noised abroad throughout the entire world, a cunning man, and full of
desperation, one called Alcibiades, dwelling in Apamea, a city
of Syria, examined carefully into this business. And considering
himself a more formidable character, and more ingenious in such
tricks, than Callistus, he repaired to Rome; and he brought some book,
alleging that a certain just man, Elchasai,1018
| 1018
See Eusebius, Hist. Ecclesiast., vi. 38; Epiphanius,
Hær, xix.; and Theodoret, Hær. Fab., ii.
7. | had received this from Seræ, a town
of Parthia, and that he gave it to one called Sobiaï. And
the contents of this volume, he alleged, had been revealed by an
angel whose height was 24 schœnoi, which make 96
miles, and whose breadth is 4 schœnoi, and from shoulder to
shoulder 6 schœnoi; and the tracks of his feet extend to
the length of three and a half schœnoi, which are
equal to fourteen miles, while the breadth is one
schœnos and a half, and the height half a
schœnos. And he alleges that also there
is a female with him, whose measurement, he says, is according to the
standards already mentioned. And he asserts that
the male (angel) is Son of God, but that the female is called Holy
Spirit. By detailing these prodigies he imagines that he
confounds fools, while at the same time he utters the following
sentence: “that there was preached unto men a new remission
of sins in the third year of Trajan’s reign.” And
Elchasai determines the nature of baptism, and even this
I shall explain. He alleges, as to those who have been
involved in every description of lasciviousness, and filthiness, and
in acts of wickedness, if only any of them be a believer,
that he determines that such a one, on being converted, and obeying the
book, and believing its contents, should by baptism receive
remission of sins.
Elchasai, however, ventured to continue these
knaveries, taking occasion from the aforesaid tenet of which Callistus
stood forward as a champion. For, perceiving that many were
delighted at this sort of promise, he considered that he could
opportunely make the attempt just alluded to. And
notwithstanding we offered resistance to this, and did not permit many
for any length of time to become victims of the delusion.1019
| 1019 For
πλανηθῆναι
Dr. Wordsworth reads πλατυνθῆναι,
i.e., did not suffer the heresy to spread wide. | For we
carried conviction to the people, when we affirmed that this was
the operation of a spurious spirit, and the invention of a heart
inflated with pride, and that this one like a wolf had risen up
against many wandering sheep, which Callistus, by his arts of
deception, had scattered abroad. But since we have commenced, we
shall not be silent as regards the opinions of this man.
And, in the first place, we shall expose his life, and we shall prove
that his supposed discipline is a mere pretence. And next, I
shall adduce the principal heads of his assertions, in order that the
reader, looking fixedly on the treatises of this (Elchasai), may be
made aware what and what sort is the heresy which has been audaciously
attempted by this man.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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