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. - ANF03. Latin Christianity: Its Founder, Tertullian

Bad Advertisement?

Are you a Christian?

Online Store:

Visit Our Store

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

²¹⁹¹ Traducentur.
when they are detected to have been even then in existence, or at any rate to have been seedlings²¹⁹²

²¹⁹² Semina sumpsisse.
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

²¹⁹³ 1 Cor. xv. 12.
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

²¹⁹⁵ Gal. v. 2.
Thus runs Hebion’s heresy. Such also as “forbid to marry” he reproaches in his instructions to Timothy.²¹⁹⁶

²¹⁹⁶ 1 Tim. iv. 3.
Now, this is the teaching of Marcion and his follower Apelles. (The apostle) directs a similar blow²¹⁹⁷

²¹⁹⁷ Æque tangit.
against those who said that “the resurrection was past already.”²¹⁹⁸

²¹⁹⁸ 2 Tim. ii. 3.
Such an opinion did the Valentinians assert of themselves. When again he mentions “endless genealogies,”²¹⁹⁹

²¹⁹⁹ 1 Tim. i. 4.
one also recognises Valentinus, in whose system a certain Æon, whosoever he be,²²⁰⁰

²²⁰⁰ Nescio qui.
of a new name, and that not one only, generates of his own grace²²⁰¹

²²⁰¹ Charite.
Sense and Truth; and these in like manner produce of themselves Word²²⁰²

²²⁰² Sermonem.
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

²²⁰⁴ Gal. iv. 9.
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

²²⁰⁶ Deo non nato.
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

²²⁰⁷ Comparat.
God. John, however, in the Apocalypse is charged to chastise those “who eat things sacrificed to idols,” and “who commit fornication.”²²⁰⁸

²²⁰⁸ Rev. ii. 14.
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

²²¹⁰ 1 John iv. 3.
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

²²¹² Referred to perhaps in Col. ii. 18.
was itself actually reckoned amongst idolatries and condemned by the Apostle Peter in Simon’s own person.
E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH