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| No Early Controversy Respecting the Divine Creator; No Second God Introduced at First. Heresies Condemned Alike by the Sentence and the Silence of Holy Scripture.
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Chapter
XXXIV.—No Early Controversy Respecting the Divine Creator; No
Second God Introduced at First. Heresies Condemned Alike by the
Sentence and the Silence of Holy Scripture.
These are, as I suppose, the different kinds of
spurious doctrines, which (as we are informed by the apostles
themselves) existed in their own day. And yet we find amongst so
many various perversions of truth, not one school2213
which raised any controversy concerning God
as the Creator of all things. No man was bold enough to surmise a
second god. More readily was doubt felt about the Son than about the
Father, until Marcion introduced, in addition to the Creator, another
god of goodness only. Apelles made the Creator of some
nondescript2214
glorious angel, who
belonged to the superior God, the god (according to him,) of the law
and of Israel, affirming that he was fire.2215
| 2215 Igneum,
“consisted of fire.” |
Valentinus disseminated his Æons, and traced the sin of one
Æon2216
| 2216 “The
ectroma, or fall of Sophia from the Pleroma, from whom the
Creator was fabled to be descended” (Dodgson). | to the production
of God the Creator. To none, forsooth, except these, nor prior to
these, was revealed the truth of the Divine Nature; and they obtained
this especial honour and fuller favour from the devil, we cannot
doubt,2217
because he wished
even in this respect to rival God, that he might succeed, by the poison
of his doctrines, in doing himself what the Lord said could not be
done—making “the disciples above their
Master.”2218
Let the entire
mass2219
of heresies choose, therefore, for
themselves the times when they should appear, provided that the
when be an unimportant point; allowing, too, that they be not of
the truth, and (as a matter of course2220
)
that such as had no existence in the time of the apostles could
not possibly have had any connection with the apostles. If indeed they
had then existed, their names would be extant,2221
| 2221 Nominarentur et
ipsæ. |
with a view to their own repression likewise. Those (heresies)
indeed which did exist in the days of the apostles, are condemned in
their very mention.2222
If it be true,
then, that those heresies, which in the apostolic times were in a rude
form, are now found to be the same, only in a much more polished shape,
they derive their condemnation from this very circumstance. Or if they
were not the same, but arose afterwards in a different form, and merely
assumed from them certain tenets, then, by sharing with them an
agreement in their teaching,2223
they must needs
partake in their condemnation, by reason of the above-mentioned
definition,2224
of lateness of
date, which meets us on the very threshold.2225
Even if they were free from any participation in condemned doctrine,
they would stand already judged2226
| 2226 Præjudicarentur.
[i.e. by Præscription.] | on the mere
ground of time, being all the more spurious because they were not even
named by the apostles. Whence we have the firmer assurance, that these
were (the heresies) which even then,2227
| 2227 i.e., in the days of
the apostles, and by their mouth. | were announced
as about to arise.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
