Part 9 (1/2)
Ch. 31. There were then among the Jews certain men who were prophets of G.o.d, through whom the prophetic Spirit [context shows that the Logos is here meant] published beforehand things that were to come to pa.s.s before they happened. And their prophecies, as they were spoken and when they were uttered, the kings who were among the Jews at the several times carefully preserved in their possession, when they had been arranged by the prophets themselves in their own Hebrew language. They are also in possession of all Jews throughout the world. In these books of the prophets we found Jesus our Christ foretold as coming, born of a virgin, growing up to manhood, and healing every disease and every sickness, and raising the dead, and being hated and unrecognized, and crucified, and dying, and rising again, and ascending into heaven, and both being and also called the Son of G.o.d, and that certain persons should be sent by Him into every race of men to publish these things, and that rather among the Gentiles [than among the Jews] men should believe on Him. And He was predicted before He appeared first 5,000 years before, and again 3,000, then 2,000 then 1,000, and yet again 800; for according to the succession of generations prophets after prophets arose.
Ch. 53. Though we have many other prophecies, we forbear to speak, judging these sufficient for the persuasion of those who have ears capable of hearing and understanding; and considering also that these persons are able to see that we do not make a.s.sertions, and are unable to produce proof, like those fables that are told of the reputed sons of Jupiter. For with what reason should we believe of a crucified man that He is the first-born of the unbegotten G.o.d, and Himself will pa.s.s judgment on the whole human race, unless we found testimonies concerning Him published before He came and was born as a man, and unless we saw that things had happened accordingly?
Chapter II. The Internal Crisis: The Gnostic And Other Heretical Sects
In the second century the Church pa.s.sed through an internal crisis even more trying than the great persecutions of the following centuries and with results far more momentous. Of the conditions making possible such a crisis the most important was absence in the Church of norms of faith universally acknowledged as binding. Then, again, many had embraced Christianity without grasping the spirit of the new religion. Nearly all interpreted the Christian faith more or less according to their earlier philosophical or religious conceptions; _e.g._, the apologists within the Church used the philosophical Logos doctrine. In this way arose numerous interpretations of Christian teaching and perversions of that teaching, some not at all in harmony with the generally received tradition. These discordant interpretations or perversions are the heretical movements of the second century. They varied in every degree of departure from the generally accepted Christian tradition. Some, like the earlier Gnostics ( 21), and even the greater Gnostic systems ( 22), at least in their esoteric teaching, show that their princ.i.p.al inspiration was other than Christian; others, as the Gnosticism of Marcion ( 23) and the enthusiastic sect of the Montanists ( 25), seem to have built largely upon exaggerated Christian tenets, contained, indeed, in the New Testament, but not fully appreciated by the majority of Christians; or still others, as the Encrat.i.tes ( 24), laid undue stress upon what was generally recognized as an element of Christian morality.
The princ.i.p.al source materials for the history of Gnosticism and other heresies of this chapter may be found collected and provided with commentary in Hilgenfeld, _Ketzergeschichte des Urchristenthums_, Leipsic, 1884.
21. The Earlier Gnostics: Gnosticism in General
Gnosticism is a generic name for a vast number of syncretistic religious systems prevalent, especially in the East, both before and after the Christian era. For the most part the movement was outside of Christianity, and was already dying out when Christianity appeared. It derived its essential features from Persian and Babylonian sources and was markedly dualistic. As it spread toward the West, it adopted many Western elements, making use of Christian ideas and terms and Greek philosophical concepts.
Modified by such new matter, it obtained a renewed lease of life. In proportion as the various schools of Gnosticism became more influenced by Christian elements, they were more easily confused with Christianity, and accordingly more dangerous to it. Among such were the greater schools of Basilides and Valentinus (see next section). The doctrines of Gnosticism were held by many who were nominally within the Church. The tendency of the Gnostics and their adherents was to form little coteries and to keep much of their teaching secret from those who were attracted by their more popular tenets. The esoteric element seems to have been the so-called systems in which the fanciful and mythological element in Gnosticism appears. This, as being the most vulnerable part of the Gnostic teaching, was attacked most bitterly by the opponents of heresy. There are no extant writings of the earlier Gnostics, Simon, Menander, or Cerinthus. They are known only from Christian opponents.
Sources for the history of Gnosticism: The leading sources are the Church Fathers Irenus, Hippolytus, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria (all translated in ANF), Origen (in part only translated in ANF), and Epiphanius. The accounts of these bitter enemies must necessarily be used with caution. They contain, however, numerous fragments from Gnostic writings. The fragments in the ante-Nicene Fathers may be found in A.
Hilgenfeld, _op. cit._, in Greek, with commentary. For the literary remains of Gnosticism, see Krger, 22-31. The more accessible are: _Acts of Thomas_ (best Greek text by Bonnet, Leipsic, 1903, German translation with excellent commentary in E. Hennecke, _Neutestamentliche Apokryphen_, Tbingen and Leipsic, 1904); Ptolemus, _Epistle to Flora_ (in Epiphanius, _Panarion_, Hr. x.x.xIII); _Hymn of the Soul_, from the _Acts of Thomas_ (text and English translation by Bevan in _Text and Studies_, V, 3, Cambridge, 1897, also translated in F. C. Burkitt, _Early Eastern Christianity_, N. Y., 1904).
(_a_) Tertullian, _De Prscriptione Hreticorum_, 7. (MSL, 2:21.)
A wide-spread opinion that Gnosticism was fundamentally a perversion of Christianity finds its most striking expression in the phrase of Harnack that it was the acute secularizing or h.e.l.lenizing of Christianity (_History of Dogma_, English translation, I, 226). The foundation for this representation is the later Gnosticism, which took over many Christian and Greek elements, and the opinion of Tertullian that Gnosticism and Greek philosophy discussed the same questions and held the same opinions. (_Cf._ the thesis of Hippolytus in his _Philosophumena, or the Refutation of All Heresies_; see the Proemium, ANF, V, 9 _f._, and especially bk. VII.) Tertullian, although retaining unconsciously the impress of his former Stoicism, was violently opposed to philosophy, and in his denunciation of heresy felt that it was a powerful argument against the Gnostics to show similarities between their teaching and the Greek philosophy he so heartily detested. It is a brilliant work and may be taken as a fair specimen of Tertullians style.
These are the doctrines of men and of demons born of the spirit of this worlds wisdom, for itching ears; and the Lord, calling this foolishness, chose the foolish things of this world to the confusion of philosophy itself. For philosophy is the material of the worlds wisdom, the rash interpreter of the nature and dispensation of G.o.d. Indeed, heresies themselves are instigated by philosophy. From this source came the eons, and I know not what infinite forms, and the trinity of man in the system of Valentinus; he was of Platos school. From this source came Marcions better G.o.d with all his tranquillity; he came of the Stoics. Then again the opinion that the soul dies is held by the Epicureans. The denial of the resurrection of the body is taken from the united schools of all philosophers. When matter is made equal to G.o.d, you have the teaching of Zeno; and when anything is alleged touching a fiery G.o.d, then Herac.l.i.tus comes in. The same subject-matter is discussed over and over again by the heretics and the philosophers; the same arguments are involved. Whence and wherefore is evil? Whence and how has come man? Besides these there is the question which Valentinus has very recently proposed, Whence comes G.o.d?
(_b_) Irenus, _Adv. Hr._, I, 23. (MSG, 7:670.)
Simon Magus. For additional source material, see Justin Martyr, _Apol._ I, 26, 56, _Dial. c. Tryph._, 120; Hippolytus, _Ref._ VI, 72 _f._ The appearance of Simon in the pseudo-Clementine literature (translated in ANF, VIII), presents an interesting historical problem. The present condition of investigation is given in the article Clementine Literature by J. V. Bartlett, in _Encyc. Brit._, eleventh ed.
Simon the Samaritan, that magician of whom Luke, the disciple and follower of the Apostles, says: But there was a certain man, Simon by name, etc.
[Acts 8:9-11, 20, 21, 23.] Since he did not put his faith in G.o.d a whit more, he set himself eagerly to contend against the Apostles, in order that he himself might seem to be a wonderful being, and studied with still greater zeal the whole range of magic art, that he might the better bewilder the mult.i.tude of men. Such was his procedure in the reign of Claudius Csar, by whom also he is said to have been honored with a statue on account of his magic. This man, then, was glorified by many as a G.o.d, and he taught that it was he himself who appeared among the Jews as the Son, but descended in Samaria as the Father, while he came to other nations in the character of the Holy Spirit. He represented himself as the loftiest of all powers, that it is he who is over all as the Father, and he allowed himself to be called whatsoever men might name him.
Now this Simon of Samaria, from whom all heresies derive their origin, has as the material for his sect the following: Having redeemed from slavery at Tyre, a city of Phnicia, a certain woman named Helena,(38) a prost.i.tute, he was in the habit of carrying her about with him, declaring that she was the first conception [_Enna_] of his mind, the mother of all, by whom he conceived in his mind to make the angels and archangels.
For this Enna, leaping forth from him and comprehending the will of her father, descended to the lower regions and generated angels and powers, by whom, also, he declared this world was made. But after she had generated them she was detained by them through jealousy, because they were unwilling that they should be regarded as the progeny of any other being.
As to himself, he was wholly unknown to them, but his Enna was detained by those powers and angels who had been produced by her. She suffered all kinds of contumely from them, so that she could not return upward to her father, but was even shut up in a human body and for ages pa.s.sed in succession from one female body to another, as from one vessel to another vessel. She was in that Helen on whose account the Trojan War was undertaken; wherefore also Stesichorus was struck blind, because he cursed her in his poems; but afterward, when he had repented and written those verses which are called palinodes, in which he sung her praises, he saw once more. Thus pa.s.sing from body to body and suffering insults in every one of them, she at last became a common prost.i.tute; and she it is who was the lost sheep.
For this purpose he himself had come, that he might win her first and free her from chains, and confer salvation upon men by making himself known to them. For since the angels ruled the world poorly, because each one of them coveted the princ.i.p.al power, he had come to mend matters and had descended, been transfigured and a.s.similated to powers and angels, so that he might appear among men as man, although he was not a man; and that he was supposed to have suffered in Judea, although he had not suffered.