A Dictionary of All Religions and Religious Denominations/Hieracites

HIERACITES, a denomination in the third century; so called from their leader Hierax, a philosopher and magician of Egypt, who maintained that the principal object of Christ's ministry, was the promulgation of a new law, more severe and perfect than that of Moses. Hence he concluded that the use of flesh, wine, wedlock, and of other things agreeable to the outward senses, which had been permitted under the Mosaic dispensation, was absolutely prohibited by Christ. He is said to have excluded from the kingdom of heaven children who died before they had arrived to the use of reason; and that upon the supposition that God was bound to administer rewards to those only who had fairly finished their victorious conflict with the body and its lusts: he maintained also that Melchisedec was the Holy Ghost. His disciples taught, that the Word, or Son of God, is contained in the Father, as a little vessel in a great one; whence they had the name of Metangismonites, from the Greek word $$\mu \epsilon \tau \alpha \gamma \gamma \iota \sigma \mu \omicron \nu \omicron \sigma$$. He also denied the doctrine of the resurrection.