Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume I/Church History of Eusebius/Book IV/Chapter 11

The Heresiarchs of that Age.

1. &#8220; Valentinus came to Rome under Hyginus, flourished under Pius, and remained until Anicetus. Cerdon also, Marcion&#8217;s predecessor, entered the Church in the time of Hyginus, the ninth bishop, and made confession, and continued in this way, now teaching in secret, now making confession again, and now denounced for corrupt doctrine and withdrawing from the assembly of the brethren.&#8221;

2. These words are found in the third book of the work Against Heresies. And again in the first book he speaks as follows concerning Cerdon: &#8220;A certain Cerdon, who had taken his system from the followers of Simon, and had come to Rome under Hyginus, the ninth in the episcopal succession from the apostles, Hyginus is here called the ninth bishop, and the reading is confirmed by a passage in Cyprian&#8217;s epistle to Pompey (Ep. LXXIII. 2 in the Ante-Nicene Fathers), and also by Epiphanius (H&#230;r. LXI. 1). In the passage quoted just above, however, from the third book of Iren&#230;us, although Eusebius calls Hyginus the &#8220;ninth,&#8221; the Latin text of Iren&#230;us makes him the &#8220;eighth,&#8221; and according to Salmon in the ''Dict of Christ. Biog''.: &#8220;The. evidence is decisive that Iren&#230;us here [in the passage quoted above from III. 4. 3] describes Hyginus as the eighth bishop, and this agrees with the list of Roman bishops given in the preceding chapter (Adv. H&#230;r. III. 3. 3), and with the description of Anicetus as the tenth bishop a couple of chapters further on. Lipsius hence infers that Iren&#230;us drew his account of Cerdon from two sources in which Hyginus was differently described, but this inference is very precarious. In the interval between the composition of the first and third books, Iren&#230;us may have been led to alter his way of counting by investigations concerning the succession of the Roman bishops, which he had in the meantime either made himself, or adopted from Hegesippus. As for the numeration &#8216;ninth,&#8217; we do not venture to pronounce whether it indicates a list in which Peter was counted first bishop, or one in which Cletus and Anacletus were reckoned as distinct.&#8221; According to Eusebius&#8217; own reckoning up to the present chapter, Hyginus was the eighth, not the ninth, from the apostles, for in chap. 5, above, he calls Telesphorus (Hyginus&#8217; predecessor) the seventh, in chap. 1, Alexander (the predecessor of Xystus, who preceded Telesphorus) the fifth, and so on. Why, in the passage quoted at the beginning of this chapter, he should change his reckoning, and call Hyginus the ninth if the original list of Iren&#230;us from which he drew said eighth is difficult to see. It is possible that he made the change under the influence of the &#8220;ninth,&#8221; in the present passage, which certainly stood in the original text. It would be easier to think this if the order in which the passages are quoted were reversed, but it may be that Eusebius had the present quotation in mind when making the first, or that he went back afterward and corrected that to correspond. If he ventured to change the text of Iren&#230;us in that passage, he must have done it in all good faith, assuming a mistake in transcription, where the contradiction was so glaring. It still remains to me inexplicable, however, why he did not change the &#8220;ninth&#8221; of the second passage to &#8220;eighth&#8221; instead of the &#8220;eighth&#8221; of the first passage to &#8220;ninth.&#8221; He would thus have gotten rid of all contradictions, and have remained consistent with himself. I am tempted, in fact, to believe that Eusebius found &#8220;ninth&#8221; in the original of both passages quoted, and copied just what he found. At the same time, I do not feel disposed in the face of what Lipsius and Salmon say as to the original text of Iren&#230;us to claim that Iren&#230;us himself wrote &#8220;ninth&#8221; at that point. taught that the God proclaimed by the law and prophets was not the father of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the former was known, but the latter unknown; and the former was just, but the latter good. Marcion of Pontus succeeded Cerdon and developed his doctrine, uttering shameless blasphemies.&#8221;

3. The same Iren&#230;us unfolds with the greatest vigor the unfathomable abyss of Valentinus&#8217; errors in regard to matter, and reveals his wickedness, secret and hidden like a serpent lurking in its nest.

4. And in addition to these men he says that there was also another that lived in that age, Marcus by name, who was remarkably skilled in magic arts. And he describes also their unholy initiations and their abominable mysteries in the following words:

5. &#8220;For some of them prepare a nuptial couch and perform a mystic rite with certain forms of expression addressed to those who are being initiated, and they say that it is a spiritual marriage which is celebrated by them, after the likeness of the marriages above. But others lead them to water, and while they baptize them they repeat the following words: Into the name of the unknown father of the universe, into truth, the mother of all things, into the one that descended upon Jesus. Others repeat Hebrew names in order the better to confound those who are being initiated.&#8221;

6. But Hyginus having died at the close of the fourth year of his episcopate, Pius succeeded him in the government of the church of Rome. In Alexandria Marcus was appointed pastor, after Eumenes had filled the office thirteen years in all. And Marcus having died after holding office ten years was succeeded by Celadion in the government of the church of Alexandria.

7. And in Rome Pius died in the fifteenth year of his episcopate, and Anicetus assumed the leadership of the Christians there. Hegesippus records that he himself was in Rome at this time, and that he remained there until the episcopate of Eleutherus. Eusebius evidently makes a mistake here. That Hegesippus remained so long in Rome (Anicetus ruled from 154&#8211;168 (?), and Eleutherus from 177&#8211;190) is upon the face of it very improbable. And in this case we can see clearly how Eusebius made his mistake. In chap. 22 he quotes a passage from Hegesippus in regard to his stay in Rome, and it was in all probability this passage from which Eusebius drew his conclusion. But Hegesippus says there that he &#8220;remained in Rome until the time of Anicetus,&#8221; &amp;c. It is probable, therefore, that he returned to the East during Anicetus&#8217; episcopacy. He does not express himself as one who had remained in Rome until the reign of Eleutherus; but Eusebius, from a hasty reading, might easily have gathered that idea. According to Hegesippus&#8217; account in chap. 22, he must, then, have come to Rome before Anicetus, i.e. during the reign of Pius, and this Eusebius does not here contradict, though he is said to do so by Reading, who translates the Greek words, &#7952;&#960;&#953;&#948;&#951;&#956;&#8134;&#963;&#945;&#953; &#964;&#8135; &#8190;&#929;&#8061;&#956;&#8131;, &#8220;came to the city&#8221; (so, also, Closs, Stigloher, and Crus&#232;). But the words properly mean &#8220;to be in Rome,&#8221; not &#8220;to come to Rome,&#8221; which would require, rather, &#7952;&#960;&#953;&#948;&#951;&#956;&#8134;&#963;&#945;&#953; &#949;&#7984;&#962; &#964;&#8052;&#957; &#8190;&#929;&#8061;&#956;&#951;&#957;, as in &#167;2, above, where the words are used of Cerdon. Jerome, to be sure (de vir. ill. 22), says that Hegesippus came to Rome in the time of Anicetus; but his account rests solely upon Eusebius, whom he mistranslated. The tradition, therefore, that Hegesippus came to Rome in the time of Anicetus has no foundation; he was already there, as he himself informs us, in chap. 22, below. Cf. the note on this passage, in chap. 22.

8. But Justin was especially prominent in those days. In the guise of a philosopher he preached the divine word, and contended for the faith in his writings. He wrote also a work against Marcion, This work against Marcion is also mentioned by Iren&#230;us, who quotes from it in his Adv. H&#230;r. IV. 16. 2 (see below, chap. 18), and by Photius, Cod. 125. The work is lost, and we have only the single brief fragment preserved by Iren&#230;us. It is possible that it formed a part of the larger Syntagma contra omnes H&#230;reses, mentioned by Justin in his Apol. I. 26 (see below), and it has been urged in support of this possibility that Iren&#230;us nowhere mentions a work of Justin&#8217;s Against all Heresies, although it is highly probable that he made use of such a work (see Lipsius&#8217; Quellen der &#228;ltesten Ketzergesch. and Harnack&#8217;s Zur Quellenkritik des Gnosticismus). It would seem that Iren&#230;us is referring to this work when he mentions the Syntagma contra Marcionem. On the other hand, Photius mentions the work against Marcion and the one against all heresies as two separate works. He does not seem, however, to have had a personal knowledge of them, and is possibly only repeating Eusebius (Harnack says he is certainly doing so, Ueberlieferung d. griech. Apol. p. 150; but in view of the fact that he omits two works mentioned by Eusebius, this seems to be somewhat doubtful); and if this is so, no reliance is to be placed upon his report, for it is evident that Eusebius himself knew neither of the two works, and hence the fact that he distinguishes them has no significance. Although, therefore, it cannot be determined whether Justin wrote two separate works against heretics, it is quite probable that he did not.

The conduct of Eusebius in this connection is very peculiar. After mentioning the work against Marcion, he at once gives a quotation in such a way as to convey the impression that the quotation is taken from this work, but it is really taken from the first Apology. This makes it very probable that he had not seen this work against Marcion, a conclusion which is confirmed by its omission from the list of Justin&#8217;s writings given in chap. 18. It is claimed by many that Eusebius practices a little deception here, wishing to convey the impression that he knew a book which he did not know. This is not in accord with his usual conduct (as he seldom hesitates to confess his ignorance of any matter), and his general character for candor and honesty must be taken into account in deciding the case. He does not state directly that the quotation is taken from the work against Marcion, and it is possible that the seeming reference of it to that source was an oversight on his part. But it must be acknowledged, if that be the case, that he was very careless in making the quotation. in which he states that the latter was alive at the time he wrote.

9. He speaks as follows: &#8220;And there is a certain Marcion Marcion cannot be called a Gnostic in the strict sense of the term. He was rather an anti-Jewish reformer. He had much in common with the Gnostics, but laid stress upon belief rather than upon knowledge. He developed no complete system as did the extreme and perverted Paulinism, considering Paul the only true apostle and rejecting the others as Judaizing teachers. He cut the Gospel away from its historical connections, repudiating the Old Testament and all of the New except a mutilated Gospel of Luke and the Epistles of Paul, and denying the identity of the God of the Old Testament with the Supreme God, and the identity of Jesus with the promised Jewish Messiah. He magnified the mercy of God in redemption at the expense of creation, which he attributed to the demiurge, and in which he saw nothing good. He was an extreme anti-metaphysician, and the first Biblical critic. He was born in Pontus, was the son of a bishop, went to Rome about 135 ., and endeavored to carry out his reforms there, but was unsuccessful, and very soon broke with the Church. He traveled extensively and disseminated his doctrines very widely. The sect existed well on into the Middle Ages, and some of his opinions have never been completely eradicated. In Rome the Gnostic Cerdon exercised great influence over him, and to him are doubtless due many of Marcion&#8217;s Gnostic traits. The dualism which he held in common with the Gnostics arose rather from practical than speculative considerations; but his followers in the fourth and fifth centuries, when they had lost his practical religious spirit and yet retained his dualism, passed over quite naturally into Manicheeism. He was attacked by Justin, Iren&#230;us, Tertullian, and all the anti-heretical writers of the early Church, and was considered one of the most dangerous of heretics. A complete monograph upon Marcion is still a desideratum, but he is discussed in all the general accounts of Gnosticism; see especially the brief but excellent account by Harnack, Dogmengeschichte, I. 197&#8211;214. of Pontus, who is even now still teaching his followers to think that there is some other God greater than the creator. And by the aid of the demons he has persuaded many of every race of men to utter blasphemy, and to deny that the maker of this universe is the father of Christ, and to confess that some other, greater than he, was the creator. And all who followed them are, as we have said, called Christians, just as the name of philosophy is given to philosophers, although they may have no doctrines in common.&#8221;

10. To this he adds: &#8220;And we have also written a work against all the heresies that have existed, which we will give you if you wish to read it.&#8221;

11. But this same Justin contended most successfully against the Greeks, and addressed discourses containing an apology for our faith to the Emperor Antoninus, called Pius, and to the Roman senate. For he lived at Rome. But who and whence he was he shows in his Apology in the following words.