Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/961

Rh MARCUS. anonymous writer usually cited as Praedestinatus, makes Marcus contomponiry with Clement of Rome ; but this is placing him too early, as, according to Irenaeus. he was a disciple of Valentinus, who pro- bably lived in the first half of the century [Valen- tinus] ; and there is reason to think, from the manner in which Irenaeus speaks of liim, that he was still alive when that father wrote his treatise Ad- versus Haereses [Irenaeus]. He must be placed considerably later than the time of Clement. We have no account in Irenaeus of the country of Marcus ; Jerome {^Comment, in Isai. Ixiv. 4, 5) calls him an Egyptian, but modern critics do not adopt this statement ; Lardner thinks, but on very preca- rious ground, that he was "an Asiatic'' (i.e. a na- tive of Proconsular Asia), and Neander is induced by some peculiarities of his system to think he was from Palestine. All this, however, is mere con- jecture, and we arc disposed to accept the statement of Jerome as to this point, especially as it accords with the statement of Irenaeus that he was a disciple of Valentinus. That Marcus was in Asia, appears from a scandalous anecdote, related by Irenaeus, of his seducing the wife of one Diaconus (or perhaps of a certain deacon), into whose house he had been received ; but the circumstances show that he was travelling in that country rather than residing there. Jerome {I. c. and Eplsi. ad Tlieodoram^ No. 29, ed. Vett., 53, ed. Benedict, 75, ed. Vallarsii) states that he travelled into the parts of Gaul about the Rhone and the Garonne, then crossed the Pyrenees into Spain ; but Irenaeus, whom he cites, is speaking, not of Marcus himself, but of his followers ; and Jerome was probably led into this misunderstanding of his authority by con- founding this Marcus with another and later teacher of the gnostic school [No. 14], of the same name and countiy. Of the history of Marcus nothing more is known. His character is seriously impeached, as already noticed, by Irenaeus, who is followed by others of the fathers, and who charges him with habitual and systematic licentiousness. The followers of Marcus were designated Mar- cosii (MapKo^trtoi), Marcosians, and a long account of them is given by Irenaeus and by Epiphanius, who has transcribed very largely from Irenaeus ; and a briefer notice is contained in the other an- cient writers on the subject of heresies. The peculiar tenets of Marcus were founded on the gnostic doctrine of Aeons ; and, according to Irenaeus, Marcus professed to derive his know- ledge of these Aeons, and of the production of the universe, by a revelation from the primal four in the system of Aeons, who descended to him from the region of the invisible and ineifable, in the form of a female ; but this representation has perhaps been owing to Irenaeus interpreting too literally the poetical foi-m in which Marcus deve- loped his views. Neander {Church Hist, by Rose, vol. ii. p. 95) thus characterizes the system of Marcus. " He brought forward his doctrines in a poem, in which he introduced the Aeons speaking in liturgical formulae, and in imposing symbols of worship, . . After the Jewish cabalistic method, he hunted after mysteries in the number and positions of the letters. The idea of a Kayos rod 6vt6s^ of the word as the revelation of the hidden divine being in creation, was spun out by him with the greatest subtilty: he made the whole creation a progressive expression of the inexpressible." The Marcosians are said to have distinguished between MARCUS. .047 the supreme God and the Creator, and to have denied the reality of Christ's incarnation, and the resurrection of the body. Marcus was charged with using magic, and Irenaeus has given a sufficiently obscure descrip- tion of the modes in which he imposed on the credulity of his votaries, who were commonly women possessed of wealth, and acquired riches at their expense. Irenaeus suspected that he was assisted in his delusions by some daemon, by whose aid he appeared both to deliver prophecies himself, and to impart the gift of prophecy to those women whom he deemed worthy to participate in the gift. He is charged also with employing philters and love potions, in order to effect his licentious purposes. Whether any, or what part of these charges is true, it is difiicult to say : that of using magical prac- tices, or practices reputed to be magical, is the most probable. It is difficult to judge what foundation there is for the charge of licentiousness. Lardner regards it as unfounded. The Marcosians appear to have acknowledged the canonical Scriptures, and to have received also many apocryphal books, from one of which Irenaeus cites a story which is found in the EvangcUum hifcmtiae. (Ireru Adv. Ifaeres. i. 8 — 18 ; Epiphan. Haeres. xxxiv. s. ut alii, xiv. ; Anon, in the spurious edition to TertuUian, DePrae- script. Haeret. c. 50, &c. ; TertuUian, Adv. Vulent. c. 4, De Resurrect. Cartiis, c. 5 ; Theodoret. Haere- ticarum Fabularum Compend. c. 9 ; Euseb. H. E. iv. 1 1 ; Philastrius, De Haeresib. post Christum^ c. 14 ; Praedestinatus, De Haeresih. i. 14 ; Augustin. De Haeres. c. 15 ; Hieronym. II. cc. ; Ittigius, De Haeresiarchis, sect. ii. c. 6. § 4 ; Tillemont, Me- vioires^ vol. ii. p. 291, &c. ; Lardner, Hist, of Here- tics, book ii. ch. 7 ; Neander, I. c.) 14. Haereticus. Isidore of Seville, in speak- ing of Idacius Clarus, and Sulpicius Severus, in his Historia Sacra (ii. 61), mention Marcus, a native of Memphis, as being eminently skilled in magic, a Manichaean, or perhaps personally a disciple of Manes, and the teacher of the persecuted heresiarch Priscillian. He is noticed here as having been by .Jerome and others confounded with the earlier heresiarch of the same name. [No. 13.] (Isidor. Hispal. De Script. Eccles. c. 2 ; Sulp. Sever. /. c.) 15. Hamartolus. [No. 16.] 16. HiEROMONACHUS. In the Ti/picum, or ritual directory of the Greek church {Tuttmov avv ©ecfj 071^ irapctxo'' T^aaav tt)j/ Sidra^iv t^s iKKKriaiaaTiKT^s dKoov6ias rov xP'^'^^v oov, Typicum, fcevente Deo, continens integrum Officii Ecdesiastici Ordinem per totum Annum. See the description of the work in Cave, Hist. Litt. vol. ii. Dissert. II. p. 38) is contained a treatise, Imv- rayfxa els rd airopovfXfva rov tvttikov, De Dtdnis quae ex Typico oriuidur, arranged in 1 00 chapters by Marcus Hieromonachus, who calls himself 'A^opTwAoT, "a sinner." This commentary is adapted to the arrangement of the Typicum, ascribed to St. Saba, but which Oudin supposes to have been drawn up by Marcus himself, and pro- duced by him as the work of St. Saba, in order to obtain for it an authority which, had it appeared in his own name, it would not have possessed. But though Oudin is successful in showing that parts of the Typicum are adapted to practices which did not come into use till several centuries after St. Saba's death, in the sixth century, and therefore that those parts were of much later date than that of Saint [Saba], he does not prove either that 3 p 2