Appendix I.
Simon Magus in Early Writings
1.A. JUSTIN
MARTYR: First Apology (date:
around 150-155 C.E.; cf. 1 Apology 29 & 46)
translated by Leslie W. Barnard, 1997.
26 And,
thirdly, because after Christ’s ascension into heaven the demons put
forward certain men who said that they themselves were gods, ... One was a
certain Simon, a Samaritan from the village called Gitta, who in
the reign of Claudius Caesar (41-54 C.E.), through the art of the demons who
worked in him, did mighty works of magic in your imperial city of Rome
and was thought to be a god; he has been honored among you as a god with a
statue, which statue was erected on the River Tiber, between the two bridges,
having this inscription in Roman language: SIMONI DEO SANCTO (=To Simon
the Holy God).
And almost all the Samaritans, and a few even in other
nations, worship this man and confess him, as the first god; and a woman
Helena who went about with him at that time, and had formerly been a
public prostitute, they say was the first idea (_vvoια) generated by him.
And a certain man Menander, also a Samaritan, of
the village of Capparetaea, who had been
a disciple of Simon’s, and inspired by demons, ... And
there is a certain Marcion of Pontus, who is even now teaching his disciples to
believe in some other god...
56 ... ,
they again, as we proved before (cf. 1 Apology 26), put forward others, Simon
and Menander
from Samaria, who did mighty works of magic and
deceived many and still keep them deceived.
For even among yourselves, as we said before, Simon was
in the imperial city of Rome under Claudius Caesar and so greatly
astonished the Sacred Senate and your people and the Roman people, that he was
thought to be a god and was honored, like the others whom you honor as gods,
with a statue. ...
64 From
what has been said you can understand how the demons, in imitation of what was
said through Moses, contrived also to raise up the image of the so-called Korê
over the springs of the waters saying that she was a daughter of Zeus. For
Moses said, as we wrote before: “In the beginning God made the heaven and the
earth. And the earth was invisible and unfurnished, and the Spirit of God moved
over the waters.” In imitation, then, of what is said of the Spirit of God moving
on the water they spoke of Korê,
daughter of Zeus. (cf. Simon’s Helen, the Holy Spirit, as Korê) And likewise behaving with
trickery they spoke of Athena as a daughter of Zeus (cf. alternative:
Simon’s Helen as Athena, another daughter of Zeus), not by sexual union,
but, since they knew that God conceived and made the world through logos, they
spoke of Athena as the first thought (cf. _vvoια); which we consider to be very absurd, to bring
forward the female form of an intellectual image. And likewise their actions
condemn the others who are called sons of Zeus.
1.B. JUSTIN
MARTYR: Second Apology (date: around
155-160 C.E.; cf. Eusebius, E.H 4.18)
translated by Leslie W. Barnard, 1997.
15 And I
despised the wicked and deceitful teaching of Simon among my own race (or
countryman). And if you publish this
[officially], we will make it manifest to all, that, if possible, they may be
converted; ...
1.C. JUSTIN MARTYR: Dialogue with Trypho (date: some time
between 155-161 or around 160.
cf. Justin’s debate with a certain Jew Trypho would occur shortly after the end
of Bar Kochba’s war
against the Roman Empire.) translated by Thomas B.
Falls, 1948.
120 ... For
I was not afraid either of any one of my people (the Samaritans), when I wrote
an address to Caesar, and affirmed that they were mistaken in trusting Simon
Magus in their nation, and in placing him above every principality,
authority and power.
2.
IRENAEUS: Adversus Haereses(=Against
the Heresies) (date: around
180-190 C.E.)
translated by A. Roberts and J. Donaldson, 1867.
1.23.1 Simon, the
Samaritan, was the famous magician of whom Luke, the disciple and follower of
the apostles, said: “But there was a man named Simon, who had previously
practiced magic in the city and seduced the people of Samaria, saying that he
himself was somebody great. They all gave heed to him, from the least to the
greatest, saying, ‘This man is that Power of God which is called Great.’ And
they gave heed to him, because for a long time he had bewitched them with his
magic.”(Cf. Acts 8:9-11) This Simon, then, feigned faith; he thought that
even the apostles themselves affected cures by magic and not by God’s power.
He suspected that, when by the imposition of hands the
apostles filled with the Holy Spirit those who
believed in God through Jesus Christ who was announced
by them, they were doing this through some
greater knowledge of magic. But when he offered the apostles
some money so that he too might
receive this power of bestowing the Holy Spirit on whomever he willed, he heard
this from Peter: “Keep your money to yourself, to perish with you, because
you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money. You have neither part
nor lot in this matter, for your heart is not right before God. For I see that
you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity.”(Cf. Acts
8:20-21, 23; v. 22 is omitted) But he
believed still less in God and greedily intended to rival the apostles so that
he might appear famous. So he made yet a deeper investigation into the entire
art of magic to the amazement of the crowds of people.
This happened during the reign of Emperor Claudius (Cf.
Justin’s 1 Apology 26), who, so they say, also honored him with a statue
because of his magic. So this man was glorified by many as a god. He himself was the one who appeared among
the Jews as the Son of God (Cf. “the Standing One” in John 1:26), while in
Samaria he descended as the Father, and among the other nations
he came as the Holy Spirit. He also taught that he was the most sublime
Power, that is, the Father who is above all things. He permitted himself to be
called whatever people might call him.
1.23.2 Now Simon,
the Samaritan, from whom all heresies got their start, proposed the following
sort of heretical doctrine. Having himself redeemed a certain Helen from
being a prostitute in Tyre, A city of Phoenicia, he took her with him on
his rounds, saying that she was the first Thought (_vvoια) of his mind (cf. _ _πίvoια τ_ς καρδίας σoυ in Acts 8:22), the Mother of all things, through whom in
the beginning he conceived in his mind to make the Angels and Archangels.
For he asserted that this Thought leaped forth from him, since she knew what
the Father wanted, and descended to the lower regions and gave birth to
Angels and Powers, by whom also this world
was made. But after she had given birth to them, she was detained by them
out of envy, since they did not wish to be considered the offspring of
anyone else. For he (=Simon as the Father) was entirely unknown to them.
His thought, however, who was detained by the Powers and Angels that had been
emitted by her, also suffered all kinds of contumely at their hands, so
that she could not return to her Father on high. [She suffered] even to the
extent of being imprisoned in a human body and of ransmigrating for ages
into other female bodies, as from one vessel into another. For example, she
was in the famous Helen on account of whom the Trojan war was fought;
for that reason Stesichorus who reviled her in his verses was struck blind, but
after he repented and had written what are called palinodes, in which he sang
her praises, his sight was restored. Thus, passing from one body into another,
and always suffering
insults from the body, she was a last prostitute in
a public house. She was the lost sheep.(Lk 15:6; Thus, Simon was the good
shepherd who sought his lost sheep.)
1.23.3 He himself
came for this reason that he might first take her to himself, free her from the
bonds, and then bring salvation to humankind by his own knowledge. The Angels
governed the world badly, because each one desired to be sovereign. So he came,
he said, to set matters right; Having been transformed and made like the
Principalities and Powers and Angels, he appeared in turn as a man, though he
was not a man. He appeared to suffer in Judea, though he really did not
suffer.(note: Simon as the docetic Christ) Moreover, the Prophets uttered their
prophecies by virtue of inspirations received from the Angels who made the
world. Wherefore, those who put their
trust in Simon and his Helen do not give heed to them, but do whatever they
will, since they are free. For they say that men are saved through his grace,
and not through holy deeds (cf. Eph. 2:8-9), because deeds are holy not by
nature but by accident.(note: common to all the Gnostics) For example, the
Angels who made the world laid down precepts and through these made slaves of people.
He, therefore, promised that the world would be destroyed so that those who
belong to him would be freed from the domain of those who made the world.
1.23.4 The mystic
priests of these people live licentious lives and practice magic, each one in
whatever way he can. They make use of exorcisms and incantations, love-potions
too and philters, and the so-called familiars, and dream-senders. They
diligently practice whatever other magic arts there may be. They also have a
statue of Simon patterned after Jupiter, and one of Helen patterned after
Minerva. They worship these statues. They also have a name for themselves, the “Simonians” derived from Simon the author
of this most impious doctrine, from whom falsely called knowledge took its
origin, as one can learn from their assertions.
1.23.5 The
successor of Simon was Menander, a Samaritan by birth. He too was most skillful
in magic. He said that the first Power is unknown to all, but that he is the
one who was sent as Savior by the invisible [regions] for the salvation of men.
The world, however, was made by the Angels, who he too, just as Simon, claims
were emitted by Thought. By the magic which he teaches he bestows upon them the
knowledge to overcome the very Angels who made the world. For his disciples
received the resurrection by being baptized into him and can no longer die, but
will continue on without growing old; they are immortal.
1.27.1 A certain
Cerdo also got his start from the disciples of Simon. ....
1.27.4 ... We have
necessarily made mention of him (=Marcion) at present that you might know that
all those who in any way adulterate the truth and do injury to the preaching of
the Church are the disciples and successors of Simon, the magician of
Samaria. For even though they do not acknowledge the name of their teacher
in order to mislead others, yet it is his doctrine they teach. ......
3. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA: Stromateis(=Miscellaneous) (date: around 200-210 C.E.) translated by John
Ferguson, 1991.
2.52(1) In the same
way, “Abraham stood before the Lord, drew near, and spoke,” (cf. Gen. 18:22-23)
and the Lord said to Moses, “You stand here next to me.”(cf. Deut. 5:31) (2) The followers of Simon want to conform
their ways to the one who stands firm, the object of their worship.
4.A.
TERTULLIAN: De Praescriptione Haereticorum(=On
Prescription Against Heretics) (date: around
210-220 C.E.) translated by P. Holmes, 1870.
32 ...
The doctrine, however, of Simon’s sorcery, which inculcated the worship of
angels, was itself actually reckoned amongst idolatries and condemned by the
Apostle Peter in Simon’s own person.
4.B. TERTULLIAN: De Anima(=On the
Soul) (date: around 210-220 C.E.) translated by P. Holmes,
1870.
34 ...
There is the [infamous] Simon of Samaria in the Acts of Apostles, who chaffered
for the Holy Ghost: after his condemnation by Him, and a vain remorse that he
and his money must perish together (Cf. Acts 8:18-21), he applied his energies
to the destruction of the truth, as if to console himself with revenge. Besides
the support with which his own magic arts furnished him, he had recourse to
imposture, and purchased a Tyrian woman of the name of Helen out of a brothel,
with the same money which he offered for the Holy Spirit, — a traffic worthy of
the wretched man. He actually feigned
himself to be the Supreme Father, and further pretended that the woman was his
own primary conception, wherewith he had purposed the creation of the angels
and the archangels; that after she was possessed of this purpose she sprang
forth from the Father and descended to the lower spaces, and there anticipating
the Father’s design had produced the angelic powers, which knew nothing of the
Father, the Creator of this world; that she was detained a prisoner by these
from a [rebellious] motive very like her own, lest after her departure from
them they should appear to be the offspring of another being; and that, after
being on this account exposed to every insult, to prevent her from leaving them
anywhere after her dishonor, she was degraded even to the form of man, to be
confined, as it were, in the bonds of flesh. Having during many ages wallowed
about in one female shape and another, she became notorious Helen who was so
ruinous to Priam, and afterwards to the eyes of Stesichorous, whom she blinded
in revenge for his lampoons, and then restored to sight to reward him for his
eulogies. After wandering about in this way from body to body, she, in her
final disgrace, turned out viler Helen still as a professional prostitute. This
wench, therefore, was the lost sheep (Cf. Luke 15:6), upon whom the
Supreme Father, even Simon, descended, who, after he had recovered her and
brought her back — whether on his shoulders or loins I cannot tell — cast an
eye on the salvation of man, in order to gratify his spleen by liberating them
from the angelic powers. Moreover, to deceive these he also himself assumed a
visible shape; and feigning the appearance of a man amongst men, he acted the
part of the Son in Judea, and of the Father in Samaria. O
hapless Helen, what a hard fate is yours between the poets and the heretics,
who have blackened your fame sometimes with adultery, sometimes with
prostitution! Only her rescue from Troy is a more glorious affair than her
extrication from the brothel. There were a thousand ships to remove her from
Troy; a thousand pence were probably more than enough to withdraw her from the
stews! Fie on you, Simon, to be so tardy in seeking her out, and so inconstant
in ransoming her! How different from Menelaus! As soon as he has lost her, he
goes in pursuit of her; she is no sooner ravished than he begins his search;
after a ten years’ conflict he boldly rescues her: there is no lurking, no
deceiving, no caviling. I am really afraid that he was a much better “Father,”
who labored so much more vigilantly, bravely, and perseveringly, about the
recovery of his Helen!
5. HIPPOLYTUS:
Refutatio(=Refutation of All Heresies) (date: around
220 C.E.)
translated by J. H. Macmahon, 1868.
6.2 It
seems, then, expedient likewise to explain now the opinions of Simon, a native
of Gitta, a village of
[or 6.7] Samaria;
and we shall also prove that his successors, taking a starting point from him,
have endeavored [to establish] similar opinions under a change of name. This
Simon being an adept in sorceries, both making a mockery of many, partly
according to the art of Thrasymedes, in the manner in which we have explained
above, and partly also by the assistance of demons perpetrating his villany,
attempted to deify himself. [But] the man was a [mere] cheat, and full of folly, and the Apostles reproved him in the
Acts. With much greater wisdom and moderation than Simon, did Apsethus the Libyan,
inflamed with a similar wish, endeavor to have himself considered a god in
Libya. ...
6.4 ... If,
however, the assertion of this likeness is in itself accurate, and the sorcerer
was the subject of passion
[or 6.9] similar
to Apsethus, let us endeavor to teach anew parrots of Simon, that Christ,
who stood, stands, and will
stand, [that is, was, is to come,] was not Simon.(Cf. John 1:26) But [Jesus] was man, offspring of the
seed of a woman, born of blood and the will of the flesh, as also the rest [of
humanity]. ...
Now Simon, both foolishly and
knavishly paraphrasing the law of Moses, makes his statements [in the
manner following]: For when Moses asserts that “God is
a burning and consuming fire,” taking what is said
by Moses not in its correct sense, he affirms that fire
is the originating principle of the universe. [But Simon] does not consider
what the statement is which is made, namely, that it is not that God is a fire,
but a burning and consuming fire, [thereby] not only putting a violent sense
upon the actual law of Moses, but even plagiarizing from Heraclitus the
Obscure. And Simon denominates the originating principle of the universe an
indefinite power, expressing himself thus: “This is the treatise of a
revelation of [the] voice and name [recognizable] by means of intellectual
apprehension of the Great Indefinite Power. Wherefore it will be sealed, [and]
kept secret, [and] hid, [and] will repose in the habitation, at the foundation
of which lies the root of all things.” And he asserts that this man who is born
of blood is [the aforesaid] habitation, and that in him resides an indefinite
power, which he affirms to the root of the universe. ......
6.12 According
to Simon, therefore, there exists that which is blessed and incorruptible in a
latent condition in
[or 6.17] every one
— [that is,] potentially, not actually; and that this is He who stood,
stands, and is to stand. He has stood above in unbegotten power. He
stands below, when in the stream of waters He was begotten in a likeness. He is
to stand above, beside the blessed indefinite power, if He be fashioned into an
image. For, he says, there are three who have stood; and except there were
three Æons who have stood, the unbegotten one is not adorned. ......
6.13 ......
This is He, who stood, stands, and will stand, being an hermaphrodite
power according to the pre-
[or 6.18] existent
indefinite power, which has neither beginning nor end. Now this [power]
exists in isolation. For Intelligence, [that subsists] in unity, proceeded
forth from this [power], [and] became two. And that [Father] was one, for
having in Himself this [power] He was isolated, and, however, He was not primal
though pre-existent; not being rendered manifest to Himself from Himself, He
passed into a state of duality. ......
6.14 Simon
then, after inventing these [tenets], not only by evil devices interpreted the
writings of Moses in
[or 6.19] whatever
way he wished, but even the [works] of the poets. For also he fastens an
allegorical meaning on [the story of] the wooden horse and Helen with the
torch, and on very many other [accounts], which he transfers to what relates to
himself and to Intelligence, and [thus] furnishes a fictitious explanation of
them. He said, however, that this [Helen] was the lost sheep. (Cf.
Luke 15:6) And she, always abiding among women, confounded the powers in the
world by reason of her surpassing beauty. Whence, likewise, the Trojan war
arose on her account. For in the Helen born at that time resided this
Intelligence; and thus, when all the powers were for claiming her [for
themselves], sedition and war arose, during which [this chief power] was
manifested to nations. ......
But the angels and the powers below — who, he says,
created the world — caused the transference from one body to another of
[Helen’s soul]; and subsequently she stood on the roof of a house in Tyre, a
city of Phœnicia, and on going down thither [Simon professed to have] found
her. (Cf. a good shepherd imagery) For he stated that, principally for the
purpose of searching after this [woman], he had arrived [in Tyre], in order
that he might rescue her from bondage. And after having thus redeemed her, he
was in the habit of conducting her about with himself, alleging that this
[girl] was the lost sheep, and affirming himself to be the Power
above all things. But the filthy fellow, becoming enamored of this
miserable woman called Helen, purchased her [as his slave], and enjoyed her
person. He, [however,] was likewise moved with shame towards his disciples, and
concocted this figment [to conceal his disgrace]. ......
6.15 The
disciples, then, of this [Magus], celebrate magical rites, and resort to
incantations.
[or 6.20] And [they
profess to] transmit both love-spells and charms, and the demons said to be
senders of dreams, for the purpose of distracting whomsoever they please. ...
And they have an image of Simon [fashioned] into the
figure of Jupiter, and [an image] of Helen in the form of Minerva; and they pay
adoration to these.” But they call the one Lord and the other Lady. And if any
one amongst them, on seeing the images of either Simon or Helen, would call
them by name, he is cast off, as being ignorant of the mysteries. This Simon,
deceiving many in Samaria by his sorceries, was reproved by the Apostles, and
was laid under a curse, as it has been written in the Acts. (cf. 8:20-23) But
he afterwards abjured the faith, and attempted these [aforesaid practices]. And
journeying as far as Rome, he fell in with the Apostles; and to him, deceiving
many by his sorceries, Peter offered repeated opposition.(See Clementine
Homilies) This man, ultimately repairing to ... [and] sitting under a plane
tree, continued to give instruction [in his doctrines]. And in truth at last,
when conviction was imminent, in case he delayed longer, he stayed that, if he
were buried alive, he would rise the third day. And, accordingly having ordered
a trench to be dug by his disciples, he directed himself to be interred there.
They, then, executed the injunction given; whereas he remained [in that grave]
until this day, for he was not the Christ. This constitutes the legendary
system advanced by Simon, and from this Valentinus derived a starting-point
[for his own doctrine. This doctrine, in point of fact, was the same with the
Simonian, though Valentinus] denominated it under different titles: for “Nous,”
and “Altheia,” and “Logos,” and “Zoe,” and “Anthropos,” and “Ecclesia,” the
Æons of Valentinus, are confessedly the six roots of Simon, viz. “Mind” and
“Intelligence,” “Voice” and “Name,” “Ratiocination” and “Reflection.” But since
it seems to us that we have sufficiently explained Simon’s tissue of legends,
let us see what also Valentinus asserts.
6.
ORIGEN: Contra Celsum(=Against
Celsus) (date: 246-248) translated by H. Chadwick, 1953.
1.57 ... After
the time of Jesus Dositheus the Samaritan also wanted to persuade the
Samaritans that he was the Christ prophesied by Moses, and he appeared to have
won over some folk to his teaching. But we may reasonably quote the very wise
saying of Gamaiel, recorded in the Acts of the Apostles (cf. Acts 5:34-39), to
show that these men had nothing to do with the promise, and were neither sons
of God nor his powers, whereas Jesus the Christ was truly God’s son. ... Simon
the Samaritan magician also wanted to draw away some folk by magic, and he
succeeded in his deception at the time. But now all the Simonians in the world
it is not possible to find thirty, and perhaps I have exaggerated the number.
There are very few in Palestine, while in the rest
of the world he is nowhere mentioned, though his ambition was to spread his
fame throughout it. Where his name is mentioned, it comes from the Acts of the
Apostles, and the only people who speak of him are Christians, while the facts
manifestly witnessed that there was nothing divine about Simon.
5.62 Then
he(=Celsus) pours on us a heap of names, saying that he “knows of some also
who are Simonians, who reverence as teacher Helena or Helenus and are called
Helenians.” But, Celsus fails to notice that Simonians do not admit that
Jesus is God’s Son at all, but maintain that Simon is power of God (cf. _ δύvαμις τo_ θεo_, Acts 8:10), and relate some incredible tales about him. For he thought
that if he pretended to do miracles like those which he thought Jesus pretended
to do, he too would have as much power among men as Jesus had with the
multitudes. However, neither Celsus nor Simon was able to understand how Jesus
as a ‘good husbandman’ of the Word of God has been able to spread his teaching
through most of Greece and barbarians’ lands, and to fill them with doctrines
which change the soul from all evil and lead on to the Creator of the universe.
6.11 ... Those
who like Celsus supposed that Jesus performed incredible frauds, and on this
account wanted to do the same as he, as if they too might have similar powers
over men, were proved to be of no significance. They were Simon the Samaritan
magician, and Dositheus who came from the same country as the former; the one
said that he was the so-called the Great Power of God (cf. _ δύvαμις τo_ θεo_ _ καλoυμέvη μεγάλη in Acts
8:10), while the other said that he himself was son of God. There are no
Simonians anywhere in the world, although to gain more adherents Simon relieved
his disciples of any risk of death, which Christians have been taught to
prefer, by teaching them to regard idolatry as a matter of indifference.
Moreover, the Simonians have not been subject to any organized opposition at
all; for the evil daemon
who plots against the teaching of
Jesus knew that none of his particular intentions would be frustrated by
Simon’s teaching. The Dositheans also did not flourish
even in their early days; at the present time their
numbers have become exceedingly few, so that their
whole number is said not to amount to thirty. ......
7.A. PSEUDO-CLEMENTINE: Recognitions (date:
uncertain; some part as early as the end of the second century, but the final
form at the end of the third century or the beginning of the fourth century)
translated by M.B. Riddle.
1.54 ... The
first schism, therefore, was that of those who were called Sadducees, which
took their rise almost in the time of John. These, as more righteous than
others, began to separate themselves from the assembly of the people, and to
deny the resurrection of the dead, and to assert that by an argument of
infidelity, saying that it was unworthy that God should be worshiped, as it
were, under the promise of a reward. The first author of this opinion was
Dositheus; the second was Simon. Another schism is that of the Samaritans; for
they deny the resurrection of the dead, and assert that God is not to be
worshiped in Jerusalem, but on Mount Gerizim. They indeed rightly, from the
predictions of Moses, expect the one true Prophet; but by the wickedness of
Dositheus they were hindered from believing that Jesus is He whom they were
expecting.
The scribes also, and Pharisees, are led away into
another schism; but these, being baptized by John, and
holding the word of truth received from the tradition
of Moses as the key of the kingdom of heaven, have
hid it from the hearing of the people. Yea, some even
of the disciples of John, who seemed to be great ones, have separated
themselves from the people, and proclaimed their own master (i.e., John) as
the Christ. But all these schisms have been prepared, that by means of them
the faith of Christ and baptism might be hindered.
1.72 “While,
therefore, we abode in Jericho, and give ourselves to prayer and fasting, James
the bishop sent for me(=Peter), and sent me here to Caesarea, saying
that Zacchaeus had written to him from Caesarea, that one Simon, a Samaritan
magician, was subverting many of our people, asserting that he was one Stans
(=the Standing One), — that is, in other words, the Christ, and the
great power of the high God (cf. Acts 8:10), which is superior to the
Creator of the world; at the same time that he showed many miracles (cf. Acts
8:9), and made some doubt, and others fall away to him. He informed me of all
things that had been ascertained respecting this man from those who had
formerly been either his associates or his disciples, and had afterwards been
converted to Zacchaeus. ‘Many therefore there are, O Peter,’ said James, ‘for
whose safety’s sake it behoves you to go and to refute the magician, and to
teach the word of truth. Therefore make no delay; nor let it grieve you that
you set out alone, knowing that God by Jesus will go with you, and will help
you, and that soon, by His grace, you will have many associates and
sympathizers. Now be sure that you send me in writing every year an account of
your sayings and doings, and especially at the end of every seven years.’ With
these expressions he dismissed me, and in six days I arrived at Caesarea.”
2.7 (cf.
Homilies 2.22) This Simon’s
father was Antonius, and his mother Rachel. By nation he is a
Samaritan, from a village of the Gettones (cf. Gitta); by
profession a magician, yet exceedingly well trained in the Greek
literature; desirous of glory, and boasting above all the human race, so that
he wishes himself to be believed to be an exalted power, which is above
God the Creator, and to be thought to be the Christ, and to be called the
Standing One. And he uses this name as implying that he can never be
dissolved, asserting that his flesh is so compacted by the power of his
divinity, that it can endure to eternity. Hence, therefore, he is called the
Standing One, as though he cannot fall by any corruption.
2.8 (cf. Homilies
2.23-2.24) For after that John the
Baptist was killed, as you yourself also know, when Dositheus had broached his
heresy, with thirty other chief disciples, and one woman, who was called Luna
(cf. Helena) — whence all these thirty appear to have been appointed with
reference to the number of the days, according to the course of the moon — this
Simon, ambitious of every glory, as we have said, goes to Dositheus, and
pretending friendship, entreats him, that if any one of those thirty should
die, he should straightway substitute him in room of the dead: for it was
contrary to their rule either to exceed the fixed number, or to admit any one
who was unknown, or not yet proved; whence also the rest, desiring to become
worthy of the place and number, are eager in every way to please, according to
the institutions of their sect, each one of those who aspire after admittance
into the number, hoping that he may be deemed worthy to be put into the place
of the deceased, when, as we have said, any one dies. Therefore Dositheus,
being greatly urged by this man, introduced Simon when a vacancy occurred among
the number.
2.9 But not
long after he fell in love with that woman whom they call Luna; and he confided
all things to us as his friends: how he was a magician, and how he loved Luna,
and how, being desirous of glory, he was unwilling to enjoy her ingloriously,
but that he was waiting patiently till he could enjoy her honorably; ......
I shall change myself into a sheep or a goat; I shall
make a beard to grow upon little boys; I shall ascend by
flight into the air; I shall exhibit abundance of gold,
and shall make and unmake kings. .......
2.11 (cf. Homilies
2.24) Meanwhile, at the outset, as soon as he was reckoned among the thirty
disciples of Dositheus, he began to depreciate Dositheus himself, saying that
he did not teach purely or perfectly, and that this was the result not of ill
intention, but of ignorance. But Dositheus, when he perceived that Simon was
depreciating him, fearing lest his reputation among men might be obscured (for
he himself was supposed to be the Standing One), moved with rage, when
they met as usual at the school, seized a rod, and began to beat Simon; but
suddenly the rod seemed to pass through his body, as if it had been smoke. On
which Dositheus, being astonished, says to him, “Tell me if thou art the
Standing One, that I may adore thee.” And when Simon answered that he was,
then Dositheus, perceiving that he himself was not the Standing One, fell down
and worshiped him, and gave up his own place as chief to Simon, ordering all
the rank of thirty men to obey him; himself taking the inferior place which
Simon formerly occupied. Not long after this he died.
2.12 (cf. Homilies
2.25) Therefore after the death of Dositheus, Simon took Luna to himself;
and with her he still goes about, as you see deceiving multitudes, and
asserting that he himself is a certain power which is above God the
Creator, while Luna, who is with him, has been brought down from the higher
heavens, and that she is Wisdom, the mother of all things, for whom,
says he, the Greeks and barbarians contending, were able in some
measure to see an image of her; but of herself, as she is, as the dweller with
the first and only God, they were wholly ignorant. ......
2.38 ...
Then Simon said: “I say that there are many gods; but that there is one
incomprehensible and unknown to all, and that He is the God of all these
gods.” ......
2.49 Then
Simon said (to Peter): “Remember that you said that God has a son, which is
doing Him wrong; for how can He have a son, unless He is subject to passions,
like men or animals? But on these points there is not time now to show your
profound folly, for I hasten to make a statement concerning the immensity of
the supreme light; and so now listen. My opinion is, that there is a certain
power of immense and ineffable light, whose greatness may be held to be
incomprehensible, of which power even the maker of the word is ignorant, and
Moses the law giver, and Jesus your master.”
2.57 Then
Simon: “Do you so far err, Peter, as not to know that our souls were made by
that good God, the most excellent of all, but they have been brought down as
captives into this world?” ...
Then Simon said: “He sent God the creator to make
the world; and he, when he had made it, gave out that himself was God.”
......
7.B.
PSEUDO-CLEMENTINE: Homilies (date:
uncertain; some part as early as the end of the second century, but the final
form at the end of the third century or
the beginning of the fourth century)
translated by T. Smith (Books I to V), P. Peterson
(Books VI to XII), and J. Donaldson (Boos XIII to XX).
1.15 ... ...,
I(=Clement) learned that one named Peter, who was the most esteemed disciple of
the Man who had appeared in Judea, and had done signs and wonders, was going to
have a verbal controversy next day with Simon, a Samaritan of Gitthi.
...
2.20 ... And
they (Cf. the two adopted sons by Justa, a Syro-Phoenician woman, by race a
Canaanite, whose daughter was healed by
Jesus in Matt. 15:21-28/Mark 7:24-30) being educated from their boyhood with
Simon Magus, have learned all things concerning him. ...
2.22 (cf. Recognitions 2.7)
... This Simon is the Son of Antonius and Rachel, a Samaritan by race, of
the village of Gitthæ, which is six schoeni distant from the city. He having
disciplined himself in Alexandria, and being very powerful in magic, and
being ambitious, wishes to be accounted a certain supreme power, greater
even than the God who created the world. And sometimes intimating that he is
Christ, he styles himself “the Standing One.” (Cf. John 1:26;
“The Standing One” is related to John the Baptist.) And this epithet he
employs, as intimating that he shall always stand, and as not having any cause
of corruption so that his body should fall. And he neither says that the God
who created the world is the Supreme, nor does he believe that the dead will be
raised. He rejects Jerusalem, and substitutes Mount Gerizim for it. Instead of
our Christ, he proclaims himself. The
things of the law he explains by his own presumption: and he says, indeed, that
there is to be a judgment, but he does not expect it. ...
2.23 (cf. Recognitions
2.8) But that he came to deal with
the doctrines of religion happened on this wise. There was one John, a
day-baptist, who was also, according to the method of combination, the
forerunner of our Lord Jesus (i.e., John the Baptist); and as the Lord
had twelve apostles, bearing the number of the twelve months of the sun, so
also he [John] had thirty chief men, fulfilling the monthly reckoning of the
moon, in which number was a certain woman called Helena, that not even
this might be without a dispensational significance. For a woman, being half a
man, made up the imperfect number of the triacontad; as also in
the case of the moon, whose revolution does not make the complete course of the
month. But of these thirty, the first and the most esteemed by John [the
Baptist] was Simon; and the reason of his not being chief after the
death of John was as follows: -
2.24 (cf. Recognitions
2.8 and 2.11) He being absent in Egypt for the practice of magic, and John
being killed, Dositheus desiring the leadership, falsely gave out
that Simon was dead, and succeeded the seat. But Simon, returning not
long after, and strenuously holding by the place as his own, when he met with
Dositheus did not demand the place, knowing that a man who has attained power
beyond his expectations cannot be removed from it. Wherefore with pretended
friendship he gives himself for a while to the second place,
under Dositheus. But taking his place after a few days among the thirty
fellow-disciples, he began to malign Dositheus as not delivering the
instructions correctly. And this he said that he did, not through unwillingness
to deliver them correctly, but through ignorance. And on one occasion,
Dositheus, perceiving that this artful
accusation of Simon was dissipating the opinion of him with respect to many, so
that they did not think that he was the standing one, came in a rage to
the usual place of meeting, and finding Simon, struck him with a staff. But it seemed to pass through the body of
Simon as if he had been smoke. Thereupon Dositheus, being confounded, said
to him, “If you are the standing one, I also will worship you.” Then Simon
said that he was; and Dositheus, knowing that he himself was not
the standing one, fell down and worshiped; and associating himself with the
twenty-nine chiefs, he raised Simon to his own place to repute; and thus, not
many days after, Dositheus himself, while he (Simon) stood, fell down
and died.
2.25 (cf. Recognitions
2.12) But Simon is going about in company with Helena, and even till now,
as you see, is stirring up the people. And he says that he has brought down
this Helena from the highest heavens to the world; being queen, as the
all-bearing being, and wisdom, for whose sake, says he, the Greeks and
barbarians fought, having before their eyes but an image of truth; for she, who
realy is the truth, was then with the chiefest god. Moreover, by cunningly
explaining certain things of this sort, made up from Grecian myths, he deceives
many; especially as he performs many signal marvels, so that if we did not know
that he does things by magic, we ourselves should also have been deceived. ...
2.26 ...
He(=Simon) says that the first soul of man, being turned into the nature of
heat, drew to itself, and sucked in the surrounding air, after the fashion of a
gourd; and then that he changed it into water, when it was within the form of
the spirit; and he said that he changed into the nature of blood the air that
was in it, which could not be poured out on account of the consistency of the
spirit, and that he made the blood solidified into flesh; then the flesh being
thus consolidated, that he exhibited a man not [made] from earth, but from air.
And thus, having persuaded himself that he was able to make a new [sort of]
man, he said that he reversed the changes, and again restored him to the air.
......
2.32 Aquila
having thus spoken, I Clement inquired: “What, then, are the prodigies that
he(=Simon) works?” And they told me that he makes statues walk, and that he
rolls himself on the fire, and is not
burnt; and sometimes he flies; and he makes loaves of stones; he becomes a
serpent; he transforms himself into a goat; he becomes two-faced; he changes
himself into gold; he opens lockfast gates; he melts iron; at banquets he produces
images of all manner of forms. In his house he makes dishes be seen as borne of
themselves to wait upon him, no bearers being seen. I wondered when I heard
them speak thus; but many bore witness that they had been present, and had seen
such things.
2.33 ... And
now also, when the Gentiles are about to be ransomed from the superstition sent
forth her ally like another serpent, even this Simon whom you see, who works
wonders to astonish and deceive, not signs of healing to convert and save.
Wherefore it behoves you also from the miracles that are done to judge the
doers, what is the character of the performer, and what that of the deed. If
he do unprofitable miracles, he is the agent of wickedness; but if he do
profitable things, he is a leader of goodness.
2.34 Those,
then, are useless signs, which you say that Simon did. But I say that the
making statues walk, and rolling himself on burning coals, and becoming a
dragon, and being changed into a goat, and flying in the air, and all such things,
not being for the healing of man, are of a nature to deceive many. But the
miracles of compassionate truth are philanthropic, such as you have heard that
the Lord did, and that I after Him accomplish by many prayers; ......
3.2 (Peter
said:) “I wish you to know that those who, according to our arrangement,
associate with Simon that they may learn his intentions, and submit them to us,
so that we may be able to cope with his variety of wickedness, these men have
sent to me, and informed me that Simon to-day is, as he arranged, prepared to
come before all, and show from the Scriptures that He who made the heaven and
the earth, and all things in them, is not the Supreme God, but that there is
another, unknown and supreme, as being in an unspeakable manner God of gods;
and that He sent two gods, one of he who made the world, and the other he who
gave the law. And these things he contrives to say, that he may dissipate the
right faith of those who would worship the one and only God who made heaven and
earth.
17.15 (cf. Simon
as Paul?) And Simon said: “If
you maintain that apparitions do not always reveal the truth, yet for all that,
visions and dreams, being God-sent, do not speak falsely in regard to those
matters which they wish to tell.” And Peter said: “You were right in saying
that, being God-sent, they do not speak falsely. But it is uncertain if he who
sees has seen a God-sent dream.”
And Simon said: “If he who has had the vision is just,
he has seen a true vision.” And Peter said: “You were right. But who is just,
if he stands in need of a vision that he may learn what he ought to learn, and
do what he ought to do?” ......
17.19 (cf. Simon
as Paul?) (Peter to Simon): “If,
then, our Jesus appeared to you in a vision, made Himself known to you, and
spoke to you, it was as one who is enraged with an adversary; and this is the
reason why it was through visions and dreams, or through revelations that were
from without, that He spoke to you. But can any one be rendered fit for
instruction through apparitions? And if you will say, ‘It is possible,’ then I
ask, ‘Why did our teacher abide and discourse a whole year to those who were
awake?’ And how are we to believe your word, when you tell us that He appeared
to you? And how did He appear to you, when you entertain opinions contrary to
His teaching? But if you were seen and taught by Him, and became His apostle
for a single hour, proclaim His utterances, interpret His sayings, love His
apostles, contend not with me who companied with Him. For in direct opposition
to me, who am a firm rock, the foundation of the Church, you now stand. If you
were not opposed to me, you would not accuse me, and revile the truth
proclaimed by me, in order that I may not be believed when I state what I
myself have heard with my own ears from the Lord, as if I were evidently a
person that was condemned, you bring an accusation against God, who revealed
the Christ to me, and you inveigh against Him who pronounced me blessed on
account of the revelation. But if, indeed, you really wish to work in the cause
of truth, learn first of all from us what we have learned from Him, and,
becoming a disciple of the truth, become a fellow-worker with us.”
18.12 “We, Simon,
do not assert that from the great power, which is also called the
dominant power, two angels were sent forth, the one to create the world, the
other to give the law; nor that each one when he came proclaimed himself,
on account of what he had done, as the sole creator; nor that there is one
who stands, will stand, and is opposed. Learn how you disbelieve even in
respect to this subject. If you say that there is an unrevealed power, that
power is full of ignorance. For it did not foreknow the ingratitude of the
angels who were sent by it.” ...
And Simon said: “You(=Peter) are evidently not able to
reply to the propositions I laid before you.
I maintain that even your teacher affirms that there is
some Father unrevealed.”
18.14 “... And
how can that be good which is not just? unless you wish to give the name of
‘good,’ not to him who does good to those who act justly, but to him who loves
the unjust, even though they do not believe, and reveals to them the secrets
which he would not reveal to the just. But such conduct is befitting neither in
one who is good nor just, but in one who has come to hate the pious. But such
conduct is befitting neither in one who is good nor just, but in one who has
come to hate the pious. Are not you, Simon, the standing one, who have
the boldness to make these statements which never have been so made
before?”
19.25 And Simon
hearing this, gnashed his teeth for rage, and went away in silence. But Peter
(for a considerable portion of the day still remained) laid his hands on the
large multitude to heal them; and having dismissed them, went into the house
with his more intimate friends, and sat down. ....
20.23 Now, when
ten days had passed away, [there came one of our people] from our father to
announce to us how our father [stood forward] publicly [in the] shape [of
Simon], accusing him; and how by praising Peter he had made the whole city of
Antioch long for him: and in consequence of this, all said that they were eager
to see him, and that there were some who were angry with him as being Simon, on
account of their surpassing affection for Peter, and wished to lay hands on
Faustus, believing he was Simon. ......
7.C.
PSEUDO-CLEMENTINE: Epistle of
Peter to James (date: uncertain; as early
as the end of the second century. This letter prefaces the Homilies) translated by T. Smith.
2 (against
Paul?) “..... For some from among the Gentiles, have rejected my legal
preaching, attaching themselves to certain lawless and trifling preaching of
the man who is my enemy. And these things some have attempted while I am
still alive, to transform my words by certain various interpretations, in order
to the dissolution of the law; as though I also myself were of such a mind, but
did not freely proclaim it, which God forbid! ......”
8. EUSEBIUS: Ecclesiastical
History (date: around 330 C.E.) translated by G. A. Williamson,
1989 (1965).
2.1 ... But
Philip, one of the men already ordained with Stephen to the diaconate, was
among the dispersed. He went down into Samaria, and filled with divine power
was the first to preach the word there. So great was divine grace working with
him that even Simon the Magus with very many others was won over by his words.
Such a name had Simon obtained at that time by the sorceries with which he got
his dupes into his power that he was believed to be the Great Power of God (cf.
Acts 8:10), but now even he was struck dumb by the miracles that Philip
performed by divine power, and slipped in: he actually received baptism
(cf. Acts 8:13), in his hypocritical pretence of belief
in Christ. It is an astonishing fact that this is still the practice of those
who to the present day belong to his disgusting sect. Following in their
progenitor’s footsteps they slip into the Church like a pestilential and scabby
disease, and do the utmost damage to all whom they succeed in smearing with the
horrible, deadly poison concealed on them. By now, however, most of these have
been expelled — just as Simon himself, when his real character had been exposed
by Peter, paid the appropriate penalty.
2.13 ... In
his first Defence (i.e., First Apology) of our doctrines to Antoninus
he(=Justin) writes:
(Quotation from the First Apology 26)
This is Justin’s version, and it is supported by
Irenaeus, who in Book I of his Against Heresies gives a brief account of
the man and his unholy, sordid teaching. To reproduce the letter in the present
work would be superfluous: those who wish can learn all about the origins and
lives of the heresiarchs who followed him, the bases of their false doctrines
and the practices they introduced, for they are most carefully described in the
work of Irenaeus mentioned above.
Simon, we are given to understand, was the prime author
of every heresy. From his time to our own those who follow his lead, while
pretending to accept the sober Christian philosophy which through purity of
life won universal fame, are as devoted as ever to the idolatrous superstition
from which they seemed to have escaped: they prostrate themselves before
pictures and images of Simon himself and his companion, the Helen already
mentioned, and give themselves to worshiping them with incense, sacrifices, and
libations. Their more secret rites, which they claim will so amaze a man when
he first hears them that, in their official jargon, he will be wonderstruck,
are indeed something to wonder at, brimful of frenzy and lunacy, and of such a
kind that not only can they not be put down in writing; they involve such
appalling degradation, such unspeakable conduct, that no decent man would let a
mention of them pass his lips. For whatever could be imagined more disgusting
than the foulest crime known has been outstripped by the utterly revolting
heresy of these men, who make sport of wretched women, burdened indeed with
vices of every kind.
2.14 Of such
vices was Simon the father and contriver, raised up at that time by the evil
power which hates all that is good and plots against the salvation of mankind,
to be great opponent of great men, our Savior’s inspired apostles. ......
Consequently, neither Simon nor any of his contemporaries managed to form an
organized body in those apostolic days, for every attempt was defeated and
overpowered by the light of the truth and by the divine Word Himself who had so
recently shone from God on men, active in the world and immanent in His own
apostles.
3.26 ... Simon
the Magus was succeeded by Menander, a second tool of the devil’s ingenuity as
bad as his predecessor, as he showed by his conduct. He too was a Samaritan,
and having risen to the same heights of imposture as his master, he poured out
a stream of still more marvelous tales. ...
4.7 ...
Thus, it was that from Menander — who was mentioned above as successor to Simon
— proceeded a power with the towmouths and twin heads of a snake, which set up
the originators of two heresies, Saturninus, an Antiochene by birth, and
Basilides of Alexandria, who — one in Syria and one in Egypt — established
schools of detestable heresies. ......
Irenaeus also writes that contemporary with these was
Carpocrates, father of another heresy known as that of the Gnostics. These
claimed to transmit Simon’s magic arts, not secretly like Basilides but quite
openly, as if this was something marvelous, ......
4.22 ... The
same writer(=Hegesippus: note...a converted Jew in the first half of the second
century) sketches the origins of the heresies of his day:
“... From these came Simon and his Simonians, Cleobius
and his Cleobienes, Dositheus and his Dositheans, Gorthaeus and his Gorathenes,
and the Masbotheans. From these were derived the Menandrianists, Marcionites,
Carpocratians, Valentinians, Basilidians, and Saturnilians, every man
introducing his own opinion in his own particular way. ...” ......
9.
EPIPHANIUS: Panarion (date: around
375) translated by F. Williams, 1987.
21.1.1 Simon Magus
makes the first sect to begin in the time since Christ. It is composed of
persons who do not <believe> in Christ’s name in a right or lawful way,
but who do their dreadful deeds in keeping with the false corruption that is in
them.
21.1.2 Simon was a
sorcerer, and came from the city of Gitthon in Samaria — though it is a village
now. He impressed the Samaritan people by deceiving them and catching them with
his magic, (3) and he said that he was ‘the supreme power of God’ (cf. Acts
8:10), and had come down from on high. To the Samaritans he called himself the
Father; but to Jews he said he was the Son, though he had suffered without
actually suffering, suffering only in appearance.
21.1.4 Simon
mimicked the apostles and in company with many he too, like the others, was
baptized by Philip. (cf. Acts 8:13) All except Simon waited for the arrival of
the chief apostles, and received the Holy Spirit through the laying on of their
hands. (Philip, a deacon, was not authorized to give the imposition of hands for
the conferral of the Holy Spirit.) (5) For since Simon’s heart was not right or
his reason either, but he was devoted to a sordid covetousness and avarice and
never deviated from his evil pursuit, he offered to pay the apostle Peter to
give him authority to convey the Holy Spirit through the laying of hands. (cf.
Acts 8:18-19) For he had counted on spending a little money, and amassing a
huge fortune and more in return for a small investment, by giving the Holy
Spirit to others.
21.2.1 His mind was
deranged and hallucinated from the devilish deceit in magic, and he was always
ready to display the barbarous deeds of his own wickedness, and the wickedness
of demons, through his trickery. He therefore came forward, and under the name
of Christ — as though he were mixing hellebore with honey — he poisoned the
dignity of Christ’s name for those whom he had caught in his baneful error, and
induced death in his converts.
21.2.2 Since he was
naturally lecherous, and was spurred on by the respect that was shown for his
professions, the scum created a false impression for his dupes. He had gotten
hold of a female vagabond from Tyre named Helen, and he took her without
letting his relationship with her be known. (3) And while privately having an
unnatural relationship with his paramour, the charlatan was teaching his
disciples stories for their amusement and calling himself ‘the supreme power of
God’ (cf. Acts 8:10), if you please! And he had the nerve to call the whore who
was his partner the Holy Ghost, and said that he had come down on her account.
(4) He said, “I was transformed in each heaven to correspond with the
appearance of the inhabitants of each, so as to pass my angelic powers by
unnoticed and descend to Ennoia (_vvoια) — to
this woman, likewise called Prunicus and Holy spirit (cf.
Irenaeus, AH 1.29.4), through whom I created the angels. But the angels
created the world and men. But this woman is the ancient Helen on whose account
the Trojans and Greek went to war.”
21.2.5 Simon told a
fairy tale about this, and said that the power kept transforming her appearance
on her way down from on high, but that the poets had spoken of this in
allegories. For these angels went to war over the power from on high — they
call her Prunicus, but she is called Barbero or Barbelo by other sects
(cf. Irenaeus, AH 1.29.1: Barbelo
[Thought], a virginal spirit, can be compared to virgin Mary, Majesty to
the Father, and Light to Christ in Christian language) —
because she displayed her beauty <and> drove them
wild, and was sent for this purpose, to despoil the archons who had made this
world. She has suffered no harm, but she brought them to the point of
slaughtering each other from the lust for her that she aroused in them. (6) And
detaining her so that she should not go back up, they all had relations with
her in each of her womanly and female bodies — for she kept migrating from
female bodies into various bodies of human beings, cattle and the rest — so
that, by the deeds they were doing in killing and being killed, they would
cause their own diminution through the shedding of blood. Then, by gathering
the power again, she would be able to ascend to heaven once more.
21.3.1 “This woman
was then, she who by her unseen powers has made replicas of herself in Greek
and Trojan times and immemorially, before the world and after. (2) She is the
one with me now, and for her sake I am come down. But she herself awaited my
arrival; for this is Ennoia, she whom Homer calls Helen. And this is why Homer
has to describe her as standing on a tower, signaling the Greeks her plot
against the Phrygians with a lamp. But with its brightness, as I said, he
indicated the display of the light from on high.”
21.3.3 Thus again,
the charlatan said that the wooden horse, the device in Homer which Greeks
believe was made for a ruse, is the ignorance of the gentiles. And “as the
Phrygians, in drawing it, unwittingly invited their own destruction, so the
gentiles — the persons outside the sphere of my knowledge — draw destruction on
themselves through ignorance.”
21.3.4 In turn,
moreover, the impostor would say that this same woman whom he called Ennoia was
Athena, using the words of the holy apostle Paul if you please, and turning the
truth into his falsehood — the words, “Put on the breastplate of faith and the
helmet of salvation, the greaves, the sword and the shield.” (cf. Eph. 6:14-17)
... (5) Thus again, as I said, to indicate the female companion he had taken
from Tyre, the ancient Helen’s namesake, he would call her by all these names —
Ennoia, Athena, Helen and the rest — and say, “For her sake I am come down. For
this is that which is written in the Gospel, the sheep that was lost.”
(cf. Luke 15:6)
21.3.6 Furthermore,
he has given his followers an image — as one of himself, if you please! — and
they worship this in the form of Zeus. (cf. Jupiter) He has likewise given them
another, an image of Helen in the form of Athena (cf. Minerva) — and his dupes
worship these.
21.4.1 He
instituted mysteries consisting of dirt and—to put it more politely—the fluids
generated from
men’s bodies through the seminal emission and women’s
through the menstrual flux, which are collected for mysteries by a most
indecent method. (2) And he said that these are mysteries of life <and>
the most perfect knowledge. But for one with understanding from God, knowledge
is first of all a matter of regarding these things as abomination instead, and
as death rather than life.
21.4.3 Simon also
offers certain names of principalities and authorities, and he speaks of
various heavens, describes powers to correspond with each fragment and heaven,
and gives outlandish names for these. He says that there is no way to be saved
but by learning this mystical doctrine, and offering sacrifices of this kind to
the Father of all, through these principalities and authorities. (4) This world
has been defectively constructed by wicked principalities and authorities, he
says. But he teaches that there is a death and destruction of flesh, and a
purification of souls only — and (only) if these are initiated through his
erroneous knowledge. And thus the imposture of the so-called Gnostics begins.
21.4.5 He claimed
that the Law is not God’s, but belongs to the power on the left (i.e., evil),
and that prophets are not from a good God either, but from one power or
another. And he decides on a power for each as he chooses — the Law belongs to
one, David to another, Isaiah to another, Ezekiel again to someone else, and he
attributes each particular prophet to one principality.
But all of these are from the power on the left, and
outside of the Pleroma; and whoever believes the Old Testament must die.
21.5.1 But this
doctrine is refuted by the truth itself. If Simon is God’s supreme power, and
the tart who is with him is the Holy
Ghost as he says himself, then he should give the name of the (supreme) power —
or else say why there is a title for the woman, but none at all for him! (2)
And how does it happen that Simon died at Rome one day when his turn came —
when the wretched man fell down and died right in the middle of Rome! (Cf. The
Apostolic Constitutions 6.9; The Ethiopic Didascalia 6.9)
21.5.3 <And>
why did Peter declare that Simon has no part or share in the heritage of true
religion?
(cf. Acts 8:21) (4) And how can the world not belong to
a good God, when all the good were
chosen from it?
21.5.5 And how can
the power which spoke in the Law and the prophets be “on the left,” when it has
given tidings beforehand of Christ’s coming <from the> good God, and when
it forbids all wrongdoings? (6) And
since the Lord has said, “I am not come to destroy the Law, but to fulfil,” how
can there not be one Godhead and the same Spirit, of the New Testament and the
Old? And to show that the Law was proclaimed by himself and given through
Moses, while the grace of the Gospel has been preached by himself and his
presence in the flesh, he told the Jews, “Had ye believed Moses, ye would have
believed me also, for he wrote of me.” (cf. John 5:46)
21.5.7 And many
other arguments against the charlatan’s drivel <can be found>. How can
unnatural acts be productive of life, unless perhaps by the will of demons,
when in the Gospel, the Lord himself gave the answer, “All men cannot receive
this, for there be eunuchs which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom
of heaven’s sake (cf. Matt. 19:12),” to those who told him, “If the case of the
man and wife be so, it is not good to marry”(cf. Matt. 19:10) — thus proving
that real celibacy is the gift of the kingdom of heaven? (8) And again, of the
lawful wedlock which Simon corrupts to make shameful provision for his own
lust, the Lord says elsewhere, “Them that God hath joined together, let no man
put asunder.” (cf. Matt. 19:6)
21.6.1 Again, why
does the swindler refute himself by overlooking his own nonsense, as though he
does not know what he has said? After saying that himself created the angels
through his Ennoia he went on to say that he was transformed at each heaven, to
escape their notice on his way down. In
other words he evaded them from fear; and why is the driveler afraid of the
angels he made himself?
21.6.2 And how can
the basis of his imposture not be entirely easy for the wise to refute at once,
when the scripture says, “In the beginning God created the heaven and earth?”
And in agreement with this, the Lord says, “Father, Lord of heaven and the
earth?” in the Gospel, as though to his own God and Father. (3) Now if God the
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is maker of heaven and earth, there is nothing
to any of the humbug Simon’s statements — that the world was produced
defectively by angels, and everything else the impostor madly told the world at
random to deceive certain persons, the victims of his deceit.
22.1.1 A Menander
follows the Simonians. He was originally a Samaritan, but at some time became a
pupil of Simon’s. He likewise said that the world is the product of angels, but
that he himself had been sent from on high as a power of God. (2) To perpetuate worse trickery than his
predecessor for man’s deception, he said he had been sent “for salvation” — to
gather certain persons in his own mystery, if you please, so that they would
not be subject to the angels, principalities and authorities who have made the
world.
10. THE NEW
TESTAMENT APOCRYPHA
10.A. Acts
of Peter (date: around the end of the second century or
beginning of the third century)
translated by
M. R. James (from the Vercelli
Acts in Latin preserved in a single manuscript of the seventh century
at Vercelli)
4 Now
after a few days there was a great commotion in the midst of the church (in
Rome), for some said that they had seen wonderful works done by a
certain man whose name was Simon, and that he was at Aricia, and they
added further that he said he was a great power of God (cf. Acts 8:10)
and without God he did nothing. Is not this Christ? But we
believe in him who Paul preached unto us; for by him have we seen the dead
raised, and men delivered from divers infinities: but this man seeketh
contention, we know it (or, but what this contention is, we know not) for there
is no small stir made among us. Perchance also he will now enter into Rome; for
yesterday they besought him with great acclamations, saying unto him: Thou art
God in Italy, thou art the Savior of the Romans: haste quickly unto Rome. But
he spake to the people with a shrill voice, saying: “To-morrow about the
seventh hour ye shall see me fly over the gate of the city in the form (habit)
wherein ye now see me speaking unto you.
.....
7 Now
the report was noised through the city unto the brethren that were dispersed,
<saying that Peter was come to Rome> because of Simon, that he might show
him to be a deceiver and a persecutor of good men. All the multitude therefore
ran together to see the apostle of the Lord stay (himself, or the brethren) on
Christ. ......
8 And
the brethren repented and entreated Peter to fight against Simon: (who said
that he was the power of God, and lodged in the house Marcellus a
senator, whom he[=Simon] had convinced by his charms) saying: “Believe us,
brother Peter: there was no man among men so wise as this Marcellus. ......
9 ......
And without delay Peter went to quickly out of the synagogue (assembly) and
went unto the house of Marcellus, where Simon lodged: and much people followed
him. And when he came to the door, he called the porter and said to him: “Go,
say unto Simon: ‘Peter because of whom thou fledded out of Judaea (cf.
Probably Caesarea in Pseudo-Clementines) waiteth for thee at the door.’”
...... And Peter seeing a great dog bound with a strong chain, went to him and
loosed him, and when he was loosed the dog received a man’s voice and said unto
Peter: “What dost thou bid me to do, thou servant of the unspeakable and living
God?” Peter said unto him: “Go in and say unto Simon in the midst of his company:
“Peter saith unto thee. Come forth abroad, for for thy sake am I come to Rome,
thou wicked one and deceiver of simple souls.” ..... And when Simon heard it,
and beheld the incredible sight, he lost the words wherewith he was deceiving
them that stood by, and all of them were amazed.
12 But
Simon within the house said thus to the dog: “Tell Peter that I am not within.”
Whom the dog answered in the presence of Marcellus: “Thou exceedingly wicked
and shameless one, enemy of all that live and believe on Christ Jesus, here is
a dumb animal sent unto thee which hath received a human voice to confound thee
and show thee to be a deceiver and a liar. Hast thou taken thought so long, to
say at last: ‘Tell him that I am not within’? Art thou not ashamed to utter thy
feeble and useless words agaist Peter the minister and apostle of Christ, as if
thou couldst hide thee from him that hath commanded me to speak against thee to
thy face: ...” ......
28 ......
Then Simon went to the head of the dead man and stooped down and thrice raised
himself up (or, and said thrice: ‘Raise thyself’), and showed the people that
he (the dead) lifted his head and moved it, and opened his eyes and bowed
himself a little unto Simon. And straightway they (=people of Rome) began to
ask for wood and torches, wherein to burn Peter. But Peter receiving strength
of Christ, lifted up his voice and said unto them that cried out against him:
“Now see I, ye people of Rome, that ye are—I must not say, fools and vain, so
long as your eyes and your ears and your hearts are blinded. ......”
But Agrippa the prefect had no longer patience, but
thrust away Simon with his own hands, and again the dead man lay as he was
before. And the people were enraged, and turned away from the sorcery of Simon and
began to cry out: “Hearken, O Caesar! If now the dead riseth not, let Simon
burn instead of Peter, for verily he hath blinded us.” ......
31 But
Simon the magician, after a few days were past, promised the multitude to
convict Peter that he believed not in the true God but was deceived. And when
he did many lying wonders, they that were firm in the faith derided him. ......
(Simon said to them:) “Men of Rome, ye think now that
Peter hath prevailed over me, as more powerful, and ye pay more heed to him:
ye are deceived. For to-morrow I shall forsake you, godless and impious that
you are, and fly up unto God whose Power I am, though I am become
weak. Whereas, then, ye have fallen, I am He that standeth, and I
shall go up to my Father and say unto him: Me also, even thy son that
standeth, have they desired to pull down; but I consented not unto them, and am
returned back unto myself.”
32 So
then this man standing on a high place beheld Peter and began to say: “Peter,
at this time when I am going up before all this people that behold me, I say
unto you: ‘If thy God is able, whom the Jews put to death, and stoned you that
were chosen of him, let him show that faith in him is faith in God, and let it
appear at this time, if it is worthy of God. For I, ascending up, will
show myself unto all this multitude, who I am. And behold when he was lifted up
on high, and all beheld him raised up above all Rome and the temples thereof
and the mountains, the faithful looked toward Peter. And Peter seeing the
strangeness of the sight cried unto the Lord Jesus Christ: “If thou suffer this
man to accomplish that which he hath set about, now will all they that have
believed on thee be offended, and the signs and wonders which thou hast given
them through me will not be believed: hasten thy grace, O Lord, and let him
fall from the height and be disabled; and let him not die but be brought to
nought, and break his leg in three places.” And he fell from the height and
brake his leg in three places. Then every man cast stones at him
(=Simon) and went away home, and thenceforth believed Peter. But one of the
friends of Simon came quickly out of the way (or arrived from a journey),
Gemellus by name, of whom Simon had received much money, having a Greek woman
to wife, and saw him that he had broken his leg, and said: “O Simon, if the
Power of God is broken to pieces, shall not that God whose Power thou
art, himself be blinded? Gemellus therefore also ran and followed Peter,
saying unto him: “I also would be of them that believe on Christ.” And Peter
said: “Is there any that grudgeth it, my brother? Come thou and sit with us.”
But Simon in his affliction found some to carry him by
night on a bed from Rome unto Aricia; and he abode there a space, and
was brought thence unto Terracina to one Castor that was banished from
Rome upon an accusation of sorcery. And there he was sorely cut (Lat. by two
physicians), and so Simon the angel of Satan came to his end.
10.B. Acts of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul (date:
uncertain; part of the text, before Origen; some other part, later than Origen)
translated by A. Walker.
...... And thus it happened that all pious men abhorred
Simon the magician, and proclaimed him impious. But those who adhered to Simon
strongly affirmed Peter to be a magician, bearing false witness as many of them
as were Simon the magician; so that the matter came even to the ears of Nero
the Caesar, and he gave order to bring Simon the magician before him. And he,
coming in, stood before him, and began suddenly to assume different forms, so
that on a sudden he became a child, and after a little an old man, and at other
times a young man; for he changed himself both in face and stature into
different forms, and was in a frenzy, having the devil as his servant. And Nero
beholding this, supposed him to be truly the son of God; but the
Apostle Peter showed him to be both a liar and a wizard, base and impious and
apostate,...
Then Simon, having gone into Nero, said: “Hear, O good
emperor: I am the son of God come down from heaven. Until now I have endured
Peter only calling himself an apostle; but now he has doubled the evil: for
Paul also himself teaches the same things, and having his mind turned against
me, ...” ...
Nero said (to Peter): “Who is Christ?” Peter said (to
Nero): “He is what this Simon the magician affirms himself to be; but this is a
most wicked man, and his works are of the devil. ......”
......
Then Nero, turning to Paul, said: “Why dost thou say
nothing, Paul?” Paul answered and said: “Know this, O emperor, that if thou
permittest this magician to do such things, it will bring an access of the
greatest mischief to thy country, and will bring down thine empire from its
position.” ......
Simon said: “Give orders to build for me a lofty tower
of wood, and I, going up upon it, will call my angels, and order them to
take me, in the sight of all, to my father in heaven; and these men, not
being able to do this, are put to shame as uneducated men.” ......
Simon said: “Dost thou believe, O good emperor, that I
who was dead, and rose again, am a magician? For it had been brought about by
his own cleverness that the unbelieving Simon had said to Nero: Order me to be
beheaded in a dark place, and there to be left slain; and if I do not rise on
the third day, know that I am a magician; but if I rise again, know that I
am the Son of God.”
And Nero having ordered this, in the dark, by his magic
art he(=Simon) managed that a ram should be beheaded. And for so long did the
ram appear to be Simon until he was beheaded. And when he had been beheaded in
the dark, he that had beheaded him, taking the head, found it to be that of a
ram, but he would not say anything to the emperor, lest he should scourge him,
having ordered this to be done in secret. Therefore, accordingly, Simon said
that he had risen on the third day he showed himself to Nero, and said:
“Cause to be wiped away my blood that has been poured out; for, behold, having
been beheaded, as I promised, I have risen on the third day.”
......
Then Simon went up upon the tower in the face of all,
and, crowned with laurels, he stretched forth his hands, and began to fly. And
when Nero saw him flying, he said to Peter: “This Simon is true; but thou and
Paul are deceivers.” To whom Peter said: “Immediately shalt thou know that we
are true disciples of Christ; but that he is not Christ, but a magician, and
malefactor.” ......
And Peter, looking steadfastly against Simon, said: “I
adjure you, ye angels of Satan, who are carrying him into the air, to deceive
the hearts of the unbelievers, by the God that created all things, and by Jesus
Christ, whom on the third day He raised from the dead, no longer from this hour
to keep him up, but to let him go.” And immediately, being let go, he fell into
a place called Sacra Via, that is, Holy Way, and was divided into four parts,
having perished by an evil fate.
Then Nero ordered Peter and Paul to be put in irons,
and the body of Simon to be carefully kept three days, thinking that he would
rise on the third day. To whom Peter said: “He will no longer rise, since he is
truly dead, being condemned to everlasting punishment. ......
10.C. The
Teaching of Simon Cephas in the City of Rome (Ancient Syriac Document) (date: uncertain) translated by B.P. Pratten.
...... Let not Simon the sorcerer delude you by
semblances which are not realities, which he exhibits to you, as to men who
have no understanding, who knows not how to discern that which they see and
hear. Send, therefore, and fetch him to where all your city is assembled
together, and choose you some sign for us to do before you; and, whichever ye
see do that same sign, it will be your part to believe in it.
And immediately they sent and fetched Simon the
sorcerer; ......
Then Simon reluctantly drew near to the dead person;
and they set down the bier before him; and he looked to the right hand to the
left, and gazed up into heaven, saying many words: some of them he uttered
aloud, and some of them secretly and not aloud. And he delayed a long while,
and nothing took place, and nothing was done, and the dead person was lying
upon his bier.
And forthwith Simon Cephas drew near boldly towards the
dead man, and cried aloud before all the assembly which was standing there: In
the name of Jesus Christ, whom the Jews crucified at Jerusalem, and whom we
preach, rise up thence. And as soon as the word of Simon was spoken the dead
man came to life and rose up from the bier.
10.D. The
Apostolic Constitutions (date: uncertain; around the fourth century) translated and edited by
J. Donaldson, 1870.
4.7 ......
Nay, when Simon the magician offered money to me Peter and John, and tried to
obtain the invaluable grace by purchase, we did not admit it, but bound him
with everlasting maledictions, because he thought to possess the gift of God,
not by a pious mind towards God, but by the price of money. Avoid therefore
such oblations to God’s altar as are not from a good conscience. For says He:
“Abstain from all injustice, and thou shalt not fear, and trembling shall not
come nigh thee.” (Isa. 54:14)
6.7 Now the
original of the new heresies began thus: the devil entered into one Simon, of a
village called Gitthæ, a Samaritan, by profession a magician, and made him the
minister of his wicked design. For when Philip our fellow-apostle, by
the gift of the Lord and the energy of His Spirit, performed the miracles of
healing in Samaria (cf. Acts 8:5-7), insomuch that the Samaritans were
affected, and embraced the faith of the God
of the universe, and of the Lord Jesus, and were baptized into His name
(cf. Acts 8:12); nay, and that Simon himself, when he saw the signs and
wonders which were done without any magic ceremonies, fell into admiration, and
believed, and was baptized (cf. Acts 8:13), continued in fasting and
prayer, — we heard of the grace of God which was among the Samaritans by
Philip, and came down to them; and enlarging much upon the word of doctrine, we
laid our hands upon all that were baptized, and we conferred upon them the
participation of the Spirit. (cf. Acts 8:15-17) But when Simon saw that
the Spirit was given to believers by the imposition of our hands, he took
money, and offered it to us (cf. Acts 8:18), saying, “Give me also the
power, that on whomsoever I also shall lay my hand, he may receive the Holy
Ghost (cf. Acts 8:19);” being desirous that as the devil deprived Adam
by his tasting of the tree of that immortality which was promised him, so also
that Simon might entice us by the receiving of money, and might thereby cut us
off from the gift of God, that so by exchange we might sell to him for money
the inestimable gift of the Spirit. But as we were all troubled at this offer,
I Peter, with a fixed attention on that malicious serpent which was in him,
said to Simon: “Let thy money go with thee to perdition, because thou hast
thought to purchase the gift of God with money. Thou hast no part in this
matter, nor lot in this faith; for thy heart is not right in the sight of God.
Repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and pray to the Lord, if perhaps the
thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee. For I perceive thou art in the
gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity.” (cf. Acts 8:20-23; Unlike
Irenaeus A.H. 1.23.1, here, v. 22 is included) But then Simon was terrified, and said: “I
entreat you, pray ye to the Lord for me, that none of those things which ye
have spoken come upon me.” (cf. Acts 8:24).
6.8 But
when we went forth among the Gentiles to preach the word of life, then the
devil wrought in the people to send after us false apostles to the corrupting
of the world; and they sent forth one Cleobius, and joined him with Simon, and
these became disciples to one Dositheus, whom they despising, put him down from
the principality. Afterwards also others were the authors of absurd doctrines:
Cerinthus, and Marcus, and Menander, and Basilides, and Saturnilus. ......
And Simon meeting me Peter, first at Cæsarea Stratonis
(where the faithful Cornelius, a Gentile, believed on the Lord Jesus by me [Cf.
Acts 10]), endeavored to pervert the word of God; there being with me the holy
children, Zacchæus, who was once a publican, and Barnabas; and Nicetas and
Aquila, brethren of Clement the bishop and citizen of Rome, who was the
disciple of Paul, our fellow-apostle and fellow-helper in the gospel. I thrice
discoursed before them with him concerning the true Prophet, and concerning the
monarchy of God; and when I had overcome him by the power of the Lord, and had
put him to silence, I drove him away into Italy.
6.9 Now
when he(=Simon) was in Rome, he mightily disturbed the church, and subverted
many, and brought them over to himself, and astonished the Gentiles with his
skill in magic, insomuch that once, in the middle of the day, he went into
their theater, and commanded the people that they should bring me also by force
into the theater, and promised he would fly in the air; and when all the people
were in suspense at this, I(=Peter) prayed by myself. And indeed he was carried
up into the air by demons, and did fly on high in the air, saying that he was
returning into heaven, and that he would supply them with good things from
thence. And the people making acclamations to him, as to a god, I stretched out
my hands to heaven, with my mind, and besought God through the Lord Jesus to
throw down this pestilent fellow, and to destroy the power of those demons that
made use of the same for the seduction and perdition of men, to dash him
against the ground, and bruise him, but not to kill him. And then, fixing my
eyes on Simon, I said to him: “If I be a man of God, and a real apostle of
Jesus Christ, and a teacher of piety, and not of deceit, as thou art, Simon, I
command the wicked powers of the apostate from piety, by whom Simon the
magician is carried, to let go their hold, that he may fall down headlong
from his height, that he may be exposed to the laughter of those that have been
seduced by him.” When I had said these words, Simon was deprived of his
powers, and fell down headlong with a great noise, and was violently dashed
against the ground, and had his hip and ankle-bones broken; and the people
cried out, saying, “There is one only God, whom Peter rightly preaches in
truth.” And many left him; but some who were worthy of perdition continued in
his wicked doctrine. And after this manner the most atheistical heresy of
the Simonians was first established in Rome; and the devil wrought by the
rest of the false apostles also.
11.
JOSPEPHUS: Antiquities of the
Jews (date: 90s C.E.
translated by W. Whiston, 1987.)
19.7.4 (Simon
Peter?) (332) However, there was a certain man of the Jewish nation at
Jerusalem, who appeared to be very accurate in the knowledge of the law. His
name was Simon. This man got together an assembly, while the king was absent at
Cesarea, and had the insolence to accuse him as not living holily, and that he
might justly be accused out of the temple, since it belonged only to native
Jews. (333) But the general of Agrippa’s army informed him, that Simon had made
such a speech to the people. So the king sent for him; and, as he was sitting
in the theatre, he bade him sit down by him, and said to him with a low and
gentle voice, — “What is there done in this place that is contrary to the law?”
(334) But he had nothing to say for himself, but begged his pardon. So the king
was more easily reconciled to him than one could have imagined, as esteeming
mildness a better quality in a king than anger; and knowing that moderation is
more becoming in great men than passion. So he made Simon a small present, and
dismissed him.
20.7.2 (Simon
Magus?) (141) But for the marriage of Drusilla with Azizus, it was in
no long time afterward dissolved: — (142) While Felix was procurator of Judea,
he saw this Drusilla, and fell in love with her; for she did indeed exceed all
other women in beauty, and he sent to her a person whose name was Simon,
one of his friends; a Jew he was, and by birth a Cypriot, and one
who pretended to be a magician; and endeavored to persuade her to
forsake her present husband (i.e., Azizus, king of Emesa), and marry
him(=Felix); and promised, if she would not refuse him, he would make her a
happy woman. (143) Accordingly she acted ill, and because she was desirous to
avoid her sister Bernice’s envy, for she was very ill treated by her on account
of her beauty, was prevailed upon to transgress the laws of her forefathers,
and to marry Felix; and when he had a son by her, he named him Agrippa. (144)
But after what manner that young man, with his wife, perished at the
conflagration of the mountain Vesuvius, in the days of Titus Caesar, shall be
related hereafter.
Appendix II.
Marcion in Early Writings
1. JUSTIN MARTYR: The
First Apology (date: around
150-155 C.E.; cf. 1 Apology 29 & 46)
translated by Leslie W. Barnard, 1997.
26 And a certain man Menander, also a Samaritan, of the village of
Capparetaea, who had been a disciple of Simon’s, and inspired by demons, we
know to have deceived many while he was in Antioch by his magical arts, who
even persuaded his followers that they would never die; and even now there are
some living who profess this from him.
And there is a
certain Marcion of Pontus, who is even now teaching his disciples to believe in
some other god greater than the Demiurge; who by the aid of the demons, has
caused many of every race of men and women
to speak blasphemies, and to deny that God is the Maker of this
Universe, and to profess that another, who is greater than He, has done greater
works.
58 And,
as we said before, the wicked demons have put forward Marcion of Pontus, who is
even now teaching people to deny that God is the Maker of all things in heaven
and earth and that the Christ predicted through the prophets is His Son, and
proclaims another god besides the
Demiurge of all and likewise another son. Many are persuaded by him as if he
alone knew the truth, and laugh at us, though they have no proof of the things
they say, but are snatched away irrationally as lambs by a wolf, and become the
prey of godless teaching and of demons.
2.
IRENAEUS: Adversus Haereses
(=Against the Heresies)
(around 180-190) translated by
A. Roberts & W. H. Rambaut, and edited by A.
Roberts and J. Donaldson, 1867.
1.10.2 The church,
having received this preaching and this faith, although scattered throughout
the whole world, yet, as if occupying but one house, carefully preserves it.
She also believes these points [of doctrine] hust as if she had but one soul,
and one and the same heart, and she proclaims them, and teaches them, and hands
them down, with perfect harmony, as if she possessed only one mouth. For,
although the languages of the world are dissimilar, yet the import of the
tradition is one and the same.
1.24.2 (Docetism of
Saturninus) He (=Saturninus) also laid it down as a truth, that the Savior was
without birth, without body, and without figure, but was, by supposition, a
visible man; and he maintained that the God of the Jews was one of the angels;
and, on this account, because all the powers wished to annihilate his father,
Christ came to destroy the God of Jews, but to save such as believe in him;
that is, those who possess the spark of his life. ...
1.24.4 (Docetism of
Basilides) ... He (=Christ) appeared, then, on earth as a man, to the nations
of these powers, and wrought miracles. Wherefore he did not himself suffer
death, but Simon, a certain man of Cyrene, being compelled, bore the cross in
his stead; so that this latter being transfigured by him, that he might be
thought to be Jesus, was crucified, through ignorance and error, while Jesus
himself received the form of Simon, and, standing by, laughed at them.
1.27.1 Cerdo was
one who took his system from the followers of Simon, and came to live at Rome
in the time of Hyginus (cf. 136-142 or 139-143 ) who held the ninth place in the
episcopal succession from the apostles downwards. He taught that the God
proclaimed by the law and the prophets was not the father of our Lord Jesus
Christ. For the former was known, but the latter unknown; while the one also
was righteous, but the other benevolent.
1.27.2 Marcion of
Pontus succeeded him, and developed his doctrine. In so doing, he advanced the
most daring blasphemy against Him who is proclaimed as God by the law and the
prophets, declaring Him who is proclaimed as God by the law and the prophets,
declaring Him to be the author of evils, to take delight in war, to be infirm
of purpose, and even to be contrary to Himself. But Jesus being derived from
that father who is above the God that made the world, and coming into Judea in
the times of Pontus Pilate the governor, who was the procurator of Tiberius
Caesar, was manifested in the form of a man to those who were in Judea,
abolishing the prophets and the law, and all the works of that God who made the
world, whom also he calls Cosmocrator. Besides this, he mutilates the Gospel
which is according to Luke, removing all that is written respecting the
generation of the Lord, and setting aside a great deal of the teaching of the
Lord, in which the Lord is recorded as most clearly confessing that the Maker
of this universe is His Father. ...
In like manner, too, he dismembered the epistles of
Paul, removing all that is said by the apostle respecting that God who made the
world, to the effect that He is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and also
those passages from the prophetical writings which the apostle quotes, in order
to teach us that they announced beforehand the coming of the Lord.
1.27.3 Salvation
will be the attainment only of those souls which had learned his doctrine; while
the body, as having been taken from the earth, is incapable of sharing in
salvation. In addition to his blasphemy against God Himself, he advanced this
also, truly speaking as with the mouth of the devil, and saying all things in
direct opposition to the truth --that Cain, and those like him, and the
Sodomites, and the Egyptians, and others like them, and in fine, all the
nations who walked in all sorts of abomination, were saved by the Lord, on His
descending into Hades, and on their running unto Him, and that they welcomed
Him into their kingdom. But the serpent which was in Marcion declared that
Abel, and Enoch, and Noah, and those other righteous men who sprang from the
patriarch Abraham, with all the prophets, and those who were pleasing to God, did
not partake in salvation. For since these men, he says, knew that their God was
constantly tempting them, and did not run to Jesus, or believe His
announcement: and for this reason he declared that their souls remained in
Hades.
2.30.9 But there is
one only God, the Creator. .... He is just; He is good. ... He is the Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ: through His Word,
who is His Son, through Him He is revealed and manifested to all to whom He is
revealed; for those [only] know Him to whom the Son has revealed Him.
3.2.1 When,
however, they are confuted from the Scriptures, they turn round and accuse
these same Scriptures, as if they were not correct, nor of authority, and
[assert] that they are ambiguous, and that the truth cannot be extracted from
them by those who are ignorant of tradition. For [they allege] that the truth
was not delivered by means of written documents, but viva voce:
wherefore also Paul declared, ‘But we speak wisdom among those that are
perfect, but not the wisdom of this world.’ And this wisdom each one of them
alleges to be the fiction of his own inventing, forsooth; so that, according to
their idea, the truth properly resides at one time in Valentinus, at anther in
Marcion, at another in Cerinthus, then afterwards in Basilides, or has even
been indifferently in any other opponent, who could speak nothing pertaining to
salvation. ...
3.3.4 ...
He(=Polycarp) it was who, coming to Rome in the time of Anicetus, caused many
to turn away from the aforesaid heretics(=Valentinus and Marcion, and the rest
of heretics) to the church of God, proclaiming that he had received this one
and sole truth from the apostles,--that namely, which is handed down by the
church. There are those who heard from him that John, the disciple of the Lord,
going to bathe at Ephesus, and perceiving Cerinthus within, rushed out of the
bath-house without bathing, exclaiming, ‘Let us fly, lest even the bath-house
fall down, because Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, is within.’ And Polycarp
himself replied to Marcion, who met him on one occasion, and said, ‘Dost thou
know me?’ ‘I do know thee, the first born of Satan.’[1]
...
3.4.3 Cerdon,
too, Marcion’s predecessor, himself arrived in the time of Hyginus, who was the
ninth bishop (or the eighth).[2]
... Marcion, then, succeeding him, flourished under Anicetus, who held the
tenth place of the episcopate. ...
3.11.7 But Marcion,
mutilating that according to Luke, is proved to be a blasphemer of the only
existing God, from those [passages] which he still retains.
3.12.12 ...Wherefore
also Marcion and his followers have betaken themselves to mutilating the
Scriptures, not acknowledging some books at all; and curtailing the Gospel
according to Luke and the episltes of Paul, they assert that these are alone
authentic, which they have themselves thus shortened. ... And, indeed, the
followers of Marcion do directly blaspheme the Creator, alleging him to be the
creator of evils, [but] holding a more [in]tolerable theory as to his origin,
[and] maintaining that there are two beings, Gods by nature, differing from
each other,--the one being good, but the other evil.[3]
...
3.13.1 With regard
to those (the Marcionites) who allege that Paul alone knew the truth, and that
to him the mystery was manifested by revelation (Gal. 1:12), let Paul himself
convict them, when he says, that one and the same God wrought in Peter for the
apostolate of the circumcision, and in himself for the Gentiles (Gal. 2:8). ...
For our Lord never came to save Paul alone, nor is God
so limited in means, that he should have but one apostle who knew the
dispensation of His Son. ... And again, in the Epistle to the Corinthians, when
he had recounted all those who had seen God after the resurrection, he says in
continuation, “But whether it were I or they, so we preach, and so ye
believed,” acknowledging as one and the same, the preaching of all those who
saw God after the resurrection from the dead.
3.13.3 But
that Paul acceded to [the request of] those who summoned him to the apostles,
on account of the question [which had been raised], and went up to them, with
Barnabas, to Jerusalem, not without reason, but that the liberty of the
Gentiles might be confirmed by them, he does himself say, in the Epistle to the
Galatians: “Then, fourteen years after, I went up by revelation, and
communicated to them that gospel which I preach among the Gentiles.” (Gal.
2:1-2)
And again he says, “For an hour we did give place to
subjection, that the truth of the gospel might continue with you.” (Gal. 2:5)
If, then, any one shall, from the Acts of the Apostles, carefully scrutinize
the time concerning which it is written that he went up to Jerusalem on account
of the forementioned question, he will find those years mentioned by Paul
coinciding with it. Thus the statement of Paul harmonizes with, and is, as it
were, identical with, the testimony of Luke regarding the apostles.
3.14.2 To allege,
then, that these men did not know the truth, is to act the part of false
witnesses, and of those who have been alienated from the doctrine of Christ.
For why did the Lord send send the twelves to the lost sheep of the house of
Israel, if these men did not know the truth? ... Or how could Peter have been
in ignorance, to whom the Lord gave testimony, that flesh and blood had not
revealed to him, but the Father, who is in heaven? Just, then, as “Paul [was]
an apostle, not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the
Father,” [so with the rest;] the Son indeed leading them to the Father, but the
Father revealing to them the Son.
3.16.1 (Docetism)
But there are some who say that Jesus was merely a receptacle of Christ, upon
whom the Christ, as a dove, descended from above, and that when He had declared
the unnameable Father He entered into the Pleroma in an incomprehensible and
invisible manner: for that He was not comprehended, not only by men, but not
even by those powers and virtues which are in heaven, ... while others say that
He merely suffered in outward appearance, being naturally impassible. The
Valentinians, again, maintain that the dispensational Jesus was the same who
passed through Mary, upon whom that Savior from the more exalted [region]
descended, ...
4.8.1 Vain, too,
is [the effort of] Marcion and his followers when they [seek to] exclude
Abraham from the inheritance, to whom the Spirit through many men, and now by
Paul, bears witness, that “he believed God, and it was imputed unto him for
righteousness.” ...
4.33.2 Moreover,
he (=Christ) shall also examine the doctrine of Marcion, [inquiring] how he
holds that there are two gods, separated from each other by an infinite
distance. Or how can he be good who draws away men that do not belong to him
from him who made them, and calls them into his own kingdom? And why is his
goodness, which does not save all [thus], defective? Also why does he, indeed,
seem to be good as respects men, but most unjust with regard to him who made
men, inasmuch as he deprives him of his possessions? ... And why did he
acknowledge himself to be the Son of man, if he had not gone through that birth
which belongs to a human being? How, too, could he forgive us those sins for
which we are answerable to our Maker and God? And how, again, supposing that He
was not flesh, but was a man merely in appearance, could He have been
crucified, and could blood and water have issued from his pierced side? What
body, moreover, was it that those who buried him consigned to the tomb? And
what was that which rose again from the dead?
3. CLEMENT OF
ALEXANDRIA: Stromateis (=miscellaneous) (around 200-210) translated
by J. Ferguson, The Catholic University of America
Press, 1991.
3.3.12 (1) If even
Plato and the Pythagoreans, like the followers of Marcion later (though he was
far from maintaining that wives should be held in common), regarded birth as
something evil, Marcion’s followers held natural processes as evil because they
were derived from matter that was evil, and from an unrighteous creator. (2) On
this argument they have no wish to fill the cosmos the creator brought into
being, and choose to abstain from marriage. They stand in opposition to their
creator and make haste towards the one they call god, who is not (they say) god
in another sense. As a result, they have no desire to leave anything of theirs
behind them here on earth. So they are abstinent not by an act of will but
through hatred of the creator and the refusal to use any of his productions.
(3) But in their irreverent war with God they stand apart from natural reason.
... Even if they choose not to marry, they still use the food he has produced,
they still breathe the creator’s air.
They are themselves his works and live in his world. ....
3.3.13 (1) We shall
present precise arguments against these people when we treat the doctrine of
first principles. The philosophers whom we have mentioned, from whom Marcion’s
followers derived their blasphemous doctrine that birth is evil, although they
prance about as if it were their own, do not, in fact, hold that it is
naturally evil, but evil only to the soul which has discerned the truth. (2)
They regard the soul as divine, and dragged down here onto earth as to a place
of punishment. In their view, souls that have become embodied need to be purified.
(3) This doctrine does not belong to Marcion’s followers, but to those who hold
that souls are placed in bodies, change their integument, and transmigrate.[4]
3.3.14 (1)
Heraclitus certainly deprecates birth when he says, “Once born they have a
desire to live and have their dooms,” or rather enjoy their rest, “and they
leave behind children to become dooms.” (2) Empedocles is clearly of the same
mind when he says, “I wept and wailed when I saw the unfamiliar face,” and
again, “For out of living creatures he made corpses, changing their forms,” ...
(3) Further, the Sibyl (Sibylline Oracles, fr. 1.1) says, “You are human,
mortal, and fleshly, and are nothing.” ...
3.3.18 (3) Long
before Marcion, Plato, in the first book of the Republic, clearly saw
sexual intercourse as the origin of birth and rejected it accordingly (Plato, Republic,
1.328 D, 329 C).
3.3.19 (3) All the
same, even in that condition he recognizes the excellence of the government of
the world, saying, “A man ought not to release himself from that prison and run
away” (Plato, Phaedo, 62 B). (4) To sum up, he does not offer Marcion
grounds for thinking matter evil, when he himself speaks reverently about the
world: (5) “All that is good is got from the supreme disposer. From its
previous state all that is chaotic or corrupt in the sky comes into being; from
that state the world has the same qualities and produces them in living things”
(Plato, Statesman, 273 B-C).
3.3.21 (1) ... When
we discourse about first principles we will consider the contradictions between
the obscure sayings of the philosophers and the dogmatic assertions of
Marcion’s followers. Except that I think I have shown clearly enough that
Marcion took the impulse for his “strange” doctrines from Plato without
acknowledgment or understanding.
3.17.102 (1) If birth is
an evil, then the blasphemers must place the Lord who went through birth and
the virgin who gave him birth in the category of evil. (2) Abominable people!
In attacking birth they are maligning the will of God and the mystery of
creation. (3) This is the basis of Cassian’s docetism, Marcion’s too, yes, and
Valentinus’ “semi-spiritual (ψυχικός)
body.”[5]
4.A.
TERTULLIAN: Adversus Marcionem (=Against Marcion) (about
210-220) 1. translated
by P. Holmes, 1870/2. edited and translated by E.
Evans, Books 4 & 5, 1972.
1.1. Nothing, however, in Pontus is so barbarous and sad as the fact that
Marcion was born there, fouler than any other Scythian, more roving than the
Sarmathian, more inhuman than the Massagete, more audacious than an Amazon, ...
Marcion has quenched the light of his faith, an so lost
the God whom he had found. His disciples will not deny that his first faith he
held along with ourselves; a letter of his own proves this; ...
1.19. Well, but
our god, say the Marcionites, although he did not manifest himself from the
beginning and by means of the creation, has yet revealed himself in Christ
Jesus. ...
In the fifteenth year of Tiberius, Christ Jesus
vouchsafed to come down from heaven, as the spirit of saving health. ...
Marcion’s special and principal work is the separation
of the law and the gospel; and his disciples will not deny that in this point
they have their very best pretext for initiating and confirming themselves in
his heresy. These are Marcion’s Antitheses, or contradictory positions,
which aim at committing the gospel to a variance with the law, ...
3.11. But yet,
after you have pulled all these things down to infamy, that you may affirm them
to be unworthy of God, birth will not be worse for Him than death, infancy than
the cross, punishment than nature, condemnation than flesh.
If Christ truly suffered all this, to be born was a less
thing for Him.
If Christ suffered evasively, as a phantasm; evasively,
too, might He have been born. ...
4.2.3 Marcion,
on the other hand, attaches to his gospel no author’s name,--as though he to
whom it was no crime to overturn the whole body, might not assume permission to
invent a title for it as well.
4.2.4 For out of
those authors whom we possess, Marcion is seen to have chosen Luke as the one
to mutilate. Now Luke was not an apostle but an apostolic man, not a master but
a disciple, in any case less than his master, and assuredly even more of lesser
account as being the follower of a later apostle, Paul, to be sure: so that
even if Marcion had introduced his gospel under the name of Paul in person,
that one single document would not be adequate for our faith, if destitute of
the support of his predecessors.
4.2.5 ...for his
(=Paul’s) intention in going up to Jerusalem to know and to consult the
apostles, was lest perchance he had run in vain--that is, lest perchance he had
not believed as they did, or were not preaching the gospel in their manner. At
length, when he conferred with the original <apostles>, and there was
agreement concerning the rule of faith (=regula fidei), they joined the
right hands <of fellowship>, and from thenceforth divided their spheres
of preaching, so that the others should go to Jews, but Paul to Jews and
Gentiles.
4.3.4 If
Marcion’s complaint is that the apostles are held suspect of dissimulation or
pretence, even to the debasing of the gospel, he is now accusing Christ, by
thus accusing those whom Christ has chosen.
If however the gospel which the apostles compared with
Paul’s was beyond reproach, and they were rebuked only for inconsistency of
conduct, and yet false apostles have falsified the truth of their gospels, and
from them our copies are derived, what can have become of that genuine
apostles’ document which has suffered
from adulterators--that document which gave light to Paul, and from him to
Luke? Or if it has been completely destroyed, so wiped out by a flood of
falsifiers as though by some deluge, then not even Marcion has a true one.
4.3.5 Or if that
is to be the true one, if that is the apostles’, which Marcion alone possesses,
then how is it that that which is not of the apostles, but is ascribed to Luke,
is in agreement with ours? Or if that which Marcion has in use is not at once
to be attributed to Luke because it does agree with ours--though they allege
ours is falsified in respect of its title --then it does belong to the
apostles. And in that case ours too, which is in agreement with that order, no
less belongs to the apostles, even if it too is falsified in its title.
4.5.7 In fact it
was only when Marcion laid hands upon it, that it became different from the
apostolic gospels, and in opposition to them. So I should recommend his
disciples either to convert those others, late though it be, into the shape of
their own, so that they may have the appearance of being in agreement with
apostolic gospels--for they are every day reshaping this of theirs, as they are
every day brought to account by us--or else to take shame of their masters, who
stands convicted on both accounts, while at one time he bypasses the truth of
the gospel through bad conscience, and at another time overturns it through
effrontery.
4.7.3-4 Also what had
he to do with Galilee, if he was not the Creator’s Christ, for whom that
province was predestined <as the place> for him to enter on his
preaching? For Isaiah says: “Drink this first, ..., Galilee of the Gentiles, ye
people who sit in darkness, behold a great light: ye who inhabit the land,
sitting in the shadow of death, a light has arisen upon you.” It is indeed to
the good that Marcion’s god too should be cited as one who gives light to the
Gentiles, for so there was the greater need for him to come down from
heaven--though, if so, he ought to have come down into Pontus rather than
Galilee.
5.3.1 So he
writes that after fourteen years he went up to Jerusalem, to seek the support
of Peter and the rest of the apostles, to confer with them concerning the
content of his gospel, for fear least for all those years he had run, or was
still running, in vain--meaning, if he was preaching the gospel in any form
inconsistent with theirs. So great as this was his desire to be approved of and
confirmed by those very people who, if you please, you suggest should be
understood to be of too close kindred with Judaism.
4.B. De
Praescriptione Haereticorum (=On Prescription Against Heretics) (about
210-220)
translated by P. Holmes, 1870.
7 Indeed
heresies are themselves instigated by philosophy. From this source came the
Æons, and I known not what infinite forms, and the trinity of man in the system
of Valentinus, who was of Plato’s school. From the same source came Marcion’s
better god, with all his tranquility; he came of the Stoics.
21 Since
the Lord Jesus Christ sent the apostles to preach, [we prescribe] that no
others ought to be received as preachers than those whom Christ appointed; for
“no man knoweth the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will
reveal Him.”
23 Now,
with the view of branding the apostles with some mark of ignorance, they (=the
Marcionites) put forth the case of Peter and them that were with him having
been rebuked by Paul. ... Still they should show, from the circumstance which
they allege of Peter’s being rebuked by Paul, that Paul added yet another form
of the gospel besides that which Peter and the rest had previously set forth.
30 Where
was Marcion then, that shipmaster of Pontus, the zealous student of Stoicism?
Where was Valentinus then, the disciple of Platonism? For it is evident that
those men lived not so long ago,---in the reign of Antoninus, for the most
part,--and that they at first were believers in the doctrine of the Catholic
Church, in the Church of Rome under the episcopate of the blessed Eleutherus,
until (on account of their ever restless curiosity, with which they even
infected the brethren) they were more than once expelled,--Marcion, indeed, with
the two hundred (or two hundred thousand?) sesterces which he had brought into
the church,--and, when banished at last to a permanent excommunication, they
scattered abroad the poisons of their doctrines. Marcion afterwards, indeed,
professed repentance, and agreed to the conditions granted to him--that he
should receive reconciliation if he restored to the church all the others whom
he had been training for perdition: he was prevented, however, [from the
completion of his recovery] by death. ...
For since Marcion separated the New Testament from the
Old, he is [necessarily] subsequent to that which he separated, inasmuch as it
was only in his power to separate what was [previously] united. ...
37 ...
Indeed, Marcion, by what right do you hew my wood? By whose permission,
Valentinus, are you diverting the streams of my fountain? By what power,
Apelles are you removing my landmarks? This is my property. Why are you, the
rest, sowing and feeding here at your own pleasure? This [I say] is my
property. I have long possessed it; I possessed it before you. ...
38 ....
One man perverts the Scriptures with his hand, another their meaning by his
exposition. For although Valentinus seems to use the entire volume, he has none
the less laid violent hands on the truth, only with a more cunning mind and
skill than Marcion. Marcion expressly and openly used the knife, not the pen,
since he made such an excision of the Scriptures as suited his own
subject-matter. Valentinus, however, abstained from such excision, because he
did not invent Scriptures to square with his own subject-matter, but adapted
his matter to the Scriptures; and yet he took away more, and added more, by
removing the proper meaning of every particular word, and adding fantastic
arrangements of thing which have no real existence.
4.C. De
Carne Christi (=On the Flesh of Christ) (about 210-220) edited and translated by E.
Evans,
1956.
5 ...
Or was your reason for not tearing out of your scriptures the sufferings of
Christ that as a phantasm he was free from the perception of them? I have
already suggested that he could equally well have undergone the unsubstantial
ridicule of an imaginary nativity and infancy. But your answer is now required,
murderer of the truth: was not God truly crucified? Did he not, as truly
crucified, truly die? Was he not truly raised again, seeing of course he truly
died? Was it by fraud that Paul determined to know nothing among us save Jesus
crucified, was it by fraud that he represented him as buried, by fraud that he
insisted that he was raised up again? Fraudulent in that case is also our
faith, and the whole of what we hope for from Christ will be a phantasm, you
utter scoundrel, who pronounce innocent the assassins of God. For of them
Christ suffered nothing, if he in reality suffered nothing...
5. HIPPOLYTUS:
Refutatio (=Refutation of All Heresies) (about 220) translated by
J. H. Macmahon, 1868.
7.17 But,
Marcion, a native of Pontus, far more frantic than these [heretics], omitting
the majority of the tenets of the greater number [of speculators], [and]
advancing into a doctrine still more unabashed, supposed [the existence of] two
originating causes of the universe, alleging one of them to be a certain good
[principle], but the other an evil one. ...
This [heretic] having thought that the multitude would
forget that he did not happen to be a disciple of Christ, but of Empedocles,
who was far anterior to himself, framed and formed the same opinions,--namely,
that there are two causes of the universe, discord and friendship. ...
[But] what are these [two]? Discord and Friendship; for
they did not begin to come into being, but pre-existed and always will exist,
because from the fact of their being unbegotten, they are not able to undergo
corruption. ...
An operation of this description Friendship maintains,
and makes [one] most beautiful form of the world out of plurality. Discord,
however, the cause of the arrangement of each of the parts [of the universe],
forcibly severs and makes many things out of that one [form]. And this is what
Empedocles affirms respecting his own generation: “Of these I also am God a
wandering exile.
That is, [Empedocles] denominates as God the unity and
unification of that [one form] in which [the world] existed antecedent to the
separation and production [introduced] by Discord. For Empedocles affirms
Discord to be a furious, and perturbed, and unstable Demiurge, [thus]
denominating Discord the creator of the world. ...
7.18 When,
therefore, Marcion or some one of his hounds barks against the Demiurge, and
adduces reasons from a comparison of what is good and bad, we ought to say to
them, that neither Paul the apostle nor Mark, he of the maimed finger,
announced such [tenets]. For none of these [doctrines] has been written in the
Gospel according to Mark. But [the real author of the system] is Empedocles,
son of Meto, a native of Agrigentum. And [Marcion] despoiled this
[philosopher], and imagined that up to the present would pass undetected his
transference, under the same expressions, of the arrangement of his entire
heresy from Sicily into the evangelical narratives. For bear with me, O
Marcion: as you have instituted a comparison following up your own tenets, as
you suppose them to be. You affirm that the Demiurge of the world is evil--why
not hide your countenance in shame, [as thus] teaching to the Church the
doctrines of Empedocles? ... You forbid marriage, the procreation of children,
[and] the abstaining from meats which God has created for participation by the
faithful, and those that know the truth. ...
10.15 But
Marcion, of Pontus, and Cerdon, his preceptor, themselves also lay down that
there are three principles of the universe--good, just, [and] matter. Some
disciples, however, of these add [a fourth], saying, good, just, evil, [and]
matter. But they all affirm that the good [Being] has made nothing at all,
though some denominate the just one [likewise] evil, whereas others that his
only title is that of just. ...
Wherefore also they thus employ the evangelical
parables, saying, “A good tree cannot bring forth evil tree(Luke 6:43; Matthew
7:18),” and the rest of the passage. [Now Marcion] alleges that the conceptions
badly devised by the [Just One] Himself constituted the allusion in this
passage. ...
10.16 But
Apelles, a disciple of this [heretic =Marcion], was displeased at the
statements advanced by his preceptor, as we have previously declared, and by
another theory supposed that there are four gods. And the first of these he
alleges to be the “Good Being,” whom the prophets did not know, and Christ to
be His Son. And the second [God he affirms] to be the Creator of the universe,
and Him he does not wish to be a God. And the third [God he states] to be the
fiery one that was manifested; and the fourth [God] to be an evil one. And
[Apelles] calls these angels; and by adding [to their number] Christ likewise,
he will assert Him to be a fifth [God]. ... And he affirms that Christ did not
receive his flesh from the Virgin, but from the adjacent substance of the
world. ... And [Apelles] similarly with Marcion, affirms that the different
sorts of flesh are destroyed.
6. ORIGEN: Contra Celsum (=Against
Celsus) (246-248)
translated by H. Chadwick, 1953.
2.27 I do not
know of people who have altered the gospel apart from the Marcionites and
Valentinians, and I think also the followers of Lucan.[6]
6.53 He(=Celsus)
then, I think, muddles some sects with others, and does not notice that some
are the doctrines od one sect and some of another. For he brings forward our
objections to Marcion, though probably even of these he has got a distorted
version from some who criticize the doctrine with shoddy and vulgar arguments,
and certainly not with any intelligence. He sets forth the objections that are
brought against Marcion without observing that it is Marcion whom he is
addressing, saying: Why does he secretly send to destroy the creations of this
God? Why does he force his way in by stealth and beguile and lead astray? Why
does he lead off those whom, as you say, the Creator has condemned and cursed,
and carry them away like a slave-dealer? Why does he teach them to escape from
their master? Why should they flee to the Father? Why does he adopt them as his
children without the consent of their father? Why does he lay claim to be the
Father of the strangers? And he adds to
these questions, as if it were some wonderful saying: An impressive God,
indeed, who desires to be the father of sinners condemned by another and of
poor wretches who, as they they say themselves, are but dungs, and who is
incapable of taking vengeance upon the Creator when he has caught the one whom
he had sent out to bring them to himself.
After this, as if he were addressing us who believe that this world is
not the creation of some alien and strange God, he speaks as follows: But if
these are the Creator’s works, how can it be that God should make what is evil?
And how can he be incapable of persuading and admonishing men? How can he
repent when they become ungrateful and wicked, and find fault with his own
handiwork, and hate and threaten and destroy his own offspring? Or where is he
to banish them out of the world which he himself made? Here too, I think,
because he has failed to make clear what are evil things, although even among
the Greeks are many differences of opinion about good and evil, he jumps to the
conclusion that from our affirmation that even this world is the work of the
supreme God it follows that we believe God to be the maker of what is evil. ...
6.74 He(=Celsus)
next returns to the opinion of Marcion of which he has frequently spoken
already, and in part he gives a correct account of Marcion’s teaching, but in
part he misunderstands it. This it is not necessary for us to answer or even to
prove wrong. Then again he goes on to give the arguments for and against
Marcion, saying they evade some of the criticisms, but fall at others. And when
he wants to agree with the opinion which affirms that Jesus was spoken of by the prophets, so that he may attack Marcion
and his followers, he says: By what argument can a man who was punished as he
was be proved to be the Son of God, unless it was foretold that this would
happen to him? ......
7. EUSEBIUS: Ecclesiastical
History (about 330) translated by C. F. Cruse, 1850 (reprinted
1993).
4.11 ... In
the first, however, he(=Irenaeus) relates the following respecting Cerdon: A
certain man, by name Cerdon, who derived his first impulse from the followers
of Simon, and who made some stay at Rome, under Hyginus the ninth, that held
the episcopate in succession from the apostles, taught that the God who had
been proclaimed by the law and prophets, was not the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, for the latter was revealed, the other was unknown; the former also,
was just, but the other was good. Marcion who was from Pontus, having succeeded
Cerdon, augmented his school by uttering his blasphemies without a blush.
......
In a work that he(=Justin) wrote against Marcion from
Pontus, who is now still teaching those that believe him, to think that there is another God
greater than God the creator; that he by means of conjunction with demons,
persuaded many throughout the whole world, to utter blasphemy, and to deny that
the Creator of all things was the father of Christ...
4.14 ... And
there are those still living who heard him(=Polycarp) relate, that John the
disciple of the Lord went into a bath at Ephesus, and seeing Cerinthus within,
ran out without bathing, and exclaimed, “let us flee lest the bath should fall
in, as long as Cerinthus, that enemy of truth, is within.” And the same
Polycarp, once coming and meeting Marcion, who said, “acknowledge us,” he,
replied, “I acknowledge the first born of Satan.” ...
8. EPIPHANIUS: Panarion (about
375) translated by F. Williams, 1987.
42.1.1 Marcion, the
founder of the Marcionites, took his cue from Cerdo and appeared before the
world as a great serpent himself. And because he deceived a large number of
people in many ways, even to this day, he became head of a school. (2) The sect
is still to be found even now, in Rome and Italy, Egypt and Palestine, Arabia
and Syria, Cyprus and Thebaid--in Persia too, moreover, and other places. For
the evil one in him has lent great strength to the deceit.
42.1.3 It is very
commonly said that he was a native of Pontus--I mean Helenpontus and the city
of Sinope. (4) In early life he was an ascetic, if you please, for he was a
hermit, and the son of a bishop of our holy catholic church. But in time he
unfortunately became acquainted with a virgin, cheated the virgin of her hope
and degraded both her and himself. For her seduction he was excommunicated by
his own father. ...
42.1.7 As Marcion
could not wheedle what he required out of him he felt unable to bear the
people’s ridicule and fled from his city, and he arrived at Rome itself after
the death of Hyginus, the bishop of Rome. (Hyginus was ninth in succession from
the apostles Peter and Paul.) Meeting the elders who were still alive and had
been taught by the pupils of the apostles, he asked for permission to the
church; and no one allowed it to him. (8) Finally, inflamed with jealousy at
not getting the headship of the church as well as entry into it, he thought of
an expedient, and took refuge in the sect of the fraud, Cerdo. ...
42.2.8 Then Marcion
became jealous and was roused to great anger and pride, and since he was that
sort of person he made the rent. He became head of his own sect and said, ‘I
shall rend your church, and make a permanent rent in it.’ He did indeed make a
rent of no small proportions, but by rending himself and his converts, not the
church.
42.3.1 But he took
his cue from Cerdo, the charlatan and swindler. For he too proclaims two first
principles. But to add to him in turn, I mean to Cerdo, he exhibits something
different and says there are three principles. One is the unnameable, invisible
one on high which he also calls a ‘good God,’ but which has made none of the
things in the world. (2) Another is a visible God, creator and demiurge. But
the devil is a kind of third god and in between these two, the visible and the
invisible. The creator, demiurge and visible God is the God of the Jews, and he
is a judge. ...
42.4.1 But this is
not at all. He rejects both the law and all the prophets, and says that
prophets like these have prophesied by the inspiration of the archon who made
the world. (2) And he says that Christ descended from on high, from the
invisible Father who cannot be named, for the salvation of souls, and to
confound the God of the Jews, the Law, the prophets, and denying of the kind.
(3) The Lord has even gone down to Hades to save Cain, Korah, Dathan, Abiram,
Esau, and all the gentiles who had not known the God of the Jews. (4) But he
has left Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, and Solomon
there. For they recognized the God of the Jews as maker and creator, he says,
and have done what is appropriate to him, and did not decide themselves to the
invisible God. ...
42.4.5 They even
permit women to give baptism! For, seeing that they even venture to celebrate
the mysteries in front of catechumens, everything they do is simply ridiculous.
(6) As I indicated, Marcion says resurrection is not of bodies but of souls,
and he assigns salvation to these and not to bodies. And he similarly claims
that there are reincarnations of souls, and transmigrations from body to soul.[7]
42.6.1 And how can
Marcion’s own count of three principles be substantiated? How can <the God
who> does work--either a work of salvation, or the other kinds--in the bad
god’s territory be considered “good?” (2) For suppose the world is not his, and
yet he sent his Only-begotten into the world to remove things which he neither
begot nor made from another god’s world. It will follow, either that he is
invading someone else’s domain, or that he is poor and has nothing of his own,
and is advancing against someone else’s territory to get things which he does
not already have.
[1]See also Polycarp, The Letter of Polycarp to the
Philippians, 7:1; Eusebius, Ecclesiatical History, 4.14. Polycarp’s
encounter with Marcion was probably during his visit to Rome under the
Anicetus’ episcopate. But, it is also possible that he might have encountered
Marcion in Asia Minor, maybe in Ephesus.
[2] According to Eusebius (Ecclesiastical History), bishops of Rome after the
death of Peter and Paul are 1. Linus,
2.
Anencleyus, 3. Clement, 4. Euarestus, 5. Alexander, 6. Xystus or Sixtus, 7.
Telesphorus, 8. Hyginus, 9. Pius, 10. Anicetus, and so on.
[3]It seems to me that Irenaeus is referring to the
theology of a Marcion’s disciple, not to the theology of Marcion himself, who
asserts that the creator God is just and the unknown God is good. However,
Marcion’s creator God is also said to include evil (cf. Two principle theory
versus the three principles theory).
[4]This doctrine is that of the Platonists and
Pythagoreans.
[5]According to Clement with J. Ferguson’s footnotes,
Julius Cassian’s docetism was the doctrine that the humanity and sufferings of
Christ were seeming rather than real (Ferguson, p. 313).
[6]Lucan was an independent teacher within the Marcionite
church.
[7]Hippolytus, Refutations, 7.30.4.
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