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23.
Cyprian of blessed memory tried to avoid broken cisterns and not to drink of
strange waters: and therefore, rejecting heretical baptism, he summoned
his 4143 African synod in opposition to Stephen, 4144 who was the blessed Peter’s twenty-second successor in the see of Rome. They met to discuss
this matter; but the attempt failed. At last those very bishops who had
together with him determined that heretics must be re-baptized, reverted to the
old custom and published a fresh decree. Do you ask what course we must pursue?
What we do our forefathers handed down to us as their forefathers to them. But
why speak of later times? When the blood of Christ was but lately shed and the
apostles were still in Judæa, the Lord’s body was asserted to be a phantom; the
Galatians had been led away to the observance of the law, and the Apostle was a
second time in travail with them; the Corinthians did not believe the
resurrection of the flesh, and he endeavoured by many arguments to bring them
back to the right path. Then came 4145 Simon Magus and his disciple
Menander. They asserted themselves to be 4146 powers of God. Then 4147 Basilides invented the most high god Abraxas and the three
hundred and sixty-five manifestations of him. Then 4148 Nicolas, one of the seven Deacons,
and one whose lechery knew no rest by night or day, indulged in his filthy
dreams. I say nothing of the Jewish heretics who before the coming of Christ
destroyed the law delivered to them: of 4149 Dositheus, the leader of the
Samaritans who rejected the prophets: of the Sadducees who sprang from his root
and denied even the resurrection of the flesh: of the Pharisees who separated
themselves from the Jews 4150 on account of certain superfluous
observances, and took their name from the fact of their dissent: of the
Herodians who accepted Herod as the Christ. I come to those heretics who have
mangled the Gospels, 4151 Saturninus, and the 4152 Ophites, 4153 the Cainites and 4154 Sethites, and 4155 Carpocrates, and 4156 Cerinthus, and his successor 4157 Ebion, and the other pests, the
most of which broke out while the apostle John was still alive, and yet we do
not read that any of these men were re-baptized.
4143
Stephen was willing to admit
all heretical baptism, even that by Marcionites and Ophites; Cyprian would
admit none. The Council was held at Carthage
a.d. 255, and was followed by
two in the next year.
4144
Bishop of Rome from May 12, a.d. 254, to Aug. 2, a.d. 257. See note on ch. 25.
4145
The words of 1 John iv. 3 would appear to support Jerome’s remark.
4146
Acts viii. 10. In the Clementine Homilies and Recognitions Simon is
the constant opponent of St. Peter.
4147
Commonly regarded as the chief
among the Egyptian Gnostics. The Basilidian system is described by Irenaeus
(101f).
4148
Acts 6:5, Rev. 2:6, 15. As to how far Jerome’s estimate of the character of
Nicolas is correct, the article Nicolas in Smith’s Dict. of Bible may be
consulted.
4149
Jerome here reproduces almost
exactly the remark of Pseudo-Tertullian. The Dositheans were probably a Jewish
or Samaritan ascetic sect, something akin to the Essenes.
4150
The name Pharisee implies
separation, but in the sense of dedication to God.
4151
Of Antioch. One of the earliest of the Gnostics
(second century).
4152
The Ophites, whose name is
derived from ὄφις, a serpent, were a sect which
lasted from the second century to the sixth. Some of them believed that the
serpent of Gen. iii. was either the Divine Wisdom, or
the Christ himself, come to enlighten mankind. Their errors may in great
measure, like those of the Cainites, be traced to the belief, common to all
systems of Gnosticism, that the Creator of the world, who was the God of the
Jews, was not the same as the Supreme Being, but was in antagonism to Him. They
supposed that the Scriptures were written in the interest of the Demiurge or
Creator, and that a false colouring being given to the story, the real worthies
were those who are reprobated in the sacred writings.
4153
The Cainites regarded as
saints, Cain, Korah, Dathan, the Sodomites, and even the traitor Judas.
4154
The Sethites are said to have
looked upon Seth as the same person as Christ.
4155
Carpocrates, another Gnostic,
held that our Lord was the son of Joseph and Mary, and was distinguished from
other men by nothing except moral superiority. He also taught the indifference
of actions in themselves, and maintained that they take their quality from
opinion or from legislation; he advocated community of goods and of wives,
basing his views on the doctrine of natural rights. See Mosheim, Cent. ii.
4156
Cerinthus was a native of
Judæa, and after having studied at Alexandria
established himself as a teacher in his own country. He afterwards removed to Ephesus, and there became
prominent. He held that Jesus and the Christ were not the same person; Jesus
was, he said, a real man, the son of Joseph and Mary; the Christ was an
emanation which descended upon Jesus at his baptism to reveal the Most High,
but which forsook him before the Passion. S. John in his Gospel and Epistles
combats this error. See Westcott’s Introduction to 1 John, p. xxxiv. (second
ed.) etc. Cerinthus is said to have been the heretic with whom S. John refused
to be under the same roof at the bath. To him as author is also referred the
doctrine of the Millennium.
4157
The Ebionites were mere
humanitarians. Whether Ebion ever existed, or whether the sect took its name
from the beggarliness of their doctrine, or their vow of poverty,
or the poorness of spirit which they professed, is disputed.
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