4.

Such being the state of the case, what object is served by “silly women laden with sins, carried about with every wind of doctrine, ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth?” ¹ Or how is the cause helped by the men who dance attendance upon these, men with itching ears ² who know neither how to hear nor how to speak? They confound old mire with new cement and, as Ezekiel says, daub a wall with untempered mortar; so that, when the truth comes in a shower, they are brought to nought. ³ It was with the help of the harlot Helena that Simon Magus founded his sect. ⁴ Bands of women accompanied Nicolas of Antioch that deviser of all uncleanness. ⁵ Marcion sent a woman before him to Rome to prepare men’s minds to fall into his snares. ⁶ Apelles possessed in Philumena an associate in his false doctrines. ⁷ Montanus, that mouthpiece of an unclean spirit, used two rich and high born ladies Prisca and Maximilla first to bribe and then to pervert many churches. ⁸ Leaving ancient history I will pass to times nearer to our own. Arius intent on leading the world astray began by misleading the Emperor’s sister. ⁹ The resources of Lucilla helped Donatus to defile with his polluting baptism many unhappy persons throughout Africa. ¹⁰ In Spain the blind woman Agape led the blind man Elpidius into the ditch. ¹¹ He was followed by Priscillian, an enthusiastic votary of Zoroaster and a magian before he became a bishop. A woman named Galla seconded his efforts and left a gadabout sister to perpetuate a second heresy of a kindred form. ¹² Now also the mystery of iniquity is working. ¹³ Men and women in turn lay snares for each other till we cannot but recall the prophet’s words: “the partridge hath cried aloud, she hath gathered young which she hath not brought forth, she getteth riches and not by right; in the midst of her days she shall leave them, and at her end she shall be a fool.” ¹⁴