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 1 African synod in opposition to Stephen, 2 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 3 Simon Magus and his disciple Menander. They asserted themselves to be 4 powers of God. Then 5 Basilides invented the most high god Abraxas and the three hundred and sixty-five manifestations of him. Then 6 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 7 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 8 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, 9 Saturninus, and the 10 Ophites, 11 the Cainites and 12 Sethites, and 13 Carpocrates, and 14 Cerinthus, and his successor 15 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.
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. ↩
Bishop of Rome from May 12, a.d. 254, to Aug. 2, a.d. 257. See note on ch. 25. ↩
The words of 1 John iv. 3 would appear to support Jerome’s remark. ↩
Acts viii. 10 . In the Clementine Homilies and Recognitions Simon is the constant opponent of St. Peter. ↩
Commonly regarded as the chief among the Egyptian Gnostics. The Basilidian system is described by Irenaeus (101f). ↩
Acts vi. 5, Rev. ii. 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. ↩
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. ↩
The name Pharisee implies separation, but in the sense of dedication to God. ↩
Of Antioch. One of the earliest of the Gnostics (second century). ↩
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. ↩
The Cainites regarded as saints, Cain, Korah, Dathan, the Sodomites, and even the traitor Judas. ↩
The Sethites are said to have looked upon Seth as the same person as Christ. ↩
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. ↩
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. ↩
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. ↩
