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Marcionites
Heretical sect founded in A.D. 144 at Rome by Marcion and continuing in the West for 300 years, but in the East some centuries longer, especially outside the Byzantine Empire. They rejected the writings of the Old Testament and taught that Christ was not the Son of the god of the Jews, but the Son of the good God, who was different from the god of the Ancient Covenant. They anticipated the more consistent dualism of Manichaeism and were finally absorbed by it. As they arose in the very infancy of Christianity and adopted from the beginning a strong ecclesiastical organization, parallel to that of the Catholic Church, they were perhaps the most dangerous foe Christianity has ever known. The subject will be treated under the following heads:

I. Life of Marcion;
II. Doctrine and Discipline;
III. history;
IV. Mutilation of the New Testament;
V. Anti-Marcionite Writers.
I. LIFE OF MARCION

Marcion was son of the Bishop of Sinope in Pontus, born c. A.D. 110, evidently from wealthy parents. He is described as nautes, nauclerus, a ship owner, by Rhodon and Tertullian, who wrote about a generation after his death. Epiphanius (Haeres., XLII, ii) relates that Marcion in his youth professed to lead a life of chastity and asceticism, but, in spite of his professions, fell into sin with a young maiden. In consequence his father, the bishop, cast him out of the Church. He besought his father for reconciliation, I.e. to be admitted to ecclesiastical penance, but the bishop stood firm in his refusal. Not being able to bear with the laughter and contempt of his fellow townsmen, he secretly left Sinope and traveled to Rome. The story of Marcion's sin is rejected by many modern scholars (e.g. G. Krüger) as a piece of malicious gossip of which they say Epiphanius was fond; others see in the young maiden but a metaphor for the Church, the then young bride of Christ, whom Marcion violated by his heresy, though he made great professions of bodily chastity and austerity. No accusations of impurity are brought against Marcion by earlier Church writers, and Marcion's austerity seems acknowledged as a fact. Irenaeus states that Marcion flourished under Pope Anecitus (c. 155-166) [invaluit sub Aniceto]. Though this period may mark Marcion's greatest success in Rome, it is certain that he arrived there earlier, I. c. A.D. 140 after the death of Hyginus, who died that year and apparently before the accession of Pius I. Epiphanius says that Marcion sought admittance into the Roman Church but was refused. The reason given was that they could not admit one who had been expelled by his own bishop without previous communication with that authority. The story has likewise been pointed out as extremely unlikely, implying, as it does, that the great Roman Church professed itself incompetent to override the decision of a local bishop in Pontus. It must be borne in mind, however, that Marcion arrived at Rome sede vacante, "after the death of Hyginus", and that such an answer sounds natural enough on the lips of presbyters as yet without a bishop.

Moreover, it is obvious that Marcion was already a consecrated bishop. A layman could not have disputed on Scripture with the presbyters as he did, nor have threatened shortly after his arrival: "I will divide your Church and cause within her a division, which will last forever", as Marcion is said to have done; a layman could not have founded a vast and worldwide institution, of which the main characteristic was that it was episcopalian; a layman would not have been proudly referred to for centuries by his disciples as their first bishop, a claim not disputed by any of their adversaries, though many and extensive works were written against them; a layman would not have been permanently cast out of the Church without hope of reconciliation by his own father, notwithstanding his entreaties, for a sin of fornication, nor thereafter have become an object of laughter to his heathen fellow townsmen, if we accept the story of Epiphanius. A layman would not have been disappointed that he was not made bishop shortly after his arrival in a city whose see was vacant, as Marcion is said to have been on his arrival at Rome after the death of Hyginus.

This story has been held up as the height of absurdity and so it would be, if we ignored the facts that Marcion was a bishop, and that according to Tertullian (De Praeser., xxx) he made the Roman community the gift of two hundred thousand sesterces soon after his arrival. this extraordinary gift of 1400 pounds (7000 dollars), a huge sum for those days, may be ascribed to the first fervour of faith, but is at least as naturally, ascribed to a lively hope. The money was returned to him after his breach with the Church. This again is more natural if it was made with a tacit condition, than if it was absolute and the outcome of pure charity. Lastly, the report that Marcion on his arrival at Rome had to hand in or to renew a confession of faith (Tert., "De Praeser.," xxx,; "Adv. Mar.", I, xx; "de carne Christi", ii) fits in naturally with the supposition of his being a bishop, but would be, as G. Krüger points out, unheard of in the case of a layman.

We can take it for granted then, that Marcion was a bishop, probably an assistant or suffrigan of his father at Sinope. Having fallen out with his father he travels to Rome, where, being a seafarer or shipowner and a great traveler, he already may have been known and where his wealth obtains him influence and position. If Tertullian supposes him to have been admitted to the Roman Church and Epiphanius says that he was refused admittance, the two statements can easily be reconciled if we understand the former of mere membership or communion, the latter of the acceptance of his claims. His episcopal dignity has received mention at least in two early writers, who speak of him as having "from bishop become an apostate" (Optatus of Mileve, IV, v), and of his followers as being surnamed after a bishop instead of being called Christians after Christ (Adamantius, "Dial.", I, ed. Sande Bakhuysen). Marcion is said to have asked the Roman presbyters the explanation of Matt., ix, 16, 17, which he evidently wished to understand as expressing the incompatibility of the New Testament with the Old, but which they interpreted in an orthodox sense. His final breach with the Roman Church occurred in the autumn of 144, for the Marcionites counted 115 years and 6 months from the time of Christ to the beginning of their sect. Tertullian roughly speaks of a hundred years and more. Marcion seems to have made common cause with Cerdo (q.v.), the Syrian Gnostic, who was at the time in Rome; that his doctrine was actually derived from that Gnostic seems unlikely. Irenaeus relates (Adv. Haeres., III, iii) that St. Polycarp, meeting Marcion in Rome was asked by him: Dost thou recognize us? and gave answer: I recognize thee as the first born of Satan. This meeting must have happened in 154, by which time Marcion had displayed a great and successful activity, for St. Justin Martyr in his first Apology (written about 150), describes Marcion's heresy as spread everywhere. These half a dozen years seem to many too short a time for such prodigious success and they believe that Marcion was active in Asia Minor long before he came to Rome. Clement of Alexandria (Strom., VII, vii, 106) calls him the older contemporary of Basilides and Valentinus, but if so, he must have been a middle-aged man when he came to Rome, and as previous propaganda in the East is not impossible. That the Chronicle of Edessa places the beginning of Marcionism in 138, strongly favors this view. Tertullian relates in 207 (the date of his Adv. Marc., IV, iv) that Marcion professed penitence and accepted as condition of his readmittance into the Church that he should bring back to the fold those whom he had led astray, but death prevented his carrying this out. The precise date of his death is not known.

II. DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE

We must distinguish between the doctrine of Marcion himself and that of his followers. Marcion was no Gnostic dreamer. He wanted a Christianity untrammeled and undefiled by association with Judaism. Christianity was the New Covenant pure and simple. Abstract questions on the origin of evil or on the essence of the Godhead interested him little, but the Old Testament was a scandal to the faithful and a stumbling-block to the refined and intellectual gentiles by its crudity and cruelty, and the Old Testament had to be set aside. The two great obstacles in his way he removed by drastic measures. He had to account for the existence of the Old Testament and he accounted for it by postulating a secondary deity, a demiurgus, who was god, in a sense, but not the supreme God; he was just, rigidly just, he had his good qualities, but he was not the good god, who was Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ. The metaphysical relation between these two gods troubled Marcion little; of divine emanation, aeons, syzygies, eternally opposed principles of good and evil, he knows nothing. He may be almost a Manichee in practice, but in theory he has not reached absolute consistency as Mani did a hundred years later. Marcion had secondly to account for those passages in the New Testament which countenanced the Old. He resolutely cut out all texts that were contrary to his dogma; in fact, he created his own New Testament admitting but one gospel, a mutilation of St. Luke, and an Apostolicon containing ten epistles of St. Paul. The mantle of St. Paul had fallen on the shoulders of Marcion in his struggle with the Judaisers. The Catholics of his day were nothing but the Judaisers of the previous century. The pure Pauline Gospel had become corrupted and Marcion, not obscurely, hinted that even the pillar Apostles, Peter, James, and John had betrayed their trust. He loves to speak of "false apostles", and lets his hearers infer who they were. Once the Old Testament has been completely got rid of, Marcion has no further desire for change. He makes his purely New Testament Church as like the Catholic Church as possible, consistent with his deep seated Puritanism. The first description of Marcion's doctrine dates from St. Justin: "With the help of the devil Marcion has in every country contributed to blasphemy and the refusal to acknowledge the Creator of all the world as God". He recognizes another god, who, because he is essentially greater (than the World maker or Demiurge) has done greater deeds than he (hos onta meizona ta meizona para touton pepikeni) The supreme God is hagathos, just and righteous. The good God is all love, the inferior god gives way to fierce anger. Though less than the good god, yet the just god, as world creator, has his independent sphere of activity. They are not opposed as Ormusz and Ahriman, though the good God interferes in favour of men, for he alone is all-wise and all-powerful and loves mercy more than punishment. All men are indeed created by the Demiurge, but by special choice he elected the Jewish people as his own and thus became the god of the Jews.

His theological outlook is limited to the Bible, his struggle with the catholic Church seems a battle with texts and nothing more. The Old Testament is true enough, Moses and the Prophets are messengers of the Demiurge, the Jewish Messias is sure to come and found a millennial kingdom for the Jews on earth, but the Jewish messias has nothing whatever to do with the Christ of God. The Invisible, Indescribable, Good God (aoratos akatanomastos agathos theos), formerly unknown to the creator as well as to his creatures, has revealed Himself in Christ. How far Marcion admitted a Trinity of persons in the supreme Godhead is not known; Christ is indeed the Son of God, but he is also simply "God" without further qualification; in fact, Marcion's gospel began with the words; "In the fifteenth year of the Emperor Tiberius God descended in Capharnaum and taught on the Sabbaths". However daring and capricious this manipulation of the Gospel text, it is at least a splendid testimony that, in Christian circles of the first half of the second century the Divinity of Christ was a central dogma. To Marcion however Christ was God Manifest not God Incarnate. His Christology is that of the Docetae (q.v.) rejecting the inspired history of the Infancy, in fact, any childhood of Christ at all; Marcion's Savior is a "Deus ex machina" of which Tertullian mockingly says: " Suddenly a Son, suddenly Sent, suddenly Christ!" Marcion admitted no prophecy of the Coming of Christ whatever; the Jewish prophets foretold a Jewish Messias only, and this Messias had not yet appeared. Marcion used the story of the three angels, who ate, walked, and conversed with Abraham and yet had no real human body, as an illustration of the life of Christ (Adv. Marc., III, ix). Tertullian says (ibid.) that when Apelles and seceders from Marcion began to believe that Christ had a real body indeed, not by birth but rather collected from the elements, Marcion would prefer to accept even a putative birth rather than a real body. Whether this is Tertullian's mockery or a real change in Marcion's sentiments we do not know. To Marcion matter and flesh are not indeed essentially evil, but are contemptible things, a mere production of the Demiurge, and it was inconceivable that God should really have made them His own. Christ's life on earth was a continual contrast to the conduct of the Demiurge. Some of the contrasts are cleverly staged: the Demiurge sent bears to devour children for puerile merriment (Kings)-- Christ bade children come to Him and He fondled and blessed them; the Demiurge in his law declared lepers unclean and banished them -- but Christ touched and healed them. Christ's putative passion and death was the work of the Demiurge, who, in revenge for Christ's abolition of the Jewish law delivered Him up to hell. But even in hell Christ overcame the Demiurge by preaching to the spirits in Limbo, and by His Resurrection He founded the true Kingdom of the Good God. Epiphanius (Haer., xlii, 4) says that Marcionites believed that in Limbo Christ brought salvation to Cain, Core, Dathan and Abiron, Esau, and the Gentiles, but left in damnation all Old Testament saints. This may have been held by some Marcionites in the fourth century, but it was not the teaching of Marcion himself, who had no Antinomian tendencies. Marcion denied the resurrection of the body, "for flesh and blood shall not inherit the Kingdom of God", and denied the second coming of Christ to judge the living and the dead, for the good God, being all goodness, does not punish those who reject Him; He simply leaves them to the Demiurge, who will cast them into everlasting fire.

With regard to discipline, the main point of difference consists in his rejection of marriage, i.e. he baptized only those who were not living in matrimony: virgins, widows, celibates, and eunuchs (Tert., "Adv. Marc.", I, xxix); all others remained catechumens. On the other hand the absence of division between catechumens and baptized persons, in Marcionite worship, shocked orthodox Christians, but it was emphatically defended by Marcion's appeal to Gal., vi, 6. According to Tertullian (Adv. Marc., I, xiv) he used water in baptism, anointed his faithful with oil and gave milk and honey to the catechumens and in so far retained the orthodox practices, although, says Tertullian, all these things are "beggarly elements of the Creator." Marcionites must have been excessive fasters to provoke the ridicule of Tertullian in his Montanist days. Epiphanius says they fasted on Saturday out of a spirit of opposition to the Jewish God, who made the Sabbath a day of rejoicing. This however may have been merely a western custom adopted by them.

III. HISTORY

It was the fate of Marcionism to drift away almost immediately from its founder's ideas towards mere Gnosticism. Marcion's creator or Jewish god was too inconsistent and illogical a conception, he was inferior to the good God yet he was independent; he was just and yet not good; his writings were true and yet to be discarded; he had created all men and done them no evil, yet they had not to worship and serve him. Marcion's followers sought to be more logical, they postulated three principles: good, just, and wicked, opposing the first two to the last; or one principle only, the just god being a mere creation of the good God. The first opinion was maintained by Syneros and Lucanus or Lucianus. Of the first we know nothing beyond the mention of him in Rhodon; of the second we possess more information, and Epiphanius has devoted a whole chapter to his refutation.. Both Origen and Epiphanius, however, seem to know of Lucanus' sect only by hearsay; it was therefore probably extinct toward the end of the third century. Tertullian (De Resur., Carn., ii) says that he outdid even Marcion in denying the resurrection, not only of the body, but also of the soul, only admitting the resurrection of some tertium quid (pneuma as opposed to psyche?). Tertullian says that he had Lucanus' teaching in view when writing his "De Anima". It is possible that Lucanus taught transmigration of souls; according to Epiphanius some Marcionites of his day maintained it. Though Lucanus' particular sect may soon have died out, the doctrine comprised in the three principles was long maintained by Marcionites. In St. Hippolytus' time (c. 225) it was held by an Assyrian called Prepon, who wrote in defense of it a work called "Bardesanes the Armenian" (Hipp., "Adv. Haer.", VII, xxxi). Adamantius in his "Dialogue" (see below) introduces a probable fictitious Marcionite doctrine of three principles, and Epiphanius evidently puts it forward as the prominent Marcionite doctrine of his day (374). The doctrine of the One Principle only, of which the Jewish god is a creature, was maintained by the notorious Apelles, who, though once a disciple of Marcion himself, became more of a Gnostic than of a Marcionist. He was accompanied by a girl called Philumena, a sort of clairvoyante who dabbled in magic, and who claimed frequent visions of Christ and St. Paul, appearing under the form of a boy. Tertullian calls this Philumena a prostitute, and accuses Apelles of unchastity, but Rhodon, who had known Apelles personally, refers to him as "venerable in behavior and age". Tertullian often attacks him in writings ("De Praeser.," lxvii; "Adv. Marc.," III, g. 11, IV, 17) and even wrote a work against him: "Adversus Apelleiacos", which is unfortunately lost, though once known to St. Hippolytus and St. Augustine. Some fragments of Apelles have been collected by A. Harnack (first in "Texte u. Unters.", VI, 3, 1890, and then ibid., XX, or new ser., V, 3, 1900), who wrote, "De Apelles Gnosi Monarchica" (Leipzig, 1874), though Apelles emphatically repudiated Marcion's two gods and acknowledged "One good God, one Beginning, and one Power beyond all description" (akatanomastos).

This "Holy and Good God above", according to him, took no notice of things below, but made another god who made the world. Nor is this creator-god the only emanation of the Supreme God; there is a fire-angel or fire-god ("Igneus Praeses mali" according to Tertullian, "De Carne", viii) who tampered with the souls of men; there is a Jewish god, a law-god, who presumably wrote the Old Testament, which Apelles held to be a lying production. Possibly, however, the fire-god and the law-god were but manifestations of the creator-god. Apelles wrote an extensive work called Syllogismoi to prove the untrustworthiness of the Old Testament, of which Origen quotes a characteristic fragment (In Gen., II, ii). Apelles' Antidocetism has been referred to above. Of other followers of Marcion the names only are known. The Marcionites differed from the Gnostic Christians in that they thought it unlawful to deny their religion in times of persecution, nobly vying with the Catholics in shedding their blood for the name of Christ. Marcionite martyrs are not infrequently referred to in Eusebius' "Church History" (IV, xv, xlvi; V, xvi, xxi; VII, xii). Their number and influence seem always to have been less in the West than in the East, and in the West they soon died out. Epiphanius, however, testifies that in the East in A.D. 374 they had deceived " a vast number of men" and were found, "not only in Rome and Italy but in Egypt, Palestine, Arabia, Syria, Cyprus and the Thebaid and even in Persia". And Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrus in the Province of the Euphrates from 423 to 458, in his letter to Domno, the Patriarch of Antioch, refers with just pride to having converted one thousand Marcionites in his scattered diocese. Not far from Theodoret's diocese, near Damascus, and inscription was found of a Marcionite church, showing that in A.D. 318-319 Marcionites possessed freedom of worship (Le Boss and Waddington, "Inscr. Grec.", Paris, 1870). Constantine (Eusebius, "Vita", III, lxiv) forbade all public and private worship of Marcionism. Th ough the Paulicians are always designated by their adversaries as Manichaeans, and though their adoption of Manichaean principles seems undeniable, yet, according to Petrus Siculus, who lived amongst Paulicians (868-869) in Tibrike and is therefore a trustworthy witness, their founder, Constantine the Armenian, on receiving Marcion's Gospel and Apostolicon from a deacon in Syria, handed it to his followers, who at first at least kept it as their Bible and repudiated all writings of Mani. The refutation of Marcionism by the Armenian Archpriest Eznic in the fifth century shows the Marcionites to have been still numerous in Armenia at that time (Eznik, "Refutation of the Sects", IV, Ger. tr., J. M. Schmid, Vienna, 1900). Ermoni maintains that Eznik's description of Marcion's doctrine still represents the ancient form thereof, but this is not acknowledged by other scholars ("Marcion dans la littérat. Arménienne" in "Revue de l'Or. Chrét.", I)

IV. MUTILATION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

Marcion's name appears prominently in the discussion of two important questions, that of the Apostle's Creed, and that of the Canon of the New Testament. It is maintained by recent scholars that the Apostle's Creed was drawn up in the Roman Church in opposition to Marcionism (cf. F. Kattenbusch, "Das Apost. Symbol.", Leipzig, 1900; A.C. McGiffert, "The Apostle's Creed", New York, 1902). Passing over this point, Marcion's attitude toward the New Testament must be further explained. His cardinal doctrine was the opposition of the Old Testament to the New, and this doctrine he had amply illustrated in his great (lost) work, Antithesis, or "Contrasts". In order, however, to make the contrast perfect he had to omit much of the New Testament writings and to manipulate the rest. He took one Gospel out of the four, and accepted only ten Epistles of St. Paul. Marcion's Gospel was based on our canonical St. Luke with omission of the first two chapters. The text has been as far as possible restored by Th. Zahn, "Geschichte d. N.T. Kanons", II, 456-494, from all available sources especially Epiphanius, who made a collection of 78 passages. Marcion's changes mainly consist in omissions where he modifies the text. The modifications are slight thus: "I give Thee thanks, Father, God of heaven and earth,"is changed to "I give thanks, Father, Lord of heaven". "O foolish and hard of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken", is changed into, "O foolish and hard of heart to believe in all that I have told you." Sometimes slight additions are made: "We found this one subverting our nation" (the accusation of the Jews before Pilate) receives the addition: "and destroying the law and the prophets." A similar process was followed with the Epistle of St. Paul. By the omission of a single preposition Marcion had coined a text in favor of his doctrine out of Ephes., iii, 10: "the mystery which from the beginning of the world has been hidden from the God who created all things" (omitting en before theo). However cleverly the changes were made, Catholics continued to press Marcion even with the texts which he retained in his New Testament, hence the continual need of further modifications. The Epistles of St. Paul which he received were, first of all, Galatians, which he considered the charter of Marcionism, then Corinthians I and II, Romans I and II, Thessalonians, Ephesians (which, however, he knew under the name of Laodicians), Collosians, Phillipians and Philemon. The Pastoral epistles, the Catholic Epistles, Hebrews, and the Apocalypse, as well as Acts, were excluded. Recently De Bruyne ("Revue Benedictine", 1907, 1-16) has made out a good case for the supposition that the short prefaces to the Pauline epistles, which were once attributed to Pelagius and others, are taken out of as Marcionite Bible and augmented with Catholic headings for the missing epistles.

V. ANTI-MARCIONITE WRITERS

(1) St. Justin the Martyr (150) refers to the Marcionites in his first Apology; he also wrote a special treatise against them. This, however, mentioned by Ireneaus as Syntagma pros Markiona, is lost. Irenaeus (Haer., IV, vi, 2) quotes short passages of Justin containing the sentence: "I would not have believed the Lord Himself if He had announced any other than the Creator"; also, V, 26, 2.

(2) Irenaeus (c. 176) intended to write a special work in refutation of Marcion, but never carried out his purpose (Haer., I, 27, 4; III, 12, 13); he refers to Marcion, however, again and again in his great work against Heresies especially III, 4, 2; III, 27, 2; IV, 38, 2 sq.; III, 11, 7, 25, 3.

(3) Rhodon (180-192) wrote a treatise against Marcion, dedicated to Callistion. It is no longer extant, but is referred to by Eusebius (H. E. V, 13) who gives some extracts.

(4) Tertullian, the main source of our information, wrote his "Adversus Marcionem" (five books) in 207, and makes reference to Marcion in several of his works: "De Praescriptione", "De Carne Christi", "De Resurrectione Carnis", and "De Anima". His work against Apelles is lost.

(5) Pseudo Tertullian, (possibly Commodian. See H. Waitz, "Ps. Tert. Gedicht ad M.", Darmstadt, 1901) wrote a lengthy poem against Marcion in doggerel hexameters, which is now valuable. Pseudo Tertullian's (possibly Victorinus of Pettau) short treatise against all heresies (c. A.D. 240) is also extant.

(6) Adamantius -- whether this is a real personage or only a nom de plume is uncertain. His dialogue "De Recta in Deum Fide", has often been ascribed to Origen, but it is beyond doubt that he is not the author. The work was probably composed about A.D. 300. It was originally written in Greek and translated by Rufinus. It is a refutation of Marcionism and Valentinianism. The first half is directed against Marcionism, which is defended by Megethius (who maintains three principles) and Marcus (who defends two). (Berlin ed. of the Fathers by Sande Bakhuysen, Leipzig, 1901).

(7) St. Hippolytus of Rome (c. 220) speaks of Marcion in his "Refutation of All Heresies", book VII, ch. 17-26; and X, 15)

(8) St. Epiphanius wrote his work against heresies in 374, and is the second main source of information in his Ch. xlii-xliv). He is invaluable for the reconstruction of Marcion's Bible text, as he gives 78 and 40 passages from Marcion's New Testament where it differs form ours and adds a short refutation in each instance.

(9) St. Ephraem (373) maintains in many of his writings a polemic against Marcion, as in his "Commentary on the Diatesseron" (J.R. Harris, "Fragments of Com. on Diates.", London, 1895) and in his "Metrical Sermons" (Roman ed., Vol II, 437-560, and Overbeek's Ephraem etc., Opera Selecta).

(10) Eznik, an Armenian Archpriest, or possibly Bishop of Bagrawand (478) wrote a "Refutation of the Sects", of which Book IV is a refutation of Marcion. Translated into German, J.M. Schmid, Vienna, 1900.

Meyboom. Marcion en de Marcioneten (Leyden, 1888); Idem, Het Christendom der tweede Eeuw (Groningen, 1897); Krueger, extensive article in Hauck, Real Encyclop. der Prot. Theol., XII, 1903; s.v.; Harnack, Gescichte der altchrist Lit., I, 191-197, 839-840; Texte und untersuchung, VI, 3 pp., 109-120; XX, 3, pp. 93-100 (1900); 2nd II, 2, 537; Bardenhewer, Gesch. der altkirchl. lit. II (1902); Zahn, Geschichte des N.T. Kanons, I and II (1888); Das Apost. Symbol. (Leipzig, 1893); Hilgenfeld, Ketzergeschichte des Ur-Christenhums (Leipzig, 1884).

J.P. ARENDZEN
Transcribed by Tom Crossett

http://newadvent.org/cathen/15256a.htm

Valentinus, the best known and most influential of the Gnostic heretics, was born according to Epiphanius (Haer., XXXI) on the coast of Egypt. He was trained in Hellenistic science in Alexandria. Like many other heretical teachers he went to Rome the better, perhaps to disseminate his views. He arrived there during the pontificate of Hyginus and remained until the pontificate of Anicetus. During a sojourn of perhaps fifteen years, though he had in the beginning allied himself with the orthodox community in Rome, he was guilty of attempting to establish his heretical system. His errors led to his excommunication, after which he repaired to Cyprus where he resumed his activities as a teacher and where he died probably about 160 or 161. Valentinus professed to have derived his ideas from Theodas or Theudas, a disciple of St. Paul, but his system is obviously an attempt to amalgamate Greek and Oriental speculations of the most fantastic kind with Christian ideas. He was especially indebted to Plato. From him was derived the parallel between the ideal world (the pleroma) and the lower world of phenomena (the kenoma). Valentinus drew freely on some books of the New Testament, but used a strange system of interpretation by which the sacred authors were made responsible for his own cosmological and pantheistic views. In working out his system he was thoroughly dominated by dualistic fancies.

He assumed, as the beginning of all things, the Primal Being or Bythos, who after ages of silence and contemplation, gave rise to other beings by a process of emanation. The first series of beings, the aeons, were thirty in number, representing fifteen syzygies or pairs sexually complementary. Through the weakness and sin of Sophia, one of the lowest aeons, the lower world with its sujection to matter is brought into existence. Man, the highest being in the lower world, participates in both the psychic and the hylic (material) nature, and the work of redemption consists in freeing the higher, the spiritual, from its servitude to the lower. This was the word and mission of Christ and the Holy Spirit. The Christology of Valentinus is confusing in the extreme. He seems to have maintained the existence of three redeeming beings, but Christ the Son of Mary did not have a real body and did not suffer. The system of Valentinus was extremely comprehensive, and was worked out to cover all phases of thought and action. While Valentinus was alive he made many disciples, and his system was the most widely diffused of all the forms of Gnosticism. His school was divided into two branches, the Oriental and the Italian. The former was spread through Egypt, Syria, and Asia Minor, the latter in Rome, Italy, and Southern Gaul. Among the more prominent disciples of Valentinus, who, however, did not slavishly follow their master in all his views, were Heracleon, Ptolemy, Marcos, and Bardesanes. Many of the writings of these Gnostics, and a large number of excerpts from the writings of Valentinus, are still in existence. Tertullian ascribes to him the apocryphal Gospel of Valentinus, which, according to Irenaeus, was the same as the "Gospel of Truth".

http://newadvent.org/cathen/10521a.htm

Schismatics of the second century, first known as Phrygians, or "those among the Phrygians" (oi kata Phrygas), then as Montanists, Pepuzians, and (in the West) Cataphrygians. The sect was founded by a prophet, Montanus, and two prophetesses, Maximilla and Prisca, sometimes called Priscilla.

CHRONOLOGY

An anonymous anti-Montanist writer, cited by Eusebius, addressed his work to Abercius Marcellus, Bishop of Hieropolis, who died about 200. Maximilla had prophesied continual wars and troubles, but this writer declared that he wrote more than thirteen years after her death, yet no war, general or partial, had taken place, but on the contrary the Christians enjoyed permanent peace through the mercy of God (Eusebius, "Hist. eccl.", V, xvi, 19). These thirteen years can be identified only with the twelve and a half years of Commodus (17 March, 180--31 December, 192). The wars between rival emperors began early in 193, so that this anonymous author wrote not much later than January, 193, and Maximilla must have died about the end of 179, not long before Marcus Aurelius. Montanus and Priscilla had died yet earlier. Consequently the date given by Eusebius in his "Chronicle"--eleventh (or twelfth) year of Marcus, i.e. about 172--for the first appearance of Montanus leaves insufficient time for the development of the sect, which we know further to have been of great importance in 177, when the Church of Lyons wrote to Pope Eleutherius on the subject. Again, the Montanists are co-ordinated with the martyr Thraseas, mentioned chronologically between Polycarp (155) and Sagaris (under Sergius Paulus, 166-7) in the letter of Polycrates to Pope Victor; the date of Thraseas is therefore about 160, and the origin of Montanism must be yet earlier. Consequently, Zahn, Harnack, Duchesne, and others (against Völter and Voigt, who accept the late date given by Eusebius, regard St. Epiphanius (Hær., xlviii, 1) as giving the true date of the rise of the sect, "about the nineteenth year of Antoninus Pius" (that is, about the year 156 or 157).

Bonwetsch, accepting Zahn's view that previously (Hær., xlvi, 1) Epiphanius had given the twelfth year of Antoninus Pius where he should have said M. Aurelius, wishes similarly to substitute that emperor here, so that we would get 179, the very date of the death of Maximilla. But the emendation is unnecessary in either case. In "Hæreses", xlvi, 1, Epiphanius clearly meant the earlier date, whether right or wrong; and in xlviii, 1, he is not dating the death of Maximilla but the first appearance of the sect. From Eusebius, V, xvi, 7, we learn that this was in the proconsulship of Gratus. Such a proconsul of Asia is not known. Bonwetsch accepts Zahn's suggestion to read "Quadratus", and points out that there was a Quadratus in 155 (if that is the year of Polycarp's death, which was under Quadratus), and another in 166, so that one of these years was the real date of the birth of Montanism. But 166 for Quadratus merely depends on Schmid's chronology of Aristides, which has been rejected by Ramsay and others in favor of the earlier chronology worked out by Waddington, who obtained 155 for the Quadratus of Aristides as well as for the Quadratus of Polycarp. Now it is most probable that Epiphanius's authority counted the years of emperors from the September preceding their accession (as Hegesippus seems to have done), and therefore the nineteenth year of Pius would be Sept., 155-Sept., 156. Even if the later and Western mode of reckoning from the January after accession is used, the year 157 can be reconciled with the proconsulship of Quadratus in 155, if we remember that Epiphanius merely says "about the nineteenth year of Pius", without vouching for strict accuracy. He tells us further on that Maximilla prophesied: "After me there shall be no prophetess, but the end", whereas he was writing after 290 years, more or less, in the year 375 or 376. To correct the evident error Harnack would read 190, which brings us roughly to the death of Maximilla (385 for 379). But ekaton for diakosia is a big change. It is more likely that Epiphanius is calculating from the date he had himself given, 19th of Pius=156, as he did not know that of Maximilla's death; his "more or less" corresponds to his former "about". So we shall with Zahn adopt Scaliger's conjecture diakosia enneakaideka for diakosia enenekonta, which brings us from 156 to 375!9 years. As Apollonius wrote forty years after the sect emerged, his work must be dated about 196.

MONTANISM IN ASIA MINOR

Montanus was a recent convert when he first began to prophesy in the village of Ardabau in Phrygia. He is said by Jerome to have been previously a priest of Cybele; but this is perhaps a later invention intended to connect his ecstasies with the dervish-like behavior of the priests and devotees of the "great goddess". The same prophetic gift was believed to have descended also upon his two companions, the prophetesses Maximilla and Prisca or Priscilla. Their headquarters were in the village of Pepuza. The anonymous opponent of the sect describes the method of prophecy (Eusebius, V, xvii, 2-3): first the prophet appears distraught with terror (en parekstasei), then follows quiet (adeia kai aphobia, fearlessness); beginning by studied vacancy of thought or passivity of intellect (ekousios amathia), he is seized by an uncontrollable madness (akousios mania psyches). The prophets did not speak as messengers of God: "Thus saith the Lord," but described themselves as possessed by God and spoke in His Person. "I am the Father, the Word, and the Paraclete," said Montanus (Didymus, "De Trin.", III, xli); and again: "I am the Lord God omnipotent, who have descended into to man", and "neither an angel, nor an ambassador, but I, the Lord, the Father, am come" (Epiphanius, "Hær.", xlviii, 11). And Maximilla said: "Hear not me, but hear Christ" (ibid.); and: "I am driven off from among the sheep like a wolf [that is, a false prophet--cf. Matt., vii, 15]; I am not a wolf, but I am speech, and spirit, and power." This possession by a spirit, which spoke while the prophet was incapable of resisting, is described by the spirit of Montanus: "Behold the man is like a lyre, and I dart like the plectrum. The man sleeps, and I am awake" (Epiphanius, "Hær.", xlviii, 4).

We hear of no false doctrines at first. The Paraclete ordered a few fasts and abstinences; the latter were strict xerophagioe, but only for two weeks in the year, and even then the Saturdays and Sundays did not count (Tertullian, "De jej.", xv). Not only was virginity strongly recommended (as always by the Church), but second marriages were disapproved. Chastity was declared by Priscilla to be a preparation for ecstasy: "The holy [chaste] minister knows how to minister holiness. For those who purify their hearts [reading purificantes enim corda, by conjecture for purificantia enim concordal] both see visions, and placing their head downwards (!) also hear manifest voices, as saving as they are secret" (Tertullian, "Exhort." X, in one MS.). It was rumored, however, that Priscilla had been married, and had left her husband. Martyrdom was valued so highly that flight from persecution was disapproved, and so was the buying off of punishment. "You are made an outlaw?" said Montanus, "it is good for you. For he who is not outlawed among men is outlawed in the Lord. Be not confounded. It is justice which hales you in public. Why are you confounded, when you are sowing praise? Power comes, when you are stared at by men." And again: "Do not desire to depart this life in beds, in miscarriages, in soft fevers, but in martyrdoms, that He who suffered for you may be glorified" (Tertullian, "De fuga", ix; cf. "De anima", lv). Tertullian says: "Those who receive the Paraclete, know neither to flee persecution nor to bribe" (De fuga, 14), but he is unable to cite any formal prohibition by Montanus.

So far, the most that can be said of these didactic utterances is that there was a slight tendency to extravagance. The people of Phrygia were accustomed to the orgiastic cult of Cybele. There were doubtless many Christians there. The contemporary accounts of Montanism mention Christians in otherwise unknown villages: Ardabau on the Mysian border, Pepuza, Tymion, as well as in Otrus, Apamea, Cumane, Eumenea. Early Christian inscriptions have been found at Otrus, Hieropolis, Pepuza (of 260), Trajanopolis (of 279), Eumenea (of 249) etc. (see Harnack, "Expansion of Christianity", II, 360). There was a council at Synnada in the third century. The "Acta Theodoti" represent the village of Malus near Ancyra as entirely Christian under Diocletian. Above all we must remember what crowds of Christians were found in Pontus and Bithynia by Pliny in 112, not only in the cities but in country places. No doubt, therefore, there were numerous Christians in the Phrygian villages to be drawn by the astounding phenomena. Crowds came to Pepuza, it seems, and contradiction was provoked. In the very first days Apollinarius, a successor of St. Papias as Bishop of Hierapolis in the southwestern corner of the province, wrote against Montanus. Eusebius knew this letter from its being enclosed by Serapion of Antioch (about 191-212) in a letter addressed by him to the Christians of Caria and Pontus. Apollinarius related that Ælius Publius Julius of Debeltum (now Burgas) in Thrace, swore that "Sotas the blessed who was in Anchialus [on the Thracian coast] had wished to cast out the demon from Priscilla; but the hypocrites would not allow it." Clearly Sotas was dead, and could not speak for himself. The anonymous writer tells us that some thought Montanus to be possessed by an evil spirit, and a troubler of the people; they rebuked him and tried to stop his prophesying; the faithful of Asia assembled in many places, and examining the prophecies declared them profane, and condemned the heresy, so that the disciples were thrust out of the Church and its communion.

It is difficult to say how soon this excommunication took place in Asia. Probably from the beginning some bishops excluded the followers of Montanus, and this severity was growing common before the death of Montanus; but it was hardly a general rule much before the death of Maximilla in 179; condemnation of the prophets themselves, and mere disapproval of their disciples was the first stage. We hear of holy persons, including the bishops Zoticus of Cumana and Julian of Apamea, attempting to exorcise Maximilla at Pepuza, doubtless after the death of Montanus. But Themison prevented them (Eusebius, V, xvi, 17; xviii, 12). This personage was called a confessor but, according to the anonymous writer, he had bought himself off. He published "a catholic epistle, in imitation of the Apostle", in support of his party. Another so- called martyr, called Alexander, was for many years a companion of Maximilla, who, though a prophetess, did not know that it was for robbery, and not "for the Name", that he had been condemned by the proconsul Æmilius Frontinus (date unknown) in Ephesus; in proof of this the public archives of Asia are appealed to. Of another leader, Alcibiades, nothing is known. The prophets are accused of taking gifts under the guise of offerings; Montanus sent out salaried preachers; the prophetesses painted their faces, dyed their eyelids with stibium, wore ornaments and played at dice. But these accusations may be untrue. The great point was the manner of prophesying. It was denounced as contrary to custom and to tradition. A Catholic writer, Miltiades, wrote a book to which the anonymous author refers, "How a prophet ought not to speak in ecstasy". It was urged that the phenomena were those of possession, not those of the Old Testament prophets, or of New Testament prophets like Silas, Agabus, and the daughters of Philip the Deacon; or of prophets recently known in Asia, Quadratus (Bishop of Athens) and Ammia, prophetess of Philadelphia, of whom the Montanist prophets boasted of being successors. To speak in the first person as the Father or the Paraclete appeared blasphemous. The older prophets had spoken "in the Spirit", as mouthpieces of the Spirit, but to have no free will, to be helpless in a state of madness, was not consonant with the text: "The spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets." Montanus declared: "The Lord hath sent me as the chooser, the revealer, the interpreter of this labor, this promise, and this covenant, being forced, willingly or unwillingly, to learn the gnosis of God." The Montanists appealed to Gen., ii, 21: "The Lord sent an ecstasy [ektasin] upon Adam"; Ps. cxv, 2: "I said in my ecstasy"; Acts, x, 10: "There came upon him [Peter] an ecstasy"; but these texts proved neither that an ecstasy of excitement was proper to sanctity, nor that it was a right state in which to prophesy.

A better argument was the declaration that the new prophecy was of a higher order than the old, and therefore unlike it. It came to be thought higher than the Apostles, and even beyond the teaching of Christ. Priscilla went to sleep, she said, at Pepuza, and Christ came to her and slept by her side "in the form of a woman, clad in a bright garment, and put wisdom into me, and revealed to me that this place is holy, and that here Jerusalem above comes down". "Mysteries" (sacraments?) were celebrated there publicly. In Epiphanius's time Pepuza was a desert, and the village was gone. Marcellina, surviving the other two, prophesied continual wars after her death--no other prophet, but the end.

It seems on the whole that Montanus had no particular doctrine, and that his prophetesses went further than he did. The extravagances of his sect were after the deaths of all three; but it is difficult to know how far we are to trust our authorities. The anonymous writer admits that he has only an uncertain report for the story that Montanus and Maximilla both hanged themselves, and that Themison was carried into the air by a devil, flung down, and so died. The sect gained much popularity in Asia. It would seem that some Churches were wholly Montanist. The anonymous writer found the Church at Ancyra in 193 greatly disturbed about the new prophecy. Tertullian's lost writing "De Ecstasi", in defense of their trances, is said by Prædestinatus to have been an answer to Pope Soter (Hær., xxvi, lxxxvi), who had condemned or disapproved them; but the authority is not a good one. He has presumably confounded Soter with Sotas, Bishop of Anchialus. In 177 the Churches of Lyons and Vienne sent to the Churches of Asia and Phrygia their celebrated account of the martyrdoms that had been taking place. Eusebius tells us that at the same time they enclosed letters which had been written in prison by the martyrs on the question of the Montanists. They sent the same by Irenæus to Pope Eleutherius. Eusebius says only that they took a prudent and most orthodox view. It is probable that they disapproved of the prophets, but were not inclined to extreme measures against their followers. It was not denied that the Montanists could count many martyrs; it was replied to their boast, that all the heretics had many, and especially the Marcionites, but that true martyrs like Gaius and Alexander of Eumenea had refused to communicate with fellow martyrs who had approved the new prophecy (Anon. in Eusebius, V, xvi, 27). The acts of Carpus, Papylus, and Agathonice (the last of these threw herself into the fire), martyrs of Thyatira under Marcus Aurelius (about 161-9), may exhibit an influence of Montanism on the martyrs.

MONTANISM IN THE WEST

A second-century pope (more probably Eleutherius than Victor) was inclined to approve the new prophecies, according to Tertullian, but was dissuaded by Praxeas (q.v.). Their defender in Rome was Proclus or Proculus, much reverenced by Tertullian. A disputation was held by Gaius against him in the presence of Pope Zephyrinus (about 202-3, it would seem). As Gaius supported the side of the Church, Eusebius calls him a Churchman (II, xxv, 6), and is delighted to find in the minutes of the discussion that Gaius rejected the Johannine authorship of the Apocalypse, and attributed it to Cerinthus. But Gaius was the worse of the two, for we know from the commentary on the Apocalypse by Bar Salibi, a Syriac writer of the twelfth century (see Theodore H. Robinson in "Expositor", VII, sixth series, June, 1906), that he rejected the Gospel and Epistles of St. John as well, and attributed them all to Cerinthus. It was against Gaius that Hippolytus wrote his "Heads against Gaius" and also his "Defense of the Gospel and the Apocalypse of John" (unless these are two names for the same work). St. Epiphanius used these works for his fifty-first heresy (cf. Philastrius, "Hær." lx), and as the heresy had no name he invented that of Alogoi, meaning at once "the unreasoning" and "those who reject the Logos". We gather that Gaius was led to reject the Gospel out of opposition to Proclus, who taught (Pseudo-Tertullian, "De Præsc.", lii) that "the Holy Ghost was in the Apostles, but the Paraclete was not, and that the Paraclete published through Montanus more than Christ revealed in the Gospel, and not only more, but also better and greater things"; thus the promise of the Paraclete (John, xiv, 16) was not to the Apostles but to the next age. St. Irenæus refers to Gaius without naming him (III, xi, 9): "Others, in order that they may frustrate the gift of the Spirit, which in the last days has been poured upon the human race according to the good pleasure of the Father, do not admit that form [lion] which corresponds with the Gospel of John in which the Lord promised to send the Paraclete; but they reject the Gospel and with it the prophetic Spirit. Unhappy, indeed, in that, wishing to have no false prophets [reading with Zahn pseudoprophetas esse nolunt for pseudoprophetoe esse volunt], they drive away the grace of prophecy from the Church; resembling persons who, to avoid those who come in hypocrisy, withdraw from communion even with brethren." The old notion that the Alogi were an Asiatic sect (see ALOGI) is no longer tenable; they were the Roman Gaius and his followers, if he had any. But Gaius evidently did not venture to reject the Gospel in his dispute before Zephyrinus, the account of which was known to Dionysius of Alexandria as well as to Eusebius (cf. Eusebius, III, xx, 1, 4). It is to be noted that Gaius is a witness to the sojourn of St. John in Asia, since he considers the Johannine writings to be forgeries, attributed by their author Cerinthus to St. John; hence he thinks St. John is represented by Cerinthus as the ruler of the Asiatic Churches. Another Montanist (about 200), who seems to have separated from Proclus, was Æschines, who taught that "the Father is the Son", and is counted as a Monarchian of the type of Noetus or Sabellius.

But Tertullian (q.v.) is the most famous of the Montanists. He was born about 150-5, and became a Christian about 190-5. His excessive nature led him to adopt the Montanist teaching as soon as he knew it (about 202-3). His writings from this date onwards grow more and more bitter against the Catholic Church, from which he definitively broke away about 207. He died about 223, or not much later. His first Montanist work was a defense of the new prophecy in six books, "De Ecstasi", written probably in Greek; he added a seventh book in reply to Apollonius. The work is lost, but a sentence preserved by Prædestinatus (xxvi) is important: "In this alone we differ, in that we do not receive second marriage, and that we do not refuse the prophecy of Montanus concerning the future judgment." In fact Tertullian holds as an absolute law the recommendations of Montanus to eschew second marriages and flight from persecution. He denies the possibility of forgiveness of sins by the Church; he insists upon the newly ordained fasts and abstinences. Catholics are the Psychici as opposed to the "spiritual" followers of the Paraclete; the Catholic Church consists of gluttons and adulterers, who hate to fast and love to remarry. Tertullian evidently exaggerated those parts of the Montanist teaching which appealed to himself, caring little for the rest. He has no idea of making a pilgrimage to Pepuza, but he speaks of joining in spirit with the celebration of the Montanist feasts in Asia Minor. The Acts of Sts. Perpetua and Felicitas are by some thought to reflect a period a Carthage when the Montanist teaching was arousing interest and sympathy but had not yet formed a schism.

The following of Tertullian cannot have been large; but a Tertullianist sect survived him and its remnants were reconciled to the Church by St. Augustine (Hær., lxxxvi). About 392-4 an African lady, Octaviana, wife of Hesperius, a favorite of the Duke Arbogastes and the usurper Maximus, brought to Rome a Tertullianist priest who raved as if possessed. He obtained the use of the church of Sts. Processus and Martinianus on the Via Aurelia, but was turned out by Theodosius, and he and Octaviana were heard of no more. Epiphanius distinguished a sect of Montanists as Pepuzians or Quintillians (he calls Priscilla also Quintilla). He says they had some foolish sayings which gave thanks to Eve for eating of the tree of knowledge. They used to sleep at Pepuza in order to see Christ as Priscilla had done. Often in their church seven virgins would enter with lamps, dressed in white, to prophesy to the people, whom by their excited action they would move to tears; this reminds us of some modern missions rather than of the Irvingite "speaking with tongues", with which the Montanist ecstasies have often been compared. These heretics were said to have women for their bishops and priests, in honor of Eve. They were called "Artotyrites", because their sacrament was of bread and cheese. Prædestinatus says the Pepuzians did not really differ from other Montanists, but despised all who did not actually dwell at the "new Jerusalem". There is a well-known story that the Montanists (or at least the Pepuzians) on a certain feast took a baby child whom they stuck all over with brazen pins. They used the blood to make cakes for sacrifice. If the child died it was looked upon as a martyr; if it lived, as a high-priest. This story was no doubt a pure invention, and was especially denied in the "De Ecstasi" of Tertullian. An absurd nickname for the sect was Tascodrugitoe, from Phrygian words meaning peg and nose, because they were said to put their forefinger up their nose when praying "in order to appear dejected and pious" (Epiphanius, Hær., xlviii, 14).

It is interesting to take St. Jerome's account, written in 384, of the doctrines of Montanism as he believed them to be in his own time (Ep., xli). He describes them as Sabellians in their idea of the Trinity, as forbidding second marriage, as observing three Lents "as though three Saviours had suffered". Above bishops they have "Cenones" (probably not koinonoi, but a Phrygian word) and patriarchs above these at Pepuza. They close the door of the Church to almost every sin. They say that God, not being able to save the world by Moses and the Prophets, took flesh of the Virgin Mary, and in Christ, His Son, preached and died for us. And because He could not accomplish the salvation of the world by this second method, the Holy Spirit descended upon Montanus, Prisca, and Maximilla, giving them the plenitude which St. Paul had not (I Cor., xiii, 9). St. Jerome refuses to believe the story of the blood of a baby; but his account is already exaggerated beyond what the Montanists would have admitted that they held. Origen ("Ep. ad Titum" in "Pamph. Apol.", I fin.) is uncertain whether they are schismatics or heretics. St. Basil is amazed that Dionysius of Alexandria admitted their baptism to be valid (Ep., clxxxii). According to Philastrius (Hær., xlix) they baptized the dead. Sozomen (xviii) tells us that they observed Easter on 6 April or on the following Sunday. Germanus of Constantinople (P.G., XCVIII, 44) says they taught eight heavens and eight degrees of damnation. The Christian emperors from Constantine onwards made laws against them, which were scarcely put into execution in Phrygia (Sozomen, II, xxxii). But gradually they became a small and secret sect. The bones of Montanus were dug up in 861. The numerous Montanist writings (bibloi apeiroi, "Philosophumena", VIII, xix) are all lost. It seems that a certain Asterius Urbanus made a collection of the prophecies (Euseb., V, xvi, 17).

A theory of the origin of Montanism, originated by Ritschl, has been followed by Harnack, Bonwetsch, and other German critics. The secularizing in the second century of the Church by her very success and the disappearance of the primitive "Enthusiasmus" made a difficulty for "those believers of the old school who protested in the name of the Gospel against this secular Church, and who wished to gather together a people prepared for their God regardless alike of numbers an circumstances". Some of these "joined an enthusiastic movement which had originated amongst a small circle in a remote province, and had at first a merely local importance. Then, in Phrygia, the cry for a strict Christian life was reinforced by the belief in a new and final outpouring of the Spirit. . .The wish was, as usual, father to the thought; and thus societies of `spiritual' Christians were formed, which served, especially in times of persecution, as rallying points for all those, far and near, who sighed for the end of the world and the excessus e soeculo, and who wished in these last days to lead a holy life. These zealots hailed the appearance of the Paraclete in Phrygia, and surrendered themselves to his guidance" (Harnack in "Encycl. Brit.", London, 1878, s.v. Montanism). This ingenious theory has its basis only in the imagination, nor have any facts ever been advanced in its favor.

http://newadvent.org/cathen/05412c.htm

Literally, "abstainers" or "persons who practised continency", because they refrained from the use of wine, animal food, and marriage. The name was given to an early Christian sect, or rather to a tendency common to several sects, chiefly Gnostic, whose asceticism was based on heretical views regarding the origin of matter.

I. HISTORY

Abstinence from the use of some creatures, because they were thought to be intrinsically evil, is much older than Christianity. Pythagorism, Essenism, Indian asceticism betrayed this erroneous tendency, and the Indian ascetics are actually quoted by Clement of Alexandria as the forerunners of the Encratites (Strom., I, xv). Although St. Paul refers to people, even in his days, "forbidding to marry and abstaining from meats" (I Tim., iv, 1-5), the first mention of a Christian sect of this name occurs in Irenæus (I, xxviii). He connects their origin with Saturninus and Marcion. Rejecting marriage, they implicitly accuse the Creator, Who made both male and female. Refraining from all ’émpsucha (animal food and intoxicants), they are ungrateful to Him Who created all things. "And now", continues Irenæus, "they reject the salvation of the first man [Adam]; an opinion recently introduced among them by Tatian, a disciple of Justin. As long as he was with Justin he gave no sign of these things, but after his martyrdom Tatian separated himself from the Church. Elated and puffed up by his professorship, he established some teaching of his own. He fabled about some invisible æons, as the Valentinians do; and proclaimed marriage to be corruption and fornication, as Marcion and Saturninus do, but he made the denial of Adam's salvation a specialty of his own." The Encratites are next mentioned by Clement Alex. (Pæd., II, ii, 33; Strom., I, xv; VII, xvii). The whole of the third book of the Stromata is devoted to combating a false encrateia, or continency, though a special sect of Encratites is not there mentioned. Hippolytus (Philos., VIII, xiii) refers to them as "acknowledging what concerns God and Christ in like manner with the Church; in respect, however, of their mode of life, passing their days inflated with pride"; "abstaining from animal food, being water-drinkers and forbidding to marry"; "estimated Cynics rather than Christians". On the strength of this passage it is supposed that some Encratites were perfectly orthodox in doctrine, and erred only in practice, but tà perì toû theoû kaì toû christoû need not include the whole of Christian doctrine. Somewhat later this sect received new life and strength by the accession of a certain Severus (Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., IV, xxix), after whom Encratites were often called Severians. These Severian Encratites accepted the Law, the Prophets, and the Gospels, but rejected the Book of the Acts and cursed St. Paul and his Epistles. But the account given by Epiphanius of the Severians rather betrays Syrian Gnosticism than Judaistic tendencies. In their hatred of marriage they declared woman the work of Satan, and in their hatred of intoxicants they called wine drops of venom from the great Serpent, etc. (Hær., xiv). Epiphanius states that in his day Encratites were very numerous throughout Asia Minor, in Psidia, in the Adustan district of Phrygia, in Isauria, Pamphylia, Cilicia, and Galatia. In the Roman Province and in Antioch of Syria they were found scattered here and there. They split up into a number of smaller sects of whom the Apostolici (q. v.) were remarkable for their condemnation of private property, the Hydroparastatæ for their use of water instead of wine in the Eucharist. In the Edict of 382, Theodosius pronounced sentence of death on all those who took the name of Encratites, Saccophori, or Hydroparastatæ, and commanded Florus, the Magister Officiarum, to make strict search for these heretics, who were Manichæans in disguise. Sozomen (Hist. Eccl., V, xi) tells of an Encratite of Ancyra in Galatia, called Busiris, who bravely submitted to torments in the Julian persecution, and who under Theodosius abjured his heresy and returned to the Catholic Church. On the other hand, we learn from Macarius Magnes (about 403–Apocr., III, xliii) of a certain Dositheus, a Cilician, who about the same time wrote a work in eight books in defence of Encratite errors. About the middle of the fifth century they disappear from history, absorbed, probably, by the Manichæans, with whom they had so much in common from the first.

II. WRITINGS

The Encratites developed a considerable literary activity. The earliest writer in their defence probably was Tatian in his book "Concerning Perfection according to the Saviour", which Clement of Alexandria quotes and refutes in Strom., III, xii. Almost contemporary with him (about A.D. 150) was Julius Cassianus, known as the founder of Docetism (see DOCETÆ). He wrote a work "Concerning Self-restraint and Continency", of which Clement and St. Jerome have preserved some passages (Strom., I, xxi; Euseb., Praep. Ev., X, xii; Strom., III, xiii; Jerome, ad Gal., VI, viii). Concerning the eight books of Dositheus we know only that he maintained that, as the world had its beginning by sexual intercourse, so by continency (encrateia) it would have its end; and that he inveighed against wine-drinkers and flesh- eaters. Among the apocryphal works which originated in Encratite circles must be mentioned: The Gospel according to the Egyptians, referred to by Clement (Strom., III, ix, 13), Origen (Hom. in i Luc.), Hippolytus (Philos., V, vii), which contained a dialogue between Jesus and Salome specially appealed to by the Encratites in condemnation of marriage (to this Gospel the recently discovered "Logia" probably belong); the Gospel of Philip, of Thomas, the Acts of Peter, of Andrew, of Thomas, and other Apocrypha, furthering Gnostic-Encratite views.

Eusebius (Hist. Eccl., IV, xxi, 28) says that Musanus (A.D. 170 or 210) wrote a most elegant book addressed to some brethren who had fallen into the heresy of the Encratites. Theodoret (Hær. Fab., I, xxi) says that Apollinaris of Hierapolis in Phrygia (about 171) wrote against the Severian Encratites.

SALMON in Dict. Chr. Biogr., s. vv., Encratites, Apostolici, Hydroprastatai, Tatian, Cassian; HARNACK, History of Dogma, tr., I; CRUTTWELL,; A Literary Hist. of Early Christianity (1893), I; HILGENFELD, Ketzergesch. des Urch. (1884); HARNACK, Gesch. der altchr. Lit. (Leipzig, 1893-97), I, 201 sqq., II, 1, 408, 535; BARDENHEWER, Gesch. der altkirchl. Lit. (Freiburg, 1902), I, 243-5, 346, 386-391; IDEM, Patrology, SHAHAN tr. (Freiburg im Br., St. Louis, 1908), 81, 92.

J.P. ARENDZEN
Transcribed by WGKofron
With thanks to St. Mary's Church, Akron, Ohio

http://newadvent.org/cathen/09591a.htm


Manichæism is a religion founded by the Persian Mani in the latter half of the third century. It purported to be the true synthesis of all the religious systems then known, and actually consisted of Zoroastrian Dualism, Babylonian folklore, Buddhist ethics, and some small and superficial, additions of Christian elements. As the theory of two eternal principles, good and evil, is predominant in this fusion of ideas and gives color to the whole, Manichæism is classified as a form of religious Dualism. It spread with extraordinary rapidity in both East and West and maintained a sporadic and intermittent existence in the West (Africa, Spain, France, North Italy, the Balkans) for a thousand years, but it flourished mainly in the land of its birth, (Mesopotamia, Babylonia, Turkestan) and even further East in Northern India, Western China, and Tibet, where, c. A.D. 1000, the bulk of the population professed its tenets and where it died out at an uncertain date.

I. LIFE OF THE FOUNDER

Mani (Gr. Manys, gen. usually Manytos, sometimes Manentos, rarely Manou; or Manichios; Lat. Manes, gen. Manetis; In Augustine always Manichaeus) is a title and term of respect rather than a personal name. Its exact meaning is not quite certain, ancient Greek interpretations were skeuos and homilia, but its true derivation is probably from the Babylonian-Aramaic Mânâ, which, among the Mandaeans was a term for a light-spirit, mânâ rabba being the "Light King". It would therefore mean "the illustrious". This title was assumed by the founder himself and so completely replaced his personal name that the precise form of the latter is not known; two latinized forms, however, are handed down, Cubricus and Ubricus, and it seems likely that these forms are a corruption of the not unusual name of Shuraik. Although Mani's personal name is thus subject to doubt, there is no doubt concerning that of his father and family. His father's name was Fâtâk Bâbâk (Ratekios, or the "well preserved"), a citizen of Ecbatana, the ancient Median capital and a member of the famous Chascanian Gens. The boy was born A.D. 215-216 in the village of Mardinu in Babylonia, from a mother of noble (Arsacide) descent whose name variously is given as Mes, Utâchîm, Marmarjam, and Karossa. The father was evidently a man of strong religious propensities, since he left Ecbatana to join the South Babylonian Puritans (Menakkede) or Mandaeans and had his son educated in their tenets. Mani's father himself must have displayed considerable activities as a religious reformer and have been a kind of forerunner of his more famous son, in the first years of whose public life he had some share. It is not impossible that some of Patekios' writing lies imbedded in the Mandaean literature which has come down to us. Through misunderstandings the Aramaic word for disciple (Tarbitha, stat abs. Tarbi), Greek and Latin sources speak of a certain Terebinthos, Terebinthus of Turbo, as a distinct person, whom they confound partially with Mani, partially with Patekios, and as they also forgot that Mani, besides being Patekios' great disciple, was his bodily son, and that in consequence the Scythian teacher, Scythianus, is but Fatak Babak of Hamadam, the Scythian metropolis, their account of the first origins of Manichæism differs considerably from that given in Oriental sources. Notwithstanding Kessler's ingenious researches in this field, we cannot say that the relation between Oriental and Western sources on this point has been sufficiently cleared up, and it may well be that the Western tradition going back through the "Acta Archelai" to within a century of Mani's death, contains some truth.

Mani's father was at first apparently an idolater, for, as he worshipped in a temple to his gods he is supposed to have heard a voice urging him to abstain from meat, wine, and women. In obedience to this voice he emigrated to the south and joined the Mughtasilah, or Mandaean Baptists, taking the boy Mani, with him, but possibly leaving Mani's mother behind. Here, at the age of twelve Mani is supposed to have received his first revelation. The angel Eltaum (God of the Covenant; Tamiel of Jewish Rabbinical lore?), appeared to him, bade him leave the Mandaeans, and live chastely, but to wait still some twelve years before proclaiming himself to the people. It is not unlikely that the boy was trained up to the profession of painter, as he is often thus designated in Oriental (though late) sources.

Babylon was still a center of the pagan priesthood; here Mani became thoroughly imbued with their ancient speculations. On Sunday, 20 March, A.D. 242, Mani first proclaimed his gospel in the royal residence, Gundesapor, on the coronation day of Sapor I, when vast crowds from all parts were gathered together. "As once Buddha came to India, Zoroaster to Persia, and Jesus to the lands of the West, so came in the present time, this prophecy through me, the Mani, to the land of Babylonia", sounded the proclamation of this "Apostle of the true God". He seems to have had but little immediate success and was compelled to leave the country. For many years he traveled abroad, founding Manichæan communities in Turkestan and India. When he finally returned to Persia he succeeded in converting to his doctrine Peroz, the brother of Sapor I, and dedicated to him one of his most important works, the "Shapurikan". Peroz obtained for Mani an audience with the king and Mani delivered his prophetical message in the royal presence. We soon find Mani again a fugitive from his native land; though here and there, as in Beth Garmia, his teaching seems to have taken early root. While traveling, Mani spread and strengthened his doctrine by epistles, or encyclical letters, of which some four score are known to us by title. It is said that Mani afterwards fell into the hands of Sapor I, was cast into prison, and only released at the king's death in 274. It seems certain that Sapor's successor, Ormuzd I, was favorable to the new prophet; perhaps he even personally released him from his dungeon, unless, indeed, Mani had already effected his escape by bribing a warder and fleeing across the Roman frontier. Ormuzd's favor, however, was of little avail, as he occupied the Persian throne only a single year, and Bahram I, his successor, soon after his accession, caused Mani to be crucified, had the corpse flayed, the skin stuffed and hung up at the city gate, as a terrifying spectacle to his followers, whom he persecuted with relentless severity. The date of his death is fixed at 276-277.

II. SYSTEM OF DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE

Doctrine

The key to Mani's system is his cosmogony. Once this is known there is little else to learn. In this sense Mani was a true Gnostic, as he brought salvation by knowledge. Manichæism professed to be a religion of pure reason as opposed to Christian credulity; it professed to explain the origin, the composition, and the future of the universe; it had an answer for everything and despised Christianity, which was full of mysteries. It was utterly unconscious that its every answer was a mystification or a whimsical invention; in fact, it gained mastery over men's minds by the astonishing completeness, minuteness, and consistency of its assertions.

We are giving the cosmogony as contained in Theodore Bar Khoni, embodying the results of the study of Francois Cumont. Before the existence of heaven and earth and all that is therein, there were two Principles, the one Good the other Bad. The Good Principle dwells in the realm of light and is called the Father of Majesty (Grandeur or Greatness, Megethos, Abba D'rabbutha), or the Father with the Four Faces or Persons (tetraprosopon), probably because Time, Light, Force, and Goodness were regarded as essential manifestations of the First Being by the Zervanites (see Cosmogony: Iranian). Outside the Father there are his Five Tabernacles or Shechinatha, Intelligence, Reason, Thought, Reflection, and Will. The designation of "Tabernacle" contains a play on the sound Shechina which means both dwelling or tent and "Divine glory or presence" and is used in the Old Testament to designate God's presence between the Cherubim. These five tabernacles were pictured on the one hand as stories of one building -- Will being the topmost story -- and on the other hand as limbs of God's body. He indwelt and possessed them all, so as to be, in a sense, identical with them, yet again, in a sense, to be distinct from them. They are also designated as aeons or worlds, beata secula, in St. Augustine's writings. In other sources the five limbs are: Longanimity, Knowledge, Reason, Discretion, and Understanding. And again these five as limbs of the Father's spiritual body were sometimes distinguished from the five attributes of His pure Intelligence: Love, Faith, Truth, Highmindedness, and Wisdom. This Father of light together with the light-air and the light-earth, the former with five attributes parallel to his own, and the latter with the five limbs of Breath, Wind, Light, Water, and Fire constitute the Manichæan pleroma. This light world is of infinite exrtent in five directions and has only one limit, set to it below by the realm of Darkness, which is likewise infinite in all directions barring the one above, where it borders on the realm of light. Opposed to the Father of Grandeur is the King of Darkness. He is actually never called God, but otherwise, he and his kingdom down below are exactly parallel to the ruler and realm of the light above. The dark Pleroma is also triple, as it were firmament, air, and earth inverted. The first two (Heshuha and Humana) have the five attributes, members, aeons, or worlds: Pestilent Breath, Scorching Wind, Gloom, Mist, Consuming Fire; the last has the following five: Wells of Poison, Columns of Smoke, Abysmal Depths, Fetid Marshes, and Pillars of Fire. This last five fold division is clearly borrowed from ancient Chaldean ideas current in Mesopotamia.

These two powers might have lived eternally in peace, had not the Prince of Darkness decided to invade the realm of light. On the approach of the monarch of chaos the five aeons of light were seized with terror. This incarnation of evil called Satan or Ur-devil (Diabolos protos, Iblis Kadim, in Arabic sources), a monster half fish, half bird, yet with four feet and lion-headed, threw himself upward toward the confines of light. The echo of the thunder of his onrush went through the blessed aeons until it reached the Father of Majesty, who bethinking himself said: I will not send my five aeons, made for blessed repose, to engage in this war, I will go myself and give battle. Hereupon the Father of Majesty emanated the Mother of Life and the Mother of Life emanated the first man. These two constitute, with the Father, a sort of Trinity in Unity, hence the Father could say: "I myself will go". Mani here assimilates ideas already known from Gnosticism (q.v., subtitle The Sophia Myth) and resembling Christian doctrine, especially when it is borne in mind that "Spirit" is feminine in Hebrew-Aramaic and thus could easily be conceived as a mother of all living. The Protanthropos or "First Man" is a distinctly Irani an conception, which likewise found its way into a number of Gnostic systems (q.v.), but which became the central figure in Manichæism. The myth of the origin of the world out of the members of a dead giant or Ur-man is extremely ancient, not only in Iranian speculations but also in Indian mythology (Rig-Veda, X, 90), Indeed if the myth of giant Ymir in Norse Cosmogonies (see Cosmogony) is not merely a medieval invention, as is sometimes asserted, this legend must be one of the earliest possessions of the Aryan race.

According to Mani the First-Man now emanates sons as a man who puts on his armor for the combat. These five sons are the five elements opposed to the five aeons of darkness: Clear Air, Refreshing Wind, Bright Light, Life-Giving Waters, and Warming Fire. He put on first the aerial breeze, then threw over himself light as a flaming mantle, and over this light a covering of water; he surrounded himself with gusts of wind, took light as his lance and shield, and cast himself downward toward the line of danger. An angel called Nahashbat (?), carrying a crown of victory, went before him. The First-Man projected his light before him, and the King of Darkness seeing it, thought and said: "What I have sought from afar, lo, I have found it near me." He also clothed himself with his five elements, and engaged in combat with the First-Man. The struggle went in favor of the King of Darkness. The First-Man when being overcome, gave himself and his five sons as food to the five sons of Darkness, "as a man having an enemy, mixes deadly poison in a cake, and gives it to his foe." When these five resplendent deities had been absorbed by the sons of Darkness, reason was taken away from them and they became through the poisonous admixture with the sons of Darkness, like unto a man bitten by a wild dog or serpent. Thus the evil one conquered for a while. But the First-Man recovered his reason and prayed seven times to the Father of Majesty, who being moved by mercy, emanated as second creation, the Friend of the Ligh t, this Friend of the Light emanated the Great Ban, and the Great Ban emanated the Spirit of Life. Thus a second trinity parallel to the first (Father of Light, Mother of Light, First-Man) comes into existence. The first two personages of the latter trinity have not yet been explained and particularly the meaning of the Great Ban is a puzzle, but as in the former trinity, it is the third person, who does the actual work, the Spirit of Life (To Zon Pneuma), who becomes the demi-urge or world former. Like the First-Man he emanates five personalities: from his intelligence the Ornament of Splendour (Sefath Ziva, Splenditenens, phegotatochos in Greek and Latin sources), from his reason the Great King of Honour, from his thought Adamas, Light, from his self reflection the King of Glory, and from his will the Supporter (Sabhla, Atlas and Omothoros of Greek and Latin sources). These five deities were objects of special worship amongst Manichæans, and St. Augustine (Contra Faustum, XV) gives us descriptions of them drawn from Manichæan hymns.

These five descend to the realm of Darkness, find the First-Man in his degradation and rescue him by the word of their power; his armour remains behind, by lifting him by the right hand the Spirit of Life brings him back to the Mother of Life. The fashioning of the world now begins. Some of the sons of the Spirit of Life kill and flay the archons or sons of Darkness and bring them to the Mother of Life. She spreads out their skins and forms twelve heavens. Their corpses are hurled on the realm of Darkness and eight worlds are made, their bones form the mountain ranges. The Ornament of splendour holds the five resplendent deities by their waist and below their waist the heavens are extended. Atlas carries all on his shoulders, the Great King of Honour sits on top of the heavens and guards over all. The Spirit of Life forces the sons of Darkness to surrender some of the light which they had absorbed from the five elements and out of this he forms the sun and the moon (vessels of light, lucidae naves in St. Augustine) and the stars. The Spirit of Life further makes the wheels of the wind under the earth near the Supporter. The King of Glory by some creation or other enables these wheels to mount the surface of the earth and thus prevents the five resplendent deities from being set on fire by the poison of the archons. The text of Theodore bar Khoni is here so confused and corrupt that it is difficult to catch the meaning; probably wind, water, air, and fire are considered protective coverings, encircling and enveloping the gross material earth and revolving around it.

At this stage of the cosmogony the Mother of Life, the First-Man, and the Spirit of Life beg and beseech the Father of Majesty for a further creation and for a third creation he emanated the Messenger; in Latin sources this is the so-called Legatus Tertius. This Messenger emanates twelve virgins with their garments, crowns, and garlands, namely, Royalty, Wisdom, Victory, Persuasion, Purity, Truth, Faith, Patience, Righteousness, Goodness, Justice, and Light. The Messenger dwells in the sun and, coming toward these twelve virgin-vessels he commands his three attendants to make them revolve and soon they reach the height of the heavens. All this is a transparent metaphor for the planetary system and the signs of the zodiac. No sooner do the heavens rotate than the Messenger commands the Great Ban to renovate the earth and make the Great Wheels (Air, Fire, and Water) to mount. The great universe now moves but as yet there is no life of plants, beasts, or man. The production of vegetation, animal, and rational life on earth is a process of obscenity, cannibalism, abortion, and prize-fighting between the Messenger and the sons and daughters of Darkness, the details of which are better passed over. Finally, Naimrael, a female, and Ashaklun, a male devil, bring forth two children, Adam and Eve. In Adam's body were imprisoned a vast number of germs of light. He was the great captive of the Power of Evil. The Powers of Light had pity an d sent a Savior, the luminous Jesus. This Jesus approached innocent Adam, awoke him from his sleep of death, made him move, drew him out of his slumber, drove away the seductive demon, and enchained far away from him the mighty female archon. Adam reflected on himself and knew that he existed. Jesus then instructed Adam and showed him the Father's dwelling in the celestial heights, and Jesus showed him his own personality, exposed to all things, to the teeth of the panther, the teeth of the elephant, devoured by the greedy, swallowed by gluttons, eaten by dogs, mixed with and imprisoned in all that exists, encompassed by the evil odours of Darkness. Mani's weird but mighty imagination had thus created a "suffering Savior" and given him the name of Jesus. But this Saviour is but the personification of the Cosmic Light as far as imprisoned in matter, therefore it is diffused throughout all nature, it is born, suffers, and dies every day, it is crucified on every tree, it is daily eaten in all food. This captive Cosmic Light is called Jesus patibilis. Jesus then made Adam stand up and taste of the tree of life. Adam then looked around and wept. He mightily lifted up his voice as a roaring lion. He tore his hair and struck his breast and said, "Cursed be the creator of my body and he who bound my soul and they who have made me their slave." Man's duty henceforth is to keep his body pure from all bodily stain by practicing self-denial and to help also in the great work of purification throughout the universe. Manichæan eschatology is in keeping with its cosmogony. When, mainly through the activity of the elect, all light particles have been gathered together, the messenger, or Legatus Tertius appears, the Spirit of Life comes from the west, the First Man with his hosts comes from north, south, and east, together with all light aeons, and all perfect Manichæans. Atlas, the World Supporter throws his burden away, the Ornament of Splendour above lets go, and thus heaven and earth sink into the abyss. A universal confla gration ensues and burns on till nothing but lightless cinders remain. This fire continues during 1486 years, during which the torments of the wicked are the delights of the just. When the separation of light from darkness is finally completed, all angels of light who had functions in the creation return on high; the dark world-soul sinks away in the depth, which is then closed forever and eternal tranquillity reigns in the realm of light, no more to be invaded by darkness. With regard to the after-death of the individual, Manichæism taught a threefold state prepared for the Perfect, the Hearers, and the Sinners (non-Manichæans). The souls of the first are after death received by Jesus, who is sent by the First-Man accompanied by three aeons of light and the Light Maiden. They give the deceased a water vessel, a garment, a turban, a crown, and a wreath of light. In vain do evil angels lie in his path, he scorns them and on the ladder of praise he mounts first to the moon, then to the First-Man, the Sun, the Mother of Life, and finally the Supreme Light. The bodies of the perfect are purified by sun, moon, and stars; their light-particles, set free, mount to the First-Man and are formed into minor deities, surrounding his person. The fate of the Heavens is ultimately the same as that of the Perfect, but they have to pass through a long purgatory before they arrive at eternal bliss. Sinners, however, must, after death wander about in torment and anguish, surrounded by demons, and condemned by the angels, till the end of the world, when they are, body and soul, thrown into hell.

Discipline

To set the light-substance free from the pollution of matter was the ultimate aim of all Manichæan life. Those who entirely devoted themselves to this work were the "Elect" or the "Perfect", the Primates Manichaeorum; those who through human frailty felt unable to abstain from all earthly joys, though they accepted Manichæan tenets, were "the Hearers", auditores, or catechumens. The former bear a striking similarity to Buddhist monks, only with this difference that they were always itinerant, being forbidden to settle anywhere permanently. The life of these ascetics was a hard one. They were forbidden to have property, to eat meat or drink wine, to gratify any sexual desire, to engage in any servile occupation, commerce or trade, to possess house or home, to practice magic, or to practice any other religion. Their duties were summed up in the three signacula, i.e. seals or closures, that of the mouth, of the hands, and of the breast (oris, manuum, sinus). The first forbade all evil words and all evil food. Animal food roused the demon of Darkness within man, hence only vegetables were allowed to the perfect. Amongst vegetables, some, as melons and fruit containing oil were specially recommended, as they were thought to contain many light particles, and by being consumed by the perfect those light particles were set free. The second forbade all actions detrimental to the light-substance, slaying of animals, plucking of fruit, etc. The third forbade all evil thoughts, whether against the Manichæan faith or against purity. St. Augustine (especially "De Moribus Manich.") strongly inveighs against the Manichæan's repudiation of marriage. They regarded it as an evil in itself because the propagation of the human race meant the continual imprisonment of the light-substance in matter and a retarding of the blissful consummation of all things; maternity was a calamity and a sin and Manichæans delighted to tell of the seduction of Adam by Eve and her final punishment in eternal damnation. In consequence there was a danger that the act of generation, rather than the act of unchastity was abhorred, and that his was a real danger Augustine's writings testify.

The number of the Perfect was naturally very small and in studying Manichæism one is particularly struck by the extreme paucity of individual Perfecti known in history. The vast bulk of Mani's adherents -- ninety-nine out of every hundred -- were Hearers. They were bound by Mani's Ten Commandments only, which forbade idolatry, mendacity, avarice, murder (i.e. all killing), fornication, theft, seduction to deceit, magic, hypocrisy, (secret infidelity to Manichæism), and religious indifference. The first positive duty seems to have been the maintenance and almost the worship of the Elect. They supplied them with vegetables for food and paid them homage on bended knee, asking for their blessing. They regarded them as superior beings, nay, collectively, they were thought to constitute the aeon of righteousness. Beyond these ten negative commandments there were the two duties common to all, prayer and fasting.

Prayer was obligatory four times a day: at noon, late in the afternoon, after sunset, and three hours later. Prayer was made facing the sun or, in the night, the moon; when neither sun nor moon was visible, then the North, the throne of the Light-King. It was preceded by a ceremonial purification with water or for lack of water with some other substance in the Mohammedan fashion. The daily prayers were accompanied by twelve prostrations and addressed to the various personalities in the realm of light: the Father of Majesty, the First-Man, the Legatus Tertius, the Paraclete (Mani), the Five Elements, and so on. They consist mainly of a string of laudatory epithets and contain but little supplication. As time and attitude of prayer were intimately connected with astronomical phenomena, so likewise was the duty of fasting. All fasted on the first day of the week in honor of the sun, the Perfect also fasted on the second day in honor of the moon. All kept the fast during two days after every new moon; and once a year at the full moon, and at the beginning of the first quarter of the moon. Moreover, a monthly fast, observed till sunset, was begun on the eighth day of the month.

Of rites and ceremonies among the Manichæans but very little is known to us. They had one great solemnity, that of the Bema, the anniversary of Mani's death. This was kept with a vigil of prayers and spiritual reading. An empty chair was placed on a raised platform to which five steps led up. Further details are as yet unknown. St. Augustine complains that although Manichæans pretended to be Christians, their feast of the death of Mani exceeded in solemnity that of the Death and Resurrection of Christ.

Manichæans must have possessed a kind of baptism and eucharist. The epistle on baptism, which occurred among the sacred literature of the Manichæans, is unfortunately lost, and in Oriental sources the matter is not referred to, but Christian sources suppose the existence of both these rites. Of greater importance than baptism was the Consolamentum or "Consolation", an imposition of hands by one of the Elect by which a Hearer was received amongst their number. The Manichæan hierarchy and constitution is still involved in obscurity. Mani evidently intended to provide a supreme head for the multitude of his followers. He even decided that his successor in this dignity should reside in Babylon. This high priesthood is known in Arabic sources as the Imamate. In the East it seems to have possessed at least some temporary importance, in the West it seems hardly known or recognized. No list of these supreme Pontiffs of Manichæism has come down to us; hardly a name or two is known to history. It is doubtful even whether the chair of Mani did not remain vacant for long periods. On the duties and privileges of the Imamate we possess at present no information. According to Western and Eastern sources the Manichæan Church was divided into five hierarchical classes; St. Augustine names them magistri, episcopi, presbyteri, electi, and auditores; this Christianized terminology represents in Manichæan mystical language the sons of meekness, of reason, of knowledge, of mystery, and of understanding. Mani's astrological predilections for the number five, so evident in his cosmogony, evidently suggested this division for his Church or kingdom of the light on earth. The Teachers and Administrators (magistri and episcopi) are probably an adaptation of the legontes and drontes, the speakers and the doers, known in Greek and Babylonian mysteries; and the name "priests" is probably taken over from the Sabian Kura.

With regard to the relation of Manichæism to Christianity two things are clear:

(a) Some connection with Christianity was intended from the very first by Mani himself, it was not an after-thought, introduced when Manichæism came in touch with the West, as is sometimes asserted. Christianity was the predominant religion in Osrhoene, and perhaps the principle religion in all Mesopotamia in Mani's time. Mani, whose object was to found a system, comprehensive of all religions then known, could not but try to incorporate Christianity. In the first words of his proclamation on the coronation day of Sapor I, he mentioned Jesus, who had come to the countries of the West.

(b) The connection was purely external and artificial. The substance of Manichæism was Chaldean astrology and folklore cast in a rigid dualistic mould; if Christianity was brought in, it was only through force of historical circumstances. Christianity could not be ignored. In consequence

Mani proclaimed himself the Paraclete promised by Jesus;
rejected the whole of the Old Testament, but admitted as much of the New as suited him; in particular he rejected the Acts of the Apostles, because it told of the descent of the Holy Ghost in the past. The gospels were corrupted in many places, but where a text seemed to favor him the Manichee knew how to parade it. One has to read St. Augustine's anti-Manichæan disputes to realize the extreme ingenuity with which scripture texts were collected and interpreted.
Though Mani called himself the Paraclete he claimed no divinity but with show of humility styled himself "Apostle of Jesus Christ by the providence of God the Father"; a designation which is obviously adapted from the heading of the Pauline Epistles. Mani, however, was the Apostle of Jesus Christ, i.e. the messenger of Christ's promise, that Paraclete whom he sent (apostolos from apostellos, to send) Mani's blasphemous assumption was thus toned down a little to Christian ears.
Jesus Christ was to Mani but an aeon or persistent personification of Light in the world.; as far as it had already been set free it was the luminous Jesus, or Jesus patibilis.
The historical Jesus of Nazareth was entirely repudiated by Mani. "The son of a poor widow" (Mary),"the Jewish Messias whom the Jews crucified", "a devil who was justly punished for interfering in the work of the Aeon Jesus", such was, according to Mani, the Christ whom Christians worshipped as God. Mani's Christology was purely Docetic, his Christ appeared to be man, to live, suffer, and die to symbolize the light suffering in this world. Though Mani used the term "Evangel" for his message, his Evangel was clearly in no real sense that of the Christians.
Mani finally beguiled the unwary by the use of such apparently Christian terms as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost to designate divine personalities, but a glance at his cosmogony shows how flimsy was the disguise. Nevertheless, spoke so cautiously, urging only faith in god, His light, His power, and His wisdom (in reality" the Father of Majesty"; the sun and moon; the five blessed aeons, his sons, and the Manichæan religion), that they deceived many.
III. HISTORY IN THE EAST

Notwithstanding the bitterest persecution by the Sassanides in Persia as well as by the emperors at Rome, Manichæism spread very rapidly. Its greatest success was achieved in countries to the east of Persia. In A.D. 1000 the Arab historian Al-Beruni wrote: "The majority of the Eastern Turks, the inhabitants of China and Tibet, and a number in India belong to the religion of Mani". The recent finds of Manichæan literature and painting at Turfan corroborate this statement. Within a generation after Mani's death his followers had settled on the Malabar Coast and gave the name to Minigrama, i.e. "Settlement of Mani". The Chinese inscriptions of Kara Belgassum, once thought to refer to the Nestorians, doubtless have reference to the existence of Manichæism. The great Turkish tribe of the Tuguzguz in 930 threatened reprisals on Mohammedans in their power if the Manichæans in Samarcand were molested by the Prince of Chorazan, in whose dominion they were very numerous. Detailed information on the extreme Eastern Manichæans is still lacking. In Persia and Babylonia proper, Manichæism seems never to have been the predominant religion, but the Manichæans enjoyed there a large amount of prosperity and toleration under Mohammedan rule. Some caliphs were actually favorable to Manichæism, and it had a number of secret sympathizers throughout Islam. Though not numerous in the capitol, Bagdad, they were scattered in the villages and hamlets of the Irak. Their prosperity and intimacy of social intercourse with non-Manichæans aroused the indignation of the Puritan party amongst Mani's followers, and this led to the formation of the heresy of Miklas, a Persian ascetic in the eighth century.

As Manichæism adopted three Christian apocrypha, the Gospel of Thomas, the Teaching of Addas, and the Shepherd of Hermas, the legend was soon formed that Thomas, Addas, and Hermas were the first great apostles of Mani's system. Addas is supposed to have spread it in the Orient (ta tes anatoles), Thomas in Syria, and Hermas in Egypt. Manichæism was certainly known in Judea before Mani's death; it was brought to Eleutheropolis by Akouas in 274 (Epiph., "Haer.", LXVI, I). St. Ephrem (378) complained that no country was more infected with Manichæism than Mesopotamia in his day, and Manichæism maintained its ground in Edessa even in A.D. 450. The fact that it was combated by Eusebius of Emesus, George and Appolinaris of Laodicea, Diodorus of Tarsus, John (Chrysostom) of Antioch, Epiphanius of Salamis, and Titus of Bostra shows how early and ubiquitous was the danger of Manichæism in Western Asia. About A.D. 404, Julia, a lady of Antioch, tried by her riches and culture to pervert the city of Gaza to Manichæism, but without success. In Jerusalem St. Cyril had many converted Manichæans amongst his catechumens and refuted their errors at length. St. Nilus knew of secret Manichæans in Sinai before A.D. 430.

In no country did Manichæism enter more insidiously into Christian life than in Egypt. One of the governors of Alexandria under Constantine was a Manichæan, who treated the Catholic bishops with unheard-of severity. St. Athanasius says of Anthony the Hermit (330) that he forbade all intercourse with "Manichæans and other heretics".

In the Eastern roman Empire it came to the zenith of its power about A.D. 375-400, but then rapidly declined. But in the middle of the sixth century it once more rose into prominence. The Emperor Justinian himself disputed with them; Photinus the Manichæan publicly disputed with Paul the Persian. Manichæism obtained adherents among the highest classes of society. Barsymes the Nestorian prefect of Theodora, was an avowed Manichæan. But this recrudescence of Manichæism was soon suppressed.

Soon, however, whether under the name of Paulicians, or Bogomiles, it again invaded the Byzantine Empire, after having lain hidden for a time on Musselman territory. The following are the Imperial edicts launched against Manichæism: Diocletian (Alexandria, 31 March, 296) commands the Proconsul of Africa to persecute them, he speaks of them as a sordid and impure sect recently come from Persia, which he is determined to destroy root and branch (stirpitus amputari). Its leaders and propagators must be burnt, together with their books; the rank and file beheaded, people of note condemned to the mines, and their goods confiscated. This edict remained at least nominally in force under Constantine, and Constantius. Under Julian the Apostate, Manichæism seems to have been tolerated. Valentinian I and Gratian, though tolerant of other sects, made exception of the Manichæans. Theodosius I, by an edict of 381, declared Manichæans to be without civil rights and incapable of testamentary disposition. In the following year he condemned them to death under the name of Encratites, Saccophores, and Hydroparastates. Valentinian II confiscated their goods, annulled their wills, and sent them into exile. Honorius in 405 renewed the edicts of his predecessors, and fined all governors of cities or provinces who were remiss in carrying out his orders; he invalidated all their contracts, declared them outlaws and public criminals. In 445 Valentinian III renewed the edicts of his predecessors; Anastasius condemned all Manichæans to death; Justin and Justinian decreed the death penalty, not only against Manichæans who remained obstinate in their heresy, but even against converts from Manichæism who remained in touch with their former co-religionists, or who did not at once denounce them to the magistrates. Heavy penalties were likewise decreed against all State officials who did not denounce their colleagues, if infected with Manichæism, and against all those who retained Manichæan books. It was a war of extermination and was apparently successful, within the confines of the Byzantine Empire.

IV. HISTORY IN THE WEST

In the West the special home of Manichæism was in Proconsular Africa, where it seems to have had a second apostle inferior only to Mani, a further incarnation of the Paraclete, Adimantus. Previous to 296 Julian the Proconsul had written to the emperor that the Manichæans troubled the peace of the population and caused injury to the towns. After the edict of Diocletian we hear no more of it until the days of St. Augustine. Its most notorious champion was Faustus of Mileve. Born at Mileve of poor parents, he had gone to Rome, and being converted to Manichæism he began to study rhetoric somewhat late in life. He was not a man of profound erudition, but he was a suave and unctuous speaker. His fame in Manichæan circles was very great. He was a Manichæan episcopus and boasted of having left his wife and children and all he had for his religion. He arrived at Carthage in 383, and was arrested, but the Christians obtained the commutation of his sentence to banishment and even that was not carried out. About A.D. 400 he wrote a work in favor of Manichæism, or rather against Christianity, in which he tried to wrest the New Testament to the support of Manichæism. St. Augustine answered him in thirty-three books embodying verbally much of his teaching. On 28 and 29 August 392, St. Augustine had refuted a certain Fortunatus in public discussion held in the Baths of Sossius. Fortunatus acknowledged defeat and disappeared from the town. On 7 Dec., 404, St. Augustine held a dispute with Felix, a Manichæan priest. He convinced him of the error of his ways and he made him say: Anathema to Mani. St. Augustine knew how to use severity to extirpate the heresy. Victorinus, a deacon had become an auditor and propagandist of the Manichæans. He was discovered, upon which he apparently repented and asked for reconciliation, but St. Augustine punished him and banished him from the town, warning all people against him. He would not hear of his repentance unless he denounced all the Manichæans he knew in the province. St. Augustine did not write against Manichæism during the last twenty five years of his life; hence it is thought that the sect decreased in importance during that time. Yet in 420, Ursus, the imperial prefect, arrested some Manichæans in Carthage and made them recant. When the Arian Vandals conquered Africa the Manichæans thought of gaining the Arian clergy by secretly entering their ranks, but Huneric (477-484), King of the Vandals, realizing the danger, burnt many of them and transported the others. Yet at the end of the sixth century Gregory the Great looked upon Africa as the hotbed of Manichæism. The same warning was repeated by Gregory II (701), and Nicholas II (1061).

The spread of Manichæism in Spain and Gaul is involved in obscurity on account of the uncertainty concerning the real teaching of Priscillian.

It is well known how St. Augustine (383) found a home at Rome in the Manichæan community, which must have been considerable. According to the "Liber Pontificalis" Pope Miltiades (311-314) had already discovered adherents to the sect in the city. Valentinian's edict (372), addressed to the city prefect, was clearly launched mainly against Roman Manichæans. The so called "Ambrosiaster" combated Manichæism in a great many of his writings (370-380). In the years 384-388 a special sect of Manichæans arose in Rome called Martari, or Mat-squatters, who, supported by a rich man called Constantius, tried to start a sort of monastic life for the Elect in contravention of Mani's command that the Elect should wander about the world preaching the Manichæan Gospel. The new sect found the bitterest opposition amongst their co-religionists. In Rome they seem to have made extraordinary endeavors to conceal themselves by almost complete conformity with Christian customs. From the middle of the sixth century onward Manichæism apparently died out in the West. Though a number of secret societies and dualistic sects may have existed here and there in obscurity, there is apparently no direct and conscious connection with the Prophet of Babylon and his doctrine. Yet when the Paulicians and Bogomili from Bulgaria came in contact with the West in the eleventh century, and eastern missionaries driven out by the Byzantine emperors taught dualist doctrines in the North of Italy and the South of France they found the leaven of Manichæism still so deeply pervading the minds of the many that they could make it ferment and rise into the formidable Catharist heresies.

V. MANICHÆAN WRITERS

Manichæism, like Gnosticism, was an intellectual religion, it despised the simplicity of the crowd. As it professed to bring salvation through knowledge, ignorance was sin. Manichæism, in consequence, was literary and refined, its founder was a fruitful writer, and so were many of his followers. Of all this literary output only fragments are at present extant. No Manichæan treatise has come down to us in its entirety. Mani wrote in Persian and Babylonian Aramaic, apparently using either language with equal facility. The following seven titles of works of his have come down to us:

"Shapurakan", I.e. "Princely", because it was dedicated to Peroz, the brother of Sapor I (written in Syrian). It was a kind of Manichæan eschatology, dealing in three chapters with the dissolution of Hearers, Elect, and Sinners. It was written about A.D. 242.
"The Book of Mysteries", polemical and dogmatic in character.
"The Book of the Giants", probably about cosmogonic figures.
"The Book of Precepts for Hearers", with appendix for the Elect.
"The Book of Life-giving", written in Greek, probably of considerable size.
"The Book of Pragmateia", contents totally unknown.
"The Gospel", written in Persian, of which the chapters began with successive letters of the alphabet.
Besides these more extensive works, no less than seventy-six letters or brief treatises are enumerated, but it is not always clear which of these are by Mani himself, which by his immediate successors. The "Epistola Fundamenti", so well known in Latin writers, is probably the "Treatise of the Two Elements", mentioned as first of the seventy-six numbers in Arabic sources. Small and often unintelligible fragments in Pahlevi and in Sogdian(?) have recently been found in Chinese Turkestan by T.W.K. Mueller. The "Epistola Fundamenti" is extensively quoted in St. Augustine's refutation and also in Theodore bar Khoni, and Titus of Bostra, and the "Acta Archelai". Of Manichæan writers the following names have come down to us: Agapius (Photius, Cod. 179), of Asia Minor; Aphthonius of Egypt (Philostorgium, "Hist. Eccl.", III, 15) Photinus refuted by Paul the Persian (Mercati, "Per la vita de Paulo il Persiano"), Adimantus, refuted by Augustine.
VI. ANTI-MANICHÆAN WRITERS

St. Ephraem (306-373); his treatise against the Manichæans was published in poems (59-73) in the Roman edition with Latin translation and again by K. Kessler in his "Mani", I, 262-302; Hegemonius is said by Heracleon of Chalcedon to be the author of the "Acta disputationis Archelai episcopi Mesopotamiae et Manetis haeresiarchae". This important work on Manichæism, written originally in Greek or perhaps in Syriac, between A.D. 300 and 350 has come down to us only in a Latin translation, though small fragments exist in Greek. The most recent edition is that of M. Beeson (Berlin, 1906). It contains an imaginary dispute between Archalaus, Bishop of Charcar, and Mani, himself. The dispute is but a literary device, but the work ranks as the first class authority on Manichæism. It was translated into English in the Ante-Nicene library.

Alexander of Lycopolis published a short treatise against Manichæism, last edited by A. Brinkmann (Leipzig, 1895). Serapion of Thmuis (c. 350) is credited by St. Jerome with an excellent work against Manichæans. This work has recently been restored to its original form by A. Brinkmann "Sitz. ber der Preuss. Acad. Berlin"(1895), 479sqq. Titus of Bostra (374) published four books against the Manichæans, two containing arguments from reason and two arguements from Scripture and theology against the heresy. They have come down to us complete only in a Syriac version (LaGarde, "Tit. Bost. contra Manichaeos Libri IV", Berlin, 1859), but part of the original Greek is published in Pitra's "Analecta sacra. et class." (1888), I, 44-46. St. Epiphanius of Salamis devoted his great work "Adversus Haereses" (written about 374) mainly to refutation of Manichæism. The other heresies receive but brief notices and even Arianism seems of less importance. Theodoret of Cyprus (458), "De haereticorum fabulis", in four books (P.G. LXXXIII), gives an exposition of Manichæism. Didymus the Blind, president of the catechetical school at Alexandria (345-395), wrote a treatise in eighteen chapters against Manichæans. St. John Damascene (c.750) Wrote a "Dialogue against Manichæans" (P.G. XCIV), and a shorter "Discussion of John the Orthodox with a Manichæan" (P.G. XCVI); Photius (891) wrote four books against the Manichæans, and is a valuable witness of the Paulician phase of Manichæism. Paul the Persian (c.529) "Disputation with Photinus the Manichæan" (P.G. LXXXVIII, 528). Zacharias Rhetor (c.536), "Seven theses against Manichæans", fragments in P.G. LXXXV, 1143-. Heraclian (c.510) wrote twenty books against Manichæans (Photius, Cod. 86). Amongst Latin writers St. Augustine is foremost, his works being "De utilitate credendi"; "De moribus Manichaeorum"; "De duabus animabus"; "Contra Fortunatum"; "De actis cum Felice", "De Natura Boni", "Contra Secundinum", "Contra Adversarium Legis et Prophetarum" in "Opera", VIII (Paris, 1837). Some in English. "De Genesi contra Manichaeos lib. II." Ambrosiaster (370-380): for his commentaries on St. Paul's Epistles and his "Quaestiones V. et N. Testamenti" see A. Souter, "A Study of Ambrosiaster" (1907); Marcus Victorinus (380), "Ad Justinum Manichaeum".

SOURCES.--Theodore bar Khoni, Nestorian Bishop of Cascar (c. end of sixth century), wrote a book of "Scholia" or Memoirs. Book XI of this work contains a list of "sects which arose at different times"; among these he gives an account of the Manichæans and relates at length the Manichæan cosmogony. This is especially interesting and valuable as he retains the original Syriac designations of the cosmogonic figures and probably gives Mani's own account verbally from the Fundamental Epistle; in Pognon, Inscriptions mandaites des coupes de Khouabir (Paris, 1898), French tr. (see also M. Noldere Wiener, Zeitsch. Kund. Morg., XII, 355); Abu' Lfaradsh usually called En Nadim ("The Shining One"), an Arab historian who in A.D. 908 wrote his Firhist al'ulum or Compendium of Sciences". The chapters dealing with the Manichæans were published in German tr. by Fluegel in his Mani. Al Biruni, an Arabic chronologist (A.D. 1000), in his Chronology of Eastern Nations, Eng. ed. Sachau, Or transl. Fund (London, 1879), and India, Eng. ed. Sachau, truebn, Or. ser. (London, 1888)

LITERATURE.--DuFurcq, Etudes sur les Gesta Martyrum Romains, IV; Le Neo-Manichæisme et la legende chret. (Paris, 1910); Idem, De Manichaismo apud Latinos quinto sextoque seculo, etc. (Paris, 1910); Cumont, Recherche sur les Manecheisme, I; La Cosmogonie Manecheenne (Brussels, 1908); In course of publication, II; Fragments syriaques d'ouvrages manichiens; III; Les formules grecque d'abjuration; De Stoop; La diffusion du Manicheisme dans l'empire Romain (Ghent, 1908); Kessler, M ini Forschungen ueber die mani-chaeische Religion, I, (Berlin, 1889); II (1903); Idem in Acts of Internat. Congress of History of Religion (Basle, 1905); Idem in Realencyckl. fur Prot. Theol., s.v. Mani, Manichaer; Fluegel, Mani, seine Lehre und seine Shriften (Leipzig, 1862); Mueller, Handschr. Reste in Estrangelo-Schrift aus Turfan. Chin-Turkestan (Berlin, 1904); Salemann, Eine Bruchstuck man. Schrifftums in Mem. Acad. S. Petersburg, 1904.; Bischoff, Im Reiche der Gnosis (Leipzig, 1906). 40-104; Bruckner, Faustus von Mileve, Ein Beitrag sur Geschichte des abendl. Manich. (Leipzig, 1901); Beausobre, Hist. crit. de Manichee et du Manicheisme (Amsterdam, 1734); Bousett, Hauptprobleme der Gnosis (Goettingen, 1907); Salemann, Maniscaeische Studien (Petersburg, 1908); Casartelli, La Philosophie du Mardeisme; Rochat, Essai sur Mani et sa doctrine (Geneva, 1897); Newmann, Introd. Essay on Manisch. Heresy (1887); Ter-Mekertschian, Die Paulicianer (Leipzig, 1893); Doellinger, Geschichte der gnost-manisch. Secten (Munich, 1890); Geyler, System des Manichæismus (Jena, 1875).

J.P. ARENDZEN
Transcribed by Tom Crossett

http://newadvent.org/cathen/11067a.htm

(Also called Nicolaitans), a sect mentioned in the Apocalypse (ii,6,15) as existing in Ephesus, Pergamus, and other cities of Asia Minor, about the character and existence of which there is little certainty. Irenaeus (Adv. haer., I, xxvi, 3; III, xi, 1) discusses them but adds nothing to the Apocalypse except that "they lead lives of unrestrained indulgence." Tertullian refers to them, but apparently knows only what is found in St. John (De Praescrip. xxxiii; Adv. Marc., I, xxix; De Pud., xvii). Hippolytus based his narrative on Irenaeus, though he states that the deacon Nicholas was the author of the heresy and the sect (Philosph., VII, xxvi). Clement of Alexandria (Strom., III, iv) exonerates Nicholas, and attributes the doctrine of promiscuity, which the sect claimed to have derived from him, to a malicious distortion of words harmless in themselves. With the exception of the statement in Eusebius (H. E., III, xxix) that the sect was short-lived, none of the references in Epiphanius, Theodoret etc. deserve mention, as they are taken from Irenaeus. The common statement, that the Nicolaites held the antinomian heresy of Corinth, has not been proved. Another opinion, favoured by a number of authors, is that, because of the allegorical character of the Apocalypse, the reference to the Nicolaitans is merely a symbolic manner of reference, based on the identical meaning of the names, to the Bileamites or Balaamites (Apoc., ii, 14) who are mentioned just before them as professing the same doctrines.

P.J. HEALY
Transcribed by Fr. Rick Losch

http://newadvent.org/cathen/05242c.htm

By this name were designated one or more early Christian sects infected with Judaistic errors.

The word Ebionites, or rather, more correctly, Ebionæans (Ebionaioi), is a transliteration of an Aramean word meaning "poor men". It first occurs in Irenaeus, Adv. Haer., I, xxvi, 2, but without designation of meaning. Origen (C. Celsum, II, i; De Princ., IV, i, 22) and Eusebius (Hist. Eccl., III, xxvii) refer the name of these sectaries either to the poverty of their understanding, or to the poverty of the Law to which they clung, or to the poor opinions they held concerning Christ. This, however, is obviously not the historic origin of the name. Other writers, such as Tertullian (De Praescr., xxxiii; De Carne Chr., xiv, 18), Hippolytus (cfr. Pseudo-Tert., Adv. Haer., III, as reflecting Hippolytus's lost "Syntagma"), and Epiphanius (Haeres., xxx) derive the name of the sect from a certain Ebion, its supposed founder. Epiphanius even mentions the place of his birth, a hamlet called Cochabe in the district of Bashan, and relates that he travelled through Asia and even came to Rome. Of modern scholars Hilgenfeld has maintained the historical existence of this Ebion, mainly on the ground of some passages ascribed to Ebion by St. Jerome (Comm. in Gal., iii, 14) and by the author of a compilation of patristic texts against the Monothelites. But these passages are not likely to be genuine, and Ebion, otherwise unknown to history, is probably only an invention to account for the name Ebionites. The name may have been self-imposed by those who gladly claimed the beatitude of being poor in spirit, or who claimed to live after the pattern of the first Christians in Jerusalem, who laid their goods at the feet of the Apostles. Perhaps, however, it was first imposed by others and is to be connected with the notorious poverty of the Christians in Palestine (cf. Gal., ii, 10). Recent scholars have plausibly maintained that the term did not originally designate any heretical sect, but merely the orthodox Jewish Christians of Palestine who continued to observe the Mosaic Law. These, ceasing to be in touch with the bulk of the Christian world, would gradually have drifted away from the standard of orthodoxy and become formal heretics. A stage in this development is seen in St. Justin's "Dialogue with Trypho the Jew", chapter xlvii (about A. D. 140), where he speaks of two sects of Jewish Christians estranged from the Church: those who observe the Mosaic Law for themselves, but do not require observance thereof from others; and those who hold it of universal obligation. The latter are considered heretical by all; but with the former St. Justin would hold communion, though not all Christians would show them the same indulgence. St. Justin, however, does not use the term Ebionites, and when this term first occurs (about A. D. 175) it designates a distinctly heretical sect.

The doctrines of this sect are said by Irenaeus to be like those of Cerinthus and Carpocrates. They denied the Divinity and the virginal birth of Christ; they clung to the observance of the Jewish Law; they regarded St. Paul as an apostate, and used only a Gospel according to St. Matthew (Adv. Haer., I, xxvi, 2; III, xxi, 2; IV, xxxiii, 4; V, i, 3). Their doctrines are similarly described by Hippolytus (Philos., VIII, xxii, X, xviii) and Tertullian (De carne Chr., xiv, 18), but their observance of the Law seems no longer so prominent a feature of their system as in the account given by Irenaeus. Origen is the first (C. Cels., V, lxi) to mark a distinction between two classes of Ebionites, a distinction which Eusebius also gives (Hist. Eccl., III, xxvii). Some Ebionites accept, but others reject, the virginal birth of Christ, though all reject His pre-existence and His Divinity. Those who accepted the virginal birth seem to have had more exalted views concerning Christ and, besides observing the Sabbath, to have kept the Sunday as a memorial of His Resurrection. The milder sort of Ebionites were probably fewer and less important than their stricter brethren, because the denial of the virgin birth was commonly attributed to all. (Origen, Hom. in Luc., xvii) St. Epiphanius calls the more heretical section Ebionites, and the more Catholic-minded, Nazarenes. But we do not know whence St. Epiphanius obtained his information or or how far it is reliable. It is very hazardous, therefore, to maintain, as is sometimes done, that the distinction between Nazarenes and Ebionites goes back to the earliest days of Christianity.

Besides these merely Judaistic Ebionites, there existed a later Gnostic development of the same heresy. These Ebionite Gnostics differed widely from the main schools of Gnosticism, in that they absolutely rejected any distinction between Jehovah the Demiurge, and the Supreme Good God. Those who regard this distinction as essential to Gnosticism would even object to classing Ebionites as Gnostics. But on the other hand the general character of their teaching is unmistakably Gnostic. This can be gathered from the Pseudo-Clementines and may be summed up as follows: Matter is eternal, and an emanation of the Deity; nay it constitutes, as it were, God's body. Creation, therefore, is but the transformation of pre-existing material. God thus "creates" the universe by the instrumentality of His wisdom which is described as a "demiurgic hand" (cheir demiourgousa) producing the world. But this Logos, or Sophia, does not constitute a different person, as in Christian theology. Sophia produces the world by a successive evolution of syzygies, the female in each case preceding the male but being finally overcome by him. This universe is, moreover, divided into two realms, that of good and that of evil. The Son of God rules over the realm of the good, and to him is given the world to come, but the Prince of Evil is the prince of this world (cf. John, xiv, 30; Eph., i, 21; vi, 12). This Son of God is the Christ, a middle-being between God and creation, not a creature, yet not equal to, nor even to be compared with, the Father (autogenneto ou sygkrinetai -- "Hom.", xvi, 16). Adam was the bearer of the first revelation, Moses of the second, Christ of the third and perfect one. The union of Christ with Jesus is involved in obscurity. Man is saved by knowledge (gnosis), by believing in God the Teacher, and by being baptized unto remission of sins. Thus he receives knowledge and strength to observe all the precepts of the law. Christ shall come again to triumph over Antichrist as light dispels darkness. The system is Pantheism , Persian Dualism, Judaism, and Christianity fused together, and here and there reminds one of Mandaistic literature. The "Recognitions", as given us in Rufinus's translation (revision?), come nearer to Catholic teaching than do the "Homilies".

Amongst the writings of the Ebionites must be mentioned:

their Gospel. St. Irenaeus only states that they used the Gospel of St. Matthew. Eusebius modifies this statement by speaking of the so-called Gospel according to the Hebrews, which was known to Hegesippus (Eus., Hist. Eccl., IV, xxii, 8), Origen (Jerome, De vir., ill., ii), and Clem. Alex. (Strom., II, ix, 45). This, probably, was the slightly modified Aramaic original of St. Matthew, written in Hebrew characters. But St. Epiphanius attributes this to the Nazarenes, while the Ebionites proper only possessed an incomplete, falsified, and truncated copy thereof (Adv. Haer., xxix, 9). It is possibly identical with the Gospel of the Twelve.
Their Apocrypha: "The Circuits of Peter" (periodoi Petrou) and Acts of the Apostles, amongst which the "Ascents of James" (anabathmoi Iakobou). The first-named books are substantially contained in the Clementine Homilies under the title of Clement's "Compendium of Peter's itinerary sermons", and also in the "Recognitions" ascribed to the same. They form an early Christian didactic novel to propagate Ebionite views, i.e. their Gnostic doctrines, the supremacy of James, their connection with Rome, and their antagonism to Simon Magus. (See CLEMENTINES.)
The Works of Symmachus, i.e. his translation of the Old Testament (see VERSIONS OF THE BIBLE; SYMMACHUS THE EBIONITE), and his "Hypomnemata" against the canonical Gospel of St. Matthew. The latter work, which is totally lost (Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., VI, xvii; Jerome, De vir. ill., liv), is probably identical with "De distinctione præceptorum", mentioned by Ebed Jesu (Assemani, Bibl. Or., III, 1).
The book of Elchesai, or of "The Hidden power", purporting to have been written about A. D. 100 and brought to Rome about A. D. 217 by Alcibiades of Apamea. Those who accepted its doctrines and its new baptism were called Elchesaites. (Hipp., "Philos.", IX, xiv-xvii; Epiph., "Haer.", xix, 1; liii, 1.)
Of the history of this sect hardly anything is known. They exerted only the slightest influence in the East and none at all in the West, where they were known as Symmachiani. In St. Epiphanius's time small communities seem still to have existed in some hamlets of Syria and Palestine, but they were lost in obscurity. Further east, in Babylonia and Persia, their influence is perhaps traceable amongst the Mandeans, and it is suggested by Uhlhorn and others that they may be brought into connection with the origin of Islam.
J.P. ARENDZEN
Transcribed by Sean Hyland

Docetae
(Greek Doketai.)

http://newadvent.org/cathen/05070c.htm

A heretical sect dating back to Apostolic times. Their name is derived from dokesis, "appearance" or "semblance", because they taught that Christ only "appeared" or "seemed to be a man, to have been born, to have lived and suffered. Some denied the reality of Christ's human nature altogether, some only the reality of His human body or of His birth or death. The word Docetae which is best rendered by "Illusionists", first occurs in a letter of Serapion, Bishop of Antioch (190-203) to the Church at Rhossos, where troubles had about the public reading of the apocryphal Gospel of Peter. Serapion at first unsuspectingly allowed but soon after forbade, this, saying that he had borrowed a copy from the sect who used it, "whom we call Docetae". He suspected a connection with Marcionism and found in this Gospel "some additions to the right teaching of the Saviour". A fragment of apocryphon was discovered in 1886 and contained three passages which savoured strongly of Illusionism. The name further occurs in Clement of Alexandria (d. 216), Strom., III, xiii, VII, xvii, where these sectaries are mentioned together with the Haematites as instances of heretics being named after their own special error. The heresy itself, however, is much older, as it is combated in the New Testament. Clement mentions a certain Julius Cassianus as ho tes dokeseos exarchon, "the founder of Illusionism". This name is known also to St. Jerome and Theodoret; and Cassianus is said to be a disciple of Valentinian, but nothing more is known of him. The idea of the unreality of Christ's human nature was held by the oldest Gnostic sects and can not therefore have originated with Cassianus. As Clement distinguished the Docetae from other Gnostic sects, he problably knew some sectaries the sum-total of whose errors consisted in this illusion theory; but Docetism, as far as at present known, as always an accompaniment of Gnosticism or later of Manichaeism. The Docetae described by Hippolytus (Philos., VIII, i-iv, X, xii) are likewise a Gnostic sect; these perhaps extended their illusion theory to all material substances.

Docetism is not properly a Christian heresy at all, as it did not arise in the Church from the misundertanding of a dogma by the faithful, but rather came from without. Gnostics starting from the principle of antagonism between matter and spirit, and making all salvation consist in becoming free from the bondage of matter and returning as pure spirit to the Supreme Spirit, could not possibly accept the sentence, "the Word was made flesh", in a literal sense. In order to borrow from Christianity the doctrine of a Saviour who was Son of the Good God, they were forced to modify the doctrine of the Incarnation. Their embarrassment with this dogma caused many vacinations and inconsistencies; some holding the indwelling of an Aeon in a body which was indeed real body or humanity at all; others denying the actual objective existence of any body or humanity at all; others allowing a "psychic", but not a "hylic" or really material body; others believing in a real, yet not human "sidereal" body; others again accepting the of the body but not the reality of the birth from a woman, or the reality of the passion and death on the cross. Christ only seemed to suffer, either because He ingeniously and miraculously substituted someone else to bear the pain, or because the occurence on Calvary was a visual deception. Simon Magus first spoke of a "putative passion of Christ and blasphemously asserted that it was really he, Simon himself, who underwent these apparent sufferings. "As the angels governed this world badly because each angel coveted the principality for himself he [Simon] came to improve matters, and was transfigured and rendered like unto the Virtues and Powers and Angels, so that he appeared amongst men as man though he was no man and was believed to have suffered in Judea though he had not suffered" (passum in Judea putatum cum non esset passus -- Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. I, xxiii sqq.). The mention of the demiurgic angels stamps this passage as a piece of Gnosticism. Soon after a Syrian Gnostic of Antioch, Saturninus or Saturnilus (about 125) made Christ the chief of the Aeons, but tried to show that the Savior was unborn (agenneton) and without body (asomaton) and without form (aneideon) and only apparently (phantasia) seen as man (Irenaeus, Adv. Haer., XXIV, ii).

Another Syrian Gnostic, Cerdo, who came to Rome under Pope Hyginus (137) and became the master of Marcion, taught that "Christ, the Son of the Highest God, appeared without birth from the Virgin, yea without any birth on earth as man". All this is natural enough, for matter not being the creation of the Highest God but of the Demiurge, Christ could have none of it. This is clearly brought out by Tertullian in his polemic against Marcion. According to this heresiarch (140) Christ, without passing through the womb of Mary and endowed with only a putative body, suddenly came from heaven to Capharnaum in the fifteenth year of Tiberius; and Tertullian remarks: "All these tricks about a putative corporeality Marcion has adopted lest the truth of Christ's birth should be argued from the reality of his human nature, and thus Christ should be vindicated as the work of the Creator [Demiurge] and be shown to have human flesh even as he had human birth" (Adv. Marc., III, xi). Tertullian further states that Marcion's chief disciple, Apelles, sightly modified his master's system, accepting indeed the truth of Christ's flesh, but strenously denying the truth of His birth. He contended that Christ had an astral body made of superior substance, and he compared the Incarnation to the appearance of the angel to Abraham. This, Tertullian sarcastically remarks, is getting from the frying pan into fire, de calcariâ in carbonariam. Valentinus the Egyptian attempted to accommodate his system still more closely to Christian doctrine by admitting not merely the reality of the Saviour's body but even a seeming birth, saying that the Saviour's body passed through Mary as through a channel (hos dia solenos) though he took nothing from her, but had a body from above. This approximation to orthodoxy, however, was only apparent, for Valentinus distinguished between Christ and Jesus. Christ and the Holy Ghost were emanations from the Aeons together proceeded Jesus the Saviour, who became united with the Messias of the Demiurge.

In the East, Marinus and the school of Bardesanes, though not Bardesanes himself, held similar views with regard to Christ's astral body and seeming birth. In the West, Ptolemy reduced Docetism to a minimum by saying that Christ was indeed a real man, but His substance was a compound of the pneumatic and the psychic (spiritual and ethereal). The pneumatic He received from Achamoth or Wisdom, the psychic from the Demiurge, His psychic nature enabled him to suffer and feel pain, though He possessed nothing grossly material. (Irenaeus, Adv. Haer., I, xii, II, iv). As the Docetae objected to the reality of the birth, so from the first they particularly objected to the reality of the passion. Hence the clumsy attempts at substitution of another victim by Basilides and others. According to Basilides, Christ seemed to men to be a man and to have performed miracles. It was not, however, Christ, who suffered but Simon of Cyrenes who was constrained to carry the cross and was mistakenly crucified in Christ's stead. Simon having received Jesus' form, Jesus returned Simon's and thus stood by and laughed. Simon was crucified and Jesus returned to his father (Irenaeus, Adv. Char., 1, xxiv). According to some apocrypha it was Judas, not Simon the Cyrenean, who was thus substituted. Hippolytus describes a Gnostic sect who took the name of Docetae, though for what reason is not apparent, especially as their semblance theory was the least pronounced feature in their system. Their views were in close affinity to those of the Valentians. The primal Being is, so to speak, the seed of a fig-tree, small in size but infinite in power; from it proceed three Aeons, tree, leaves, fruit, which, multiplied with the perfect number ten, become thirty. These thirty Aeons together fructify one of themselves, from whom proceeds the Virgin-Saviour, a perfect representation of the Highest God. The Saviour's task is to hinder further transference of souls from body to body, which is the work of the Great Archon, the Creator of the world. The Saviour enters the world unnoticed, unknown, obscure. An angel announced the glad tidings to Mary. He was born and did all the things that are written of him in the Gospels. But in baptism he received the figure and seal of another body besides that born of the Virgin. The object of this was that when the Archon condemned his own peculiar figment of flesh to the death of the cross, the soul of Jesus--that soul which had been nourished in the body born of the Virgin--might strip off that body and nail it to the accursed tree. In the pneumatic body received at baptism Jesus could triumph over the Archon, whose evil intent he had eluded.

This heresy, which destroyed the very meaning and purpose of the Incarnation, was combated even by the Apostles. Possibly St. Paul's statement that in Christ dwelt the fullness of the Godhead corporaliter (Col., i, 19, ii, 9) has some reference to Docetic errors. Beyond doubt St. John (I John, i, 1-3, iv, I-3; II John, 7) refers to this heresy; so at least it seemed to Dionysius of Alexandria (Eusebius, H. E., VII, xxv) and Tertullian (De carne Christi, xxiv). In sub-Apostolic times this sect was vigorously combated by St. Ignatius and Polycarp. The former made a warning against Docetists the burden of his letters; he speaks of them as "monsters in human shape" (therion anthropomorphon) and bids the faithful not only not to receive them but even to avoid meeting them. Pathetically he exclaims: If, as some godless men [atheoi], I mean unbelievers, say, He has suffered only in outward appearance, they themselves are nought but outward show. why am I in bonds? Why should I pray to fight with wild beasts? Then I die for nothing, then I would only be lying against the Lord" (Ad Trall. x; Eph., vii, xviii; Smyrn., i-vi). In St. Ignatius' day Docetism seems to have been closely connected with Judaism (cf. Magn viii, 1 x, 3; Phil, vi, viii). Polycarp in his letter to the Philippians re-echoes I John, iv 2- 4; to the same purpose. St. Justin nowhere expressly combats Docetic errors, but he mentions several Gnostics who were notorious for their Docetic aberrations, as Basilideans and Valentinians, and in his "Dialogue with Trypho the Jew" he strongly emphasizes the birth of Christ from the Virgin. Tertullian wrote a treatise "On the flesh of Christ" and attacked Docetic errors in his "Adversus Marcionem". Hippolytus in his "Philosophoumena" refutes Docetism in the different Gnostic errors which he enumerates and twice gives the Docetic system as above referred to.

The earlier Docetism seemed destined to die with the death of Gnosticism, when it received a long lease of life as parasitic error to another heresy, that of Manichaeism. Manichaean Gnostics started with a two-fold eternal principle, good (spirit) and evil (matter). In order to add Christian soteriology to Iranian dualism, they were forced, as the Gnostics were, to tamper with the truth of the Incarnation. Manichees distinguished between a Jesus patibilis and a Jesus impatibilis or Christ. The latter was the light as dwelling in, or symbolized by, or personified under, the name of the Sun; the former was the light as imprisoned in matter and darkness; of which light each human soul was a spark. Jesus patibilis was therefore but a sign of the speech, an abstraction of the Good, the pure light above. In the reign of Tiberius Christ appears in Judea, Son of the Eternal Light and also Son of Man; but in the latter expression "man" is a technical Manichaean term for the Logos or World-Soul; both anthropos and pneuma are emanations of the Deity. Though Christ is son of man He has only a seeming body, and only seemingly suffers, His passion being called mystical fiction of the cross. It is obvious that this doctrine borrowed from that of the Incarnation nothing but a few names. Scattered instances of Docetism are found as far West as Spain among the Priscillianists of the fourth and the fifth century. The Paulicians in Armenia and the Selicians in Constantinople fostered these errors. The Paulicians existed even in the tenth century, denying the reality of Christ's birth and appealing to Luke, vii, 20. God, according to them, sent an angel to undergo the passion. Hence they worshipped not the cross but the Gospel, Christ's word. Among the Slavs the Bogomilae renewed the ancient fancy that Jesus entered Mary's body by the right ear, and received from her but an apparent body. In the West a council of Orléans in 1022 condemned thirteen Catharist heretics for denying the reality of Christ's life and death. In modern theosophic and spiritist circles this early heresy is being renewed by ideas scarcely less fanstastic than the wildest vagaries of old.

J.P. ARENDZEN
Transcribed by Joseph P. Thomas

Cerinthus
(Greek Kerinthos).

http://newadvent.org/cathen/03539a.htm

A Gnostic-Ebionite heretic, contemporary with St. John; against whose errors on the divinity of Christ the Apostle is said to have written the Fourth Gospel.

We possess no information concerning this early sectary which reaches back to his own times. The first mention of his name and description of his doctrines occur in St. Irenaeus (Adv. Haer., I, c. xxvi; III, c. iii, c. xi), written about 170. Further information is gathered from Presbyter Caius (c. 210) as quoted by Eusebius (Hist. Eccl., III, xxviii, 2). Hippolytus, in "Philosophoumena", VII, 33 (c. 230), practically transcribes Irenaeus. Cerinthus is referred to by Pseudo-Tertullian in "Adv. Omnes Haeres", written about 240. A fragment of Dionysius of Alexandria, taken from "De Promissionibus", written about 250, is given by Eusebius after his quotation from Caius. The most detailed account is given by St. Epiphanius (Adv. Haeres", xxviii, written about 390), which, however, on account of its date and character must be used with some caution. A good summary is given by Theodoret ("Haer. Fab.", II, 3, written about 450). Cerinthus was an Egyptian, and if not by race a Jew, at least he was circumcised. The exact date of his birth and his death are unknown. In Asia he founded a school and gathered disciples. No writings of any kind have come down to us. Cerinthus's doctrines were a strange mixture of Gnosticism, Judaism, Chiliasm, and Ebionitism. He admitted one Supreme Being; but the world was produced by a distinct and far inferior power. He does not identify this Creator or Demiurgos with the Jehovah of the Old Testament. Not Jehovah but the angels have both made the world and given the law. These creator-angels were ignorant of the existence of the Supreme God. The Jewish law was most sacred, and salvation to be obtained by obedience to its precepts. Cerinthus distinguished between Jesus and Christ. Jesus was mere man, though eminent in holiness. He suffered and died and was raised from the dead, or, as some say Ceerinthus taught, He will be raised from the dear at the Last Day and all men will rise with Him. At the moment of baptism, Christ or the Holy Ghost was sent by the Highest God, and dwelt in Jesus teaching Him, what not even the angels knew, the Unknown God. This union between Jesus and Christ continues till the Passion, when Jesus suffers alone and Christ returns to heaven. Cerinthus believed in a happy millenium which would be realized here on earth previous to the resurrection and the spiritual kingdom of God in heaven.

Scarcely anything is known of Cerinthus's disciples; they seem soon to have fused with the Nazareans and Ebionites and exercised little influence on the bulk of Christendom, except perhaps through the Pseudo-Clementines, the product of Cerinthian and Ebionite circles. They flourished most in Asia and Galatia.

Bareille, in Dict. de Theol. Cath., s.v.; Duchesne, Hist. ancienne de L'Eglise (Paris, 1907); Dict. of Christ. Biogr.; Mansel, The Gnostic Heresies of the First and Second Cent. (1875); Davidson, Introductions to N. Test. (1894), I, 345; II, 245-6; Kunze, De Hist. Gnosticismi Fontibus (Leipzig, 1894).

J.P. ARENDZEN
Transcribed by William D. Neville

http://newadvent.org/cathen/10448a.htm

Heretics of the second and third centuries. The word, Monarchiani, was first used by Tertullian as a nickname for the Patripassian group (adv. Prax., x), and was seldom used by the ancients. In modern times it has been extended to an earlier group of heretics, who are distinguished as Dynamistic, or Adoptionist, Monarchians from the Modalist Monarchians, or Patripassians [Sabellians].

I. DYNAMISTS, OR ADOPTIONISTS

All Christians hold the unity (monarchia) of God as a fundamental doctrine. By the Patripassians this first principle was used to deny the Trinity, and they are with some reason called Monarchians. But the Adoptionists, or Dynamists, have no claim to the title, for they did not start from the monarchy of God, and their error is strictly Christological. An account of them must, however, be given here simply because the name Monarchian has adhered to them in spite of the repeated protests of historians of dogma. But their ancient and accurate name was Theodotians. The founder of the sect was a leather-seller of Byzantium named Theodotus. He came to Rome under Pope Victor (c. 190-200) or earlier. He taught (Philosophumena, VII, xxxv) that Jesus was a man born of a virgin according to the counsel of the Father, that He lived like other men, and was most pious; that at His baptism in the Jordan the Christ came down upon Him in the likeness of a dove, and therefore wonders (dynameis) were not wrought in Him until the Spirit (which Theodotus called Christ) came down and was manifested in Him. They did not admit that this made Him God; but some of them said He was God after His resurrection. It was reported that Theodotus had been seized, with others, at Byzantium as a Christian, and that he had denied Christ, whereas his companions had been martyred; he had fled to Rome, and had invented his heresy in order to excuse his fall, saying that it was but a man and not God that he had denied. Pope Victor excommunicated him, and he gathered together a sect in which we are told much secular study was carried on. Hippolytus says that they argued on Holy Scripture in syllogistic form. Euclid, Aristotle, and Theophrastus were their admiration, and Galen they even adored. We should probably assume, with Harnack, that Hippolytus would have had less objection to the study of Plato or the Stoics, and that he disliked their purely literal exegesis, which neglected the allegorical sense. They also emended the text of Scripture, but their versions differed, that of Asclepiodotus was different from that of Theodotus, and again from that of Hermophilus; and the copies of Apolloniades did not even tally with one another. Some of them "denied the law and the Prophets", that is to say, they followed Marcion in rejecting the Old Testament. The only disciple of the leather-seller of whom we know anything definite is his namesake Theodotus the banker (ho trapezites). He added to his master's doctrine the view that Melchisedech was a celestial power, who was the advocate for the angels in heaven, as Jesus Christ was for men upon earth (a view found among later sects). (See MELCHISEDECHIANS). This teaching was of course grounded on Hebrews, vii, 3, and it is refuted at length by St. Epiphanius as Heresy 55, "Melchisedechians", after he has attacked the leather-seller under Heresy 54, "Theodotians". As he meets a series of arguments of both heretics, it is probable that some writings of the sect had been before Hippolytus, whose lost "Syntagma against all heresies" supplied St. Epiphanius with all his information. After the death of Pope Victor, Theodotus, the banker, and Asclepiodotus designed to raise their sect from the position of a mere school like those of the Gnostics to the rank of a Church like that of Marcion. They got hold of a certain confessor named Natalius, and persuaded him to be called their bishop at a salary of 150 denarii (24 dollars) a month. Natalius thus became the first antipope. But after he had joined them, he was frequently warned in visions by the Lord, Who did not wish His martyr to be lost outside the Church. He neglected the visions, for the sake of the honour and gain, but finally was scourged all night by the holy angels, so that in the morning with haste and tears he betook himself in sackcloth and ashes to Pope Zephyrinus and cast himself at the feet of the clergy, and even of the laity, showing the weals of the blows, and was after some difficulty restored to communion. This story is quoted by Eusebius II (VI, xxviii) from the "Little Labyrinth" of the contemporary Hippolytus, a work composed against Artemon, a late leader of the sect (perhaps c. 225-30), whom he did not mention in the "Syntagma" or the "Philosophumena". Our knowledge of Artemon, or Artemas, is limited to the reference to him made at the end of the Council of Antioch against Paul of Samosata (about 266-268), where that heretic was said to have followed Artemon, and in fact the teaching of Paul is but a more learned and theological development of Theodotianism (see Paul of Samosata).

The sect probably died out about the middle of the third century, and can never have been numerous. All our knowledge of it goes back to Hippolytus. His "Syntagma" (c.205) is epitomized in Pseudo-Tertullian (Praescript., lii) and Philastrius, and is developed by Epiphanius (Haer., liv. lv); his "Little Labyrinth" (written 139-5, cited by Eusebius, V, 28) and his "Philosophumena" are still extant. See also his "Contra Noetum" 3, and a fragment "On the Melchisedechians and Theodotians and Athingani", published by Caspari (Tidskr. für der Evangel. Luth. Kirke, Ny Raekke, VIII, 3, p. 307). But the Athingani are a later sect, for which see MEDCHISEDECHIANS. The Monarchianism of Photinus (q. v.) seems to have been akin to that of the Theodotians. All speculations as to the origin of the theories of Theodotus are fanciful. At any rate he is not connected with the Ebionites. The Alogi have sometimes been classed with the Monarchians. Lipsius in his "Quelenkritik des Epiphanius" supposed them to be even Philanthropists, on account of their denial of the Logos, and Epiphanius in fact calls Theodotus an apopasma of the Alogi; but this is only a guess, and is not derived by him from Hippolytus. As a fact, Epiphanius assures us (Haer. 51) that the Alogi (that is, Gaius and his party) were orthodox in their Christology (see MONTANISTS).

II. MODALISTS

The Monarchians properly so-called (Modalists) exaggerated the oneness of the Father and the Son so as to make them but one Person; thus the distinctions in the Holy Trinity are energies or modes, not Persons: God the Father appears on earth as Son; hence it seemed to their opponents that Monarchians made the Father suffer and die. In the West they were called Patripassians, whereas in the East they are usually called Sabellians. The first to visit Rome was probably Praxeas, who went on to Carthage some time before 206-208; but he was apparently not in reality a heresiarch, and the arguments refuted by Tertullian somewhat later in his book "Adversus Praxean" are doubtless those of the Roman Monarchians (see PRAXEAS).

A. History

Noetus (from whom the Noetians) was a Smyrnaean (Epiphanius, by a slip, says an Ephesian). He called himself Moses, and his brother Aaron. When accused before the presbyterate of teaching that the Father suffered, he denied it; but after having made a few disciples he was again interrogated, and expelled from the Church. He died soon after, and did not receive Christian burial. Hippolytus mockingly declares him to have been a follower of Heraclitus, on account of the union of the opposites which he taught when he called God both visible and invisible, passible and impassible. His pupil Epigonus came to Rome. As he was not mentioned in the "Syntagma" of Hippolytus, which was written in one of the first five years of the third century, he was not then well known in Rome, or had not yet arrived. According to Hippolytus (Philos., IX, 7), Cleomenes, a follower of Epigonus, was allowed by Pope Zephyrinus to establish a school, which flourished under his approbation and that of Callistus. Hagemann urges that we should conclude that Cleomenes was not a Noetian at all, and that he was an orthodox opponent of the incorrect theology of Hippolytus. The same writer gives most ingenious and interesting (though hardly convincing) reasons for identifying Praxeas with Callistus; he proves that the Monarchians attacked in Tertullian's "Contra Praxean" and in the "Philosophumena" had identical tenets which were not necessarily heretical; he denies that Tertullian means us to understand that Praxeas came to Carthage, and he explains the nameless refuter of Praxeas to be, not Tertullian himself, but Hippolytus. It is true that it is easy to suppose Tertullian and Hippolytus to have misrepresented the opinions of their opponents, but it cannot be proved that Cleomenes was not a follower of the heretical Noetus, and that Sabellius did not issue from his school; further, it is not obvious that Tertullian would attack Callistus under a nickname.

Sabellius soon became the leader of the Monarchians in Rome, perhaps even before the death of Zephyrinus (c. 218). He is said by Epiphanius to have founded his views on the Gospel according to the Egyptians, and the fragments of that apocryphon support this statement. Hippolytus hoped to convert Sabellius to his own views, and attributed his failure in this to the influence of Callistus. That pope, however, excommunicated Sabellius c. 220 ("fearing me", says Hippolytus). Hippolytus accuses Callistus of now inventing a new heresy by combing the views of Theodotus and those of Sabellius, although he excommunicated them both (see CALLISTUS I, POPE). Sabellius was apparently still in Rome when Hippolytus wrote the Philosophumena (between 230 and 235). Of his earlier and later history nothing is known. St. Basil and others call him a Libyan from Pentapolis, but this seems to rest on the fact that Pentapolis was found to be full of Sabellianism by Dionysius of Alexandria, c. 260. A number of Montanists led by Aeschines became Modalists (unless Harnack is right in making Modalism the original belief of the Montanists and in regarding Aeschines as a conservative). Sabellius (or at least his followers) may have considerably amplified the original Noetianism. There was still Sabellianism to be found in the fourth century. Marcellus of Ancyra developed a Monarchianism of his own, which was carried much further by his disciple, Photinus. Priscillian was an extreme Monarchian and so was Commodian ("Carmen Apol.", 89, 277, 771). The "Monarchian Prologues" to the Gospels found in most old manuscripts of the Vulgate, were attributed by von Dobschütz and P. Corssen to a Roman author of the time of Callistus, but they are almost certainly the work of Priscillian. Beryllus, Bishop of Bostra, is vaguely said by Eusebius (H. E., VI, 33) to have taught that the Saviour had no distinct pre-existence before the Incarnation, and had no Divinity of His own, but that the Divinity of the Father dwelt in Him. Origen disputed with him in a council and convinced him of his error. The minutes of the disputation were known to Eusebius. It is not clear whether Beryllus was a Modalist or a Dynamist.

B. Theology

There was much that was unsatisfactory in the theology of the Trinity and in the Christology of the orthodox writers of the Ante-Nicene period. The simple teaching of tradition was explained by philosophical ideas, which tended to obscure as well as to elucidate it. The distinction of the Son from the Father was so spoken of that the Son appeared to have functions of His own, apart from the Father, with regard to the creation and preservation of the world, and thus to be a derivative and secondary God. The unity of the Divinity was commonly guarded by a reference to a unity of origin. It was said that God from eternity was alone, with His Word, one with Him (as Reason, in vulca cordis, logos endiathetos), before the Word was spoken (ex ore Patris, logos prophorikos), or was generated and became Son for the purpose of creation. The Alexandrians alone insisted rightly on the generation of the Son from all eternity; but thus the Unity of God was even less manifest. The writers who thus theologize may often expressly teach the traditional Unity in Trinity, but it hardly squares with the Platonism of their philosophy. The theologians were thus defending the doctrine of the Logos at the expense of the two fundamental doctrines of Christianity, the Unity of God, and the Divinity of Christ. They seemed to make the Unity of the Godhead split into two or even three, and to make Jesus Christ something less than the supreme God the Father. This is eminently true of the chief opponents of the Monarchians, Tertullian, Hippolytus, and Novatian. (See Newman, "The Causes of Arianism", in "Tracts theol. and eccles.") Monarchianism was the protest against this learned philosophizing, which to the simplicity of the faithful looked too much like a mythology or a Gnostic emanationism. The Monarchians emphatically declared that God is one, wholly and perfectly one, and that Jesus Christ is God, wholly and perfectly God. This was right, and even most necessary, and whilst it is easy to see why the theologians like Tertullian and Hippolytus opposed them (for their protest was precisely against the Platonism which these theologians had inherited from Justin and the Apologists), it is equally comprehensible that guardians of the Faith should have welcomed at first the return of the Monarchians to the simplicity of the Faith, "ne videantur deos dicere, neque rursum negare salvatoris deitatem" ("Lest they seem to be asserting two Gods or, on the other hand, denying the Saviour's Godhead". - Origen, "On Titus", frag. II). Tertullian in opposing them acknowledges that the uninstructed were against him; they could not understand the magic word oikonomia with which he conceived he had saved the situation; they declared that he taught two or three Gods, and cried "Monarchiam tenemus." So Callistus reproached Hippolytus, and not without reason, with teaching two Gods.

Already St. Justin knew of Christians who taught the identity of the Father and the Son ("Apol.", I, 63; "Dial.", cxxviii). In Hermas, as in Theodotus, the Son and the Holy Ghost are confused. But it was reserved for Noetus and his school to deny categorically that the unity of the Godhead is compatible with a distinction of Persons. They seem to have regarded the Logos as a mere name, or faculty, or attribute, and to have made the Son and the Holy Ghost merely aspects of modes of existence of the Father, thus emphatically identifying Christ with the one God. "What harm am I doing", was the reply made by Noetus to the presbyters who interrogated him, "in glorifying Christ?" They replied: "We too know in truth one God; we know Christ; we know that the Son suffered even as He suffered, and died even as He died, and rose again on the third day, and is at the right hand of the Father, and cometh to judge the living and the dead; and what we have learned we declare" (Hippol.; "Contra Noetum", 1). Thus they refuted Noetus with tradition - the Apostles' Creed is enough; for the Creed and the New Testament indeed make the distinction of Persons clear, and the traditional formulas and prayers were equally unmistakable. Once the Monarchian system was put into philosophical language, it was seen to be no longer the old Christianity. Ridicule was used; the heretics were told that if the Father and the Son were really identified, then no denial on their part could prevent the conclusion that the Father suffered and died, and sat at His own right hand. Hippolytus tells us that Pope Zephyrinus, whom he represents as a stupid old man, declared at the instance of Callistus: "I know one God Christ Jesus, and besides Him no other Who was born and Who suffered"; but he added: "Not the Father died, but the Son". The reporter is an unsympathetic adversary; but we can see why the aged pope was viewing the simple assertions of Sabellius in a favorable light. Hippolytus declares that Callistus said that the Father suffered with the Son, and Tertullian says the same of the Monarchians whom he attacks. Hagemann thinks Callistus-Praxeas especially attacked the doctrine of the Apologists and of Hippolytus and Tertullian, which assigned all such attributes as impassibility and invisibility to the Father and made the Son alone capable of becoming passible and visible, ascribing to Him the work of creation, and all operations ad extra. It is true that the Monarchians opposed this Platonizing in general, but it is not evident that they had grasped the principle that all the works of God ad extra are common to the Three Persons as proceeding form the Divine Nature; and they seem to have said simply that God as Father is invisible and impassible, but becomes visible and passible as Son. This explanation brings them curiously into line with their adversaries. Both parties represented God as one and alone in His eternity. Both made the generation of the Son a subsequent development; only Tertullian and Hippolytus date it before the creation, and the Monarchians perhaps not until the Incarnation. Further, their identification of the Father and the Son was not favourable to a true view of the Incarnation. The very insistence on the unity of God emphasized also the distance of God from man, and was likely to end in making the union of God with man a mere indwelling or external union, after the fashion of that which was attributed to Nestorius. They spoke of the Father as "Spirit" and the Son as "flesh", and it is scarcely surprising that the similar Monarchianism of Marcellus should have issued in the Theodotianism of Photinus.

It is impossible to arrive at the philosophical views of Sabellius. Hagemann thought that he started from the Stoic system as surely as his adversaries did from the Platonic. Dorner has drawn too much upon his imagination for the doctrine of Sabellius; Harnack is too fanciful with regard to its origin. In fact we know little of him but that he said the Son was the Father (so Novatian, "De. Trin." 12, and Pope Dionysius relate). St. Athanasius tells us that he said the Father is the Son and the Son is the Father, one is hypostasis, but two in name (so Epiphanius): "As there are divisions of gifts, but the same Spirit, so the Father is the same, but is developed [platynetai] into Son and Spirit" (Orat., IV, c. Ar., xxv). Theodoret says he spoke of one hypostasis and a threefold prosopa, whereas St. Basil says he willingly admitted three prosopa in one hypostasis. This is, so far as words go, exactly the famous formulation of Tertullian, "tres personae, una substantia" (three persons, one substance), but Sabellius seems to have meant "three modes or characters of one person". The Father is the Monad of whom the Son is a kind of manifestation: for the Father is in Himself silent, inactive (siopon, hanenerletos), and speaks, creates, works, as Son (Athan., 1. c., 11). Here again we have a parallel to the teaching of the Apologists about the Word as Reason and the Word spoken, the latter alone being called Son. It would seem that the difference between Sabellius and his opponents lay mainly in his insisting on the unity of hypostasis after the emission of the Word as Son. It does not seem clear that he regarded the Son as beginning at the Incarnation; according to the passage of St. Athanasius just referred to, he may have agreed with the Apologists to date Sonship from the creative action of God. But we have few texts to go upon, and it is quite uncertain whether Sabellius left any writings. Monarchianism is frequently combated by Origen. Dionysius of Alexandria fought Sabellianism with some imprudence. In the fourth century the Arians and Semi-Arians professed to be much afraid of it, and indeed the alliance of Pope Julius and Arhanasius with Marcellus gave some colour to accusations against the Nicene formulas as opening the way to Sabellianism. The Fathers of the fourth century (as, for instance, St. Gregory of Nyssa, "Contra Sabellium", ed. Mai) seem to contemplate a more developed form than that known to Hippolytus ("Contra Noetum" and "Philosophumena") and through him, to Epiphanius: the consummation of creation is to consist in the return of the Logos from the humanity of Christ to the Father, so that the original unity of the Divine Nature is after all held to have been temporally compromised, and only in the end will it be restored, that God may be all in all.

Our chief original authorities for early Monarchianism of the Modalist type are Tertullian, "Adversus Praxean", and Hippolytus, "Contra Noetum" (fragment) and "Philosophumena". The "Contra Noetum" and the lost "Syntagma" were used by Epiphanius, Haer. 57 (Noetians), but the sources of Epiphanius's Haer. 62 (Sabellians) are less certain. The references by Origen, Novatian, and later Fathers are somewhat indefinite.

JOHN CHAPMAN
Transcribed by Anthony A. Killeen
Aeterna, non caduca