(b) Eusebius, Hist. Ec., III, 18. (MSG, 20:252.)

To such a degree did the teaching of our faith flourish at that time2 that even those writers who were far from our [pg 012] religion did not hesitate to mention in their histories the persecutions and martyrdoms which took place during that time. And they, indeed, accurately indicate the time. For they record that, in the fifteenth year of Domitian, Flavia Domitilla, daughter of a sister of Flavius Clemens, who was at that time one of the consuls of Rome, was exiled with many others to the island of Pontia3 in consequence of testimony borne to Christ.

(a) Tertullian, Adv. Judæos, 7. (MSL, 2:649.)

Upon whom else have all nations believed but upon the Christ who has already come? For whom have the other nations believed—Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and they who inhabit Mesopotamia, Armenia, Phrygia, Cappadocia, and [pg 053] those dwelling in Pontus and Asia, and Pamphylia, sojourners in Egypt, and inhabitants of the region of Africa which is beyond Cyrene, Romans and sojourners, yes, and in Jerusalem, Jews and other nations;25 as now the varied races of the Gætulians, and manifold confines of the Moors, all the limits of Spain, and the diverse nations of the Gauls, and the places of the Britons inaccessible to the Romans, but subjugated to Christ, and of the Sarmatians and Dacians, and Germans and Scythians, and of many remote nations and provinces and many islands unknown to us and which we can hardly enumerate? In all of these places the name of Christ, who has already come, now reigns.

(b) Tertullian, Apologeticus adversus Gentes pro Christianis, 37. (MSL, 1:525.)

We are but of yesterday, and we have filled every place among you—cities, islands, fortresses, towns, market-places, the very camps, tribes, companies, palace, Senate, and Forum. We have left you only the temples.

(c) Irenæus, Adv. Hæreses, I, 10, 3. (MSG, 7:551 f.) For text, see Kirch, § 91.

Since the Church has received this preaching and this faith, as we have said, the Church, although it is scattered throughout the whole world, diligently guards it as if it dwelt in one house; and likewise it believes these things as if it had one soul and one heart, and harmoniously it preaches, teaches, and believes these things as if possessing one mouth. For although the languages of the world are dissimilar, yet the import of the tradition is one and the same. For the churches which have been founded in Germany have not believed nor handed down anything different, nor have those among the Iberians, nor those among the Gauls, nor those in the East, [pg 054] nor those in Egypt, nor those in Libya, nor those which have been established in the central regions26 of the world.

(d) Bardesanes, De Fato. F. Nau, Bardesane l'astrologue; le livre des lois des pays, Paris. 1899.

In Syria and Edessa men used to part with their manhood in honor of Tharatha,27 but when King Abgar became a believer he commanded that every one that did so should have his hand cut off, and from that day until now no one does so in the country of Edessa.

And what shall we say of the new race of us Christians, whom Christ at His advent planted in every country and in every region? For, lo, wherever we are, we are called after the one name of Christ—namely, Christians. On one day, the first day of the week, we assemble ourselves together, and on the days of the readings28 we abstain from sustenance. The brethren who are in Gaul do not take males for wives, nor those in Parthia two wives; nor do those in Judea circumcise themselves; nor do those of our sisters who are among the Geli consort with strangers; nor do those of our brethren who are in Persia take their daughters for wives; nor do those who are in Media abandon their dead or bury them alive or give them as food to the dogs; nor do those who are in Edessa kill their wives who commit adultery, nor their sisters, but they withdraw from them, and give them over to the judgment of God; nor do those who are in Hatra stone thieves to death; but wherever they are, and in whatever place they are found, the laws of the several countries do not hinder them from obeying the law of their Christ; nor does the Fate of the [pg 055] celestial governors29 compel them to make use of the things which they regard as impure.

(e) Eusebius, Hist. Ec., V, 10. (MSG, 20:455.)

They say that Pantænus displayed such zeal for the divine word that he was appointed a herald of the Gospel of Christ to the nations of the East and was sent as far as India.30 For indeed there were still many evangelists of the word who sought earnestly to use their inspired zeal, after the example of the Apostles, for the increase and building up of the divine word. Pantænus was one of these, and he is said to have gone to India. The report is that among persons in that country who knew of Christ he found the Gospel according to Matthew, which had anticipated his own arrival. For Bartholomew, one of the Apostles, had preached to them and left them the writing of Matthew in the Hebrew language, and they had preserved it till that time.

(a) Celsus, The True Word, in Origen, Contra Celsum. (MSG, 11:651 ff.)

I, 1. (MSG, 11:651.) Wishing to throw discredit upon Christianity, the first point Celsus brings forward is that the Christians have entered secretly into associations with each other which are forbidden by the laws; saying that “of associations some are public, others again secret; and the former are permitted by the laws; the latter are prohibited by the laws.”

I, 4. (MSG, 11:661.) Let us notice, also, how he thinks to cast discredit upon our system of morals as neither venerable nor a new branch of instruction, inasmuch as it is common to other philosophers.

I, 9. (MSG, 11:672.) He says that “Certain of them do not wish either to give or to receive reasons for those things to which they hold; saying, ‘Do not examine, only believe and your faith will save you!’ ”; and he alleges that such also say: “The wisdom of this life is bad, but foolishness is a good thing.”

I, 38. (MSG, 11:733.) He admits somehow the miracles which Jesus wrought and by means of which He induced the multitude to follow Him as the Christ. He wishes to throw discredit on them, as having been done not by divine power, but by help of magic, for he says: “That he [Jesus], having [pg 057] been brought up secretly and having served for hire in Egypt, and then coming to the knowledge of certain miraculous powers, returned from thence, and by means of those powers proclaimed himself a god.”

II, 55. (MSG, 11:884.) “Come, now, let us grant to you that these things [the prediction made by Christ of His resurrection] were said. Yet how many others are there who have used such wonders to deceive their simple hearers, and who made gain of their deception? Such was the case, they say, with Zalmoxis in Scythia, the slave of Pythagoras; and with Pythagoras himself in Italy.… But the point to be considered is, whether any one who was really dead ever rose with a veritable body. Or do you imagine the statements of others not only are myths, but appear as such, but you have discovered a becoming and credible termination of your drama, the voice from the cross when he breathed his last, the earthquake and the darkness? that while living he was of no help to himself, but when dead he rose again, and showed the marks of his punishment and his hands as they had been. Who saw this? A frantic woman, as you state, and, if any other, perhaps one of those who were engaged in the same delusion, who, owing to a peculiar state of mind, had either dreamed so, or with a wandering fancy had imagined things in accordance with his own wishes, which has happened in the case of very many; or, which is most probable, there was some one who desired to impress the others with this portent, and by such a falsehood to furnish an occasion to other jugglers.”

II, 63. (MSG, 11:896.) “If Jesus desired to show that his power was really divine, he ought to have appeared to those who had ill-treated him, and to him who had condemned him, and to all men universally.”

III, 59. (MSG, 11:997.) “That I bring no heavier charge than what truth requires, let any one judge from the following. Those who invite to participation in other mysteries make proclamation as follows: ‘Every one who has clean hands and [pg 058] a prudent tongue’; others again thus: ‘He who is pure from every pollution, and whose soul is conscious of no evil, and who has lived well and justly.’ Such is the proclamation made by those who promise purification from sins. But let us hear whom the Christians invite. ‘Whoever,’ they say, ‘is a sinner, whoever is devoid of understanding, whoever is a child,’ and, to speak generally, ‘whoever is unfortunate, him will the kingdom of God receive.’ Do you not call him a sinner, then, who is unjust and a thief and a house-breaker and a poisoner, a committer of sacrilege and a robber of the dead? Whom else would a man invite if he were issuing a proclamation for an assembly of robbers?”

VII, 18. (MSG, 11:1445.) “Will they not again make this reflection: If the prophets of the God of the Jews foretold that he who should come was the son of this same God, how could he command them through Moses to gather wealth, to rule, to fill the earth, to put to the sword their enemies from youth up, and to destroy them utterly, which, indeed, he himself did in the eyes of the Jews, as Moses says, threatening them, moreover, that if they did not obey his commands he would treat them as his open enemies; whilst, on the other hand, his son, the man of Nazareth, promulgating laws in opposition to these, declares that no one comes to the Father who is rich or who loves power or seeks after wisdom or glory; that men ought to be no more careful in providing food than the ravens: that they were to be in less concern about their raiment than the lilies; that to him who has smitten them once they should offer opportunity to smite again? Is it Moses or Jesus who lies? Did the Father when he sent Jesus forget the things he commanded Moses? Or did he change his mind and, condemning his own laws, send forth a messenger with the opposite instructions?”

V, 14. (MSG, 11:1201.) “It is folly for them to suppose that when God, as if he were a cook, introduces the fire, all the rest of the human race will be burnt up, while they alone will remain, not only those who are alive, but also those who [pg 059] have been dead long since, which latter will arise from the earth clothed with the self-same flesh as during life; the hope, to speak plainly, of worms. For what sort of human soul is it that would still long for a body gone to corruption? For this reason, also, this opinion of yours is not shared by some of the Christians,31 and they pronounce it exceedingly vile and loathsome and impossible; for what kind of body is that which, after being completely corrupted, can return to its original nature, and to that self-same first condition which it left? Having nothing to reply, they betake themselves to a most absurd refuge—that all things are possible to God. But God cannot do things which are disgraceful, nor does he wish things contrary to his nature; nor, if in accordance with your wickedness you desire something shameful, would God be able to do it; nor must you believe at once that it will be done. For God is the author, not of inordinate desires nor of a nature disordered and confused, but of what is upright and just. For the soul, indeed, he might be able to provide everlasting life; but dead bodies, on the other hand, are, as Heraclitus observes, more worthless than dung. So, then, God neither will nor can declare contrary to reason that the flesh is eternal, which is full of those things which it is not honorable to mention. For he is the reason of all things that exist, and therefore can do nothing either contrary to reason or contrary to himself.”

(b) Lucian of Samosata, De morte Peregrini Protei, § 11 ff. Preuschen, Analecta, I, 20 ff.

Ch. 11. About this time he made himself proficient in the marvellous wisdom of the Christians by associating around Palestine with their priests and scribes. And would you believe it? In a short time he convinced them that they were mere children and himself alone a prophet, master of ceremonies, head of the synagogue, and everything. He explained and interpreted some of their books, and he himself also wrote [pg 060] many, so they came to look upon him almost as a God, made him their law-giver and chose him as their patron.… At all events, they still worship that enchanter [mage] who was crucified in Palestine for introducing among men this new religious sect.

Ch. 12. Then Proteus was, on this account, seized and thrown into prison, and this very circumstance procured for him during his subsequent career no small renown and the reputation for wonderful powers and the glory which he loved. When, then, he had been put in bonds, the Christians looked upon these things as a misfortune and in their efforts to secure his release did everything in their power. When this proved impracticable, other assistance of every sort was rendered him, not occasionally, but with zeal. From earliest dawn old women, widows, and orphan children were to be seen waiting beside the prison, and men of rank among them slept with him in the prison, having bribed the prison guards. Then they were accustomed to bring in all kinds of viands, and they read their sacred Scriptures together, and the most excellent Peregrinus (for such was still his name) was styled by them a New Socrates.

Ch. 13. Certain came even from the cities of Asia, sent by the Christians at the common charge, to assist and plead for him and comfort him. They exhibit extraordinary activity whenever any such thing occurs affecting their common interest. In short, they are lavish of everything. And what is more, on the pretext of his imprisonment, many contributions of money came from them to Peregrinus at that time, and he made no little income out of it. These poor men have persuaded themselves that they are going to be immortal and live forever; they both despise death and voluntarily devote themselves to it; at least most of them do so. Moreover, their law-giver persuaded them that they were all brethren, and that when once they come out and reject the Greek gods, they should then worship that crucified sophist and live according to his laws. Therefore they despise all things and [pg 061] hold everything in common, having received such ideas from others, without any sufficient basis for their faith. If, then, any impostor or trickster who knows how to manage things came among them, he soon grew rich, imposing on these foolish folk.

Ch. 14. Peregrinus was, however, set at liberty by the governor of Syria at that time, a lover of philosophy, who understood his folly and knew that he would willingly have suffered death that by it he might have acquired glory. Thinking him, however, not worthy of so honorable an end, he let him go.…

Ch. 16. A second time he left his country to wander about, having the Christians as a sufficient source of supplies, and he was cared for by them most ungrudgingly. Thus he was supported for some time; at length, having offended them in some way—he was seen, I believe, eating food forbidden among them—he was reduced to want, and he thought that he would have to demand his property back from the city;32 and having obtained a process in the name of the Emperor, he expected to recover it. But the city sent messengers to him, and nothing was done; but he was to remain where he was, and to this he agreed for once.

(c) Minucius Felix, Octavius, VIII, 3-10. (MSL. 3:267 ff.)

Ch. 8. … Is it not lamentable that men of a reprobate, unlawful, and dangerous faction should rage against the gods? From the lowest dregs, the more ignorant and women, credulous and yielding on account of the heedlessness of their [pg 062] sex, gathered and established a vast and wicked conspiracy, bound together by nightly meetings and solemn feasts and inhuman meats—not by any sacred rites, but by such as require expiation. It is a people skulking and shunning the light; in public silent, but in corners loquacious. They despise the temples as charnel-houses; they reject the gods; they deride sacred things. While they are wretched themselves, if allowed they pity the priests; while they are half naked themselves, they despise honors and purple robes. O wonderful folly and incredible effrontery! They despise present torments, but fear those that are uncertain and in the future. While they fear to die after death, for the present life they do not fear to die. In such manner does a deceitful hope soothe their fear with the solace of resuscitation.

Ch. 9. And now, as wickeder things are advancing more successfully and abandoned manners are creeping on day by day, those foul shrines of an impious assembly are increasing throughout the whole world. Assuredly this confederacy should be rooted out and execrated. They know one another by secret marks and signs. They love one another almost before they know one another. Everywhere, also, there is mingled among them a certain religion of lust; and promiscuously they call one another brother and sister, so that even a not unusual debauchery might, by the employment of those sacred names, become incestuous. It is thus that their vain and insane superstition glories in crimes. Nor, concerning these matters, would intelligent report speak of things unless there was the highest degree of truth, and varied crimes of the worst character called, from a sense of decency, for an apology. I hear that they adore the head of an ass, that basest of creatures, consecrated by I know not what silly persuasion—a worthy and appropriate religion for such morals. Some say that they worship the genitalia of their pontiff and priest, and adore the nature, as it were, of their parent. I know not whether these things be false; certainly suspicion has place in the case of secret and nocturnal rites; and he [pg 063] who explains their ceremonies by reference to a man punished by extreme suffering for wickedness, and to the deadly wood of the cross, bestows fitting altars upon reprobate and wicked men, that they may worship what they deserve. Now the story of their initiation of young novices is as detestable as it is well known. An infant covered with meal, so as to deceive the unwary, is placed before him who is to be defiled with their rites; this infant is slain with dark and secret wounds by the young novice, who has been induced to strike harmless blows, as it were, on the surface of the meal. Thirstily—O horror!—they lick up its blood; eagerly they divide its limbs. By this victim they are confederated, with the consciousness of this wickedness they are pledged to a mutual silence. These sacred rites are more foul than any sort of sacrilege. And of their banqueting it is well known what is said everywhere; even the speech of our Cirtensian33 testifies to it. On a solemn day they assemble at a banquet with all their children, their sisters and mothers, people of every sex and age. There, after much feasting, when the sense of fellowship has waxed warm and the fervor of incestuous lust has grown hot with drunkenness, a dog that has been tied to a chandelier is provoked to rush and spring about by throwing a piece of offal beyond the length of the line by which he is bound; and thus the light, as if conscious, is overturned and extinguished in shameless darkness, while unions of abominable lust involve them by the uncertainty of chance. Although if all are not in fact, yet all are in their conscience, equally incestuous; since whatever might happen by the act of the individuals is sought for by the will of all.

Ch. 10. I purposely pass over many things, for there are too many, all of which, or the greater part of them, the obscurity of their vile religion declares to be true. For why do they endeavor with such pains to conceal and cloak whatever they worship, since honorable things always rejoice in publicity, but crimes are kept secret? Why have they no [pg 064] altars, no temples, no acknowledged images? Why do they never speak openly, never congregate freely, unless it be for the reason that what they adore and conceal is either worthy of punishment or is something to be ashamed of? Moreover, whence or who is he, or where is the one God, solitary and desolate, whom no free people, no kingdoms, and not even Roman superstition have known? The sole, miserable nationality of the Jews worshipped one God, and one peculiar to itself; but they worshipped him openly, with temples, with altars, with victims, and with ceremonies; and he has so little force or power that he is enslaved together with his own special nation to the Roman deities. But the Christians, moreover, what wonders, what monstrosities, do they feign, that he who is their God, whom they can neither show nor see, inquires diligently into the conduct of all, the acts of all, and even into their words and secret thoughts. They would have him running about everywhere, and everywhere present, troublesome, even shamelessly inquisitive, since he is present at everything that is done, and wanders about in all places. When he is occupied with the whole, he cannot give attention to particulars; or when occupied with particulars, he is not enough for the whole. Is it because they threaten the whole earth, the world itself and all its stars, with a conflagration, that they are meditating its destruction? As if either the natural and eternal order constituted by the divine laws would be disturbed, or, when the league of the elements has been broken up and the heavenly structure dissolved, that fabric in which it is contained and bound together would be overthrown!

(a) Justin Martyr, Apologia. II. 2. (MSG, 6:445.)

Since he was no longer able to prosecute her, he directed his assaults against a certain Ptolemæus whom Urbicus punished, and who had been the teacher of the woman in the Christian doctrines. And he did this in the following way: He persuaded a centurion, his friend, who had cast Ptolemæus into prison, to take Ptolemæus and interrogate him only as to whether he were a Christian. And Ptolemæus, being a lover of the truth, and not of deceitful or false disposition, [pg 066] when he confessed himself to be a Christian, was thrown in chains by the centurion and for a long time was punished in prison. At last, when he was brought to Urbicus, he was asked this one question only: whether he was a Christian. And again, conscious of the noble things that were his through the teaching of Christ, he confessed his discipleship in the divine virtue. For he who denies anything either denies it because he condemns the thing itself or he avoids confession because he knows his own unworthiness or alienation from it; neither of which cases is that of a true Christian. And when Urbicus ordered him to be led away to punishment, a certain Lucius, who was also himself a Christian, seeing the unreasonable judgment, said to Urbicus: “What is the ground of this judgment? Why have you punished this man: not as an adulterer, nor fornicator, nor as one guilty of murder, theft, or robbery, nor convicted of any crime at all, but who has only confessed that he is called by the name of Christian? You do not judge, O Urbicus, as becomes the Emperor Pius, nor the philosopher, the son of Cæsar, nor the sacred Senate.” And he, replying nothing else to Lucius, said: “You also seem to me to be such an one.” And when Lucius answered, “Most certainly I am,” he then ordered him also to be led away. And he professed his thanks, since he knew that he was going to be delivered from such wicked rulers and was going to the Father and King of the heavens. And still a third came forward and was condemned to be punished.

(b) Passion of the Scilitan Martyrs.

When Præsens, for the second time, and Claudianus were consuls, on the seventeenth day of July, and when Speratus, Nartzalus, Cittinus, Donata, Secunda, and Vestia were brought into the judgment-hall at Carthage, the proconsul Saturninus said: Ye can win the indulgence of our lord the Emperor if ye return to a sound mind.

Speratus said: We have never done ill; we have not lent ourselves to wrong; we have never spoken ill; but when we have received ill we have given thanks, because we pay heed to our Emperor.

Saturninus, the proconsul, said: We, too, are religious, and our religion is simple; and we swear by the genius of our lord the Emperor, and pray for his welfare, which also ye, too, ought to do.

Speratus said: If thou wilt peaceably lend me thine ears, I will tell thee the mystery of simplicity.

Saturninus said: I will not lend my ears to thee, when thou beginnest to speak evil things of our sacred rites; but rather do thou swear by the genius of our lord the Emperor.

Speratus said: The empire of this world I know not; but rather I serve that God whom no man hath seen nor with these eyes can see. [I Tim. 6:16.] I have committed no theft; but if I have bought anything I pay the tax; because I know my Lord, the King of kings and Emperor of all nations.

Saturninus, the proconsul, said to the rest: Cease to be of this persuasion.

Speratus said: It is an ill persuasion to do murder, to bear false witness.

Saturninus, the proconsul, said: Be not partakers of this folly.

Cittinus said: We have none other to fear except only our Lord God, who is in heaven.

Donata said: Honor to Cæsar as Cæsar, but fear to God. [Cf. Rom. 13:7.]

Vestia said: I am a Christian.

Secunda said: What I am that I wish to be.

Saturninus, the proconsul, said to Speratus: Dost thou persist in being a Christian?

Speratus said: I am a Christian. And with him they all agreed.

Saturninus, the proconsul, said: Will ye have a space to consider?

Speratus said: In a matter so just there is no considering.

Saturninus, the proconsul, said: What are the things in your chest?

Speratus said: Books and epistles of Paul, a just man.

Saturninus, the proconsul, said: Have a delay of thirty days and bethink yourselves.

Speratus said a second time: I am a Christian. And with him all agreed.

Saturninus, the proconsul, read out the decree from the tablet: Speratus, Nartzalus, Cittinus, Donata, Vestia, Secunda, and the rest who have confessed that they live according to the Christian rite because an opportunity has been offered them of returning to the custom of the Romans and they have obstinately persisted, it is determined shall be put to the sword.

Speratus said: We give thanks to God.

Nartzalus said: To-day we are martyrs in heaven; thanks be to God.

Saturninus, the proconsul, ordered it to be proclaimed by the herald: Speratus, Nartzalus, Cittinus, Veturius, Felix, Aquilinus, Lætatius, Januaria, Generosa, Vestia, Donata, and Secunda I have ordered to be executed.

They all said: Thanks be to God.

And so they all at one time were crowned with martyrdom; and they reign with the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, forever and ever. Amen.

(c) Hippolytus, Refutatio omnium Hæresium, X, 7. (MSG, 16:3382.)

But after a time, when other martyrs were there [i.e., in the mines in Sardinia], Marcia, the pious concubine of Commodus, wishing to perform some good deed, called before her the blessed Victor [193?-202], at that time bishop of the Church, and inquired of him what martyrs were in Sardinia. And he delivered to her the names of all, but did not give the name of Callistus, knowing what things had been attempted by him. Marcia, having obtained her request from Commodus, hands the letter of emancipation to Hyacinthus, a certain eunuch rather advanced in life [or a presbyter], who, receiving it, sailed away to Sardinia. He delivered the letter to the person who at that time was governor of the territory, and he released the martyrs, with the exception of Callistus.

(a) Aristides, Apology, 2, 13, 15, 16. Ed. J. R. Harris and J. A. Robinson, Texts and Studies, I, 1, Cambridge, 1891.

Ch. 2. [Found only in Syriac.] The Christians trace the beginning of their religion to Jesus the Messiah; and He is named the Son of the most high God. And it is said that God came down from heaven and from a Hebrew virgin assumed and clothed Himself with flesh, and that the Son of God lived in a daughter of man. This is taught in that Gospel which, as is related among them, was preached among them a short time ago. And you, also, if you will read therein, may perceive the power that belongs to it. This Jesus, therefore, was born of the race of the Hebrews. He had twelve disciples, that His wonderful plan of salvation might be carried out. But He himself was pierced by the Jews, and He died and He was buried. And they say that after three days He rose and was raised to heaven. Thereupon those twelve disciples went forth into the known parts of the world, and with all modesty and uprightness taught concerning His greatness. And therefore also those at the present time who now believe that preaching are called Christians and they are known.

Ch. 13. When the Greeks made laws they did not perceive that by their laws they condemned their gods. For if their laws are righteous, their gods are unrighteous, because they committed transgressions of the law in that they killed one another, practised sorcery, and committed adultery, robbed, stole, and lay with males, not to mention their other practices. [pg 071] For if their gods have done right in doing all this, as they write, then the laws of the Greeks are unrighteous in not being made according to the will of their gods. And consequently the whole world has gone astray.

Ch. 15. The Christians, O King, in that they go about and seek the truth, have found it and, as we have understood from their writings, they have come much nearer to the truth and correct knowledge than have the other peoples. They know and trust God, the creator of heaven and earth, in whom are all things and from whom are all things, in Him who has no other God beside Him, in Him from whom they have received commandments which they have engraved upon their minds, commandments which they observe in the faith and expectation of the world to come. Wherefore they do not commit adultery or fornication, nor bear false witness, nor covet what is held in pledge, nor covet what is not theirs. They honor father and mother and show kindness to their neighbors. If they are judges, they judge uprightly. They do not worship idols made in human form. And whatsoever they would not that others should do unto them, they do not to others. They do not eat of food offered to idols, because they are pure. And their oppressors they appease and they make friends of them; they do good to their enemies.… If they see a stranger, they take him to their dwellings and rejoice over him as over a real brother. For they do not call themselves brethren after the flesh, but after the Spirit and in God. But if one of their poor passes from the world, each one of them who sees him cares for his burial according to his ability. And if they hear that one of them is imprisoned or oppressed on account of the name of their Messiah, all of them care for his necessity, and if it is possible to redeem him, they set him free. And if any one among them is poor and needy, and they have no spare food, they fast two or three days in order to supply him with the needed food.34 The precepts of their Messiah they observe with great care. They live justly [pg 072] and soberly, as the Lord their God commanded them. Every morning and every hour they acknowledge and praise God for His lovingkindnesses toward them, and for their food and drink they give thanks to Him. And if any righteous man among them passes from this world, they rejoice and thank God and they escort his body as if he were setting out on a journey from one place to another.…

Ch. 16. … Their words and precepts, O King, and the glory of their worship and their hope of receiving reward, which they look for in another world, according to the work of each one, you can learn about from their writings. It is enough for us to have informed your Majesty in a few words concerning the conduct and truth of the Christians. For great, indeed, and wonderful is their doctrine for him who will study it and reflect upon it. And verily this is a new people, and there is something divine in it.

(b) Justin Martyr, Apologia, I, 46. (MSG, 6:398.)

We have been taught that Christ is the first-born of God, and we have declared above that He is the Word of whom every race of men partake; and those who lived reasonably were Christians, even though they have been thought atheists; as among the Greeks, Socrates and Heraclitus and those like them; and among the Barbarians, Abraham and Ananias, and Azarias, and Misael, and Elias, and many others whose actions and names we now decline to recount, because we know it would be tedious.

(c) Justin Martyr, Apologia, II, 10, 13. (MSG, 6:459, 466.)

Ch. 10. Our doctrines, then, appear to be greater than all human teaching; because Christ who appeared for our sakes, [pg 073] became the whole rational being,35 body and reason and soul. For whatever either law-givers or philosophers uttered well they elaborated by finding and contemplating some part of the Logos. But since they did not know the whole of the Logos, which is Christ, they often contradicted themselves. And those who by human birth were more ancient than Christ, when they attempted to consider and prove things by reason, were brought before the tribunals as impious persons and busybodies. And Socrates, who was more zealous in this direction than all of them, was accused of the very same crimes as ourselves. For they said that he was introducing new divinities, and did not consider those to be gods whom the State recognized. But he cast out from the State both Homer and the rest of the poets, and taught men to reject the wicked demons and those who did the things which the poets related; and he exhorted them to become acquainted with the God who was unknown to them, by means of the investigation of reason, saying, “That it is not easy to find the Father and Maker of all, nor, having found Him, is it safe to declare Him to all.”36 But these things our Christ did through His own power. For no one trusted in Socrates so as to die for this doctrine, but in Christ, who was partially known even by Socrates (for He was and is the Logos who is in every man, and who foretold the things that were to come to pass both through the prophets and in His own person when He was made of like passions and taught these things), not only philosophers and scholars believed, but also artisans and people entirely uneducated, despising both glory and fear and death; since He is the power of the ineffable Father, and not the mere instrument of human reason.37

Ch. 13. … I confess that I both boast and with all my strength strive to be found a Christian; not because the teachings of Plato are different from those of Christ, but [pg 074] because they are not in all respects similar, as neither are those of others, Stoics, poets, and historians. For each man spoke well in proportion to the share he had of the spermatic divine Logos, seeing what was related to it. But they who contradict themselves on the more important points appear not to have possessed the heavenly wisdom and the knowledge which cannot be spoken against. Whatever things were rightly said among all men are the property of us Christians. For next to God we worship and love the Logos, who is from the unbegotten and ineffable God, since also He became man for our sakes, that, becoming a partaker of our sufferings, He might also bring us healing. For all the writers were able to see realities darkly through the sowing of the implanted Logos that was in them. For the seed of anything and a copy imparted according to capacity [i.e., to receive] is one thing, and quite another is the thing itself, of which there is the participation and imitation according to the grace which is from Him.

(d) Justin Martyr, Apologia, I, 31, 53. (MSG, 6:375, 406.)

Ch. 31. There were then among the Jews certain men who were prophets of God, through whom the prophetic Spirit [context shows that the Logos is here meant] published beforehand things that were to come to pass before they happened. And their prophecies, as they were spoken and when they were uttered, the kings who were among the Jews at the several times carefully preserved in their possession, when they had been arranged by the prophets themselves in their own Hebrew language.… They are also in possession of all Jews throughout the world.… In these books of the prophets we found Jesus our Christ foretold as coming, born of a virgin, growing up to manhood, and healing every disease and every sickness, and raising the dead, and being hated and unrecognized, and crucified, and dying, and rising again, and ascending into heaven, and both being and also [pg 075] called the Son of God, and that certain persons should be sent by Him into every race of men to publish these things, and that rather among the Gentiles [than among the Jews] men should believe on Him. And He was predicted before He appeared first 5,000 years before, and again 3,000, then 2,000 then 1,000, and yet again 800; for according to the succession of generations prophets after prophets arose.

Ch. 53. Though we have many other prophecies, we forbear to speak, judging these sufficient for the persuasion of those who have ears capable of hearing and understanding; and considering also that these persons are able to see that we do not make assertions, and are unable to produce proof, like those fables that are told of the reputed sons of Jupiter. For with what reason should we believe of a crucified man that He is the first-born of the unbegotten God, and Himself will pass judgment on the whole human race, unless we found testimonies concerning Him published before He came and was born as a man, and unless we saw that things had happened accordingly?

(a) Tertullian, De Præscriptione Hæreticorum, 7. (MSL, 2:21.)

These are the doctrines of men and of demons born of the spirit of this world's wisdom, for itching ears; and the Lord, calling this foolishness, chose the foolish things of this world to the confusion of philosophy itself. For philosophy is the material of the world's wisdom, the rash interpreter of the nature and dispensation of God. Indeed, heresies themselves are instigated by philosophy. From this source came the eons, and I know not what infinite forms, and the trinity of man in the system of Valentinus; he was of Plato's school. From this source came Marcion's better god with all his tranquillity; he came of the Stoics. Then again the opinion that the soul dies is held by the Epicureans. The denial of the resurrection of the body is taken from the united schools of all philosophers. When matter is made equal to God, you have the teaching of Zeno; and when anything is alleged touching a fiery god, then Heraclitus comes in. The same subject-matter is discussed over and over again by the heretics and the philosophers; the same arguments are involved. Whence and wherefore is evil? Whence and how has come man? Besides these there is the question which Valentinus has very recently proposed, Whence comes God?

(b) Irenæus, Adv. Hær., I, 23. (MSG, 7:670.)

Simon the Samaritan, that magician of whom Luke, the disciple and follower of the Apostles, says: “But there was a certain man, Simon by name,” etc. [Acts 8:9-11, 20, 21, 23.] Since he did not put his faith in God a whit more, he set himself eagerly to contend against the Apostles, in order that he himself might seem to be a wonderful being, and studied with still greater zeal the whole range of magic art, that he might the better bewilder the multitude of men. Such was his procedure in the reign of Claudius Cæsar, by whom also he is said to have been honored with a statue on account of his magic. This man, then, was glorified by many as a god, and he taught that it was he himself who appeared among the Jews as the Son, but descended in Samaria as the Father, while he came to other nations in the character of the Holy Spirit. He represented himself as the loftiest of all powers, that it is he who is over all as the Father, and he allowed himself to be called whatsoever men might name him.

Now this Simon of Samaria, from whom all heresies derive their origin, has as the material for his sect the following: Having redeemed from slavery at Tyre, a city of Phœnicia, a certain woman named Helena,38 a prostitute, he was in the habit of carrying her about with him, declaring that she was the first conception [Ennœa] of his mind, the mother of all, by whom he conceived in his mind to make the angels and archangels. For this Ennœa, leaping forth from him and comprehending the will of her father, descended to the lower regions and generated angels and powers, by whom, also, he declared this world was made. But after she had generated them she was detained by them through jealousy, because they were unwilling that they should be regarded as the progeny of any other being. As to himself, he was wholly unknown to them, but his Ennœa was detained by those powers and [pg 080] angels who had been produced by her. She suffered all kinds of contumely from them, so that she could not return upward to her father, but was even shut up in a human body and for ages passed in succession from one female body to another, as from one vessel to another vessel. She was in that Helen on whose account the Trojan War was undertaken; wherefore also Stesichorus was struck blind, because he cursed her in his poems; but afterward, when he had repented and written those verses which are called palinodes, in which he sung her praises, he saw once more. Thus passing from body to body and suffering insults in every one of them, she at last became a common prostitute; and she it is who was the lost sheep.

For this purpose he himself had come, that he might win her first and free her from chains, and confer salvation upon men by making himself known to them. For since the angels ruled the world poorly, because each one of them coveted the principal power, he had come to mend matters and had descended, been transfigured and assimilated to powers and angels, so that he might appear among men as man, although he was not a man; and that he was supposed to have suffered in Judea, although he had not suffered. Moreover, the prophets inspired by the angels, who were the makers of the world, pronounced their prophecies; for which reason those who place their trust in him and Helena no longer regard them, but are free to do what they will; for men are saved according to his grace, and not according to their righteous works. For deeds are not righteous in the nature of things, but by mere accident and just as those angels who made the world have determined, seeking by such precepts to bring men into bondage. On this account he promised that the world should be dissolved and that those who are his should be freed from the rule of them who made the world.

Thus, then, the mystic priests belonging to this sect both live profligately and practise magical arts, each one to the extent of his ability. They use exorcisms and incantations, [pg 081] love-potions, also, and charms, as well as those beings who are called “familiars” [paredri] and "dream senders" [oniropompi], and whatever other curious arts can be had are eagerly pressed into their service.

(c) Irenæus, Adv. Hær., I, 23. (MSG, 7:673.)

The successor of Simon Magus was Menander, a Samaritan by birth, who also became a perfect adept in magic. He affirms that the first power is unknown to all, but that he himself is the person who has been sent forth by the invisible beings as a saviour for the salvation of men. The world was made by angels, who, as he also, like Simon, says, were produced by the Ennœa, He gives also, as he affirms, by means of the magic which he teaches knowledge, so that one may overcome those angels that made the world. For his disciples obtain the resurrection by the fact that they are baptized into him, and they can die no more, but remain immortal without ever growing old.

(d) Irenæus, Adv. Hær., I, 26. (MSG, 7:686.)

Cerinthus, again, taught in Asia that the world was not made by the supreme God, but by a power separated and distant from that Ruler [principalitate] who is over the universe, and ignorant of the God who is above all. He represented Jesus as not having been born of a virgin, for this seemed impossible to him, but as having been the son of Joseph and Mary in the same way that all other men are sons, only he was more righteous, prudent, and wise than other men. After his baptism Christ descended upon him in the form of a dove from the Supreme Ruler; and that then he proclaimed the unknown Father and performed miracles. But at last Christ [pg 082] departed from Jesus, and then Jesus suffered and rose again, but Christ remained impassable, since He was a spiritual being.

A. The School of Basilides

The school of Basilides marks the beginning of the distinctively Hellenistic stadium of Gnosticism. Basilides, its founder, apparently worked first in the East; circa 120-130 he was at Alexandria. He was the first important Gnostic writer. Of his Gospel, Commentary on that Gospel in twenty-four books (Exegetica), and his odes only fragments remain of the second, preserved by Clement of Alexandria and in the Acta Archelai (collected by Hilgenfeld, Ketzergeschichte, 207-213).

Additional source material: Clement of Alexandria, Strom., II, 3, 8, 20; IV, 24, 26 (ANF. II); Hippolytus, Ref., VII, 20-27; X, 14 (=VII, 1-15, X, 10, ANF, V); Eusebius, Hist. Ec., IV. 7. The account of Hippolytus differs markedly from that of Irenæus, and his quotations and references have been the subject of long dispute among scholars.

B. The School of Valentinus

The Valentinians were the most important of all the Gnostics closely connected with the Church. The school had many adherents scattered throughout the Roman Empire, its leading teachers were men of culture and literary ability, and the sect maintained itself a long time. Valentinus himself was a native of Egypt, and probably educated at Alexandria, where he may have come under the influence of Basilides. He taught his own system chiefly at Rome c. 140-c. 160. The great work of Irenæus against the Gnostics, although having all Gnostics in view, especially deals with the Valentinians in their various forms, because Irenæus was of the opinion that he who refutes their system refutes all (cf. Adv. Hær., IV, præf., 2). It is difficult to reconstruct with certainty the esoteric system of Valentinus as distinguished from possibly later developments of the school, as Irenæus, the principal authority, follows not only Valentinus, but Ptolomæus [pg 089] and others, in describing the system. The following selection of sources gives fragments of the letters and other writings of Valentinus himself as preserved by Clement of Alexandria, passages from Irenæus bringing out distinctive features of the system, and the important letter of Ptolemæus to Flora, one of the very few extant writings of the Gnostics of an early date. It gives a good idea of the character of the exoteric teaching of the school.

(a) Irenæus, Adv. Hær., I, 27: 1-3. (MSG, 7:687.)

Ch. 1. A certain Cerdo, who had taken his fundamental ideas from those who were with Simon [i.e., Simon Magus], and who was in Rome in the time of Hyginus, who held the ninth place from the Apostles in the episcopal succession, taught that the God who was preached by the law and the prophets is not the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the former is known, but the latter is unknown; and the former is righteous, but the other is good.

Ch. 2. And Marcion of Pontus succeeded him and developed a school, blaspheming shamelessly Him who is proclaimed as God by the law and the prophets; saying that He is maker of evils and a lover of wars, inconstant in purpose and inconsistent with Himself. He said, however, that Jesus came from the Father, who is above the God who made the world, into Judea in the time of Pontius Pilate, the procurator of Tiberius Cæsar, and was manifested in the form of a man to those who were in Judea, destroying the prophets and the law, and all the works of that God who made the world and whom he also called Cosmocrator. In addition to this, he mutilated the Gospel which is according to Luke, and removed all that refers to the generation of the Lord, removing also many things from the teaching in the Lord's discourses, in which the Lord is recorded as very plainly confessing that the founder of this universe is His Father; and thus Marcion persuaded his disciples that he himself is truer than the Apostles who delivered the Gospel; delivering to them not the Gospel but a part of the Gospel. But in the same manner he also mutilated the epistles of the Apostle Paul, removing all that is plainly said by the Apostle concerning that God who made the world, to the effect that He is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and all that the Apostle taught by quotation from the prophetical writings which foretold the coming of the Lord.

Ch. 3. He taught that salvation would be only of the souls of those who should receive his doctrine, and that it is impossible for the body to partake of salvation, because it was taken from the earth.

(b) Tertullian, Adv. Marcion., I, 19; IV, 2, 3. (MSL, 2: 293. 393.)

I, 19. Marcion's special and principal work is the separation of the law and the Gospel; and his disciples will not be able to deny that in this they have their best means by which they are initiated into, and confirmed in, this heresy. For these are Marcion's antitheses—that is, contradictory propositions; and they aim at putting the Gospel at variance with the law, that from the diversity of the statements of the two documents they may argue for a diversity of gods, also.

IV, 2. With Marcion the mystery of the Christian religion dates from the discipleship of Luke. Since, however, it was under way previously, it must have had its authentic materials by means of which it found its way down to Luke; and by aid of the testimony which it bore Luke himself becomes admissible.

IV, 3. Well, but because Marcion finds the Epistle to the Galatians by Paul, who rebukes even Apostles for “not walking uprightly according to the truth of the Gospel” [Gal. 2:14], as well as accuses certain false apostles of being perverters of the Gospel of Christ, he attempts to destroy the standing of those gospels which are published as genuine and under the names of Apostles, or of apostolic men, to secure, forsooth, for his own gospel the credit he takes away from them.

(c) Rhodon, in Eusebius, Hist. Ec., V, 13. (MSG, 20:459.)

At this time Rhodon, a native of Asia, who, as he himself states, had been instructed at Rome by Tatian, with whom we have already become acquainted, wrote excellent books, and published among the rest one against the heresy of Marcion which, he says, was in his time divided into various [pg 105] sects; and he describes those who occasioned the division and refutes carefully the falsehood devised by each. But hear what he writes: “Therefore also they have fallen into disagreement among themselves, and maintain inconsistent opinions. For Apelles, one of their herd, priding himself on his manner of life and his age, acknowledged one principle [i.e., source of existence], but says that the prophecies were from an opposing spirit. And he was persuaded of the truth of this by the responses of a demoniac maiden named Philumene. But others hold to two principles, as does the mariner Marcion himself, among these are Potitus and Basiliscus. These, following the wolf of Pontus and, like him, unable to discover the divisions of things, became reckless, and without any proof baldly asserted two principles. Again, others of them drifted into worse error and assumed not only two, but three, natures. Of these Syneros is the leader and chief, as those say who defend his teaching.”

(a) Hippolytus, VIII, 13. (MSG, 16:3368.)

Others, however, styling themselves Encratites, acknowledge some things concerning God and Christ in like manner [pg 106] with the Church, but in respect to their mode of life they pass their time inflated with pride; thinking that by meats they glorify themselves, they abstain from animal food, are water drinkers, and, forbidding to marry, they devote the rest of their life to habits of asceticism.

(b) Irenæus, Adv. Hær. I, 28. (MSG, 7:690.)

Many offshoots of numerous heresies have already been formed from those heresies which we have described.… By way of example, let us say there are those springing from Saturninus and Marcion, who are called Encratites [i.e., self-controlled], who preached the unmarried state, thus setting aside the original creation of God, and indirectly condemning Him who made male and female for the propagation of the human race. Some of those reckoned as belonging to them have also introduced abstinence from animal food, being ungrateful to God who created all things. They deny, also, the salvation of him who was first created. It is but recently that this opinion has been discovered among them, since a certain man named Tatian first introduced the blasphemy. He had been a hearer of Justin's, and as long as he continued with him he expressed no such views; but after his martyrdom [circa A. D. 165] he separated from the Church, and having become excited and puffed up by the thought of being a teacher, as if he were superior to others, he composed his own peculiar type of doctrine. He invented a system of certain invisible Eons, like the followers of Valentinus; and like Marcion and Saturninus, he declared that marriage was nothing else than corruption and fornication. But this denial of Adam's salvation was an opinion due entirely to himself.

(a) Eusebius, Hist. Ec., V, 16:7. (MSG, 20:463.)

There is said to be a certain village named Ardabau, in Mysia, on the borders of Phrygia. There, they say, when Gratus was proconsul of Asia, a recent convert, Montanus by name—who, in his boundless desire for leadership, gave the adversary opportunity against him—first became inspired; and falling into a sort of frenzy and ecstasy raved and began to babble and utter strange sounds, prophesying in a manner contrary to the traditional and constant custom of the Church from the beginning.… And he stirred up, besides, two women [Maximilla and Priscilla], and filled them with the false spirit, so that they talked frantically, at unseasonable times, and in a strange manner, like the person already mentioned.… And the arrogant spirit taught them to revile the universal and entire Church under heaven, because the spirit of false prophecy received from it neither honor nor entrance into it; for the faithful in Asia met often and in many places throughout Asia to consider this matter and to examine the recent utterances, and they pronounced them profane and rejected the heresy, and thus these persons [pg 108] were expelled from the Church and shut out from the communion.

(b) Apollonius, in Eusebius, Hist. Ec., V, 18. (MSG, 20:475.)

This is he who taught the dissolution of marriages; who laid down laws for fasting; who named Pepuza and Tymion (which were small cities in Phrygia) Jerusalem, desiring to gather people to them from everywhere; who appointed collectors of money; who devised the receiving of gifts under the name of offerings; who provided salaries for those who preached his doctrine, so that by gluttony the teaching of his doctrine might prevail.

(c) Hippolytus, Refut., VIII, 19. (MSG, 16:3356.)

But there are others who are themselves in nature more heretical than the Quartodecimans. These are Phrygians by birth and they have been deceived, having been overcome by certain women called Priscilla and Maximilla; and they hold these for prophetesses, saying that in them the Paraclete Spirit dwelt; and they likewise glorify one Montanus before these women as a prophet. So, having endless books of these people, they go astray, and they neither judge their statements by reason nor pay attention to those who are able to judge. But they behave without judgment in the faith they place in them, saying they have learned something more through them than from the law and the prophets and the Gospels. But they glorify these women above the Apostles and every gift, so that some of them presume to say that there was something more in them than in Christ. These confess God the Father of the universe and creator of all things, like the Church, and all that the Gospel witnesses concerning Christ, [pg 109] but invent new fasts and feasts and meals of dry food and meals of radishes, saying that thus they were taught by their women. And some of them agree with the heresy of the Noetians and say that the Father is very Son, and that this One became subject to birth and suffering and death.

(a) Libellus Synodicus, Man. I, 723.

A holy and provincial synod was held at Hierapolis in Asia by Apollinarius, the most holy bishop of that city, and twenty-six other bishops. In this synod Montanus and Maximilla, the false prophets, and at the same time, Theodotus the tanner, were condemned and expelled. A holy and local synod was gathered under the most holy Bishop Sotas of Anchialus51 and twelve other bishops, who condemned and rejected Theodotus the tanner and Montanus together with Maximilla.

(b) Eusebius. Hist. Ec., V, 18. (MSG, 20:475.) Cf. Mirbt, n. 21.

Serapion, who, according to report, became bishop of Antioch at that time, after Maximinus, mentions the works [pg 111] of Apollinarius against the above-mentioned heresy. And he refers to him in a private letter to Caricus and Pontius, in which he himself exposes the same heresy, adding as follows: “That you may see that the doings of this lying band of new prophecy, as it is called, are an abomination to all the brethren throughout the world, I have sent you writings of the most blessed Claudius Apollinarius, bishop of Hierapolis in Asia.” In the same letter of Serapion are found the signatures of several bishops, of whom one has subscribed himself as follows: “I, Aurelius Cyrenius, a witness, pray for your health.” And another after this manner: “Ælius Publius Julius, bishop of Debeltum, a colony of Thrace. As God liveth in the heavens, the blessed Sotas in Anchialus desired to cast the demon out of Priscilla, but the hypocrites would not permit him.” And the autograph signatures of many other bishops who agreed with them are contained in the same letter.

(a) Irenæus, Adv. Hær., III, 3: 1-4. (MSG, 7:848.) Cf. Mirbt, n. 30.

Ch. 1. The tradition, therefore, of the Apostles, manifested throughout the world, is a thing which all who wish to see the facts can clearly perceive in every church; and we are able to count up those who were appointed bishops by the Apostles, and to show their successors to our own time, who neither taught nor knew anything resembling these men's ravings. For if the Apostles had known hidden mysteries which they used to teach the perfect, apart from and without the knowledge of the rest, they would have delivered them especially to those to whom they were also committing the churches themselves. For they desired them to be very perfect and blameless in all things, and were also leaving them as their successors, delivering over to them their own proper place of teaching; for if these should act rightly great advantage would result, but if they fell away the most disastrous calamity would occur.

Ch. 2. But since it would be very long in such a volume as this to count up the successions [i.e., series of bishops] in all the churches, we confound all those who in any way, whether through self-pleasing or vainglory, or through blindness and evil opinion, gather together otherwise than they ought, by pointing out the tradition derived from the Apostles of the greatest, most ancient, and universally known Church, founded and established by the two most glorious Apostles, Peter and Paul, and also the faith declared to [pg 113] men which through the succession of bishops comes down to our times. For with this Church, on account of its more powerful leadership [potiorem principalitatem], every church, that is, the faithful, who are from everywhere, must needs agree; since in it that tradition which is from the Apostles has always been preserved by those who are from everywhere.

Ch. 3. The blessed Apostles having founded and established the Church, intrusted the office of the episcopate to Linus.52 Paul speaks of this Linus in his Epistles to Timothy. Anacletus succeeded him, and after Anacletus, in the third place from the Apostles, Clement received the episcopate. He had seen and conversed with the blessed Apostles, and their preaching was still sounding in his ears and their tradition was still before his eyes. Nor was he alone in this, for many who had been taught by the Apostles yet survived. In the times of Clement, a serious dissension having arisen among the brethren in Corinth, the Church of Rome sent a suitable letter to the Corinthians, reconciling them in peace, renewing their faith, and proclaiming the doctrine lately received from the Apostles.…

Evaristus succeeded Clement, and Alexander Evaristus. Then Sixtus, the sixth from the Apostles, was appointed. After him Telesephorus, who suffered martyrdom gloriously, and then Hyginus; after him Pius, and after Pius Anicetus; Soter succeeded Anicetus, and now, in the twelfth place from the Apostles, Eleutherus [174-189] holds the office of bishop. In the same order and succession the tradition and the preaching of the truth which is from the Apostles have continued unto us.

Ch. 4. But Polycarp, too, was not only instructed by the Apostles, and acquainted with many that had seen Christ, but was also appointed by Apostles in Asia bishop of the church in Smyrna, whom we, too, saw in our early youth (for he lived a long time, and died, when a very old man, a glorious and most illustrious martyr's death); he always [pg 114] taught the things which he had learned from the Apostles, which the Church also hands down, and which alone are true. To these things all the Asiatic churches testify, as do also those who, down to the present time, have succeeded Polycarp, who was a much more trustworthy and certain witness of the truth than Valentinus and Marcion and the rest of the evil-minded. It was he who was also in Rome in the time of Anicetus and caused many to turn away from the above-mentioned heretics to the Church of God, proclaiming that he had received from the Apostles this one and only truth which has been transmitted by the Church. And there are those who heard from him that John, the disciple of the Lord, going to bathe in Ephesus, when he saw Cerinthus within, ran out of the bath-house without bathing, crying: “Let us flee, lest even the bath-house fall, because Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, is within.” And Polycarp himself, when Marcion once met him and said, “Knowest thou us?” replied, “I know the first-born of Satan.” Such caution did the Apostles and their disciples exercise that they might not even converse with any of those who perverted the truth; as Paul, also, said: “A man that is a heretic after the first and second admonition, reject; knowing that he that is such subverteth and sinneth, being condemned by himself.” There is also a very powerful Epistle of Polycarp written to the Philippians, from which those who wish to, and who are concerned for their own salvation, may learn the character of his faith and the preaching of the truth.

(b) Tertullian, De Prœscriptione, 20, 21. (MSL, 2:38.)

Ch. 20. The Apostles founded in the several cities churches from which the other churches have henceforth borrowed the shoot of faith and seeds of teaching and do daily borrow [pg 115] that they may become churches; and it is from this fact that they also will be counted as apostolic, being the offspring of apostolic churches. Every kind of thing must be judged by reference to its origin. Therefore so many and so great churches are all one, being from that first Church which is from the Apostles. Thus they are all primitive and all apostolic, since they altogether are approved by their unity, and they have the communion of peace, the title of brotherhood, and the interchange of hospitality, and they are governed by no other rule than the single tradition of the same mystery.

Ch. 21. Here, then, we enter our demurrer, that if the Lord Jesus Christ sent Apostles to preach, others than those whom Christ appointed ought not to be received as preachers. For no man knoweth the Father save the Son and he to whom the Son has revealed Him [cf. Luke 10:22]; nor does it appear that the Son has revealed Him unto any others than the Apostles, whom He sent forth to preach what, of course, He had revealed to them. Now, what they should preach, that is, what Christ revealed to them, can, as I must likewise here enter as a demurrer, properly be proved in no other way than by those very churches which the Apostles themselves founded by preaching to them, both viva voce, as the phrase is, and subsequently by epistles. If this is so, it is evident that all doctrine which agrees with those apostolic churches, the wombs and origins of the faith, must be reckoned for truth, as undoubtedly containing what the churches received from the Apostles, the Apostles from Christ, Christ from God. There remains, therefore, for us to show whether our doctrine, the rule of which we have given above [v. infra, § 29, c], agrees with the tradition of the Apostles, and likewise whether the others come from deceit. We hold fast to the apostolic churches, because in none is there a different doctrine; this is the witness of the truth.

(c) Tertullian, De Præscriptione, 36. (MSL, 2:58.)

Come, now, you who would indulge a better curiosity, if you would apply it to the business of your salvation, run over the apostolic churches, in which the very thrones of the Apostles are still pre-eminent in their places, in which their own authentic writings are read, uttering the voice and representing the face of each of them severally. Achaia is very near you, in which you find Corinth. Since you are not far from Macedonia, you have Philippi; there, too, you have the Thessalonians. Since you are able to cross to Asia, you get Ephesus. Since, moreover, you are close upon Italy, you have Rome, from which there comes even into our own hands the very authority of Apostles themselves. How happy is that church, on which Apostles poured forth all their doctrine along with their blood! Where Peter endures a passion like his Lord's; where Paul wins a crown in a death like John's; where the Apostle John was first plunged, unhurt, into boiling oil, and thence remitted to his island exile! See what she has learned, what taught; what fellowship she has had with even our churches in Africa! One Lord God does she acknowledge, the Creator of the universe, and Christ Jesus born of the Virgin Mary, the Son of God the Creator; and the resurrection of the flesh; the law and the prophets she unites in one volume with the writings of Evangelists and Apostles, from which she drinks in her faith. This she seals with the water of baptism, arrays with the Holy Ghost, feeds with the eucharist, cheers with martyrdom, and against such a discipline thus maintained she admits no gainsayer.

(a) The Muratorian Fragment. Text, B. F. Westcott, A General Survey of the History of the Canon of the New Testament, seventh ed., Cambridge, 1896. Appendix C; Kirch, n. 134; Preuschen, Analecta, II, 27. Cf. Mirbt, n. 20.

… but at some he was present, and so he set them down.

The third book of the gospels, that according to Luke. Luke, the physician, compiled it in his own name in order, when, after the ascension of Christ, Paul had taken him to be with him like a student of law. Yet neither did he see the Lord in the flesh; and he, too, as he was able to ascertain events, so set them down. So he began his story from the birth of John.

The fourth of the gospels is John's, one of the disciples. When exhorted by his fellow-disciples and bishops, he said, “Fast with me this day for three days; and what may be revealed to any of us, let us relate to one another.” The same night it was revealed to Andrew, one of the Apostles, that John was to write all things in his own name, and they were all to certify.

And therefore, though various elements are taught in the several books of the gospels, yet it makes no difference to the faith of the believers, since by one guiding Spirit all things are declared in all of them concerning the nativity, the passion, the resurrection, the conversation with His disciples, and His two comings, the first in lowliness and contempt, which has come to pass, the second glorious with royal power, which is to come.

What marvel, therefore, if John so firmly sets forth each statement in his epistles, too, saying of himself: “What we have seen with our eyes and heard with our ears and our hands have handled, these things we have written to you”? For so he declares himself to be not an eye-witness and a hearer only, but also a writer of all the marvels of the Lord in order.

The acts, however, of all the Apostles are written in one book. Luke puts it shortly, “to the most excellent Theophilus,” that the several things were done in his own presence, as he also plainly shows by leaving out the passion of Peter, and also the departure of Paul from the city [i.e., Rome] on his journey to Spain.

The epistles, however, of Paul make themselves plain to those who wish to understand what epistles were sent by him, and from what place and for what cause. He wrote at some length, first of all, to the Corinthians, forbidding schisms and heresies; next to the Galatians, forbidding circumcision; then to the Romans, impressing on them the plan of the Scriptures, and also that Christ is the first principle of them, concerning which severally it is necessary for us to discuss, since the blessed Apostle Paul himself, following the order of his predecessor John, writes only by name to seven churches in the following order: to the Corinthians a first, to the Ephesians a second, to the Philippians a third, to the Colossians a fourth, to the Galatians a fifth, to the Thessalonians a sixth, to the Romans a seventh; and yet, although for the sake of admonition there is a second to the Corinthians and to the Thessalonians, but one Church is recognized as being spread over the entire world. For John, too, in the Apocalypse, though he writes to seven churches, yet speaks to all. Howbeit to Philemon one, to Titus one, and to Timothy two were put in writing from personal inclination and attachment, to be in honor, however, with the Catholic Church for the ordering of the ecclesiastical mode of life. There is current, also, one to the Laodiceans, another to the Alexandrians, [both] forged in Paul's name to suit a heresy of Marcion, and several others, which cannot be received into the Catholic Church; for it is not fitting that gall be mixed with honey.

The Epistle of Jude, no doubt, and the couple bearing the name of John are accepted in the Catholic [Church], and the Wisdom written by the friends of Solomon in his honor. The Apocalypse, also, of John and of Peter only we receive; which some of us will not have read in the Church. But the Shepherd was written quite lately in our times by Hermas, while his brother Pius, the bishop, was sitting in the chair of the church of the city of Rome; and therefore it ought to be read, indeed, but it cannot to the end of time be publicly [pg 120] read in the Church to the people, either among the prophets, who are complete in number, or among the Apostles.

But of Valentinus, the Arsinoite, and his friends, we receive nothing at all, who have also composed a long new book of Psalms, together with Basilides and the Asiatic founder of the Montanists.

(b) Irenæus, Adv. Hær., III, II:8. (MSG, 7:885.)

It is not possible that the gospels be either more or fewer than they are. For since there are four regions of the world in which we live, and four principal winds, and the Church is scattered over the whole earth, and the pillar and ground of the Church is the Gospel and the Spirit of Life, it is fitting that she should have four pillars, breathing forth immortality on every side, and giving life to men. From this it is evident that the Word, the Artificer of all, who sitteth upon the cherubim and who contains all things and was manifested to men, has given us the Gospel under four forms, but bound together by one Spirit. As also David says when he prayed for His coming: “Thou that sittest between the cherubim, shine forth” [cf. Psalm 80:1]. For the cherubim, also, were four-faced, and their faces were images of the dispensation of the Son of God. For he says, “The first living creature was like a lion” [cf. Ezek. 1:5 ff.], symbolizing His effectual working, leadership, and royal power; the second was like a calf, symbolizing His sacrificial and sacerdotal order; but “the third had, as it were, the face of a man,” evidently describing His coming as a human being; “the fourth was like a flying eagle,” pointing out the gift of the Spirit hovering over the Church. And therefore the gospels are in accord with these things, among which Christ is seated. For that according to John relates His original, effectual, and glorious [pg 121] generation from the Father, thus declaring, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God” [cf. John 1:1 ff.], and further, “All things were made by Him and without Him was nothing made.” For this reason, also, is that Gospel full of confidence, for such is His person. But that according to Luke, which takes up His priestly character, commenced with Zacharias, the priest, who offers sacrifice to God. For now was made ready the fatted calf, about to be immolated for the recovery of the younger son [Luke 15:23]. Matthew, again, relates His generation as a man, saying, “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham” [Matt. 1:1]; and “The birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise” [Matt. 1:18]. This, then, is the gospel of His humanity; for which reason the character of a humble and meek man is kept up through the whole gospel. Mark, on the other hand, commences with reference to the prophetical Spirit who comes down from on high to men, saying, “The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet,” pointing to the winged aspect of the Gospel, and on this account he makes a compendious and brief narrative, for such is the prophetical character. And the Word of God himself had intercourse with the patriarchs, before Moses, in accordance with His divinity and glory; but for those under the Law He instituted a sacerdotal and liturgical service. Afterward, having been made man for us, He sent the gift of the heavenly Spirit over all the earth, to protect it with His wings. Such, then, was the course followed by the Son of God, and such, also, were the forms of the living creatures; and such as was the form of the living creatures, such, also, was the character of the Gospel. For the living creatures are quadriform, and the Gospel is quadriform, as is also the course followed by our Lord. For this reason four principal covenants were given mankind: one prior to the Deluge, under Adam; the second after the Deluge, under Noah; the third was the giving of the law under Moses; the fourth is that which [pg 122] renovates man and sums up all things in itself by means of the Gospel, raising and bearing men upon its wings into the heavenly kingdom.

(c) Tertullian, Adv. Marcion., IV, 5. (MSL, 2:395.)

If it is evidently true that what is earlier is more true, that what is earlier is what is from the beginning, that what is from the beginning is from the Apostles, it will be equally evidently true that what is handed down from the Apostles is what has been a sacred deposit in the churches of the Apostles. Let us see what milk the Corinthians drank from Paul; to what rule the Galatians were brought for correction; what the Philippians, the Thessalonians, the Ephesians, read; what the Romans near by also say, to whom Peter and Paul bequeathed the Gospel even sealed with their own blood. We have also John's nursling churches. For, although Marcion rejects his Apocalypse, the order of bishops, when traced to their origin, will rest on John as their author. Likewise the noble lineage of the other churches is recognized. I say, therefore, that in them, and not only in the apostolic churches, but in all those which are united with them in the fellowship of the mystery [sacramenti], that Gospel of Luke, which we are defending with all our might [cf. § 23], has stood its ground from its very first publication; whereas Marcion's gospel is not known to most people, and to none whatever is it known without being condemned. Of course it has its churches, but they are its own; they are as late as they are spurious. Should you want to know their origins, you will more easily discover apostasy in it than apostolicity, with Marcion, forsooth, as their founder or some one of [pg 123] Marcion's swarm. Even wasps make combs; so, also, these Marcionites make churches. The same authority of the apostolic churches will afford evidence to other gospels, also, which we possess equally through their means and according to their usage—I mean the Gospel of John and the Gospel of Matthew, but that which Mark published may be affirmed to be Peter's, whose interpreter Mark was. For even the Digest of Luke men usually ascribe to Paul. And it may well seem that the works which disciples publish belong to their masters.

(a) Irenæus, Adv. Haer., 1, 10. (MSG, 7:549 f.)

The Church, though dispersed through the whole world to the ends of the earth, has received from the Apostles and their disciples the faith: In one God, the Father Almighty, who made the heaven and the earth and the seas, and all that in them is; And in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who was incarnate for our salvation; And in the Holy Ghost, who through the prophets preached the dispensations and [pg 124] the advents, and the birth from the Virgin, and the passion, and the resurrection from the dead, and the bodily assumption into the heavens of the beloved Christ Jesus our Lord, and His appearing from the heavens in the glory of the Father, in order to sum up all things under one head [cf. Ephes. 1:10], and to raise up all flesh of all mankind, that to Christ Jesus, our Lord and God and Saviour and King, every knee of those that are in heaven and on earth and under the earth should bow [cf. Phil. 2:11], according to the good pleasure of the Father invisible, and that every tongue should confess Him, and that He may execute righteous judgment on all; sending into eternal fire the spiritual powers of wickedness and the angels who transgressed and apostatized, and the godless and unrighteous and lawless and blasphemous among men, but granting life and immortality and eternal glory to the righteous and holy, who have both kept the commandments and continued in His love, some from the beginning, some from their conversion.

(b) Irenæus, Adv. Hær., III, 4. (MSG, 7:855.)

If the Apostles had not left us the Scriptures, would it not be necessary to follow the order of tradition which they handed down to those to whom they committed the churches? To this order many nations of the barbarians gave assent, of those who believe in Christ, having salvation written in their hearts by the Spirit without paper and ink, and guarding diligently the ancient tradition: Believing in one God, Maker of heaven and earth, and all that is in them; through Jesus Christ, the Son of God; who, because of His astounding love toward His creatures, sustained the birth of the Virgin, Himself uniting man to God, and suffered under Pontius Pilate, and rising again was received in brightness, and shall come again in glory as the Saviour of those who are saved [pg 125] and the judge of those who are judged, and sending into eternal fire the perverters of the truth and despisers of His Father and His coming.

(c) Tertullian, De Virginibus Velandis, 1. (MSL, 2:937).

The Rule of Faith is altogether one, sole, immovable, and irreformable—namely, of believing in one God the Almighty, the Maker of the world; and His Son, Jesus Christ, born of the Virgin Mary, crucified under Pontius Pilate, on the third day raised again from the dead, received in the heavens, sitting now at the right hand of the Father, coming to judge the quick and the dead, also through the resurrection of the flesh.53

(d) Tertullian, Adv. Praxean, 2. (MSL, 2:156.)

“Therefore after a time the Father was born, and the Father suffered, He himself God, the omnipotent Lord, Jesus Christ was preached.” But as for us always, and now more, as better instructed by the Paraclete, the Leader into all truth: We believe one God; but under this dispensation which we call the economy there is the Son of the only God, his Word [Sermo] who proceeded from Him, through whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made. This One was sent by the Father into the Virgin, and was born of her, Man and God, the Son of Man and the Son of God, and called Jesus Christ; He suffered, He died and was buried, according to the Scriptures; and raised again by the [pg 126] Father, and taken up into the heavens, and He sits at the right hand of the Father; He shall come again to judge the quick and the dead: and He thence did send, according to His promise, from the Father, the Holy Ghost, the Paraclete, the Sanctifier of the faith of those who believe in the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. That this rule has come down from the beginning, even before any of the earlier heresies, much more before Praxeas, who is of yesterday, the lateness of date of all heresies proves, as also the novelties of Praxeas, a pretender of yesterday.

(e) Tertullian, De Præscriptione, 13. (MSL, 2:30.)

The Rule of Faith is … namely, that by which it is believed: That there is only one God, and no other besides the Maker of the world, who produced the universe out of nothing, through His Word [Verbum], sent forth first of all; that this Word, called His Son, was seen in the name of God in various ways by the patriarchs, and always heard in the prophets, at last was sent down from the Spirit and power of God the Father, into the Virgin Mary, was made flesh in her womb, and born of her, lived as Jesus Christ; that thereupon He preached the new law and the new promise of the kingdom of the heavens; wrought miracles; was fastened to the cross; rose again the third day; was caught up into the heavens; and sat down at the right hand of the Father; He sent in His place the power of the Holy Ghost, to lead the believers; He will come again with glory to take the saints into the enjoyment of eternal life and the celestial promises, and to judge the wicked with perpetual fire, with the restoration of the flesh.

Theodoret of Cyrus, Epistulæ 81, 145. (MSG, 83:1259, 1383.)

Ep. 81. To every one else every city lies open, and that not only to the followers of Arius and Eunomius, but to Manichæans and Marcionites, and to those suffering from the disease of Valentinus and Montanus, yes, and even to pagans and Jews; but I, the foremost champion of the teaching of the Gospel, am excluded from every city.… I led eight villages of Marcionites with their surrounding country into the way of truth, another full of Eunomians and another of Arians I brought to the light of divine knowledge, and, by God's grace, not a tare of heresy was left among us.

Ep. 145. I do indeed sorrow and lament that I am compelled by the attacks of fever to adduce against men, supposed to be of one and the same faith with myself, the arguments which I have already urged against the victims of the plague of Marcion, of whom, by God's grace, I have converted more than ten thousand and brought them to holy baptism.

(a) Irenæus, Adv. Hær., IV, 26:2, 5. (MSG, 7:1053.)

Ch. 2. Wherefore it is incumbent to obey the presbyters who are in the Church, those who, as I have shown, possess the succession from the Apostles; those who together with the succession of the episcopate have received the certain gift [charisma] of the truth according to the good pleasure of the Father; but also to hold in suspicion others who depart from the primitive succession and assemble themselves together in any place whatsoever.…

Ch. 5. Such presbyters does the Church nourish, of whom also the prophet says: “I will give thy rulers in peace, and thy bishops in righteousness” [cf. Is. 60:17]. Of whom also the Lord did declare: “Who, then, shall be a faithful steward, good and wise, whom the Lord sets over His household, to give them their meat in due season? Blessed is that servant whom his Lord when he cometh shall find so doing” [Matt. 24:45 f.]. Paul, then, teaching us where one may [pg 129] find such, says: “God hath placed in the Church, first, Apostles; secondly, prophets; thirdly, teachers” [I Cor. 12:28]. Where, then, the gifts of the Lord have been placed there we are to learn the truth; namely, from those who possess the succession of the Church from the Apostles, and among whom exists that which is sound and blameless in conduct, as well as that which is unadulterated and incorrupt in speech.

(b) Tertullian, De Præscriptione, 32. (MSL, 2:52.)

But if there be any heresies bold enough to plant themselves in the midst of the apostolic age, that they may thereby seem to have been handed down from the Apostles, because they were in the time of the Apostles, we can say: Let them produce the originals of their churches; let them unfold the roll of their bishops, running down in due succession from the beginning in such manner that that first bishop of theirs shall be able to show for his ordainer or predecessor some one of the Apostles or of apostolic men—a man, moreover, who continued steadfast with the Apostles. For in this manner the apostolic churches transmit their registers; as the church of Smyrna, which records that Polycarp was placed therein by John; as also the church of Rome, which makes Clement to have been ordained in like manner by Peter. In exactly the same way the other churches likewise exhibit their several worthies, whom, as having been appointed to their episcopal places by the Apostles, they regard as transmitters of the apostolic seed.

(A) The Logos Doctrine

As stated by the apologists, the Logos doctrine not only furnished a valuable line of defence for Christianity (v. supra, § 20), but also gave theologians a useful formula for stating the relation of the divine element in Christ to God. That divine element was the Divine Word or Reason (Logos). It is characteristic of the doctrine of the Logos as held by the early apologists that, although they make the Word, or Logos, personal and distinguish Him from God the Father, yet that Word does not become personally distinguished from the source of His being until, and in connection with, the creation of the world. Hence there arose the distinction between the Logos endiathetos, or as yet within the being of the Father, and the Logos prophorikos, or as proceeding forth and becoming a distinct person. Here is, at any rate, a marked advance upon the speculation of Philo, by whom the Logos is not regarded as distinctly personal.

(B) The Doctrine of the Trinity

The doctrine of the Trinity followed naturally from the doctrine of the Logos. The fuller discussion belongs to the Monarchian controversies. It is considered here as a position [pg 133] resulting from the general position taken by the apologists. (V. infra, § 40.)

(C) Moralistic Christianity

The moralistic conception of Christianity, i.e., the view of Christianity as primarily a moral code by the observance of which eternal life was won, remained fixed in Christian thought along with the philosophical conception of the faith as formulated by the apologists. This moralism was the opposite pole to the conceptions of the Asia Minor school, the Augustinian theology, and the whole mystical conception of Christianity.

(D) Argument from Hebrew Prophecy

The appeal to the fulfilment of Hebrew prophecy was the main argument of the apologists for the divine character of [pg 135] the mission of Christ. The exegesis of the prophetic writings was in the spirit of the times. Hebrew prophecy was also regarded as the source of all knowledge of God outside of Israel. The theory that the Greeks and other nations borrowed was employed to show the connection; in this the apologists followed Philo Judæus. No attempt was made either by them or by Clement of Alexandria to remove the inconsistency of this theory of borrowing with the doctrine of the Logos; see above, under “Logos Doctrine;” also § 20.

(a) Irenæus, Adv. Hær., V, 1. (MSG, 7:1119.)

In no other way could we have learned the things of God, if our Master, existing previously as the Word, had not been made man. For no one else could have declared to us the truths of the Father than the Father's own Word. For who else knew the mind of the Lord or who else has been his counsellor? [Rom. 11:34]. Nor again in any other way could we have learned except by seeing our Master with our eyes and hearing His voice with our ears; that so as imitators of His acts and doers of His words we might have fellowship with Him and receive of the fulness of Him who is perfect and who was before all creation. All this we have been made in these latter days by Him who only is supremely good and who has the gift of incorruptibility; inasmuch as we are conformed to His likeness and predestinated to become what we never were before, according to the foreknowledge of the Father, made a first-fruit of His workmanship, we have, therefore, received all this at the foreordained season, according to the dispensation of the Word, who is perfect in all things. For He, who is the mighty Word and very man, redeeming us by His blood in a reasonable manner, gave [pg 137] Himself as a ransom for those who had been led into captivity. And since apostasy tyrannized over us unjustly, for though by nature we were God's possession, it yet alienated us contrary to nature, making us its own disciples, the Word of God, powerful in all things and constant in His justice, dealt justly even with apostasy itself, redeeming from it what was His own property. Not by force, the way in which the apostasy had originally gained its mastery over us, greedily grasping at that which was not its own; but by moral force [secundum suadelam] as became God, by persuasion and not by force, regaining what He wished; so that justice might not be violated and God's ancient handiwork might not perish. Therefore, since by His own blood the Lord redeemed us and gave His soul for our soul, and His flesh for our flesh, and shed on us His Father's spirit to unite and join us in communion God and man, bringing God down to men by the descent of the Spirit, and raising up man to God by His incarnation, and by a firm and true promise giving us at His advent incorruptibility by communion with Him, and thus all the errors of the heretics are destroyed.

(b) Irenæus. Adv. Hær., III. 18:1, 7. (MSG, 6:932, 937.)

Ch. 1. Since it has been clearly demonstrated that the Word, who existed in the beginning with God, and by whom all things were made, who also was present with the human race, was in these last days, according to the time appointed by the Father, united to His own workmanship, having been made a man liable to suffering, every objection is set aside of those who say: “If Christ was born at that time, He did not exist before that time.” For I have shown that the Son of God did not then begin to be, since He existed with His Father always; but when He was incarnate, and was [pg 138] made man, He commenced afresh [in seipso recapitulavit] the long line of human beings, and furnished us in a brief and comprehensive manner with salvation; so that what we had lost in Adam—namely, to be according to the image and likeness of God—that we might recover in Christ Jesus.

Ch. 7. He caused human nature to cleave to and to become one with God, as we have said. For if man had not overcome the adversary of man, the enemy would not have been legitimately overcome. And again, if God had not given salvation, we could not have had it securely. And if man had not been united to God, he could never have become a partaker of incorruptibility. For it was incumbent upon the Mediator between God and man, by His relationship to both, to bring about a friendship and concord, and to present man to God and to reveal God to man. For in what way could we be partakers of the adoption of sons, if we had not received from Him, through the Son, that fellowship which refers to Himself, if the Word, having been made flesh, had not entered into communion with us? Wherefore He passed also through every stage of life restoring to all communion with God.

(c) Irenæus, Adv. Hær., IV, 18:5. (MSG, 6:1027 f.)

How can they say that the flesh which is nourished with the body of the Lord and with His blood goes to corruption and does not partake of life? Let them, therefore, either alter their opinion or cease from offering the things mentioned. But our opinion is in accordance with the eucharist, and the eucharist, in turn, establishes our opinion. For we offer to Him His own, announcing consistently the fellowship and union of the flesh and the Spirit. For as the bread which is produced from the earth when it receives the invocation [pg 139] of God is no longer common bread, but the eucharist, consisting of two realities, earthly and heavenly, so, also, our bodies, when they receive the eucharist, are no longer corruptible, having the hope of the resurrection unto eternity.

(a) Tertullian, Ad Scapulam, 4. (MSL, 1:781.)

How many rulers, men more resolute and more cruel than you, have contrived to get quit of such causes—as Cincius Severus, who himself suggested the remedy at Thysdris, pointing out how Christians should answer that they might be acquitted; as Vespronius Candidus, who acquitted a Christian on the ground that to satisfy his fellow-citizens would create a riot; as Asper, who, in the case of a man who under slight torture had fallen, did not compel him to [pg 143] offer sacrifice, having owned among the advocates and assessors of the court that he was annoyed at having to meddle with such a case! Prudens, too, at once dismissed a Christian brought before him, perceiving from the indictment that it was a case of vexatious accusation; tearing the document in pieces, he refused, according to the imperial command, to hear him without the presence of his accuser. All this might be officially brought under your notice, and by the very advocates, who themselves are under obligations to Christians, although they cry out against us as it suits them. The clerk of one who was liable to be thrown down by an evil spirit was set free; as was also a relative of another, and the little boy of a third. How many men of rank (not to mention common people) have been cured of devils and of diseases! Even Severus himself, the father of Antonine, was mindful of the Christians; for he sought out the Christian Proclus, surnamed Torpacion, the steward of Euhodias, who once had cured him by means of oil, and whom he kept in his palace till his death. Antonine [Caracalla], too, was brought up on Christian milk,55 was intimately acquainted with this man. But Severus, knowing both men and women of the highest rank to be of this sect, not only did not injure them, but distinguished them with his testimony and restored them to us openly from the raging populace.56

(b) Laws Relating to Forbidden Societies.

(c) Persecutions under Severus.

(d) Tertullian. Apol., 39. (MSL, 1:534.)

Though we have our treasure-chest, it is not made up of purchase money, as if our religion had its price. On the regular day in the month, or when one prefers, each one makes a small donation; but only if it be his pleasure, and only if he be able; for no one is compelled, but gives voluntarily. These gifts are, as it were, piety's deposit fund. For they are taken thence and spent, not on feasts and drinking-bouts, and thankless eating-houses, but to support and bury poor people, to supply the wants of boys and girls destitute of means and parents, and of old persons confined to the house, likewise the shipwrecked, and if there happen to be any in the mines, or banished to the islands, or shut up in the prisons for nothing but their fidelity to the cause of God's Church, they become the nurslings of their confession. But it is mainly for such work of love that many place a brand upon us. See, they say, how they love one another!

(e) The Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas. (MSL, 3:51.) (Cf. Knopf, pp. 44-57.)

The day of their victory dawned, and they proceeded from the prison into the amphitheatre, as if to happiness, joyous and of brilliant countenances; if, perchance, shrinking, it was with joy and not with fear. Perpetua followed with placid look, and with step and gait as a matron of Christ, beloved of God, casting down the lustre of her eyes from the gaze of all. Likewise Felicitas came, rejoicing that she had safely brought forth, so that she might fight with the beasts.… And when they were brought to the gate, and were constrained to put on the clothing—the men that of the priests of Saturn, and the women that of those who were consecrated to Ceres—that noble-minded woman resisted even to the end with constancy. For she said: “We have come thus far of our own accord, that our liberty might not be restrained. For this reason we have yielded our minds, that we might not do any such thing as this; we have agreed on this with you.” Injustice acknowledged the justice; the tribune permitted that they be brought in simply as they were. Perpetua sang psalms, already treading under foot the head of the Egyptian [seen in a vision; see preceding chapters]; Revocatus and Saturninus and Saturus uttered threatenings against the gazing people about this martyrdom. When they came within sight of Hilarianus, by gesture and nod they began to say to Hilarianus: “Thou judgest us, but God will judge thee.” At this the exasperated people demanded that they should be tormented with scourges as they passed along the rank of the venatores. And they, indeed, rejoiced that they should have incurred any one of their Lord's passions.

But He who had said, “Ask and ye shall receive,” gave to them, when they asked, that death which each one had desired. For when they had been discoursing among themselves about their wish as to their martyrdom, Saturninus, indeed, had professed that he wished that he might be thrown to all the beasts; doubtless that he might wear a more glorious crown. Therefore, in the beginning of the exhibition he [pg 147] and Revocatus made trial of the leopard, and, moreover, upon the scaffold they were harassed by the bear. Saturus, however, held nothing in greater horror than a bear; but he thought he would be finished by one bite of a leopard. Therefore, when a wild boar was supplied, it was the huntsman who had supplied that boar, and not Saturus, who was gored by that same beast and who died the day after the shows. Saturus only was drawn out; and when he had been bound on the floor near to a bear, the bear would not come forth from his den. And so Saturus for the second time was recalled, unhurt.

Moreover, for the young women the devil, rivalling their sex also in that of the beasts, prepared a very fierce cow, provided especially for that purpose contrary to custom. And so, stripped and clothed with nets, they were led forth. The populace shuddered as they saw one young woman of delicate frame, and another with breasts still dropping from her recent childbirth. So, being recalled, they were unbound. Perpetua was first led in. She was tossed and fell on her loins; and when she saw her tunic torn from her side, she drew it over her as a veil for her thighs, mindful of her modesty rather than of her suffering. Then she was called for again, and bound up her dishevelled hair; for it was not becoming for a martyr to suffer with dishevelled hair, lest she should appear to be mourning in her glory. She rose up, and when she saw Felicitas crushed she approached and gave her her hand and lifted her up. And both of them stood together; and the brutality of the populace being appeased, they were recalled to the Sanavivarian gate. Then Perpetua was received by a certain one who was still a catechumen, Rusticus by name, who kept close to her; and she, as if roused from sleep, so deeply had she been in the Spirit and in an ecstasy, began to look around her and to say to the amazement of all: “I do not know when we are to be led out to that cow.” Thus she said, and when she had heard what had already happened, she did not believe [pg 148] it until she had perceived certain signs of injury in her own body and in her dress, and had recognized the catechumen. Afterward, causing that catechumen and the brother to approach, she addressed them, saying: “Stand fast in the faith, and love one another, all of you, and be not offended at our sufferings.”

The same Saturus at the other entrance exhorted the soldier Prudens, saying: “Assuredly here I am, as I have promised and foretold, for up to this moment I have felt no beast. And now believe with your whole heart. Lo, I am going forth to the leopard, and I shall be destroyed with one bite.” And immediately on the conclusion of the exhibition he was thrown to the leopard; and with one bite by it he was bathed with such a quantity of blood that the people shouted out to him, as he was returning, the testimony of his second baptism: “Saved and washed, saved and washed.” Manifestly he was assuredly saved who had been glorified in such a spectacle. Then to the soldier Prudens he said: “Farewell, and be mindful of my faith; and let not these things disturb, but confirm you.” And at the same time he asked for a little ring from his finger, and returned it to him bathed in his wound, leaving to him an inherited token and memory of his blood. And then lifeless he was cast down with the rest, to be slaughtered in the usual place. And when the populace called for them into the midst, that as the sword penetrated into their body they might make their eyes partners in the murder, they rose up of their own accord, and transferred themselves whither the people wished; but they first kissed one another, that they might consummate their martyrdom with the rites of peace. The rest, indeed, immovable and in silence, received the sword; and so did Saturus, who had also first ascended the ladder, and first gave up his spirit, for he was waiting for Perpetua. But Perpetua, that she might taste some pain, being pierced between the ribs, cried out loudly and she herself placed the wavering right hand of the youthful gladiator to her throat. Possibly such a [pg 149] woman could not have been slain unless she herself had willed it, because she was feared by the impure spirit.

O most brave and blessed martyrs! O truly called and chosen unto the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ! Whoever magnifies, and honors, and adores Him, assuredly ought to read these examples for the edification of the Church, not less than the ancient ones, so that new virtues also may testify that one and the same Holy Spirit is always operating even until now, and God the Father Omnipotent, and his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, whose is glory and infinite power forever and ever. Amen.

(f) Origen, Contra Celsum, III, 8. (MSG, 11:930.)

With regard to Christians, because they were taught not to avenge themselves upon their enemies, and have thus observed laws of a mild and philanthropic character; and because, although they were able, yet they would not have made war even if they had received authority to do so; for this cause they have obtained this from God: that He has always warred on their behalf, and at times has restrained those who rose up against them and who wished to destroy them. For in order to remind others, that seeing a few engaged in a struggle in behalf of religion, they might also be better fitted to despise death, a few, at various times, and these easily numbered, have endured death for the sake of the Christian religion; God not permitting the whole nation [i.e., the Christians] to be exterminated, but desiring that it should continue, and that the whole world should be filled with this salvation and the doctrines of religion.

(g) Justinian, Digest, I, 5:17.

Those who were in the Roman world were made Roman citizens by the constitution of the Emperor Antoninus.

Mithraic Prayer, Albrecht Dietrich, Eine Mithrasliturgie, Leipsic, 1903.

First Origin of my origin, first Beginning of my beginning, Spirit of Spirit, first of the spirit in me. Fire which to compose me has been given of God, first of the fire in me. Water of water, first of the water in me. Earthy Substance of earthy substance, first of the earthy substance, the entire body of me, N. N. son of N. N., completely formed by an honorable arm and an immortal right hand in the lightless and illuminated world, in the inanimated and the animated. If it seem good to you to restore me to an immortal generation, who am held by my underlying nature, that after this present need which presses sorely upon me I may behold the immortal Beginning with the immortal Spirit, the immortal Water, the Solid and the Air, that I may be born again, by the thought, that I may be consecrated and the holy Spirit may breathe in me, that I may gaze with astonishment at the holy Fire, that I may look upon abysmal and frightful Water of the sun-rising, and the generative Ether poured around may listen to me. For I will to-day look with immortal eyes, I who was begotten a mortal from a mortal womb, exalted by a mighty working power and incorruptible right hand, I may look with an immortal spirit upon the immortal Eon and the Lord of the fiery crowns, purified by holy consecrations, since a little under me stands the human power of mind, which I shall regain after the present bitter, oppressive, and debt-laden need, I, N. N. the son of N. N., according to God's unchangeable decree, for it is not within my power, born mortal, to mount up with the golden light flashes of the immortal illuminator. Stand still, corruptible human nature, and leave me free after the pitiless and crushing necessity.

(a) Lampridius, Vita Heliogabali, 3, 6, 7. Preuschen, Analecta, I, § 12.

Ch. 3. But when he had once entered the city, he enrolled Heliogabalus among the gods and built a temple to him on the Palatine Hill next the imperial palace, desiring to transfer to that temple the image of Cybele, the fire of Vesta, the Palladium, the sacred shields, and all things venerated by the Romans; and he did this so that no other god than Heliogabalus should be worshipped at Rome. He said, besides, that the religions of the Jews and the Samaritans and the Christian worship should be brought thither, that the priesthood of Heliogabalus should possess the secrets of all religions.

Ch. 6. Not only did he wish to extinguish the Roman religions, but he was eager for one thing throughout the entire world—that Heliogabalus should everywhere be worshipped as god.

Ch. 7. He asserted, in fact, that all the gods were servants of his god, since some he called his chamber-servants, others slaves, and others servants in various capacities.

(b) Lampridius, Vita Alexandri Severi, 29, 43, 49. Preuschen, Analecta, I, § 13.

Ch. 29. This was his manner of life: as soon as there was opportunity—that is, if he had not spent the night with his wife—he performed his devotions in the early morning hours in his lararium, in which he had statues of the divine princes and also a select number of the best men and the more holy spirits, among whom he had Apollonius of Tyana, and as a writer of his times says, Christ, Abraham, and Orpheus, and others similar, as well as statues of his ancestors.

Ch. 43. He wished to erect a temple to Christ and to number Him among the gods. Hadrian, also, is said to have thought of doing this, and commanded temples without any images to be erected in all cities, and therefore these temples, because they have no image of the Divinity, are to-day called Hadriani, which he is said to have prepared for this end. But Alexander was prevented from doing this by those who, consulting the auspices, learned that if ever this were done all would be Christians, and the other temples would have to be deserted.

Ch. 49. When the Christians took possession of a piece of land which belonged to the public domain and in opposition to them the guild of cooks claimed that it belonged to them, he decreed that it was better that in that place God should be worshipped in some fashion rather than that it be given to the cooks.

(c) Eusebius, Hist. Ec., VI, 21. (MSG, 20:574.)

The mother of the Emperor, whose name was Julia Mammæa, was a most pious woman, if ever one was. When the fame of Origen had extended everywhere and had come [pg 154] even to her ears, she desired greatly to see the man, and to make trial of his understanding of divine things, which was admired by all. When she was staying for a time in Antioch, she sent for him with a military escort. Having remained with her for a while and shown her many things which were for the glory of the Lord and of the excellency of divine teaching, he hastened back to his accustomed labors.

(d) Firmilianus, Ep. ad Cyprianum, in Cyprian, Ep. 75. (MSL, 3:1211.) Preuschen, Analecta, I, § 14:2.

But I wish to tell you about an affair connected with this very matter [baptism by heretics, the main subject of the epistle, v. infra, § 52] which occurred among us. About twenty years ago, in the time after Emperor Alexander, there happened in these parts many struggles and difficulties, either in common to all men or privately to Christians. There were, furthermore, many and frequent earthquakes, so that many cities throughout Cappadocia and Pontus were thrown down; and some even were dragged down into the abyss and swallowed by the gaping earth. From this, also, there arose a severe persecution against the Christian name. This arose suddenly after the long peace of the previous age. Because of the unexpected and unaccustomed evil, it was rendered more terrible for the disturbance of our people.

Serenianus was at that time governor of our province, a bitter and cruel persecutor. But when the faithful had been thus disturbed and were fleeing hither and thither from fear of persecution and were leaving their native country and crossing over to other regions—for there was opportunity of crossing over, because this persecution was not over the whole world, but was local—there suddenly arose among us a certain woman who in a state of ecstasy announced herself [pg 155] as a prophetess and acted as if filled with the Holy Ghost. And she was so moved by the power of the chief demons that for a long time she disturbed the brethren and deceived them; for she accomplished certain wonderful and portentous things: thus, she promised that she would cause the earth to be shaken, not that the power of the demon was so great that he could shake the earth and disturb the elements, but that sometimes a wicked spirit, foreseeing and understanding that there will be an earthquake, pretends that he will do what he foresees will take place. By these lies and boastings he had so subdued the minds of several that they obeyed him and followed whithersoever he commanded and led. He would also make that woman walk in the bitter cold of winter with bare feet over the frozen snow, and not to be troubled or hurt in any respect by walking in this fashion. Moreover, she said she was hurrying to Judea and Jerusalem, pretending that she had come thence. Here, also, she deceived Rusticus, one of the presbyters, and another one who was a deacon, so that they had intercourse with the same woman. This was shortly after detected. For there suddenly appeared before her one of the exorcists, a man approved and always well versed in matters of religious discipline; he, moved by the exhortation of many of the brethren, also, who were themselves strong in the faith, and praiseworthy, raised himself up against that wicked spirit to overcome it; for the spirit a little while before, by its subtle deceitfulness, had predicted, furthermore, that a certain adverse and unbelieving tempter would come. Yet that exorcist, inspired by God's grace, bravely resisted and showed that he who before was regarded as holy was a most wicked spirit. But that woman, who previously, by the wiles and deceits of the demon, was attempting many things for the deception of the faithful, had among other things by which she deceived many also frequently dared this—to pretend that with an invocation, not to be contemned, she sanctified bread and consecrated the eucharist and offered sacrifice to the Lord [pg 156] without the sacrament as customarily uttered; and to have baptized many, making use of the usual and lawful words of interrogation, that nothing might seem to be different from the ecclesiastical and lawful mode.

(e) Eusebius, Hist. Ec., VI, 34. (MSG, 20:595.) Preuschen, Analecta, I, § 15, and Kirch, n. 397.

When Gordianus (238-244) had been Roman Emperor for six years, Philip (244-249) succeeded him. It is reported that he, being a Christian, desired on the day of the last paschal vigil to share with the multitude in the prayers of the Church, but was not permitted by him who then presided to enter until he had made confession and numbered himself among those who were reckoned as transgressors and who occupied the place of penitence. For if he had not done this, he would never have been received by him, on account of the many crimes he had committed, and it is said that he obeyed readily, manifesting in his conduct a genuine and pious fear of God.

(a) Cornelius, Ep. ad Fabium, in Eusebius, Hist. Ec., VI, 43. (MSG, 20:622.) Cf. Kirch, n. 222 ff.

This avenger of the Gospel [Novatus] did not then know that there should be one bishop in a Catholic church; yet he was not ignorant (for how could he be) that in it [i.e., the Roman church] there were forty-six presbyters, seven deacons, seven subdeacons, forty-two acolytes, fifty-two exorcists, readers, and janitors, and over fifteen hundred widows and persons in distress, all of whom the grace and kindness of the Master nourished. But not even this great multitude, so necessary in the Church, nor those who through God's providence were rich and full, together with very many, even innumerable, people, could turn him from such desperation and recall him to the Church.

(b) Cyprian, Epistulæ 71 [=70] (MSL, 4:424) and 59:10 [=54] (MSL, 3:877)

Ep. 71 [=70]. Ad Quintum.

Which thing, indeed, Agrippinus [A. D. 218-222], also a man of worthy memory, with his fellow-bishops, who at that time governed the Lord's Church in the province of Africa and Numidia, decreed, and by the well-weighed examination of the common council established.

Ep. 59 [=54]:10. Ad Cornelium.

I have also intimated to you, my brother, by Felicianus, that there had come to Carthage Privatus, an old heretic in the colony of Lambesa, many years ago condemned for many and grave crimes by the judgment of ninety bishops, and [pg 158] severely remarked upon in the letters of Fabian and Donatus, also our predecessors, as is not hidden from your knowledge.

(c) Cyprian, Epistula 67 [=68]. (MSL, 3:1057, 1065.)

Cyprian … to Felix, the presbyter, and to the peoples abiding in Legio [Leon] and Asturica [Astorga], also to Lælius, the deacon, and the people abiding in Emerita [Merida], brethren in the Lord, greeting. When we had come together, dearly beloved brethren, we read your letters, which, according to the integrity of your faith and your fear of God, you wrote to us by Felix and Sabinus, our fellow-bishops, signifying that Basilides and Martial, who had been stained with the certificates of idolatry and bound with the consciousness of wicked crimes, ought not to exercise the episcopal office and administer the priesthood of God. Wherefore, since we have written, dearly beloved brethren, and as Felix and Sabinus, our colleagues, affirm, and as another Felix, of Cæsar-Augusta [Saragossa], a maintainer of the faith and a defender of the truth, signifies in his letter, Basilides and Martial have been contaminated by the abominable certificate of idolatry.

(d) Origen, Contra Celsum, III, 9. (MSG, 11:951.)

Celsus says that “if all men wished to become Christians, the latter would not desire it.” That this is false, is evident from this, that Christians do not neglect, as far as they are able, to take care to spread their doctrines throughout the [pg 159] whole world. Some, accordingly, have made it their business to go round about not only through cities, but even villages and country houses, that they may persuade others to become pious worshippers of God.… At present, indeed, when because of the multitude of those who have embraced the teaching, not only rich men, but also some persons of rank and delicate and high-born ladies, receive the teachers of the Word, there will be some who dare to say that it is for the sake of a little glory that certain assume the office of Christian teachers. In the beginning, when there was much danger, especially to its teachers, this suspicion could have had no place.

Eusebius, Hist. Ec., V, 23, 24. (MSG, 20:489.) Mirbt, n. 22, and in Kirch, n. 78 ff.

Ch. 23. At this time a question of no small importance arose. For the parishes [i.e., dioceses in the later sense of that word] of all Asia, as from an older tradition, held that the fourteenth day of the moon, being the day on which the Jews were commanded to sacrifice the lamb, should