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Appendix: Against All Heresies

Tertullian

Chapter 1

About this work

Author: Tertullian

IX. Appendix.

Against all Heresies.

[Translated by Rev. S. Thelwall.]

Chapter I.—Earliest Heretics: Simon Magus, Menander, Saturninus, Basilides, Nicolaus. [The Work Begins as a Fragment.]

Of which heretics I will (to pass

Chapter 2 ›

by

a

good

deal

)

summarize

some

few

particulars

.

For

of

Judaism’s

heretics

I

am

silent

—

Dositheus

the

Samaritan

,

I

mean

,

who

was

the

first

who

had

the

hardihood

to

repudiate

the

prophets

,

on

the

ground

that

they

had

not

spoken

under

inspiration

of

the

Holy

Spirit

.

Of

the

Sadducees

I

am

silent

,

who

,

springing

from

the

root

of

this

error

,

had

the

hardihood

to

adjoin

to

this

heresy

the

denial

likewise

of

the

resurrection

of

the

flesh

.

The

Pharisees

I

pretermit

,

who

were

“

divided

”

from

the

Jews

by

their

superimposing

of

certain

additaments

to

the

law

,

which

fact

likewise

made

them

worthy

of

receiving

this

very

name

;

and

,

together

with

them

,

the

Herodians

likewise

,

who

said

that

Herod

was

Christ

.

To

those

I

betake

myself

who

have

chosen

to

make

the

gospel

the

starting

-

point

of

their

heresies

.

Of these the first of all is Simon Magus, who in the Acts of the Apostles earned a condign and just sentence from the Apostle Peter. He had the hardihood to call himself the Supreme Virtue, that is, the Supreme God; and moreover, (to assert) that the universe had been originated by his angels; that he had descended in quest of an erring dæmon, which was Wisdom; that, in a phantasmal semblance of God, he had not suffered among the Jews, but was as if he had suffered.

After him Menander, his disciple (likewise a magician), saying the same as Simon. Whatever Simon had affirmed himself to be, this did Menander equally affirm himself to be, asserting that none could possibly have salvation without being baptized in his name.

Afterwards, again, followed Saturninus: he, too, affirming that the innascible Virtue, that is God, abides in the highest regions, and that those regions are infinite, and in the regions immediately above us; but that angels far removed from Him made the lower world; and that, because light from above had flashed refulgently in the lower regions, the angels had carefully tried to form man after the similitude of that light; that man lay crawling on the surface of the earth; that this light and this higher virtue was, thanks to mercy, the salvable spark in man, while all the rest of him perishes; that Christ had not existed in a bodily substance, and had endured a quasi-passion in a phantasmal shape merely; that a resurrection of the flesh there will by no means be.

Afterwards broke out the heretic Basilides. He affirms that there is a supreme Deity, by name Abraxas, by whom was created Mind, which in Greek he calls Νοῦς; that thence sprang the Word; that of Him issued Providence, Virtue, and Wisdom; that out of these subsequently were made Principalities, powers, and Angels; that there ensued infinite issues and processions of angels; that by these angels 365 heavens were formed, and the world, in honour of Abraxas, whose name, if computed, has in itself this number. Now, among the last of the angels, those who made this world, he places the God of the Jews latest, that is, the God of the Law and of the Prophets, whom he denies to be a God, but affirms to be an angel. To him, he says, was allotted the seed of Abraham, and accordingly he it was who transferred the sons of Israel from the land of Egypt into the land of Canaan; affirming him to be turbulent above the other angels, and accordingly given to the frequent arousing of seditions and wars, yes, and the shedding of human blood. Christ, moreover, he affirms to have been sent, not by this maker of the world, but by the above-named Abraxas; and to have come in a phantasm, and been destitute of the substance of flesh: that it was not He who suffered among the Jews, but that Simon was crucified in His stead: whence, again, there must be no believing on him who was crucified, lest one confess to having believed on Simon. Martyrdoms, he says, are not to be endured. The resurrection of the flesh he strenuously impugns, affirming that salvation has not been promised to bodies.

A brother heretic emerged in Nicolaus. He was one of the seven deacons who were appointed in the Acts of the Apostles. He affirms that Darkness was seized with a concupiscence—and, indeed, a foul and obscene one—after Light: out of this permixture it is a shame to say what fetid and unclean (combinations arose). The rest (of his tenets), too, are obscene. For he tells of certain Æons, sons of turpitude, and of conjunctions of execrable and obscene embraces and permixtures, and certain yet baser outcomes of these. He teaches that there were born, moreover, dæmons, and gods, and spirits seven, and other things sufficiently sacrilegious. alike and foul, which we blush to recount, and at once pass them by. Enough it is for us that this heresy of the Nicolaitans has been condemned by the Apocalypse of the Lord with the weightiest authority attaching to a sentence, in saying “Because this thou holdest, thou hatest the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which I too hate.”

Notes

3
See Acts xxiii. 8, and the references there.
4
Pharisees = Separatists.
5
See Acts viii. 9–24.
6
I use Virtue in this and similar cases in its Miltonic sense.
7
Mundum.
8
Or, “intelligence.”
9
Or, “but had undergone a quasi-passion.”
10
Magus.
11
Innascibilem;” but Fr. Junius’ conjecture, “innoscibilem,” is agreeable to the Greek “ἄγνωστος.”
12
Mundum.
13
The text here is partially conjectural, and if correct, clumsy. For the sense, see de Anima, c. xxiii. ad init.

14

Or, Abraxes, or Abrasax.

15

Or, Power.

16

Potestates.

17

Mundum.

18

Mundum.

19

Mundum.

20

i.e. probably “Simon the Cyrenian.” See Matt. xxvii. 32; Mark xv. 21; Luke xxiii. 26.

21

Alter hæreticus. But Fr. Junius suggests “aliter.”

22

See Acts vi. 1–6. [But the identity is doubtful.]

23

So Oehler gives in his text. But his suggestion, given in a note, is perhaps preferable: “and of execrable embraces and permixtures, and obscene conjunctions.”

24

See Rev. ii. 6.