Panarion (Against Heresies) 1 part 28/82

For he clearly said: one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God, the same [who is] Father of all, the same [who is] above all, the same [who is] through all and in all — through the Law and the Prophets, and in all the apostles, and in all that follows.

This, then, is our compilation as set forth above, gathered from the text still preserved by Marcion himself; and whoever examines this collection would be astonished at the dispensations of the most bountiful God.

But there is also another superfluous matter, in addition to and beyond these, apart from the Gospel and the Apostolikon:

for it did not seem good to the most pitiable Marcion to say that this testimony comes from [the Epistle] to the Ephesians, but rather from the one to the Laodiceans, which does not exist in the Apostolikon.

Not having encountered these [testimonies], the brutish man, in his folly, and the wretch, having fallen in many respects, does not see the refutation against himself, acknowledged as it is every single day.

And let no one marvel at this.

For how could this man, who claims to possess something of the Gospel and the Apostolikon, fail to preserve at least a few words of the Scripture? For since the whole body of the divine Scripture is living, so to speak, what member did he find dead, by his own judgment, so as to introduce falsehood against the truth? But, so to speak, he maimed it, and mutilating it, cut away many of its members, retaining only a few for himself.

But even the parts he retained, being still alive, cannot be killed off; rather they still possess the vital force of their manifestation, even though he should cut them up into countless tiny fragments.

We further recalled, after all this, that some among these same Marcionites, having plunged into an abyss of blasphemy and having become utterly deranged by their own demoniacal teaching, do not even trouble to mention by name the very Lord whom they supposed [to confess]; and turning away from his divinity with unbridled tongue in yet another fashion, they are not ashamed to revile the name of the birth from above.

For some of them, as I said, have dared, without shame, to say that the Lord himself is the son of the Evil One; but others say not so, but rather that he is [the son] of the Judge and Demiurge.

[They say that] he, having become more compassionate and being good, left behind his own father below — some saying that father was the Demiurge, others the Evil One — and ran up above to the good God in the unnameable regions, and clung fast to him;

and [they say that] Christ, sent by him [the good God] into the world, came in opposition to his own [natural] father, in order to abolish all that his father by nature had legislated — that is, either the one who spoke in the Law, or the god of wickedness whom they place in the third principle.

For, as I said, they present this differently in different ways: one says it is the Demiurge, another says it is the Evil One.

These things are plain to everyone possessed of understanding, that this cast of mind and this teaching belong to an unclean spirit, and there was no need to offer a defense on this matter or to present a refutation against Marcion, who in every respect has made himself utterly forgetful of [true] life.

For his blasphemous empty talk and his brazen deed of ruin will be exposed before all who have understanding.

But since we are accustomed not to leave room for thorns, but to cut them out with the sword of God — sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, as it is written — we shall not shrink from saying a few words on this matter as well.

For, in the first place, if the good one came into being out of the evil one, then the doctrine of the [several] principles can no longer stand.

For his father too — if indeed he is evil, which may it never be, but rather he is good — could likewise change his mind, just as the one begotten by him has changed.

[He ought] first to have turned [his father] toward salvation, so that, having first converted his own father, he might perfectly demonstrate his own perfect goodness, having compassion on his father — just as it is written to do good first to those of the household of faith, how much more, then, to show mercy on one's own father.

But I have added yet another point to this statement and to the refutation of Marcion: that if he is the son of the one and has fled for refuge to the other, he will not be received as trustworthy by that other.

For he who has not kept a good conscience toward his own father will not be trusted by the other either, on the basis of his own past conduct.

Will you then again accuse the good God, O Marcion, of helplessness — that the one he sent was unable to save those saved by him and shown mercy by him through Christ? For unless, by Marcion's own account, Christ had fled to the God above, the good God would have had no resource to send anyone at all — unless, that is, the father of Christ, as Marcion says, had come into conflict with his own son.

If he is the son of the Demiurge, yet is opposed to the creation and to the Father's work, then, having come first into the world, he ought first to have destroyed mankind, so as to obliterate the work created by his own father, since he had become an adversary of his father's purpose;

or again, having received power of healing and of therapy and of salvation, he ought to have shown, before all else, his work of loving-kindness toward his own father, and first to have persuaded his father to become like him, so that, having become good both to himself and to his father, the one and the same goodness might become the cause of salvation for mankind.

But it is not so, as this man's vainly-uttered, mythical account [would have it].

For there are neither three principles, nor is there another father of Christ, nor is he a begotten offspring of wickedness;

for he says, "I am in the Father, and the Father is in me."

And if he speaks of having a father falsely, then this so-called illegitimate father of his cannot be in him, nor can he himself be in that father.

But he, teaching and speaking truly that his Father by nature is ever good and ever God and Demiurge of all, and that [the Father] is in him and exists together with him, utters this threat against Marcion, saying: "He who does not honor the Son as he honors the Father, the wrath of God remains upon him."

We have already shown, by many testimonies, that there is one God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, being good, begot one who is good; being love, begot one who is love; being the fountain of life, begot the fountain of life — for Scripture says, "With you is the fountain of life"; being truth, begot one who is truth; being light, begot one who is light; being life, begot one who is life — begetting without beginning, and eternally, and beyond time.

And in every respect the error of Marcion has been refuted.

These things, then, being so, and the overthrow of the deceiver having been accomplished by us in God through much and true demonstration — this [heresy], now trodden underfoot like a great asp through the truthful word of the Savior who said, "I have given you [authority] to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and upon all the power of the enemy" — let us proceed also to examine and set ourselves to refute the vain follies of the others, calling upon God as our helper in all things.

Against the Lucianists: [heresy] 23, but 43 in the [overall] sequence.

A certain ancient Lucian — not the one who lived recently in the time of Constantine the elder, whom the Arians allegedly reckon among the martyrs;

we shall speak of him in our refutation against them.

But now our discussion is directed against the aforesaid ancient Lucian.

For this man, having followed the aforesaid Marcion and having then broken away from him, formed for himself his own gathering and headed up a heresy, from whom come those called the ancient Lucianists.

In all respects, then, he teaches doctrine according to Marcion, but he also made use of certain things, as the account that has come down to us and the impression [we have] concerning him indicate.

For since these men are ancient and were soon extinguished, the inquiry concerning them has become difficult for us, as one may truly say.

But the things which we have learned in part concerning him are these:

after having allegedly established that the Demiurge and Judge and Just One is one, and likewise that the Good One is another, and the Evil One yet another, he wishes also, following Marcion, according to his own supposition, to make use of certain testimonies from the writings of the prophets — I mean the text, "Vain is he who serves the Lord," and the saying, "They resisted the aforesaid God, and were saved."

But this man, going even further than the teaching of his own teacher, entirely renounces marriage and practices chastity — not for the sake of chastity, but in order to nullify the works of the Demiurge — teaching that one should not be joined in marriage, since marriage, he says, is that from which prosperity comes to the Demiurge in the world through the begetting of children; he does this in opposition to the prosperity of the Demiurge and Creator that comes about in the world through the begetting of children.

Such a man will be caught out and refuted — first, by the opposition we have already raised against his own master, since we have at length made our refutation and overthrow of him, showing in how many and what ways the Gospel agrees with the Old Testament, and how our Lord himself confesses that the making of the world is his own work as well, and that creation belongs to the Father — as, to state it most concisely, is shown by that most weighty statement spoken by holy John: 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.'

'All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being that has come into being' — and so forth.

But such a man will straightway be overthrown.

For even if he should wish to say that his rejection of the union of marriage is for the sake of opposing and abolishing what has here been brought about by the Demiurge, so that he might not cooperate with the Demiurge and thus abstain altogether from the Demiurge's work — how is his notion not absurd, easily exposed, and readily refuted? For behold, this sorcerer and charlatan makes use of the creation and workmanship of the Demiurge in his very foods and clothing, and in the use of drinks and food, nor will he in any other way be able to escape making use of these things.

For God, the Master of all and Maker of all, in his care for all, makes his sun rise upon the evil and the good, and sends his rain upon those who blaspheme him and upon those who glorify him, and nourishes all — not by some irrational and senseless decree, but being long-suffering with a view to the retribution appointed by him in the judgment to come, and administering all things by his own ordinances and wisdom, as befits his benefit toward all, so that those who repent, having obtained amnesty from him, might gain salvation.

But if they persist in their blasphemous notions and vain imaginings, which were not given them by God, then afterward, once they have departed from this life — free will no longer remaining with them — he will bring upon them the judgment that will then take place, not in wrath, nor as one inflicting what is to come out of anger (for he foreordained all these things on account of his Godhead, which is not bound within the passions), but on account of that for which each one, in doing something to his own harm, has become his own cause; for God is not the cause of our going astray, nor of the condemnation that is to come upon us as a result of it.

since the truth makes this clear, and the light of the Gospel brilliantly illumines the whole world and saves in truth the sons of the true faith.

So then, having briefly, by means of some small implement, slain this snake which peered forth at us, and having left it lying dead, let us proceed to what follows, according to our promise, taking along God's help, so as to set forth his truth.

Against the Apellians: no. 24 in this section, but 44th in the whole series.

This aforementioned Lucianus is succeeded by Apelles — not that holy Apelles commended by the holy apostle, but another, from whom the Apellians take their name, who was himself a fellow-pupil of this Lucianus and a disciple of the aforementioned Marcion — like shoots run wild from a single root of many thorns.

But this man wishes to teach doctrines different from the others; and having armed himself against his own teacher, as well as against the truth, in order to gather for himself also a following of deceived men, he wishes to teach such things as these, declaring, 'It did not happen thus,' he says, 'rather Marcion has erred' — so that folly and lawlessness, exposing itself on every side and being shattered within itself, may be seen also stirring up its own overthrow against itself, since the truth is ever steadfast and has no need of help, but is self-sustaining, and is ever confirmed in the presence of God who truly exists.

This aforementioned Apelles, then, and his followers say that there are neither three principles nor two, as it seemed to the school of Lucianus and Marcion, but, he says, there is one good God, and one principle, and one power that cannot be named;

to this one God, that is, this one principle, none of the things that have come to be here in this world are of any concern; rather, this same holy God above, being good, made another god;

and this other god who came to be created everything, heaven and earth and all that is in the world.

But he turned out not to be good, and the things made by him, he says, were not well wrought, but were created by him according to his own base intent.

But who could endure such assertions, and would not rather laugh at such futile labor? For in two ways he will be found acting improperly, in holding to such a supposition.

And for this reason I will address him as though he were present:

For you must grant, O Apelles, either that this God made a god ignorant of what was to come — the god whom you claim wrought his creations badly — or that, foreknowing that the god created by him would turn out this way, he made him for this very purpose, so that he himself might not be blamed for what was badly wrought by him.

And in every case the God above will himself in fact become the Demiurge, having made the one who made all things, and it will no longer be the one who made the creation who is culpable, but the God above, who made the creator and is himself the maker of all things.

He says that Christ came in the last times, being Son of the good God above, and likewise his Holy Spirit, for the salvation of those who come to knowledge of him; and that when he came, he did not appear merely in semblance, but in truth took flesh — not from Mary the Virgin, but that he truly had flesh and a body, obtained neither from the seed of a man nor from a virgin woman.

But he had true flesh, in this manner:

and, he says, in coming from the heavenly realms he came to earth and gathered together for himself a body from the four elements.

asserting that the Savior constituted the body for himself.

For taking the dry element from what is dry, the hot from what is hot, the moist from what is moist, and the cold from what is cold, and thus fashioning for himself a body, he truly appeared in the world and taught us the knowledge from above — to despise the Demiurge and to deny his works — showing us in which Scripture, and which sayings, are naturally spoken by him, and which are from the Demiurge.

For thus, he says, the Savior spoke in the Gospel: 'Become skilled money-changers.'

'For I make use,' he says, 'of every Scripture, gleaning out what is useful.'

Then, he says, Christ gave himself up to suffer in that very body, and was truly crucified, and truly buried, and truly rose again, and showed that very flesh to his own disciples.

And, he says, having dissolved that very incarnation of his, he apportioned back to each of the elements what was its own — the hot to the hot, the cold to the cold, the dry to the dry, the moist to the moist;

and having thus dissolved the fleshly body from himself again, he flew up into heaven, from whence he had also come.

O what elaborate stagecraft on the part of those who say such things — so plain to everyone that this is rather the workshop of stage-players than something possessing the character of a promise of life or of understanding!

For if he was going to dissolve altogether the very body which he had taken, for what reason did he, from the outset, fashion it for himself? But if he fashioned it for some use, and completed the work of that use, he ought to have left it in the earth — especially since, on your view, there was no need for the form of the hope concerning the resurrection of the flesh to be fulfilled.

But instead he raised it up again, so as to plunge himself into yet greater labor, to no purpose whatsoever — fashioning it, laying it in a tomb, dissolving it, and dividing to each of the elements what he had received from it, like some conscientious debtor.

And if he was in fact giving back to each what was its own — that is, the cold to the cold and the hot to the hot — these things could well escape the sight of his disciples; but the dry body, at any rate, could not.

For the dry is certainly the body — flesh and bones — and the moist is certainly the humors and the flesh dissolving into moisture;

and these things, in laying his body down, he certainly signified most plainly to the apostles — just as also at the first, when his body was buried, Joseph of Arimathea was deemed worthy to wrap it in linen and lay it in a tomb;

and likewise the women were also able to see where the remains had been left, so that they might honor them with myrrh and spices, as before.

But this falsehood of yours, O Apellians, has nowhere been shown by any one of the holy apostles;

rather, they visibly saw two men who are otherwise invisible, and him ascending into heaven and being received by a bright cloud, but nowhere was any remnant of him left behind;

for it was neither fitting nor possible that it should be otherwise.

And so Apelles lies, and so do the Apellians who follow him.

He taught doctrines similar to those of his own master Marcion, both concerning flesh in general and concerning other matters likewise, asserting that there is no resurrection of the dead; and as for the other things pertaining to the earth, he appears to have taught similar doctrines.

But his reasoning will be overturned, being a piece of nonsense, and erroneous in every respect.

For darkness has no power where the light shines forth, nor will falsehood stand where truth exists.

For if you make any use at all of the Scriptures, O Apelles and you Apellians who come from him, you will be found refuted from those very Scriptures;

first, because God made man according to the image of God, and he who made him said, 'Let us make man according to our image and likeness';

so that if anyone should turn from your erring heresy to the truth, having fled from darkness and risen up from night, he would find that the light of the knowledge of God had dawned upon him, like the sun, and even beyond the sun.

for one who possesses sound reasoning knows that he who said, 'Let us make man,' is God, the Father of all things;

and he calls to himself the God the Word who always exists together with him, the only-begotten Son, begotten of him without beginning and without time, and likewise also his Holy Spirit, who is not alien either to him or to his own Son.

For if the one who formed man — that is, who also created the world — were someone other than the good God above, from whom Christ came down, then Christ would not have taken and formed a body for himself, thereby reproducing in himself the image of the Demiurge.

But it is clear that he himself is the maker of man and of the world, he to whom the Father said, 'Let us make man according to our image and likeness';

and from this one work the Craftsman is established, being shown to be the very one who then made man, having formed the body of Adam out of the earth and made it into a living soul.

Therefore also holy John bore witness in the holy Gospel, saying, 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.'

'He was in the beginning with God.'

'All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being' — and so forth.

But if all things came into being in him and were made by him, then he himself formed Adam at that time, and he himself again refashioned in himself the body from Mary the Virgin, and perfectly united in himself the whole of his incarnation — that which was then formed by him and is now united together in himself.

But if he took upon himself an alien work — that of one who, according to your teaching, formed the creation badly and is himself evil — and if he made any use at all of the evil works which, according to you, the evil maker wrought, then he mingled himself with the evil of that maker, both in its use, and in its benefit, and in the maker's very image.

For if he became incarnate, he took not only flesh, but a soul as well.

Otherwise, how could he have said, 'I have power to take my soul and to lay it down'? Having therefore undertaken the whole task, that image spoken of by the Demiurge, he undertook the whole task — the Word coming in body and soul, and in whatever else it is that constitutes man in his entirety.

These things being thus accomplished, your poison has in every way been dimmed, and your unfounded position has fallen, having no firm foundation of truth.

But if you take from divine Scripture whatever you wish and leave aside whatever you wish, then indeed you have set yourself up as a judge — not as an interpreter of the laws, but as one who picks and chooses among what was not written according to your own mind, although it is true, but which you falsely alter to suit the mind of your own deceit and of those deceived by you.

But if an evil maker altogether wrought the things here — I mean the world — for what purpose did the one from the good Father come into this present age? And if it was in order to save mankind, then he took care of what was his own, and the Demiurge would no longer be someone else.

But if he was not caring for what was his own, and instead wishes to intrude upon what belongs to another and to save what does not belong to him, then he is either a flatterer, fawning upon what is another's, or he is vainglorious, wishing to appear superior to the Creator with regard to the alien things which he tries to save, coveting what is not his own — and he will no longer be truthful.

Or else, according to you, O charlatan, he is of limited power, and having no creation of his own, desires what belongs to another and tries to plunder it, procuring for himself, out of what belongs to another, souls that are neither his own nor his Father's.

But if the souls are indeed his own, and evidently came from above, then they were sent into a good world by the God above who, according to you, is good — and not into an evil work.

But if they were sent for some purpose which you perhaps fabricate as a myth, and upon entering they lapsed into another purpose — that is, they were meant to do something righteous, but instead did something wicked — then he who sent them will be shown to have had no foreknowledge;

for since he sent them for one purpose, and they were found to have accomplished quite another.

If they have come, not according to his own will, but according to the tyranny of the one who seized them, then the evil Demiurge created by the good God turns out to be stronger than the good God — since he, by seizing what belonged to the good God, made use of it.

And how will you not be refuted, when the Savior himself declares, 'I have power to lay down my soul and to take it again' — showing that he himself had taken a soul, laid it down, and taken it again, so that the soul is not something alien, belonging to another Demiurge?

And thus again he will be found bearing a good body.

For no good person would be persuaded to make use of an evil work, lest by partaking of a portion of evil, he himself also be defiled by the wickedness of the mixture.

But if he also raised it up, tell me, what did he do after the resurrection, that he abandoned it again, dividing it among the four elements — to the hot what is hot, to the cold what is cold, to the dry what is dry, and to the moist what is moist? For if he raised it up only to dissolve it again, then this deed would be a work of stage-craft, and not of truth.

But our Lord Jesus Christ raised it up, and took to himself that which he had fashioned into himself — body together with soul, and the whole enfleshment — most perfectly.

For since, according to the apostolic word, God raised him up and seated him together with himself in the heavenly places, as the two men in shining raiment who appeared to the apostles testify, saying — as the men of Galilee are told — 'Why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him being taken up.'

And so that you might not again be given an occasion for wickedness against the truth: a long time after the ascension of our Savior, Stephen, the holy martyr of God, being stoned by the Jews, answered saying, 'Behold, I see the heaven opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of the Father' — in order to show that this very body, in truth, having risen into a spiritual state, is wholly united in a spiritual manner with the divinity of the Only-begotten, and joined together into divinity.

And above, that holy body, together with the divinity, is wholly God, one Son, the Holy One of God, sitting at the right hand of the Father, as also the Gospel of Mark and the other evangelists have it: 'and he went up into the heavens and sat down at the right hand of the Father.'

And from every side your charlatan's word, and that of those led astray by you, will fall to ruin.

And concerning the resurrection of the dead, hear the apostle saying that this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.

For if this mortal were not going to put on immortality, and this corruptible put on incorruption, the Immortal One would not have come to die, so that in him he might suffer, and having fallen asleep, rise on the third day, and bring up with himself, united within himself with the divinity and his glory — so that from his gracious sojourn among us we might in truth hold fast to all hope, showing himself to us as a type and a pledge unto the hope of the whole dispensation of life.

Since these things stand thus and have been said, what further need do I have to wear myself out over this smoldering little wasp — which is nothing at all — for the sake of refutation or any other purpose? For it has of itself lost its sting, and its counterfeit doctrine of error has been shown to be, without exception, charlatan-like.

For they say that the painful wasp, which some have called the 'zopyron' (the smoldering-ember wasp), has a short venomous sting, not possessing great intensity of pain, but being venomous according to its own limited power.

As I said, should it be struck down, it comes out enraged — this wasp, fearsome indeed, yet feeble.

And if it finds a rock nearby, or a piece of wood, out of the anger that has filled it, it swoops down with a whirring rush, and charges, and strikes the rock.

And it does no harm at all to the rock, nor to the wood, nor indeed to a person — even if it should sting, it is only to a slight degree of pain.

Above all, it does no harm whatsoever to the rock; rather, it loses its sting and so is destroyed, while the rock will suffer no harm at all from such a thing.

So too this wasp-like sect, having only a small degree of painfulness, after the manner of the smoldering-ember wasp, will be overthrown when it encounters the rock — that is, the truth — and loses its sting.

Having passed through this one, I shall again proceed to the others, trusting in the hope that comes from God, believing that the promise will be fulfilled in God.

Against the Severians: [Sect] 25, but in the sequence, 45.

Next after these follows Severus, either their contemporary, or living around their time.

For I am not able to speak with certainty about his time, except that they were close to one another in time.

Nevertheless, I shall relate the things that have come down to us.

A certain Severus arose, from whom those called the Severians take their name, following in succession after the aforementioned Apelles.

And the mythical fabrications found in him are these, which I am about to relate.