Panarion (Against Heresies) 1 part 31/82

For even if women among them are established in the episcopate and presbytery because of Eve, let them hear the Lord saying, 'Your recourse shall be to your husband, and he shall rule over you.'

And the apostolic word has also escaped their notice: 'I do not permit a woman to speak, nor to have authority over a man'; and again, 'For man is not from woman, but woman from man'; and, 'Adam was not deceived, but Eve, having been deceived first, came to be in transgression.'

And oh, the multifarious error of this world!

Therefore, having passed over this toothless thing, full of folly, in the manner of a gecko, I will proceed to what follows, O beloved, calling upon God for the help of our lowliness and for the fulfillment of our promise.

Against the Quartodecimans, the thirtieth [heresy], but the fiftieth in the series.

From these two heresies, mingled together with one another — that of the Phrygians, and that of the Quintillianists, that is, the Priscillianists — there arose again in the world yet another heresy, called that of the Quartodecimans.

And these hold everything just as the Church does, but they err in every respect because they do not adhere to the order and teaching of the ordinance, still clinging to Jewish fables.

And they do not even hold the same doctrines among themselves;

for they know neither what they are saying nor the matters about which they so confidently assert.

For once a year, on a single day, such people contentiously observe the Passover, although they are rightly and equally disposed with us concerning the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and receive the prophets, the apostles, and the evangelists, likewise confessing the resurrection of the flesh, the coming judgment, and eternal life.

on the fourteenth day of the month.

But others among them, keeping that same single day and fasting on that same single day and celebrating the mysteries, boast that they have discovered the exact reckoning from the so-called Acts of Pilate, in which it is recorded that the Savior suffered on the eighth day before the Kalends of April.

And on that day they wish to keep the Passover, whichever day the fourteenth of the moon happens to fall on.

But those in Cappadocia keep that same single day, the eighth before the Kalends of April.

And even among these there is no small dissension: some say it should be the fourteenth of the moon, others the eighth before the Kalends of April.

Moreover, we have found copies of the Acts of Pilate in which it is indicated that the Passion took place on the fifteenth day before the Kalends of April;

but the truth, as we have ascertained through much careful investigation, is that we have determined the Savior suffered on the thirteenth day before the Kalends of April;

and some say it was on the tenth day before the Kalends of April.

But these too have missed the mark.

But I am wary of dwelling too long on these matters;

so then, if they have fled from one curse, they have impaled themselves upon many.

For they will be found accursed for not being circumcised, accursed for not tithing, and they become accursed for not bringing offerings to Jerusalem.

And oh, these men who have entangled themselves in so many idle disputes!

For truly one may apply to them that wise saying of Ecclesiastes, set forth to us by the Holy Spirit — that the Preacher recognized this, that God made man upright and prudent, but they themselves have sought out for themselves many devices.

For in what respect does their reasoning not collapse? First, if they observe the Passover on the fourteenth day, they need to take the lamb from the tenth day and keep it until the fourteenth, and then the fast will no longer be one day but five — the tenth, the eleventh, the twelfth, the thirteenth, and the fourteenth;

and if the Passover lamb is sacrificed toward evening, that same fourteenth day, as it dawns, completes six days within the fast, and the fast will no longer be one day, and their whole dispute about it being a single day collapses, since it is not a single day at all.

For the original types are joined together, and they have suffered no small loss with regard to the divine dispensation.

For it was necessary, according to the Law, that Christ be sacrificed on the fourteenth day, so that the light which illumined them under the Law might cease among them once the sun had risen and covered over the brightness of the moon.

For from the fourteenth day onward, the visible light of the moon wanes.

So too in the Law: from the coming and Passion of Christ, the Jewish synagogue was darkened, while the Gospel shone forth brightly — the Law not being destroyed but fulfilled, the type not being abolished but presenting the truth.

For thus also, when they had kept the Passover in Jericho, the divine Scripture immediately adds, saying: 'And the children of Israel kept the Passover and ate in Gilgal, and the manna ceased' — the divine Scripture thereby bearing witness to them and prophesying that, at the Lord's Passion, because of their denial of God, the angelic and heavenly food, which among them is called manna, would cease among them.

But the holy Church of God, gathering together from every side the connecting thread concerning the necessity of this sacred rite, does not fall short of the truth.

so that the resurrection and the festal celebration might correspond to the original type.

And she makes use not only of the fourteenth day of the moon, but also of the course of the sun, so that we might not, by making two Passovers in one year, fail to celebrate even one in the next.

Therefore we observe the fourteenth day, but we go beyond the equinox, and we bring the completion of the fulfillment to the holy Lord's Day;

and we take the lamb from the tenth day, recognizing the name of Jesus through the [numeral] iota, so that nothing of the whole truth concerning this life-giving, ecclesiastical, and true observance of the Passover might escape us.

But I shall also pass over this hissing inflation of the baion, or rather of the puffed-up serpent, having sealed myself by the power of Christ, and turning my mind to what follows, calling upon God as usual for help.

Against the heresy that does not accept the Gospel according to John and his Apocalypse: the thirty-first, but the fifty-first in the series.

Next in order after these heresies, following that of the Phrygians and the Quintillianists and those called Quartodecimans, another heresy sprang up in the world, like a feeble reptile unable to withstand the scent of dittany, or of storax, or of frankincense-wort, or of southernwood, or the smell of bitumen, or of incense, or of jet stone, or of the horn of the stag.

For those who have had experience of these things say that these substances are effective at driving away venomous reptiles;

and some call dittany (diktamnon) 'tiktamnon,' because the assistants of physicians have used it to help women in labor.

so that it might fittingly be likened by us to God the Word, who came from above, from the heavenly realms, begotten of the Father without time and without beginning.

For Solomon says concerning the foolish and base woman that she hates a word of security.

So too these people have hated the solid substance of the preaching, being earthly and hostile toward heavenly things.

Hence, fearing the voice of the Holy Spirit which says, 'The voice of the Lord perfects the hinds' — the voice of him who said to his own servants and apostles, 'Behold, I have given you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and upon all the power of the enemy';

for this was the voice that perfects the hinds, given to the world through the holy apostles and evangelists, to trample down the opposition of the devil;

and being one of these, Saint John, in the highest degree, took his stand and refuted the power of those who had gone astray and taken on serpentine form.

But such creatures will have no power within the ark.

For holy Noah is instructed, according to the word of the Lord, to make it secure in this way, as He says to him: 'You shall pitch it within and without with bitumen,' so as to show forth the form of the holy Church of God, which possesses the power of bitumen to drive away the fearsome and destructive reptilian teachings;

for wherever bitumen is burned as incense, a serpent has no strength to remain.

So then, the holy incense of storax has stupefied them, and they shrink from its fragrance, along with the power of southernwood, or rather of frankincense-wort, which breathed forth against the serpent itself and sprang up right over its den.

For where Ebion and Cerinthus and those around them preached Christ as a mere man advanced by gradual progress — I mean in Asia — there the Holy Spirit caused this holy herb, or rather shrub, to spring up for the world, the one that drove away the serpent and dissolved the tyranny of the devil.

For there Saint John, after reaching an advanced old age, was permitted by the Holy Spirit to preach and to turn back those who had gone astray in the way;

revealing to those who were persuaded the light of God that is in the holy teaching of God.

But how long shall I prolong this discourse? For indeed, where southernwood truly grows, there a serpent no longer remains nor makes its den; and where the true teaching of God is, no dwelling-place of reptilian teaching will prevail, but it will be utterly destroyed.

The Alogi, then, assert — for I give them this name —

for from this point on they shall be called by this name, and thus, beloved, let us give them a name, that is, 'Alogi.'

For they held the heresy so called, which rejects the books of John.

Since, then, they do not accept the Word (Logos) proclaimed by John, they shall be called Alogi.

Being, then, altogether estranged from the preaching of the truth, they deny the purity of the preaching, and accept neither the Gospel of John nor his Apocalypse.

And if they had accepted the Gospel but rejected the Apocalypse, we might have said that perhaps they do this out of a certain scrupulous care, not accepting it as apocryphal because of the things stated in the Apocalypse in a profound and obscure manner.

But since by their very nature they do not accept the books proclaimed by Saint John, it should be clear to everyone that these are the very ones, and those like them, concerning whom Saint John spoke in his catholic epistles, saying: 'It is the last hour, and you have heard that Antichrist is coming;'

'and now behold, there are many antichrists,' and so forth.

For these people make excuses, being ashamed to speak openly against Saint John, because they know that he was counted among the apostles and beloved by the Lord, to whom He worthily revealed the mysteries, and upon whose breast he leaned; and so they attempt to overturn these books by a different means.

For they say that these are not John's but Cerinthus's, and they claim these are not worthy to be in the Church.

And from this very assertion they are immediately refuted, understanding neither what they say nor the matters about which they so confidently assert.

For how could writings against Cerinthus be by Cerinthus? For Cerinthus says that Christ is a recent and mere man, but John has proclaimed him to be the Word who always exists, and who came from above and was made flesh.

From this very starting point, then, their vain slander is refuted, being a foolish thing that does not even understand from what quarter it is being confuted.

For they too seem to believe the same things as we do, but not holding fast to the secure teaching that was ordained for us by God through the preaching of Saint John, they will be found refuted in the very matters of which they are ignorant — as to how they raise their voice against the truth.

And if indeed they are willing to come to their senses and give careful thought, they will come to know it;

for we do not reject the teachings that come from the Holy Spirit, teachings that are held in a worthy and secure manner.

For they assert against themselves — I would not say against the truth — that his books do not agree with the rest of the apostles.

And henceforth they seem to lay hold of the holy and divinely-inspired teaching.

And what, he says, did he say? That 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,' and that 'the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth'; and immediately John testifies and cries out, saying, 'This is he of whom I said to you,' and 'This is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.'

And next he says, and those who heard him said to him, 'Rabbi, where are you staying?'

And at once, in the same passage, he says, 'On the next day' he wished to go out into Galilee, and he finds Philip, and Jesus says to him, 'Follow me.'

And after this, a little further on, he says, 'And after three days there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and Jesus and his disciples were invited to the wedding feast, and his mother was there.'

But the other evangelists assert that he spent forty days in the wilderness, being tempted by the devil, and that then, having returned, he took the disciples with him.

Those who do not follow closely do not know that each evangelist has taken care both to speak in agreement with the others concerning what was said by them, and at the same time to disclose in this way the things not spoken by them, but passed over.

For it was not their own will, but the sequence and the teaching came from the Holy Spirit.

For if they wish to seize upon this point, let them learn that the other three did not begin from the same sequence.

For Matthew is the first to begin preaching the gospel.

For to him it had been entrusted to proclaim the gospel from the beginning, as we have also said at length concerning this in another sect.

But it will do us no harm to discuss the same matters again, for the demonstration of the truth and the refutation of those who have gone astray.

This Matthew, then, was deemed worthy to be the first to proclaim the gospel, as I said, and it was most just.

For it was necessary that the one who had turned from many sins, and had risen up from the tax office, and had followed him who came for the salvation of the human race and who said, 'I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance' -- it was necessary that he, as an example to us who are to be saved in like manner as the one raised up from the tax office and turned back from unrighteousness, should be the first to furnish the proclamation of salvation, so that from him men might learn the loving-kindness of his coming.

For after the forgiveness of sins he granted to him also the raising of the dead, and the cleansing of leprosy, and powers of healing, and the driving out of demons, so that he might not only persuade his hearers by word, but might also, by the very deed, be able to proclaim good news -- to those who were perishing, that they would be saved through repentance; and to those who had fallen, that they would rise again; and to those who were dead, that they would be brought to life.

And Matthew himself, then, writes and proclaims the gospel in Hebrew letters, and he does not begin from the very beginning, but relates the genealogy from Abraham.

'Abraham,' he says, 'begot Isaac, and Isaac begot Jacob,' and so on down to Joseph and Mary.

When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit.

And Joseph, being a righteous man, sought to put her away secretly.

And behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, 'Do not put away your wife.'

For that which is begotten in her is of the Holy Spirit.

For behold, she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.

This one will save his people from their sins.

'And this,' he says, 'took place, that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled, saying:'

'Behold, the virgin shall be with child,' and so on.

'And Joseph,' he says, 'being raised from sleep, did as he was told, and took his wife, and did not know her until she had borne her firstborn son, and he called his name Jesus.'

'And when Jesus was born,' he says, 'in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.'

... upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you?

Thus also the work composed by the holy John, made secure in the Holy Spirit, had this concern -- not to speak only of the things already proclaimed many times, but concerning the things necessarily left by the others for him to proclaim.

For the whole plan of the gospels had this character.

For they were often refuted by the holy John and those about him -- Leucius and many others besides -- yet their shamelessness, having hardened its own forehead, was ambitious to draw down upon itself its own evils.

And immediately after Matthew, Mark, having become a follower of the holy Peter, is permitted in Rome to set forth the gospel, and having written it, is sent by the holy Peter into the land of the Egyptians.

Now this man happened to be one of the seventy-two who were scattered at the word which the Lord spoke, 'Unless one eats my flesh and drinks my blood, he is not worthy of me,' as the presentation would be clear to those who have read the gospels.

Nevertheless, having returned through Peter, he is deemed worthy to preach the gospel, being borne along by the Holy Spirit.

And he begins to preach from where the Spirit prompted him, setting the beginning from the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar, thirty years after the composition of Matthew.

And since this second evangelist did not signify clearly the descent of the Word of God from above, but did so altogether suggestively, yet not with such precise accuracy, it became for those aforementioned who had been deceived a second darkening of their thoughts, so that they were not deemed worthy of the illumination of the gospel.

They said, 'Behold, here is also a second gospel signifying concerning Christ, and nowhere speaking of a birth from above, but,' he says, 'at the Jordan the Spirit descended upon him, and a voice came:'

'This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.'

The Holy Spirit also rouses the holy Luke, so that he might raise up the understanding of those who had been deceived from the very lowest depth, and might again take up the things left by the others.

But so that none of those who had gone astray should suppose that he described the birth in mythical fashion, he carries the work back up to the higher realities, and for the sake of accuracy he sets forth the whole undertaking in minute detail, and for the demonstration of the truth he brings in as witnesses those who became servants of the word, saying, 'Since many have undertaken' -- so as to show that certain persons were mere attempters, I mean those around Cerinthus and Merinthus, and the others.

Then what does he say? 'It seemed good to me also, having followed closely from the beginning, as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word delivered them to us, to write to you, most excellent Theophilus' -- whether, then, he was writing this at the time to a certain Theophilus, or to every man who loves God, so that you might know, he says, the certainty of the words in which you were instructed.

And he affirmed that the catechetical instruction had already been given beforehand, so that they had already been instructed by others, but had not learned the precise accuracy from them with certainty.

Then he says, 'There was in the days of Herod the king, of the priestly division of Abijah, a certain priest named Zacharias, and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth.'

And he begins before Matthew.

For Matthew signified a period of thirty years from the beginning, while Mark set forth the events after the thirty years -- the undertaking that truly took place at the Jordan -- in like manner to Matthew and to Luke.

But Matthew made his narrative from the thirty-year period before the event at the Jordan and the baptism.

But Luke made clear the time before the Savior was conceived in the womb, from six months before, and again the nine months and a few days of the conception of the Lord, so that the whole time amounted to thirty-one years and more.

And he also relates the account of the shepherds because of the vision of the angels who brought the good news, and how he was born in Bethlehem and wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger, and was circumcised on the eighth day, and how on the fortieth day they offered a sacrifice for him according to the law, and how Simeon received him in his arms, and how Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, gave thanks in acknowledgment, and how he went away to Nazareth, and how they went up every year to Jerusalem together with his parents as they performed for him the things prescribed by the law -- none of which was undertaken by Matthew, nor by Mark, nor indeed by John.

Whence also certain others from among the Greek philosophers -- I mean Porphyry and Celsus and Philosabbatius, that clever and deceitful serpent who set out from among the Jews -- proceeding to the overthrow of the gospel undertaking, accuse the holy evangelists, being themselves men of soul and flesh, waging warfare according to the flesh, unable to please God, and not having understood the things spoken through the Spirit.

For each one of them, stumbling at the words of truth because of the blindness of ignorance within him, falling into this error, said:

How can it be that the same day is that of the birth in Bethlehem, and also has the circumcision on the eighth day, and after forty days the going up to Jerusalem, and the things accomplished concerning him by Simeon and Anna -- when, they say, on the night in which he was born an angel appeared to him, after the arrival of the magi who came to worship him and opened their bags and made their offerings, as it says, an angel appeared to him saying:

'Arise, take your wife and the child, and go into Egypt, for Herod seeks the life of the child.'

-- did they then bring him up to Jerusalem, and from there return to Nazareth? And those who are held fast by ignorance do not know the power of the Holy Spirit.

For it granted to each of the evangelists to relate the things truly fulfilled at each particular time and season.

And Matthew, having related only that he was begotten by the Holy Spirit and that he was conceived without the seed of a man, said nothing about the circumcision, nor anything about the two years of events that happened to him after his birth, but relates the coming of the magi, as the true word of God bears witness to us -- Herod inquiring from the magi about the time and having ascertained it precisely concerning the star that had appeared, and the answer of the magi, that it was from two years old and under.

So that this time was not the one dealt with by Luke.

But Luke relates the events before the two years, whereas Matthew, having spoken of the birth, leapt forward to the two-year period and made clear the things that happened after the two years.

Therefore Herod, having thought this out after the magi had turned aside by another road, supposed that among the multitude of children, the one who had been born would also be found and put to death along with them.

For he ordered the children in the districts of Bethlehem to be killed, those from two years old and under, reckoning up to the very day on which

the magi had been with him.

From this, then, to whom will it not be evident that when the magi came, the child had already been born two years before? For indeed this very account makes clear the whole precision of the matter.

For Luke says that the child, as soon as he was born, was wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger and in a cave, because there was no room in the inn.

For there was a census at that time, and those who had been scattered from the time of the wars that took place under the Maccabees had been dispersed to every part of the earth, and altogether few remained dwelling in Bethlehem.

But when the decree of Augustus the emperor was issued, and those who had been scattered were compelled, each according to their own family, to come to the place in order to be registered, the crowds flowing in filled the place, and there was no room in the inn because of the crowding.

After that, then, after the census, each one departed to wherever on earth he had his settled dwelling.

Therefore there also came to be room in the land.

And coming, so to speak, for the sake of remembrance of the things that had happened there, when the first year was completed and the second was fulfilled, the parents came there from Nazareth, as to this festival.

Therefore the coming of the magi took place according to such a coincidence of timing, no longer perhaps then in the same lodging of Mary and Joseph, on account of the presence of the census mentioned by Luke.

For they did not find Mary in the cave where she had given birth.

But as the gospel has it, 'the star,' it says, 'led them until the place where the child was there.'

And having entered into the house, they found the infant with Mary, no longer in a manger, no longer in a cave, but in a house;

so that the exactness of the truth might be known, and also the span of the two years' time, that is, from when he was born until the magi arrived.

And on that very night, two years after the birth, the angel appeared and told him to take the mother and the child into the land of Egypt.

Therefore Joseph no longer returns to Nazareth, but flees together with the child and his mother into Egypt, and spends another two years there;

and thus again, after the death of Herod, the angel brings him back to Judea.

So, having heard about Archelaus, he withdrew, and coming, he settled in Nazareth, and from there again he went up every year to Jerusalem.

Do you see how great is the precision that is found in the divine Gospels concerning each and every matter?

But those who are carried along by ignorance, having darkened their own mind, do not know the purpose of each saying, but simply open their mouth against the holy evangelists and let loose their tongue, saying nothing in truth, but alienating themselves from life.

Hence, then, Luke, after narrating the first events, again tells how in the twelfth year he went up to Jerusalem, so that he might leave no ground for those who supposed him simply to have appeared as a full-grown man in the world and to have come to the Jordan to John, as was assumed by Cerinthus and Ebion and the others.

For the terrible serpent, crossing along a crooked path, does not stand fast in one opinion, but to some he seems to have been born from intercourse and the seed of a man, while to others he seems simply to have appeared as a man.

Therefore the holy evangelists, narrating all things minutely, are exact.

And, naturally, Luke, tracing his thought upward from below, says: 'And Jesus himself, when he began, was about thirty years of age, being the son, as was supposed, of Joseph.'

But this 'was supposed' is not true; rather, Joseph held the rank of father because it had thus been decreed by God, but he was not truly a father, since he had had no union with Mary — except only that he was called her husband because he had been betrothed to her, being an old man of about eighty years, more or less, and having six sons by his own actual first wife, having taken on this stewardship, as I have discussed more precisely elsewhere concerning this.

How then could he who had no union with her be her father? Which is impossible.

But you will say to me: how then was he called her husband, if he had not taken her? But he who raises this doubt is ignorant of the matters of the Law, that from the moment a woman is named to a man, even if she is still a virgin and still remains in her father's house, such a woman is called the wife of the one to whom she has been named;

for this reason the holy angel says: 'Do not be afraid to take Mary your wife.'