Refutation of All Heresies 1 part 1/2

These things are contained in the first book of the Refutation of All Heresies:

What were the opinions held by the natural philosophers, and who these were; and what were the opinions held by the ethical philosophers, and who these were; and what were the opinions held by the dialectical philosophers, and who the dialecticians were.

The natural philosophers, then, are Thales, Pythagoras, Empedocles, Heraclitus, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Anaxagoras, Archelaus, Parmenides, Leucippus, Democritus, Xenophanes, Ecphantus, Hippo.

The ethical philosophers: Socrates, the pupil of Archelaus the natural philosopher; Plato, the pupil of Socrates — this man combined the three philosophies.

The dialecticians: Aristotle, the pupil of Plato — this man established dialectic. The Stoics: Chrysippus, Zeno.

Epicurus attempted an opinion nearly opposite to all. Pyrrho of the Academy — this man declared the incomprehensibility of all things. The Brahmins among the Indians, the Druids among the Celts, and Hesiod.

No myth named among the Greeks is to be rejected. For even their inconsistent doctrines must be regarded as trustworthy, on account of the excessive madness of the heretics, who by keeping silent and concealing their unspeakable mysteries have come to be regarded by many as worshipping god. Concerning these we set forth their doctrines with moderation even long ago, not displaying them minutely, but refuting them in broad outline, since we did not consider it worthy to bring their unspeakable things to light — so that, by our setting forth in riddles what they hold, they might be ashamed, lest we show them to be atheists by uttering also the unspeakable things, and might cease somewhat from their irrational opinion and unlawful undertaking.

But since I see that they are not put to shame by our forbearance, nor do they consider that God is longsuffering toward those who blaspheme him — so that they might either be ashamed and repent, or persist and be judged — being compelled, I proceed to disclose their secret mysteries, which they hand down to their initiates with great show of trustworthiness, not divulging them beforehand unless they shall have enslaved such a person, keeping him in suspense over a period of time, and having rendered him blasphemous toward the true God, and observe him eagerly craving the promise out of curiosity.

And then, having tested him and found him to be a slave of sin, they initiate him, handing over the consummation of evils, binding him with oaths neither to divulge it nor to impart it to any chance person, unless he too should be similarly enslaved — since once this alone has been handed down, an oath is no longer necessary; for the one who has endured to suffer and to receive their perfect mysteries will, by the very deed itself, be sufficiently bound both in regard to his own conscience and in regard to not divulging it to others.

For if he should divulge such an iniquity to any man, he will neither be reckoned among men nor be deemed worthy to see the light... [text corrupt] ...which, being even a trivial wickedness, he does not undertake, as we shall say when we come to the relevant passages.

But since our undertaking compels us to embark upon a great deep of narratives, we do not think it right to keep silent, but having set forth the doctrines of all in detail, we shall pass over nothing in silence. It seems best, even if our discourse shall be somewhat lengthy, not to grow weary of it. For we shall leave behind no small assistance for the life of mankind, to the end that they may no longer be led astray, since all will plainly see their hidden and unspeakable rites, which they keep in reserve and hand down only to the initiated.

None other will refute these things than the Holy Spirit handed down in the Church, which the apostles, having first received it, imparted to those who had rightly believed; of whom we, being successors, and partaking of the same grace, of both the high-priesthood and the teaching office, and being reckoned as guardians of the Church, do not nod drowsily with our eye, nor keep silent on right doctrine; but neither do we grow weary in laboring with all our soul and body, endeavoring to render worthy things worthily to God our benefactor — and yet not even so repaying him according to his worth — except that we do not grow slack in what has been entrusted to us, but fulfill the measures of our own appointed time, and share ungrudgingly with all what the Holy Spirit supplies.

Not only bringing to light the matters of others that call for refutation, but also proclaiming without shame — both noting by word and bearing witness by writings — as many things as the Truth, having received them by the grace of the Father, has ministered to mankind.

In order then, as we said before, that we may show them to be godless both in opinion, in manner, and in deed; whence their undertakings arose; and that they took up these things having received nothing from the holy Scriptures, nor having set out upon this course by keeping the succession of any holy man, but that what they hold in esteem has for its origin the wisdom of the Greeks, derived from doctrines philosophically framed, from mysteries that have been attempted, and from astrologers wandering about — it seems best, therefore, first to set forth the opinions held by the philosophers of the Greeks, and to show to our readers that these are more ancient than these heretical systems, and more venerable with regard to the divine.

Then to compare each heresy with each philosopher, to show how the founder of the heresy, laying hold of these doctrines, took advantage of them, seizing upon their first principles, and setting out from these toward the worse, constructed his own doctrine.

The undertaking, then, is full of toil and requires much research, but we shall not fail; for afterward it will bring joy — as to an athlete who after much toil obtains the crown, or to a merchant who after a great tossing of the sea has made his gain, or to a farmer who after the sweat of his brow enjoys the fruits, or to a prophet who, after reproaches and insults, sees what was spoken come to pass.

Beginning, then, we shall tell who among the Greeks were the first to display natural philosophy. For it was especially the words of these that were pilfered by the founders of the heresies, as we shall show later in the comparison with one another. And by rendering to each of the earlier philosophers what is properly his own, we shall present the heresiarchs stripped naked and disgraced.

It is said that Thales the Milesian, one of the seven wise men, was the first to undertake natural philosophy. He said that water is the beginning and the end of being.

For from it all things are composed, as it congeals and again dissolves; and upon it all things are borne, from which also earthquakes and whirlings of winds and the motions of the stars come to be; and all things are borne along and flow, in accordance...

...with the nature of the first originating source of their generation. And this is god: that which has neither beginning nor end.

This man, having occupied himself with the theory and investigation of the stars, became for the Greeks the first author of this branch of learning; he, while gazing up at the heaven and claiming to observe it carefully, fell into a well, whereupon a certain woman, Thratta by name, laughing at him, said: 'While eager to see the things in heaven, he did not see the things at his feet.' He lived in the time of Croesus.

There is also another philosophy, not far removed in time from the same period, of which Pythagoras was the founder — whom some call a Samian. They called it the Italic philosophy, because Pythagoras, fleeing Polycrates the tyrant of the Samians, settled in a city of Italy and there completed his life. Those who succeeded to his school did not differ much from his own way of thinking.

He too, inquiring into natural matters, combined astronomy, geometry, music, and arithmetic. And thus he declared that god is a monad; and, having curiously studied the nature of number, he said that the cosmos makes melody and is composed according to harmony, and he was the first to reduce the motion of the seven stars to rhythm and melody.

Having marveled at the governance of the universe, he required that his disciples keep silence at first, as being, so to speak, initiates of the universe come into the world; then, when it seemed that they had sufficiently partaken of the training in reasoning, and were able to philosophize competently about the stars and nature, judging them then to be pure, he bids them speak.

He divided his disciples, and called some 'esoteric' and others 'exoteric'; for to the former he entrusted the more perfect teachings, and to the latter the more moderate ones.

He also, as they say, applied himself to magic, and himself invented physiognomy. Positing numbers and measures as first principles, he said that the starting-point of arithmetic embraces philosophy by way of composition, and that this number which became the first principle — that is, the unit — is indeterminate and incomprehensible...

...having within itself, as to multitude, all the numbers capable of proceeding to infinity. And the first principle of the numbers, according to substance, is the first monad, which is a male monad, begetting in a fatherly manner all the other numbers. Second is the dyad, a female number, which is also called 'even' by the arithmeticians.

Third is the triad, a male number; this too is ordained by the arithmeticians to be called 'odd.' After all these comes the tetrad, a female number, and it too is called 'even,' because it is female.

There have thus come to be, taken from the original class, four numbers in all (for the class itself was an indeterminate number), from which comes their perfect number, the decad; for one, two, three, four make ten, if to each of the numbers its proper name is preserved according to its essence.

This Pythagoras called the 'sacred tetraktys,' the fountain of ever-flowing nature, having roots in itself, as it were; and he said that from this number the other numbers have their origin. For eleven and twelve and the rest partake of the beginning of their existence from the ten. Of this decad, the perfect number, four parts are named: number, unit, power (square), and cube.

...such that interweavings and combinations occur for the generation of increase, producing in accordance with nature the productive number. For whenever a square is cubed upon itself, it becomes a square-of-square; and whenever a square is multiplied upon a cube, it becomes a square-cube; and whenever a cube is multiplied upon a cube, it becomes a cube-cube; so that all the numbers, from which the generation of things generated comes to be, are seven: number, unit, square, cube, square-of-square, square-cube, cube-cube.

This man also asserted that the soul is immortal, and taught the transmigration of bodies; wherefore he said that he himself had been, before the Trojan War, Aethalides, and during the Trojan War, Euphorbus, and after these, Hermotimus of Samos, after whom Pyrrhus of Delos, and fifth, Pythagoras.

Diodorus of Eretria and Aristoxenus the musician say that Pythagoras came to Zaratas the Chaldean; and that Zaratas expounded to him that there are, from the beginning, two causes for existing things, father and mother; and that the father is light, and the mother darkness; and the parts of the light are: hot, dry, light-weighted, swift; and the parts of the darkness: cold, moist, heavy, slow; and that from these the whole cosmos is composed, from female and male.

And he says that the cosmos exists according to musical harmony, wherefore also the sun makes its circuit harmoniously. Concerning the things that come to be from earth and cosmos, they say Zaratas spoke as follows: that there are two daimones, the one heavenly and the other earthly (chthonic); and that the earthly one sends up generation from the earth, and this is water; while the heavenly one is fire, partaking of air, hot and cold; wherefore he says that neither of these destroys or defiles the soul, for these are the substance of all things.

He is said to have commanded that beans not be eaten, for the reason that Zaratas had said that, at the beginning and combination of all things, when the earth was still being formed and putrefying together, the bean came into being. And of this he offers as proof: if one, having chewed a bean fine, sets it in the sun for a certain time — for it will take on the effect — it gives off the odor of human seed.

And he says there is a still clearer example: if, when the bean is flowering, one takes the bean and its flower and places them in a pot, and having sealed this pot over, buries it in the earth, and after a few days uncovers it, one would see it having a form — first resembling a woman's private parts, and afterward, on closer examination, resembling a child's head that has grown attached to it.

This man perished, burned to death together with his disciples, at Croton in Italy. It was a custom among them that, whenever anyone came forward to become a disciple, he should sell his possessions and deposit the money, sealed, with Pythagoras; and he would remain silent, sometimes for three years, sometimes for five, while learning; and afterward he would again mingle with the others and remain a disciple and share meals together; but if not, he would receive back his own money and be cast out.

The esoteric ones, then, were called Pythagoreans, and the others Pythagorists. Of his disciples, those who escaped the conflagration were Lysis and Archippus, and the household slave of Pythagoras, who is said to have taught the Druids among the Celts to philosophize according to the Pythagorean philosophy.

They say that Pythagoras learned numbers and measures from the Egyptians; and, being struck with astonishment at the trustworthy, awe-inspiring, and reluctantly-disclosed wisdom of the priests, he himself, in imitation, likewise enjoined silence and made the learner remain quiet in underground chambers.

Empedocles, coming after these, also said much concerning the nature of daimones — how they move about, administering the affairs on earth, being very numerous. This man said that the first principle of the universe is Strife and Love; and that the intelligent fire of the monad is god, and that all things are composed of fire and will be dissolved into fire — a doctrine with which the Stoics too very nearly agree, expecting a conflagration.

But of all points he assents most fully to the transmigration of souls, saying thus: 'For I have already once become a boy and a girl, and a bush, and a bird, and a dumb fish leaping from the sea.' This man said that all souls pass into all kinds of living beings. For indeed their teacher Pythagoras said that he himself was Euphorbus, who campaigned against Ilium, claiming to recognize the shield. These, then, are the doctrines of Empedocles.

Heraclitus, the natural philosopher, the Ephesian, used to weep over all things, condemning the ignorance of the whole of life and of all men, and pitying the life of mortals. For he claimed that he himself knew all things, but that other men knew nothing.

He too spoke almost in agreement with Empedocles, saying that Strife and Love are the first principle of all things, and that god is intelligent fire, and that all things are in concord with one another, and not...

...standing still; and just as Empedocles said that the whole region around us is full of evils, and that evils reach as far as the moon, extending thither from the region around the earth, but do not proceed further, since the whole region above the moon is purer, so also it seemed to Heraclitus.

After these there were also other natural philosophers, whose opinions we have not deemed it necessary to state, since they differ in no way from those already mentioned. But since the school of Pythagoras as a whole has become no small one, and many later natural philosophers have arisen from it, giving various different accounts concerning the nature of the universe, it seems best to us, having set forth the philosophy from Pythagoras, to run back in succession over the opinions held by those after Thales, and having stated these, to come to ethical and dialectical philosophy, of which Socrates was the founder of the ethical, and Aristotle of the dialectical.

Anaximander, then, was a pupil of Thales. Anaximander, son of Praxiades, a Milesian. This man said that the first principle of existing things is a certain nature of the infinite, from which the heavens come to be, and the worlds within them. And this nature is eternal and unaging, and it also encompasses all the worlds. And he speaks of time, as if the coming-into-being and the substance and the destruction were determined by it.

This man declared the infinite to be the first principle and element of existing things, being the first to give this name to the first principle. And in addition to this, he said there is motion, in which it happens that the heavens come to be.

And the earth is suspended aloft, held up by nothing, remaining in place because of its equal distance from all things; and its shape is rounded, curved, resembling a stone pillar. Of its two flat surfaces, we stand upon the one, while the other is opposite to it.

And the stars come to be as a circle of fire, separated off from the fire throughout the cosmos, and enclosed by air. And there exist certain pipe-like passages, breathing-holes, through which the stars appear; wherefore, when these breathing-holes are blocked up, eclipses occur.

And the moon appears at times waxing, at times waning, according to the blocking or opening of its passages. And the circle of the sun is twenty-seven times that of the moon, and the sun is uppermost, while the circles of the fixed stars are lowest.

And living beings come to be... [text corrupt] ...being evaporated by the sun. And man came into being resembling another living creature, that is, a fish, at the beginning.

Winds come to be when the finest vapors of the air are separated off and, once gathered together, are set in motion; and rains come from the vapor given off from the things under the sun; and lightning occurs when wind, falling upon the clouds, splits them apart. This man lived in the third year of the forty-second Olympiad.

Anaximenes, he too a Milesian, son of Eurystratus, said that infinite air is the first principle, from which the things coming to be, and the things that have come to be, and the things that will be, and gods and divine things come to be, and the rest from the products of this.

And the character of the air is such: when it is most uniform, it is imperceptible to sight, but it is made manifest by cold, and by heat, and by moisture, and by motion. And it is always in motion; for the things that change would not change unless it were in motion.

For, being condensed and rarefied, it appears different: when it is dissolved into what is more rarefied it becomes fire; while wind is air becoming condensed; from air, by felting, cloud is produced; and when condensed still further, water; and water condensed yet further becomes earth; and earth condensed to the utmost becomes stones. So that the most sovereign factors of generation are opposites — namely, hot and cold.

And the earth is flat, borne upon air; and likewise also the sun and the moon and all the other stars, being fiery, are borne upon the air because of their flatness.

And the stars have come into being from the earth, because moisture rises up from it, and as this is rarefied, fire comes to be, and from the fire being raised on high, the stars are formed. And there are also earthy natures in the region of the stars, revolving together with them.

He says that the stars do not move under the earth, as others have supposed, but around the earth, just as a felt cap turns around our head. And the sun is hidden not by going beneath the earth, but by being screened by the higher parts of the earth, and because of its greater distance from us. And the stars do not warm us because of the length of their distance.

Winds are generated when the air, having been condensed, becomes rarefied and is borne along; and when these currents come together and are thickened still further, clouds are generated, and thus they change into water. And hail occurs when the water, descending from the clouds, freezes.

Snow occurs when these same things, being moister, take on solidification; and lightning, when the clouds are torn apart by the force of winds; for when these are torn apart, the flash becomes bright and fiery. And the rainbow is generated when the sun's rays fall upon condensed air. And earthquake occurs when the earth is altered still further by heat. Such, then, are the doctrines of Anaximenes. This man flourished around the first year of the fifty-eighth Olympiad.

After him comes Anaxagoras, son of Hegesibulus, the Clazomenian. This man said that the first principle of the universe is Mind and Matter, Mind being the active maker, Matter the passive thing generated. For when all things were together, Mind, coming upon them, set them in order. And he says that the material principles are infinite in number, and that even the smaller ones among them are infinite.

All things partake of motion, being moved by Mind, and like things come together. And the heaven has been ordered by the circular motion. Now the dense and the moist and the dark and the cold and all the heavy things came together into the middle, and from these, once solidified, the earth was formed; while the things opposite to these — the hot, the bright, the dry, and the light-weighted — rushed forward into the far reaches of the aether.

And the earth in shape is flat, and remains suspended because of its size, and because there is no void; and for this reason the air, being very strong, supports the earth, which rides upon it.

Of the moist things upon the earth, the sea existed [from the beginning]; and the waters in it, having been evaporated and settled, came to be in this way, as did also the water of the rivers that flowed down into it.

The rivers derive their substance both from rains and from waters within the earth; for the earth is hollow and has water in its hollow places. And the Nile increases in summer because waters flow down into it from the snows in the antarctic regions.

The sun and the moon and all the stars are fiery stones, caught up together by the rotation of the aether. And beneath the stars there are, together with the sun and moon, certain bodies revolving with them that are invisible to us.

We do not perceive the heat of the stars because they are far off and because of their distance from the earth; and further, they are not as hot as the sun, because they occupy a colder region. And the moon is lower than the sun, closer to us. And the sun exceeds the Peloponnese in size.

The moon does not have its own light, but receives it from the sun. And the revolution of the stars takes place beneath the earth.

The moon is eclipsed when the earth blocks it, and sometimes also when the bodies beneath the moon block it; and the sun is eclipsed at the new moons, when the moon blocks it. Both the sun and the moon make their turnings because they are pushed back by the air. And the moon turns frequently because it is not able to master the cold.

This man was the first to define precisely the matters concerning eclipses and illuminations. He said that the moon is earthy, and has within it plains and ravines. And he said that the Milky Way is the reflection of the light of the stars that are not illuminated by the sun. And that shooting stars come to be like sparks leaping off, from the motion of the pole.

Winds come to be when the air is made thin by the sun, and when the things that are being kindled toward the pole withdraw and are carried away. Thunder and lightning come to be from heat falling into the clouds.

Earthquakes come to be when the air from above falls into the air beneath the earth; for when this is set in motion, the earth, which rides upon it, is shaken by it. Living beings, in the beginning, came to be in moisture, and afterward from one another; and males come to be when the seed, separated off from the right parts, is attached to the right parts of the womb, while females come to be in the opposite way.

This man flourished in the first year of the eighty-eighth Olympiad, at which time they say Plato also was born. They say that he too became skilled in foreknowledge.

Archelaus was by birth an Athenian, son of Apollodorus. He said that the mixture of matter was similar to that of Anaxagoras, and likewise the first principles.

He held that in mind there exists straightway a certain mixture. And he said that the beginning of motion is the separating off from one another of the hot and the cold, and that the hot moves while the cold remains at rest; and that the water, being melted, flows into the middle, and in it, being also burned up, air comes to be and earth, of which the one is borne upward, the other settles down below.

The earth, then, comes to be and remains at rest for these reasons, and lies in the middle, being, so to speak, no part of the whole; and the air rules over the whole, having been given off from the conflagration, from which first proceeds the nature of the stars, of which the sun is the greatest, the moon second, and of the rest some smaller, some greater.

He says that the heaven became inclined, and thus the sun made light upon the earth and made the air transparent and the earth dry. For at first it was a lake, being high in a circle round about but hollow in the middle. And he adduces as a sign of its hollowness that the sun does not rise and set at the same time for all, which would have to happen if the earth were level.

Concerning living beings he says that, the earth being warmed at first in its lower part, where the hot and the cold were mingled, there appeared both many other living beings and men, all having the same manner of life, being nourished from the slime — and they were short-lived — but afterward generation from one another was established for them.

And human beings were distinguished from the other living beings, and established leaders, laws, arts, cities, and the rest. He says that mind is implanted in all living beings alike; for each of the living beings makes use of mind, one more slowly, another more quickly.

Natural philosophy, then, persisted from Thales to Archelaus; and Socrates became his pupil. There are also very many others who have put forward differing opinions concerning the divine and the nature of the universe. If we wished to set forth all their opinions, we would need to prepare a great mass of books. But having called to mind those who are especially notable by name and who, so to speak, being foremost, gave starting-points to all who philosophized afterward for the undertakings ahead, let us proceed to what we have set out to do. Let us proceed.

For Parmenides too posits that the universe is one, ungenerated, and spherical, he himself not escaping the opinion of the many, saying that fire and earth are the first principles of the universe — earth as matter, fire as cause and agent. He said the world is destroyed, but by what manner he did not say. The same man said that the universe is eternal and not generated, and spherical, and uniform, having no place in itself, and immovable and finite.

Leucippus, the companion of Zeno, did not maintain the same opinion as his master, but says that things are infinite and always in motion, and that change is continuous. He calls the elements the full and the void. He says worlds come to be thus: when a great void, out of that which surrounds, many bodies are gathered together and flow together, striking against one another, those alike in shape and similar in form become entangled, and when they are entangled, stars come to be; and these grow and wane through necessity. But what necessity might be, he did not define.

Democritus became an acquaintance of Leucippus. Democritus, son of Damasippus, of Abdera, conversed with many gymnosophists in India, priests in Egypt, astrologers, and magi in Babylon.

He speaks, like Leucippus, concerning the elements, the full and the void, calling the full 'being' and the void 'non-being'; and he said that the things that exist are always in motion in the void; and that the worlds are infinite in number and differ in size, and that in some there is neither sun nor moon, in some there are ones greater than those with us, and in some more numerous.

The distances between the worlds are unequal, and in one region more, in another fewer, and some are increasing, some at their prime, some declining, and in one place they come to be, in another they fail. They are destroyed by one another. And some worlds are bereft of living beings, plants, and all moisture.

In our world, the earth came to be before the stars, and the moon is below, then the sun, then the fixed stars. The planets themselves do not have equal height above the earth. A world is at its prime as long as it is still able to take in something from outside. This man laughed at everything, as though all things among men were worthy of laughter.

Xenophanes of Colophon, son of Orthomenes. He lived down to the time of Cyrus. He was the first to say that incomprehensibility belongs to all things, speaking thus: 'For even if a man should chance to speak what has been, above all, brought to fulfillment, yet he himself does not know it; but opinion is fashioned over all things.'