[1546] Of these two men we know only what is told us here. They are not mentioned elsewhere.
[1547] See note 9.
[1548] ho nautes. This word is omitted by many mss., but is found in the best ones and in Rufinus, and is accepted by most of the editors of Eusebius. Tertullian calls Marcion a ship-master (Adv. Marc. III. 6, and IV. 9, &c.) and a pilot (ibid. I. 18), and makes many plays upon his profession (e.g. ibid. V. 1), and there is no reason to take the word in a figurative sense (as has been done) and suppose that he is called a mariner simply because of his nationality. We know that he traveled extensively, and that he was a rich man (for he gave 200,000 sesterces at one time to the church of Rome, which was a large sum for those days; see Tertullian, de Præscript. 30). There is, therefore, no reason to doubt that he was a "ship-master," as Tertullian calls him.
[1549] It was the custom of the Fathers to call the heretics hard names, and Marcion received his full share of them from his opponents, especially from Tertullian. He is compared to a wolf by Justin also, Apol. I. 58, on account of his "carrying away" so many "lambs" from the truth.
[1550] See note 9.
[1551] Of Syneros we know only what is told us here. He is not mentioned elsewhere. Had the Marcionites split into various sects, these leaders must have been well known among the Fathers, and their names must have been frequently referred to. As it was, they all remained Marcionites, in spite of their differences of opinion (see above, note 4).
[1552] didask?lion, which is the reading of the majority of the mss., and is adopted by Heinichen. Burton and Schwegler read didaskaleion, on the authority of two mss.
[1553] Apelles was evidently like Marcion in his desire to keep within the Church as much as possible, and to associate with Church people. He had no esoteric doctrines to conceal from the multitude, and in this he shows the great difference between himself and the Gnostics. Marcion did not leave the Church until he was obliged to, and he founded his own church only under compulsion, upon being driven out of the Catholic community.
[1554] ton logon.
[1555] This is a truly Christian sentiment, and Apelles should be honored for the expression of it. It reveals clearly the religious character of Marcionism in distinction from the speculative and theological character of the Gnostics, and indeed of many of the Fathers. With Marcion and Apelles we are in a world of sensitive moral principle and of deep religious feeling like that in which Paul and Augustine lived, but few others in the early Church. Rhodo, in spite of his orthodoxy, shows himself the real Gnostic over against the sincere believer, though the latter was in the eyes of the Church a "blasphemous heretic." Apelles' noble words do honor to the movement--however heretical it was--which in that barren age of theology could give them birth. The latter clause, taken as it stands, would seem to indicate an elevation of good works to the level of faith; but though it is possible that Apelles may have intended to express himself thus, it is more probable, when we remember the emphasis which Marcion laid upon Paul's doctrine of salvation by the grace of God alone, that he meant to do no more than emphasize good works as a natural result of true faith, as we do to-day. The apparent co-ordination of the two may perhaps lie simply in Rhodo's reproduction of Apelles' words. He, at least, did not comprehend Paul's grand doctrine of Christian liberty, nor did any of his orthodox contemporaries. The difference between the common conception of Christ's relation to the law, and the conception of Paul as grasped by Marcion and perhaps by Apelles, is well illustrated by a passage in Tertullian, in which he expresses astonishment that the Marcionites do not sin freely, so long as they do not expect to be punished, and exclaims (to his own dishonor), "I would sin without scruple, if I believed as you do."
[1556] Rhodo had probably brought forward against Apelles proof from prophecy which led to the discussion of the Old Testament prophecies in general. Although Apelles had rejected Marcion's dualism, and accepted the "one principle," he still rejected the Old Testament. This is quite peculiar, and yet perfectly comprehensible; for while Marcion was indeed the only one of that age that understood Paul, yet as Harnack well says, even he misunderstood him; and neither himself nor his followers were able to rise to Paul's noble conception of the Old Testament law as a "schoolmaster to bring us to Christ," and thus a part of the good God's general plan of salvation. It took, perhaps, a born Jew, as Paul was, to reach that high conception of the law in those days. To Marcion and his followers the law seemed to stand in irreconcilable conflict with the Gospel,--Jewish law on the one side, Gospel liberty on the other,--they could not reconcile them; they must, therefore, reject the former as from another being, and not from the God of the Gospel. There was in that age no historical interpretation of the Old Testament. It must either be interpreted allegorically, and made a completely Christian book, or else it must be rejected as opposed to Christianity. Marcion and his followers, in their conception of law and Gospel as necessarily opposed, could follow only the latter course. Marcion, in his rejection of the Old Testament, proceeded simply upon dogmatic presumptions. Apelles, although his rejection of it undoubtedly originated in the same presumptions, yet subjected it to a criticism which satisfied him of the correctness of his position, and gave him a fair basis of attack. His procedure was, therefore, more truly historical than that of Marcion, and anticipated modern methods of higher criticism.
[1557] A true Gnostic sentiment, over against which the pious "agnosticism" of Apelles is not altogether unrefreshing. The Church did not fully conquer Gnosticism,--Gnosticism in some degree conquered the Church, and the anti-Gnostics, like Apelles, were called heretics. It was the vicious error of Gnosticism that it looked upon Christianity as knowledge, that it completely identified the two, and our existing systems of theology, some of them, testify to the fact that there are still Gnostics among us.
[1558] Of this Callistio we know nothing; but, as has been remarked by another, he must have been a well-known man, or Eusebius would probably have said "a certain Callistio" (see Salmon's article in Smith and Wace).
[1559] Upon Tatian, see Bk. IV. chap. 29, note 1.
[1560] Upon this work (problem?ton biblion) see ibid.
[1561] Whether Rhodo fulfilled this promise we do not know. The work is mentioned by no one else, and Eusebius evidently had no knowledge of its existence, or he would have said so.
[1562] eis ten hexaemeron hupomnema. This work of Rhodo's, on the Hexæmeron (or six days' work), is mentioned by no one else, and no fragments of it are known to us. For a notice of other works on the same subject, see below, Bk. VI. chap. 22, note 3.
[1563] Hippolytus (X. 16) also mentions works of Apelles against the law and the prophets. We know of but one work of his, viz. the Syllogisms, which was devoted to the criticism of the Old Testament, and in which he worked out the antitheses of Marcion in a syllogistic form. The work is cited only by Origen (in Gen. II. 2) and by Ambrose (De Parad. V. 28), and they have preserved but a few brief fragments. It must have been an extensive work, as Ambrose quotes from the 38th book. From these fragments we can see that Apelles' criticism of the Old Testament was very keen and sagacious. For the difference between himself and Marcion in the treatment of the Old Testament, see above, note 9. The words of Eusebius, "as it seemed," show that he had not himself seen the book, as might indeed be gathered from his general account of Apelles, for which he depended solely upon secondary sources.