§ 132. Justin the Gnostic.
Hippolytus: Philos. V. 23-27 (p. 214-233), and X. 15 (p. 516-519).
Hippolytus makes us acquainted with a Gnostic by the name of Justin, of uncertain date and origin. [912] 12 He propagated his doctrine secretly, and bound his disciples to silence by solemn oaths. He wrote a number of books, one called Baruch, from which Hippolytus gives an abstract. His gnosis is mostly based upon a mystical interpretation of Genesis, and has a somewhat Judaizing cast. Hippolytus, indeed, classes him with the Naassenes, but Justin took an opposite view of the serpent as the cause of all evil in history. He made use also of the Greek mythology, especially the tradition of the twelve labors of Hercules. He assumes three original principles, two male and one female. The first is the Good Being; the second Elohim, the Father of the creation; the third is called Eden and Israel, and has a double form, a woman above the middle and a snake below. Elohim falls in love with Eden, and from their intercourse springs the spirit-world of twenty angels, ten paternal and ten maternal, and these people the world. The chief of the two series of angels are Baruch, who is the author of all good, and is represented by the tree of life in Paradise, and Naas, the serpent, who is the author of all evil, and is represented by the tree of knowledge. The four rivers are symbols of the four divisions of angels. The Naas committed adultery with Eve, and a worse crime with Adam; he adulterated the laws of Moses and the oracles of the prophets; he nailed Jesus to the cross. But by this crucifixion Jesus was emancipated from his material body, rose to the good God to whom he committed his spirit in death, and thus he came to be the deliverer.
[912] Lipsius regards him as one of the earliest, Salmon (in "Smith & Wace," III. 587), with greater probability, as one of the latest Gnostics. The silence of Irenaeus favors the later date.
§ 133. Hermogenes.
Tertullian: Adv. Hermogenem. Written about a.d. 206. One of his two tracts against H. is lost. Hippolytus: Philos. VIII. 17 (p. 432). Comp. Neander: Antignosticus, p. 448; Kaye: Tertullian, p. 532; Hauck: Tertullian, p. 240; Salmond: in "Smith & Wace," III. 1-3.
Hermogenes was a painter in Carthage at the end of the second and beginning of the third century. Tertullian describes him as a turbulent, loquacious, and impudent man, who "married more women than he painted." [913] 13 He is but remotely connected with Gnosticism by his Platonic dualism and denial of the creation out of nothing. He derived the world, including the soul of man, from the formless, eternal matter, [914] 14 and explained the ugly in the natural world, as well as the evil in the spiritual, by the resistance of matter to the formative influence of God. In this way only he thought he could account for the origin of evil. For if God had made the world out of nothing, it must be all good. He taught that Christ on his ascension left his body in the sun, and then ascended to the Father. [915] 15 But otherwise he was orthodox and did not wish to separate from the church.
[913] This was enough to condemn him in the eyes of a Montanist.
[914] Hippol. l.c.: ephe ton theon ex hules sunchronou kai agennetou panta pepoiekenai.
[915] This foolish notion be proved from Ps. 19: "He hath placed his tabernacle in the sun."
§ 134. Other Gnostic Sects.
The ancient fathers, especially Hippolytus and Epiphanius, mention several other Gnostic sects under various designations.
1. The Docetae or Docetists taught that the body of Christ was not real flesh and blood, but merely a deceptive, transient phantom, and consequently that he did not really suffer and die and rise again. Hippolytus gives an account of the system of this sect. But the name applied as well to most Gnostics, especially to Basilides, Saturninus, Valentinus, Marcion, and the Manichaeans. Docetism was a characteristic feature of the first antichristian errorists whom St. John had in view (1 John 4:2; 2 John 7). [916] 16
2. The name Antitactae or Antitactes, denotes the licentious antinomian Gnostics, rather than the followers of any single master, to whom the term can be traced. [917] 17
3. The Prodicians, so named from their supposed founder, Prodicus, considered themselves the royal family, [918] 18and, in crazy self-conceit, thought themselves above the law, the sabbath, and every form of worship, even above prayer itself, which was becoming only to the ignorant mass. They resembled the Nicolaitans and Antitactae, and were also called Adamites, Barbelitae, Borboriani, Coddiani, Phibionitae, and by other unintelligible names. [919] 19
Almost every form of immorality and lawlessness seems to have been practiced under the sanction of religion by the baser schools of Gnosticism, and the worst errors and organized vices of modern times were anticipated by them. Hence we need not be surprised at the uncompromising opposition of the ancient fathers to this radical corruption and perversion of Christianity.
[916] For a fuller account see two good articles of Dr. Salmon on Docetae and Docetism, in "Smith & Wace," I. 865-870.
[917] See Clement of Alex., Strom. III. 526. From antitassesthai, to defy, rebel against, the law.
[918] Eugeneis.
[919] See Clem. Alex., Strom. I. f. 304; III. f. 438; VII. f. 722; and Epiphan., Haer. 26 (Oehler's ed. I. 169 sqq.).