16. For Cerinthus Cerinthus taught that
the world was not made by the supreme God, but by a separate Power
ignorant of Him. See Irenæus, Hær. I.
xxvi., Euseb. E.H. iii. 28, with the notes in this
Series.
made havoc of the Church, and Menander Menander is first
mentioned by Justin M. (Apolog. I. cap. 26):
“Menander, also a Samaritan, of the town Capparetæa, a
disciple of Simon, and inspired by devils, we know to have deceived
many while he was in Antioch by his magical art. He persuaded
those who adhered to him that they should never die.”
Irenæus (I. xxiii. 5) adds that Menander announced himself as the
Saviour sent by the Invisibles, and taught that the world was created
by Angels. See also Tertullian (de Animâ, cap.
50.), and
Carpocrates Carpocrates, a
Platonic philosopher, who taught at Alexandria (125 a.d. circ.), held that the world and all things in
it were made by Angels far inferior to the unbegotten (unknown) Father
(Iren. I. xxv. 1; Tertullian, Adv. Hær. cap. 3)., Ebionites Irenæus, I.
26: “Those who are called Ebionites agree that the world
was made by God; but their opinions with respect to the Lord are like
those of Cerinthus and Carpocrates.” also, and Marcion On Marcion, see note 5,
on Cat. iv. 4., that
mouthpiece of ungodliness. For he who proclaimed different gods,
one the Good, the other the Just, contradicts the Son when He says,
O righteous Father John xvii. 25.. And he who
says again that the Father is one, and the maker of the world another,
opposes the Son when He says, If then God so clothes the grass of
the field which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the furnace of
fire Luke xii. 28.; and, Who maketh
His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the
just and on the unjust Matt. v. 45.. Here again is
a second inventor of more mischief, this Marcion. For being
confuted by the testimonies from the Old Testament which are quoted in
the New, he was the first who dared to cut those testimonies
out Marcion accepted only
St. Luke’s Gospel, and mutilated that (Tertullian, Adv.
Marcion. iv. 2). He thus got rid of the testimony of the
Apostles and eye-witnesses, Matthew and John, and represented the Law
and the Gospel as contradictory revelations of two different
Gods. For this Cyril calls him ‘a second inventor of
mischief,’ Simon Magus (§ 14) being the first., and leave the preaching of the word of faith
without witness, thus effacing the true God: and sought to
undermine the Church’s faith, as if there were no heralds of
it.