XVI.  These I call by name (for they are not nameless like the stars which are numbered and have names), Ps. cxlvii. 4. and they follow me, for I rear them up beside the waters of rest; and they follow every such shepherd, whose voice they love to hear, as you see; but a stranger they will not follow, but will flee from him, because they have a habit of distinguishing the voice of their own from that of strangers.  They will flee from ValentinusValentinus, a celebrated Gnostic leader of the Second Century, was one of the first Gnostics who taught in Rome.  He was probably of Ægypto-Jewish descent, and was educated at Alexandria.  He died in Cyprus about 160.  His system is a very curious one, giving the reins to the wildest vagaries of the imagination.  The original eternal Being, or Absolute Existence, he called Bythos or Depth; and to this he assigned as a wife Sige or Silence.  From this union there sprang thirty Æons or Emanations, who unfolded the Attributes of the Deity and created the world. with his division of one into two, refusing to believe that the Creator is other than the Good.  They will flee from Depth and Silence, and the mythical Æons, that are verily worthy of Depth and Silence.  They will flee from Marcion’sMarcion was a contemporary of Valentinus.  He was a native of Sinope in Pontus, of which city his father was Bishop.  He supposed Three Principles, the Good God, Who was first revealed by Christ; the Just Creator, Who is the “hot tempered and imperfect” God of the Jews; and the intrinsically evil Hyle or Matter, which is ruled by the Devil.  He also distinguished two Messiahs; one a mere warrior prince sent by the Jewish God to restore Israel; the other sent by the Good God for the delivery of the whole human race. god, compounded of elements and numbers; from Montanus’Montanus, a Phrygian enthusiast of the middle of the Second Century, imagined himself the inspired Organ of the Paraclete.  Connected with him were two Prophetesses, Priscilla and Maximilla, who left their husbands to follow him.  His heresy, or rather his schism, spread to Rome and Northern Africa, and threw the whole Church into confusion.  He was very early anathematized by Bishops and Synods of Asia, but he carried the great African, Tertullian, away by his frenzy. evil and feminine spirit; from the matter and darkness of Manes;Manes or Mani, a Persia philosopher, astronomer, and painter of the Third Century, who introduced into Christianity some elements drawn from the religion of Zoroaster, especially its πρῶτον ψεὺδος.  Dualism, the co-eternity of two contradictory principles, Light and Darkness, Spirit and Matter, Good and Evil.  This heresy flourished till the Sixth Century, S. Augustine himself having been for nine years led away by it.  It is believed not to be wholly extinct even now in some parts of Eastern Christendom. from Novatus’Novatus was a Carthaginian Priest, who at first rebelled against his Bishop, S. Cyprian, on account of his severity in the treatment of persons who had lapsed in the Decian persecution.  At Rome, however, this same Novatus, either out of simple antagonism to constituted authority, or because he had really changed his views, adopted the extremest rigorism, and became one of the most violent partisans of the Priest Novatian, whom his followers contrived to get consecrated as a rival Bishop of Rome, in opposition to Cornelius, the reigning Pope.  They set up a new “church,” and arrogated to themselves an exclusive claim to the title of Cathari, the Pure. boasting and wordy assumption of purity; from the analysis and confusion of Sabellius,Sabellius, a native of the Libyan Pentapolis, rejected the Catholic Faith of the Trinity of Persons in God, and would only allow a Trinity of manifestations. and if I may use the expression, his absorption, contracting the Three into One, instead of defining the One in Three Personalities; from the difference of natures taught by Arius It is hardly necessary here to dwell on the Arian tenets; cf. Prolegomena to the Theological Oration. and his followers, and their new Judaism, confining the Godhead to the Unbegotten; from PhotinusPhotinus was a n by birth, and flourished in the fourth century, a little earlier than S. Gregory.  He seems to have taught that our Lord Jesus Christ was a mere man, and had no existence previous to His Birth of the Virgin Mary.  He made Jesus rise on the basis of His human nature, by a course of moral improvement, to the divine dignity, so that the Divine in Him is a thing of growth:  cf. Schaff, H. E. Nicene Period, vol. ii. p. 653. earthly Christ, who took his beginning from Mary.  But they worship the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, One Godhead; God the Father, God the Son and (do not be angry) God the Holy Ghost, One Nature in Three Personalities, intellectual, perfect, Self-existent, numerically separate, but not separate in Godhead.