MARCUS is mentioned by Irenæus apparently as a disciple of Ptolemy, or at least as having made his system after him(709): and as Tertullian(710) speaks of him in the same terms, we may safely take that as the sense of Irenæus. We find him first in Asia Minor, recompensing the hospitality of a deacon with whom he lodged by corrupting his wife, who for a good while followed him, but was at length brought back to the Church by the perseverance of the Christians(711). Where his subsequent residence was we do not learn. The circumstance which brought him more particularly under the notice of Irenæus was that his opinions and the consequent depravity of morals had spread to the neighbourhood of Lyons(712). The practical mischief appears first to have attracted his attention, and he was thence led to inquire into the speculative system which produced such fruits. Both the one and the other shall be noticed in their order. The scheme differed in reality very little in its frame‐work from that of Valentinus, Ptolemy, and Colorbasus; the latter of whom Irenæus represents him as more particularly agreeing with(713); but it was differently dressed up. Instead of making the Fulness a system of personal beings or emanations, he made it the _name_ of the Great First Cause, consisting of thirty letters, instead of as many Æons, divided into four syllables, of which the two first consisted of four letters each, the third of ten, and the fourth of twelve. This name originated in the wish of the Great Father to reveal himself. He therefore opened his mouth, and spoke a Word like himself, which was Ἀρχὴ, the Beginning; (this was the first syllable;) then a second, a third, and a fourth. What the three latter are we are not told: but they have continued to sound on from that day to the present, and will continue so to do, until they all unite in sounding forth together the same letter, when the consummation of all things will take place. About this matter, however, there is some obscurity, the passage not being very intelligible(714). It would be tedious beyond measure to enter into the application of this particular notion to the general Gnostic scheme: but he held a particular doctrine in regard to Jesus, which it will be proper to mention. He thought that he was the joint production of Man and the Church, the Word and Life; but that in producing him the angel Gabriel took the place of the Word, the Holy Spirit of Life, the Power of the Most High of Man, and the Virgin Mary of the Church: that the Supreme Father chose him in the womb to manifest himself in him by means of the Word, who therefore descended upon him at his baptism in the form of a dove(715).