An Account of the Life and Writings of S. Irenæus, Bishop of Lyons and Martyr: Intended to Illustrate the Doctrine, Discipline, Practices, and History of the Church, and the Tenets and Practices of the Gnostic Heretics During the Second CenturyBeaven, James
History
An Account of the Life and Writings of S. Irenæus, Bishop of Lyons and Martyr: Intended to Illustrate the Doctrine, Discipline, Practices, and History of the Church, and the Tenets and Practices of the Gnostic Heretics During the Second Century
Beaven, James
Gnosticism; Irenaeus, Saint, Bishop of Lyon; Theology, Doctrinal -- History -- Early church, ca. 30-600
SATURNINUS remained at Antioch, teaching the same general doctrine as his
preceptor Menander. He defined the number of the angels by whom the world
was made to be seven(563), one of whom was the God of the Jews; and he
introduced one of the remaining angels, who had not been concerned in the
creation, under the name of Satan, as the opponent of the Creators, and
more especially of the God of the Jews(564). He represented the creation
of man as having taken place at the suggestion of the Supreme Power, who
exhibited to the angels a bright image of himself; which, as he
immediately drew it up again to himself, they endeavoured to copy, and
thus made man _after its image and likeness_: but not having the power to
make him erect, he would have grovelled on the earth like a worm, had not
the Supreme Power, taking compassion on this poor copy of himself, sent
forth into it a spark of life, which gave it limbs and an erect
posture(565). By an unaccountable inconsistency, however, (for having a
system to make or improve at pleasure, he might as well have made its
parts consistent with each other,) he likewise taught that there were at
first created two sorts of men, one of which was not enkindled with the
celestial spark: that those alone would be saved who possessed it(566);
and that when they died, this heavenly portion of them would ascend to the
Powers above, and the other portions of their nature would be
dissolved(567).
The cause of the coming of the Saviour, or _Christ_, as they also called
him, (who was unborn, incorporeal, and man only in appearance,) he
declared to be the conspiracy of all the Angelic Princes, headed by the
Jewish God, against the Supreme Father; which obliged him to come down to
destroy the God of the Jews, together with demons and wicked men, and to
save those who believed in him, that is, those who had received the spark
of life. Who these demons were, or whether the whole of the angels were to
be destroyed, we are not told(568).
The prophecies of the Old Testament he attributed partly to the Creators
and partly to Satan(569).
It is evident that this is merely a modification of the scheme of Simon
Magus, with the addition of _Satan_, and _the Jewish God_, and _the spark
of life_: but there is another feature of his system which is remarkable,
as differing widely from that of his predecessors. Instead of opening the
door to unbridled lust, he affected an extraordinary repugnance to every
thing carnal, declaring marriage and its natural consequences to be works
of Satan; and some of his followers entirely abstain from animal
food(570).
BASILIDES(571), the other successor of Menander, settled at Alexandria in
Egypt. He was, as I have said, a man of very different character from
Saturninus, and followed his master in his addiction to magical practices,
and in his licentious doctrines; teaching likewise that meats offered to
idols were to be eaten indifferently with others(572).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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