Philosophumena; or, The refutation of all heresies, Volume II
David Hume · en
[Footnote 69: Of this Hermogenes we know already from Tertullian’s
tract against him to be found in the second volume of Oehler’s edition
of Tertullian’s works. The date of this tract is said on good authority
to be 206 or 207 A.D., and as it speaks of Hermogenes as then living,
gives us his approximate date also. It is further said that he was a
painter, probably of mythological subjects, that he lived at Carthage,
and that he was several times married. Clement of Alexandria also
mentions him, and it is suggested that both Tertullian and Clement
drew from a tract against him said by Eusebius to have been written by
Theophilus of Antioch. The heretical tenets with which he is charged
are his contention that God could not have created the world from
nothing and that Matter must therefore be co-existent with Him, that
Christ on His Ascension left His body in the Sun, and that Adam was not
saved. The first of these Tertullian would derive from Stoic teaching,
while he does not touch on the second, which is, however, recorded by
Clement, nor on the third, which Irenæus (I, xxviii) attributes to the
Encratites. It is probable, however, that all three may be derived from
the Western Asian tradition, which later gave birth to Manichæism, of
which therefore Hermogenes’ heresy may prove to have been a forecast.]
[Footnote 70: ὕλην ἄκοσμον, “unordered matter.”]
[Footnote 71: οὐσία, “substantia,” Cr. and Macm.]
[Footnote 72: Μαρτυρίᾳ δὲ χρῆται.]
[Footnote 73: Ps. xix. 4, 5, “set up his tabernacle in the Sun,” A. V.]
[Footnote 74: The probable source of this chapter has been dealt with
in the note on previous page.]
[Footnote 75: This is, I think, the first mention of the Quartodecimans
as heretics. Eusebius, who thinks that the schism on the point began
in the reign of Commodus, treats them with great tenderness, and says
(_Hist. Eccl._, cc. xxiii. and xxiv.), that “the Churches of all
Asia” held their opinions, and that Irenæus himself pleaded their
cause before Pope Victor. Epiphanius (_Haer._, XXX) says that they
derived their origin from a mixture of the Phrygian and Quintillian or
Priscillianist sects, probably confusing them with the Montanists.]
[Footnote 76: Gal. v. 3.]