[189] This Cerdo is only known to us as a predecessor of Marcion, whose teaching he appears to have influenced, although in what measure cannot now be ascertained. His date seems to be fairly well settled as about the year 135 (see D.C.B., s.h.v.), which is that of his coming to Rome, and it was doubtless here that Marcion met him. According to Irenæus, his teaching was mainly in secret and he was always ready to make submission to the Church and recant his errors when publicly arraigned. His doctrine, so far as it has come down to us, does not seem to differ from that of Marcion, Tertullian (adv. Marcion) and the tractate Adv. Omn. Haer. giving the best account of it. Of Lucian, we know nothing, save that, while Epiphanius (Haer. XLII, p. 688, Oehl.) makes him out the immediate successor of Marcion and to have been succeeded by Apelles, Tertullian (de Resurrectione, c. 2) speaks of him—if he be the person there referred to as Lucanus—as an independent teacher with no apparent connection with Marcion’s heresy. He adds that he taught a resurrection neither of the body nor of the soul, but of some part of man which he calls a “third nature.” See Forerunners, II, p. 218, n. 2, and 220.
[190] Ἀντιπαραθέσεις. See n. on p. [88] supra.
[191] Of this Apelles, our knowledge is mainly derived from Tertullian, for references to whom see Hort’s article “Apelles” in D.C.B. He was certainly later than Marcion, for Rhodo (see Euseb., Hist. Eccl., V, c. 13), writing at the end of the second century, A.D., speaks of him as still alive, though an “old man.” The same author seems to consider that on Marcion’s death he founded a sect of his own, in which he “corrected” Marcion’s teaching in some particulars. This is doubtful, but Rhodo’s statements go to show that he quoted from the Old Testament and did not hold the body of Jesus to be a phantasm. Tertullian also mentions several times the connection of Apelles with the “possessed” Philumene, on which he puts a construction negatived by the evidence of Rhodo. Cf. Forerunners, II, pp. 218-220.
[192] Hippolytus here accepts the statement of Tertullian (de Præscript., c. 30) that Apelles wrote a book called Φανερώσεις, or Manifestations, containing the prophecies of Philumene. He repeats this with more distinctness in [Book X], c. 20, q. v.
[193] ἄσαρκον.
[194] οὐσία.
[195] ἀνασκολοπισθέντα, lit., “impaled.” It is, however, used by both Philo and Lucian as equivalent to “crucified.”
[196] This “giving back” of the component parts of man’s being to the different powers from which they are derived is a frequent theme among the later Gnostics, and is fully described in the Pistis Sophia. Cf. Forerunners, II, p. 184.
[197] The source of this chapter is certainly the tractate Adv. Omn. Haer., formerly attributed to Tertullian and to be found in the second volume of that author’s works in Oehler’s edition. No other author mentions Apelles with such particularity, and all those subsequent to Tertullian appear to have taken their information either from Tertullian’s other works, from this tractate, or from our text. This tractate has been discussed in the Introduction (see Vol. I, pp. [12] and [23] supra) and perhaps all difficulties may be solved by supposing it to be, not indeed the actual Syntagma of Hippolytus, but a summary of it.