BOOK VIII
THE DOCETAE, MONOIMUS, AND OTHERS
p. 396. 1. These are the contents of the 8th [Book] of the Refutation of all Heresies.
2. What are the opinions of the Docetae,[1] and that they teach things which they say are from the Physicist Philosophy.[2]
3. How Monoimus speaks foolishly, giving heed to poets and geometricians and arithmeticians.
4. How Tatian’s [heresy] sprang from the opinions of Valentinus and Marcion wherefrom he compounded his own. And that Hermogenes has made use of the teachings of Socrates, not of Christ.
5. How those err who contend that Easter should be celebrated on the 14th day [of the month].
6. What is the error of the Phrygians, who think Montanus and Priscilla and Maximilla to be prophets.
p. 397. 7. What is the vain doctrine of the Encratites, and that their teachings are compounded not out of the Holy Scriptures, but from their own [views] and from those of the Gymnosophists among the Indians.[3]
1. The Docetae.
8. Since the many, making no use of the Lord’s counsel, while having the beam[4] in their eye, yet give out that they can see, it seems to us that we should not be silent as to their doctrines. So that they, being brought to shame by our forthcoming refutation, shall recognize how the Saviour counselled them to take away the beam from their own eye, and then to see clearly the straw which was in their brother’s eye. Now, therefore, having set forth sufficiently and adequately the opinions of most of the heretics in the seven books before this, we shall not now be silent upon those which follow. Exhibiting the ungrudging grace of the Holy Spirit, we shall also refute those who seem to have p. 398. attained security, They call themselves Docetae and teach thus:—The first God[5] is as it were the seed of a fig, in size altogether of the smallest, but in power boundless, a magnitude unreckoned in quantity, lacking nothing for bringing forth, a refuge for the fearful, a covering for the naked, or veil for shame, a fruit sought for, whereto, he says, the Seeker came thrice and found not.[6] Wherefore, he says, He cursed the fig-tree,[7] so that that sweet fruit was not found on it, [i. e.] the fruit that was sought for. And [the seed] being, so to speak briefly, of such a nature and so old [yet] small and without magnitude, the cosmos came into being from God, as they think, in some such way as this:—The branches of the tree becoming tender, put forth leaves, as is seen, and fruit follows, wherein is preserved the innumerable p. 399. [and] stored-up seed of the fig. We think, therefore, that three things first come into being from the seed of the fig, the stem which is the fig-tree, leaves, and the fruit or fig, as we have before said. Thus, says he, three Aeons came into being as principles from the First Principle of the universals.[8] And on this, he says, Moses was not silent, when he said that the words of God were three: “Darkness, cloud and whirlwind and he added no more.”[9] For, he says, God added nothing to the Three Aeons, but they sufficed and do suffice for all things which come into being. But God Himself abides by Himself and far removed from all the Aeons.[10]