4. What was the fresh invasion[1] of the stranger spirit Elchesai and that he covers his own transgressions by appearing to keep to the Law, while he in fact devotes himself to Gnostic opinions [entirely], or to astrological and magical ones in addition.
5. What are the customs of the Jews and how many their differences.
6. A long fight has now been fought by us concerning all [early] heresies, and we have left nothing unrefuted. There still remains the greatest fight of all, [to wit] to p. 425. thoroughly describe and refute the heresies risen up in our own day, by means whereof certain unlearned and daring men have attempted to scatter the Church to the winds, [thereby] casting the greatest confusion among all the faithful throughout the world. For it seems fit that we should attack the opinion which was the first cause of [these] evils and expose its roots, so that its offshoots, being thoroughly known to all, may be contemned.
1. About Noetus.
7. There was a certain man, Noetus[2] by name, by birth a Smyrnæan. He introduced a heresy from the opinions of Heraclitus. Of which [Noetus], a certain man named Epigonus becomes the minister and pupil, and on his arrival at Rome sowed broadcast the godless doctrine. Whose teaching Cleomenes, by life and manners alien to the Church, confirmed, when he had become his disciple.[3] p. 426. At that time Zephyrinus, an ignorant and greedy man, thought that he ruled the Church, and, persuaded by the gain offered, gave leave to those coming to him to learn of Cleomenes.[4] And himself also being in time beguiled, ran into the same errors, his fellow-counsellor and comrade in this wickedness being Callistus, whose life and the heresy invented by him, I shall shortly set forth. The school of these successive [teachers] continued to grow stronger and increased through the help given to it by Zephyrinus and Callistus. Yet we never yielded, but many times withstood them to the face, refuted them, and compelled them perforce to confess the truth. They being ashamed for a season, and being brought by the truth to confession, before long returned to wallowing in the same mire.[5]
8. But since we have pointed out the genealogical succession of these [men], it appears left to us to set forth their evil mode of teaching their doctrines. The opinions of Heraclitus the Obscure being first explained, we shall then make evident the parts of [their doctrines] which are p. 427. Heraclitan, but which, perhaps, the present chiefs of the heresy do not know to be those of the Obscure, but think to be those of Christ. Should they meet with these [words], they might, thus being put to shame, cease from their godless blasphemy.[6] And although the teachings of Heraclitus have been before expounded by us in this [our] Philosophumena,[7] yet it seems expedient to repeat them now, so that by their closer refutation, those who think they are disciples of Christ may be plainly taught that they are not His, but are those of the Obscure.
9. Now Heraclitus says that the All is (one),[8] divided [and] undivided, originated [and] unoriginated, mortal [and] immortal, reason [and] eternity,[9] Father [and] Son, a just God. “It is wise,” says Heraclitus, “that those who listen, not to me, but to reason,[10] should acknowledge all things to be one.” And because all men do not know nor acknowledge this, he reproves them somehow thus: “They do not understand how anything that is diverse can agree p. 428. with itself. It is an inverse harmony, like that of a bow and a lyre.” But that the All is ever Reason[11] and exists by it, he thus declares:—“That this Reason ever exists, men do not understand either before they hear it or when they hear it first. For while all things come to pass according to this Reason, they seem to be ignorant of it, although they seem to have attempted endlessly[12] by words and deeds such a description as I now give by analysis of their nature and by saying how things are.” But that the All is a Son and for ever an eternal being of the universals, he says thus: “A boy playing at tables[13] is Eternity; the kingdom is a boy’s.” That he is father of all things that have been generated, begotten and unbegotten, the creation and [its] Demiurge, we have his saying: “War is father of p. 429. all, but king of all; and it displays some men as gods, others as men; some it makes slaves, others free. Because [this][14] is a harmony like that of bow and lyre.” But that the unapparent, the unseen and unknown by men is [better],[15] he says in these words: “An unapparent harmony is better than an apparent.” He thus commends and admires that which is unknown to him before that which is known, and the invisible before that which can be [seen]. And that it is to be seen of men and is not undiscoverable, he says in these words: “Whatever sight, hearing [and] learning can receive,[16] I honour before all,” he says, that is, [I prefer][17] the things seen to those unseen. From such phrases of his it is easy to comprehend his argument. He says that men are deceived in regard to the knowledge of things apparent like Homer, who was the wisest of all the Greeks. For children when killing lice, tricked him by p. 430. saying: “What we see and clutch we leave behind; but what we neither see nor clutch, we take away with us.”
10. Thus Heraclitus supposes the apparent to have an equal lot and honour with the unapparent, as if the apparent and the unapparent were admittedly one. “For,” he says, “an unapparent harmony is better than an apparent,” and “Whatever sight, hearing [and] learning [these are the organs] can receive, this, he says, I honour above all,” thus not honouring by preference the unapparent. And so Heraclitus says that neither darkness nor light, nor good nor evil are different,[18] but are one and the same. Therefore he blames Hesiod that he did not know Day and Night, for Day and Night, he says, are one, speaking somehow like this: “Hesiod is the teacher of most things, and they feel sure that he knew most things, who did not [however] know Day and Night. For they are one.” And [as to] good and evil:—“Now the surgeons,” says Heraclitus, “usually cut, burn, and in every way torture the sick, and complain that they receive from them no fitting reward for their labours, although they do these good works on p. 431. the diseases.” And both straight and crooked, he says, are the same. “The way of wool-carders, he says, is both straight and crooked, [because] the revolution of the tool called cochleus[19] is both straight and crooked; for it revolves and moves upwards at the same time. It is, he says, one and the same.” And upward and downward are, he says, one and the same: “The way up and down is one and the same.” And he says that the polluted and the pure are one and the same, and the drinkable and the undrinkable also. “The sea,” he says, “is at once the purest and the most polluted water, for to fish it is drinkable and salutary, but to man undrinkable and hurtful.”[20] And in the same way, he says, admittedly the immortal is mortal and the mortal immortal, in such words as these: “Deathless are mortals, and mortals are deathless, when the living take death from these, and the dead life from those.” But he speaks here of the resurrection of this visible flesh p. 432. wherein we have been born. And he knows God to be the cause of this resurrection, saying thus: “Those here will rise again and will become the busy guardians of living and dead.” And he says also that the judgment of the ordered world and of all therein will be by fire, speaking thus: “Thunder governs all things,” that is, it corrects them, meaning by “thunder” the everlasting fire. But he says also that this fire is discerning and the cause of the government of the universals, and he calls it Need[21] and Satiety. Now Need is according to him the Ordering [of the world],[22] but Satiety the Ecpyrosis. For “Fire,” he says, “coming suddenly will judge and seize all things.”[23]