[718] Eusebius, H. E. 4. 22, 4.
[719] The very terms heresy and heterodox bear witness to the action of the Greek philosophical schools on the Christian Church: αἵρεσις is used in Sext. Empir. Pyrrh. p. 13, of any system of dogmas, or the principle which is distinctive of a philosophical school: cf. Diels, Doxogr. Gr. pp. 276, 573, 388. In Clem. Alex. Strom. 7. 15, it is used to denote the orthodox system. Ἑτεροδόξους is used of the dogmatics from point of view of a sceptic: Sext. Empir. adv. Math. p. 771, § 40. Josephus uses it of the men of the other schools or parties as distinguished from the Essenes, de Bell. Jud. 2. 8. 5. For the place of opinion in Gnostic societies, with its curious counterpart in laxity of discipline, see Tert. de præsc. 42-44. He speaks of the Valentinians, adv. Val., as “frequentissimum plane collegium inter hæreticos.” Cf. Harnack, 190 ff., also 211. The very cultivation of the Gnosis means the supremacy of the intellect.
[720] Tertullian, de Spectaculis, c. 4. If γνῶσις was important as an element in salvation side by side with πίστις—or if πίστις included γνῶσις—then also the rejection of the right faith was a bar to salvation: hence heresy was regarded as involving eternal death: Tert. de præsc. 2.
[721] Tert. de Spect. c. 4.
[722] διδαχή, here expressly used of the moral precepts in c. 2. 1.
[723] c. 11. 1, 2.
[724] c. 11. 8, 10; cf. Herm. Mand. 11. 7 and 16.
[725] c. 12. 1, 3-5.
[726] The jura, i.e. the communicatio pacis et appellatio fraternitatis et contesseratio hospitalitatis, were controlled (regit) by the tradition of the creed (unius sacramenti traditio), Tert. de præsc. 20.
[727] Communicamus cum ecclesiis apostolicis, quod nulla doctrina diversa; hoc est testimonium veritatis, Tert. ibid. 21.