[29]. Clement of Rome, First Epistle to the Corinthians, c. 44.
[30]. So Irenaeus, op. cit. Bk I. c. 26, pp. 219, 220, Harvey, says it was the desire to become a διδάσκαλος or teacher that drove Tatian, once a hearer of Justin Martyr’s, into heresy. Hegesippus, ubi cit. supra, says that Thebuthis first corrupted the Church, on account of his not being made a bishop. For the same accusation in the cases of Valentinus and Marcion, see Chapters IX and XI, infra.
[31]. Celsus apud Origen (op. cit. Bk III. cc. 10, 11) says: “Christians at first were few in number, and all held like opinions, but when they increased to a great multitude, they were divided and separated, each wishing to have his own individual party; for this was their object from the beginning”—a contention which Origen rebuts.
[32]. Thus in Egypt it was almost exclusively the lower classes which embraced Christianity at the outset. See Amélineau, “Les Actes Coptes du martyre de St Polycarpe” in P.S.B.A. vol. X. (1888), p. 392. Julian (Cyr. VI. p. 206) says that under Tiberius and Claudius there were no converts of rank.
[33]. Thus Cerinthus, who is made by tradition the opponent of St John, is said to have been a Jew and to have been trained in the doctrines of Philo at Alexandria (Theodoret, Haer. Fab. Bk II. § 3). Cf. Neander, Ch. Hist. (Eng. ed.) vol. II. pp. 42-47. Neander says the same thing about Basilides (op. cit. p. 47 and note) and Valentinus (p. 71), although it is difficult to discover any authority for the statement other than the Jewish features in their doctrines. There is more evidence for the statement regarding Marcus, the heresiarch and magician whom Irenaeus (op. cit. Bk I. c. 7) accuses of the seduction of Christian women, apparently in his own time, since the words of Marcus’ ritual, which the Bishop of Lyons quotes, are in much corrupted Hebrew, and the Jewish Cabala was used by him. Renan’s view (Marc Aurèle, pp. 139 sqq.) that Christianity in Egypt never passed through the Judaeo-Christian stage may in part account for the desire of Jewish converts there to set up schools of their own.
[34]. For Marcion, see [Chapter XI], infra. Summary accounts of the doctrines of other Gnostics mentioned are given by Irenaeus and Hippolytus in the works quoted. See also the Dict. of Christian Biog., under their respective names.
[35]. The lesser heresiologists, such as Philaster of Brescia, St Augustine, the writer who is known as Praedestinatus, the author of the tract Adversus omnes Haereses wrongly ascribed to Tertullian, and the other writers included in the first volume of Oehler’s Corpus Haereseologici, Berlin, 1856, as well as writers like Eusebius, all copy from one or other of these sources. The Excerpta Theodoti appended to the works of Clement of Alexandria are on a different footing, but their effect at the time spoken of in the text was not appreciated. Cf. Salmon in Dict. Christian Biog. s.v. Valentinus.
[36]. Bouché-Leclercq, L’Intolérance Religieuse et Politique, Paris, 1912, p. 140.
[37]. Ammianus Marcellinus, Bk XXII. c. 5, § 4.
[38]. An excellent and concise account of the discovery and the subsequent controversy as to the authorship of the book is given by Salmon in the Dict. Christian Biog. s.v. Hippolytus Romanus. For Mgr Duchesne’s theory that Hippolytus was a schismatic Pope, see his Hist. Christian Church, pp. 227-233.