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[originally posted on my blog on 1-15-10]<\/p>\n
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Part One<\/a><\/p>\n Part Two<\/a><\/p>\n Part Three<\/a><\/p>\n I will be replying to anti-Catholic Protestant Jason Engwer\u2019s article,\u00a0\u201cThe Canon And Church Infallibility\u201d<\/a>\u00a0(9-18-08). His words will be in\u00a0blue<\/span>.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Some of my comments are unclear without the surrounding context of the e-mail discussion. In addition to the distinction between infallibility and inerrancy, I noted that other distinctions could be made.<\/span><\/p>\n And of course one must know the precise Latin and Greek terms used by the fathers. But this is primarily an example of Jason\u2019s notorious \u201ccan\u2019t see the forest for the trees\u201d obfuscation. Is there really all that much of a difference, and does it have any significant effect on this discussion? No. There certainly is not much difference in English.\u00a0Merriam-Webster Online<\/em>\u00a0gives the following definitions:<\/p>\n Inerrancy<\/a>: \u201cexemption from error.\u201d<\/p>\n Infallible<\/a>: \u201cincapable of error.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This ain\u2019t exactly the difference between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.\u00a0Free Online Dictionary<\/em>\u00a0<\/a>is almost identical:<\/p>\n Inerrancy: \u201cexemption from error.\u201d<\/p>\n Infallibility: \u201cthe quality of never making an error.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Fr. John A. Hardon\u2019s\u00a0Modern Catholic Dictionary\u00a0is also instructive:<\/p>\n Inerrancy<\/a>:\u00a0The absence of error. Commonly applied to the Bible as the revealed word of God. (Etym. Latin in-, not + errare, to err: inerrans, not wandering.)<\/p>\n Infallibility<\/a>: Freedom from error . . . (Etym. Latin in-, not + fallibilis; from fallere, to deceive: infallibilis, not able to deceive, or err.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n And the terms \u201cinfallible\u201d and \u201cinerrant\u201d are used in different ways in different contexts. I wouldn\u2019t just distinguish between what one church father might say as compared to the comments of another father.<\/span><\/p>\n Muddying the waters is fine: let Jason play that game if he must; but now how about some actual\u00a0examples<\/em>, so we can examine something concrete, rather than dealing with vague abstractions and by no means irrefutable generalizations? In the rare instances where Jason gives these, invariably his \u201ccase\u201d collapses or loses much of its alleged force, as we have seen throughout this critique, and as I have shown again and again in past dialogues with him.<\/p>\n I would also distinguish between how different concepts can be in mind at different times within the writings of a single father. A reference to the reliability of a church or bishop, for example, isn\u2019t necessarily meant to be a reference to infallibility.<\/span><\/p>\n Nor is it necessary for this to be the case, to defend legitimate Catholic development of doctrine, as I have explained several times in the previous installments. But it\u00a0sounds<\/em>\u00a0impressive, so Jason keeps using this polemical tactic.<\/p>\n A church or other entity that\u2019s correct in its teachings can be considered inerrant in that sense without an accompanying belief that error isn\u2019t possible in the future.<\/span><\/p>\n The additional element is what we call indefectibility. It is a root assumption of apostolic succession: that the truth will never be lost; it will always be preserved.<\/p>\n A church that\u2019s doctrinally correct today could be doctrinally incorrect fifty years from now.<\/span><\/p>\n That is usually the case in Protestantism, yes; while Catholic doctrine remains the same. So Jason\u2019s analysis surely applies to Protestants on a large scale.<\/p>\n Or a church that\u2019s expected to always be correct on some issues could err on other issues. Many people, including Protestants, believe that a church has always existed since the time of the apostles and will always exist until Christ\u2019s return.<\/span><\/p>\n Good for them. Kindergarten Christianity . . .<\/p>\n Since particular characteristics are required for an entity to qualify as that church, the church that always exists would have to always have those characteristics. For example, somebody could argue that beliefs such as monotheism, the Messiahship of Jesus, and the resurrection are essential Christian doctrines, that such doctrines must be present in order for the church to be present, and that therefore there always is a church that holds such beliefs. We could argue that such a view involves an infallible church, but I don\u2019t think that\u2019s what most people have in mind in disputes over church infallibility.<\/span><\/p>\n Since those things are held in common by all Christians, they do not by themselves resolve the problem of which is the one true Church. Jews and Muslims and Arians and, e.g., Native American religionists, however, are monotheists, too.<\/p>\n But if you read the article by A.N.S. Lane that I linked, you\u2019ll see some examples of the wide variety of views of the church and tradition that existed in the patristic era and later centuries.<\/span><\/p>\n Lane\u2019s article<\/a>\u00a0(he is an evangelical Protestant) quite surprisingly makes the same fundamental mistake about the nature and origin of a fairly explicit conception of development of doctrine, that I have noted as present in pseudo-scholars and hyper-critics of Newmanian development, such as William Webster<\/a> and James White<\/a>. It is assumed that the notion of doctrinal development was hatched almost out of the blue by Cardinal Newman in the 1840s (and some \u2014 like pseudo-patristic-\u201cscholar\u201d David T. King \u2014 have ignorantly equated it with the heretical and condemned modernist \u201cevolution of dogma\u201d<\/a>). Hence, Lane writes on pp. 47-48, about \u201cthe unfolding view\u201d that he had earlier equated with Newmanian development:<\/p>\n But this does not mean that there is no novelty in the unfolding view. From Augustine to Bossuet it was assumed that what the contemporary church held was Catholic because it had always been held by the church. The contemporary teaching of the church was a source because explicit apostolic tradition was to be found there. The modern view is very different. The contemporary teaching of the church is normative even although it is only implicit in Scripture and earlier tradition.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n He completely overlooks the crucial contribution of St. Vincent of Lerins (d. c. 450): whose teaching contains the basic category distinctions of Newman\u2019s theory of development. It\u2019s not as if this is some unknown thing among historians of doctrine (which is why it is quite remarkable that a scholar of the stature of Lane overlooked it). Cardinal Newman himself refers to him in his\u00a0Essay on Development<\/em>. For example:<\/p>\n Section 1. First Note of a Genuine Development\u2014Preservation of Type<\/p>\n This is readily suggested by the analogy of physical growth, which is such that the parts and proportions of the developed form, however altered, correspond to those which belong to its rudiments. The adult animal has the same make, as it had on its birth; young birds do not grow into fishes, nor does the child degenerate into the brute, wild or domestic, of which he is by inheritance lord. Vincentius of Lerins adopts this illustration in distinct reference to Christian doctrine. \u201cLet the soul\u2019s religion,\u201d he says, \u201cimitate the law of the body, which, as years go on, developes indeed and opens out its due proportions, and yet remains identically what it was. Small are a baby\u2019s limbs, a youth\u2019s are larger, yet they are the same.\u201d\u00a0(from Part II, chapter 5:\u00a0\u201cGenuine Developments Contrasted With Corruptions\u201d<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Newman wrote in a latter dated\u00a019 July 1862<\/a>:<\/p>\n As to development of doctrine and action in the Church I should hold to Vincentius\u2019s account of it, who compares it to bodily growth, \u201cut nihil novum postea proferatur in senibus, quod non in pueris jam antea\u00a0latitaverit<\/em>,\u201d . . .\u00a0(from\u00a0The Life of John Henry Cardinal Newman<\/a><\/em>, by Wilfred Ward, 1912, Vol. I, Appendix to Chapter 18)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Philip Schaff also understood that both St. Augustine and St. Vincent espoused an explicit notion of doctrinal development:<\/p>\n Augustine, the ablest and the most devout of the fathers, . . . justly subordinates these councils to the Holy Scriptures, which are the highest and the perfect rule of faith, and supposes that the decrees of a council may be, not indeed set aside and repealed, yet enlarged and completed by, the deeper research of a later day. They embody, for the general need, the results already duly prepared by preceding theological controversies, and give the consciousness of the church, on the subject in question, the clearest and most precise expression possible at the time. But this consciousness itself is subject to development. While the Holy Scriptures present the truth unequivocally and infallibly, and allow no room for doubt, the judgment of bishops may be corrected and enriched with new truths from the word of God, by the wiser judgment of other bishops; the judgment of the provincial council by that of a general; and the views of one general council by those of a later.<\/span><\/a>\u00a0. . . Augustine, therefore, manifestly acknowledges a gradual advancement of the church doctrine, which reaches its corresponding expression from time to time through the general councils; but a progress within the truth, without positive error. For in a certain sense, as against heretics, he made the authority of Holy Scripture dependent on the authority of the catholic church, in his famous dictum against the Manichaean heretics: \u201cI would not believe the gospel, did not the authority of the catholic church compel me.\u201d<\/span><\/a>\u00a0In like manner Vincentius Lerinensis teaches, that the church doctrine passes indeed through various stages of growth in knowledge, and becomes more and more clearly defined in opposition to ever-rising errors, but can never become altered or dismembered.\u00a0<\/span>(History of the Christian Church<\/em>, Vol. II, ch. 5,\u00a0\u00a7 65. The Synodical System. The Ecumenical Councils<\/span><\/a>)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Schaff even states that Augustine\u2019s and Vincent\u2019s formulation of development were \u201csubstantially the same\u201d as Newman\u2019s:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Not that Vincent is a conservative who excludes the possibility of all progress in doctrine. In the first place, he admits that it has been the business of councils to perfect and polish the traditional formulae, and even concepts, in which the great truths contained in the original deposit are expressed, thereby declaring \u2018not new doctrines, but old ones in new terms\u2019 (non nova, sed nove<\/i>). Secondly, however, he would seem to allow for an organic development of doctrine analogous to the growth of the human body from infancy to age. But this development, he is careful to explain, while real, must not result in the least alteration to the original significance of the doctrine concerned. Thus in the end the Christian must, like Timothy [1 Timothy 6:20] \u2018guard the deposit\u2019, i.e., the revelation enshrined in its completeness in Holy Scripture and correctly interpreted in the Church\u2019s unerring tradition.\u00a0(Early Christian Doctrines<\/i>, HarperSanFrancisco: revised edition of 1978, 50-51)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n For much more documentation along these lines, see my copiously documented paper:\u00a0Development of Doctrine: Patristic & Historical Development (Featuring Much Documentation from St. Augustine, St. Vincent of Lerins, St. Thomas Aquinas, Vatican I, Popes Pius IX, Pius X, Etc.)<\/a>\u00a0[3-19-02]It is clear when one reads St. Vincent, that his \u201cdictum\u201d (\u201cheld everywhere by all,\u201d etc.) is regarded in his own understanding as perfectly consistent with development of doctrine. And the exposition of the latter in this very same work where the dictum appears (The Commonitorium<\/em>) is, in fact, the most explicit treatment of development in the Church fathers (a delightful irony indeed, for those acquainted with the debates on this issue).<\/p>\n Therefore, to pit the dictum against development, as if they were antithetical, fundamentally misses the point, and misrepresents the thought of Newman and St. Vincent alike, as well as the historic \u201cdevelopment of development.\u201d Here is what St. Vincent wrote (my color highlighting, to emphasize development motifs; bolding added to chapter titles):<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The Commonitorium\u00a0<\/i>(Notebooks<\/i>)\u00a0(c. 434)<\/p>\n For the Antiquity and Universality of the Catholic Faith Against the Profane Novelties of All\u00a0Heresies\u00a0[\u00a0link<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n Translated by the Rev. C. A. Heurtley, D.D., the Lady Margaret\u2019s Professor of Divinity in the University of Oxford, and Canon of Christ Church.<\/p>\n [4.] I Have often then inquired earnestly and attentively of very many men eminent for sanctity and learning, how and by what sure and so to speak universal rule I may be able to distinguish the truth of Catholic faith from the falsehood of heretical pravity; and I have always, and in almost every instance, received an answer to this effect: That whether I or any one else should wish to detect the frauds and avoid the snares of heretics as they rise, and to continue sound and complete in the Catholic faith, we must, the Lord helping, fortify our own belief in two ways; first, by the authority of the Divine Law, and then, by the Tradition of the Catholic Church.<\/p>\n [5.] But here some one perhaps will ask,\u00a0Since the canon of Scripture is complete, and sufficient of itself for everything, and more than sufficient, what need is there to join with it the authority of the Church\u2019s interpretation? For this reason, \u2013 because, owing to the depth of Holy Scripture, all do not accept it in one and the same sense, but one understands its words in one way, another in another; so that it seems to be capable of as many interpretations as there are interpreters.\u00a0For Novatian expounds it one way, Sabellius another, Donatus another, Arius, Eunomius, Macedonius, another, Photinus, Apollinaris, Priscillian, another, Iovinian, Pelagius, Celestius, another, lastly, Nestorius another.\u00a0Therefore, it is very necessary, on account of so great intricacies of such various error, that the rule for the right understanding of the prophets and apostles should be framed in accordance with the standard of Ecclesiastical and Catholic interpretation.<\/p>\n [6.]\u00a0Moreover, in the Catholic Church itself, all possible care must be taken, that we hold that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, by all. For that is truly and in the strictest sense \u201cCatholic,\u201d which, as the name itself and the reason of the thing declare, comprehends all universally. This rule we shall observe if we follow universality, antiquity, consent.\u00a0We shall follow universality if we confess that one faith to be true, which the whole Church throughout the world confesses; antiquity, if we in no wise depart from those interpretations which it is manifest were notoriously held by our holy ancestors and fathers; consent, in like manner, if in antiquity itself\u00a0we adhere to the consentient definitions and determinations of all, or at the least of almost all priests and doctors.<\/p>\n . . .\u00a0Chapter VII.<\/p>\n [19.] This condemnation, indeed, seems to have been providentially promulgated as though with a special view to the fraud of those who,\u00a0contriving to dress up a heresy under a name other than its own, get hold often of the works of some ancient writer, not very clearly expressed, which, owing to the very obscurity of their own doctrine, have the appearance of agreeing with it, so that they get the credit of being neither the first nor the only persons who have held it.\u00a0This wickedness of theirs, in my judgment, is doubly hateful: first, because they are not afraid to invite others to drink of the poison of heresy; and secondly, because with profane breath, as though fanning smouldering embers into flame, they blow upon the memory of each holy man, . . .<\/p>\n . . .\u00a0Chapter XX.<\/p>\n [48.] This being the case, he is the true and genuine Catholic who loves the truth of God, who loves the Church, who loves the Body of Christ, who esteems divine religion and the Catholic Faith above every thing, above the authority, above the regard, above the genius, above the eloquence, above the philosophy, of every man whatsoever; who sets light by all of these, and continuing steadfast and established in the faith,\u00a0resolves that he will believe that, and that only, which he is sure the Catholic Church has held universally and from ancient time; but that whatsoever new and unheard-of doctrine he shall find to have been furtively introduced by some one or another, besides that of all, or contrary to that of all the saints, this, he will understand, does not pertain to religion,\u00a0but is permitted as a trial, being instructed especially by the words of the blessed Apostle Paul, who writes thus in his first Epistle to the Corinthians, \u201cThere must needs be heresies, that they who are approved may be made manifest among you:\u201d as though he should say, This is the reason why the authors of Heresies are not forthwith rooted up by God, namely, that they who are approved may be made manifest that is, that it may be apparent of each individual, how tenacious and faithful and steadfast he is in his love of the Catholic faith.<\/p>\n . . .\u00a0Chapter XXIII.<\/p>\n [54.]\u00a0But some one will say. perhaps, Shall there, then, be no progress in Christ\u2019s Church? Certainly; all possible progress.\u00a0For what being is there, so envious of men, so full of hatred to God, who would seek to forbid it?\u00a0Yet on condition that it be real progress, not alteration of the faith. For progress requires that the subject be enlarged in itself, alteration, that it be transformed into something else. The intelligence, then, the knowledge, the wisdom, as well of individuals as of all, as well of one man as of the whole Church, ought, in the course of ages and centuries, to increase and make much and vigorous progress; but yet only in its own kind; that is to say, in the same doctrine, in the same sense, and in the same meaning.<\/p>\n [55.]\u00a0The growth of religion in the soul must be analogous to the growth of the body, which, though in process of years it is developed and attains its full size, yet remains still the same. There is a wide difference between the flower of youth and the maturity of age; yet they who were once young are still the same now that they have become old, insomuch that though the stature and outward form of the individual are changed, yet his nature is one and the same, his person is one and the same.\u00a0An infant\u2019s limbs are small, a young man\u2019s large, yet the infant and the young man are the same. Men when full grown have the same number of joints that they had when children; and if there be any to which maturer age has given birth these were already present in embryo, so that\u00a0nothing new is produced in them when old which was not already latent in them when children. This, then, is undoubtedly the true and legitimate rule of progress, this the established and most beautiful order of growth, that mature age ever develops in the man those parts and forms which the wisdom of the Creator had already framed beforehand in the infant. Whereas, if the human form were changed into some shape belonging to another kind, or at any rate, if the number of its limbs were increased or diminished, the result would be that the whole body would become either a wreck or a monster, or, at the least, would be impaired and enfeebled.<\/p>\n [56.]\u00a0In like manner, it behoves Christian doctrine to follow the same laws of progress, so as to be consolidated by years, enlarged by time, refined by age, and yet, withal, to continue uncorrupt and unadulterate, complete and perfect in all the measurement of its parts, and, so to speak, in all its proper members and senses, admitting no change, no waste of its distinctive property, no variation in its limits.<\/p>\n [57.] For example: Our forefathers in the old time sowed wheat in the Church\u2019s field. It would be most unmeet and iniquitous if we, their descendants, instead of the genuine truth of corn, should reap the counterfeit error of tares. This rather should be the result, \u2013 there should be no discrepancy between the first and the last.\u00a0From doctrine which was sown as wheat, we should reap, in the increase, doctrine of the same kind-wheat also; so that when in process of time any of the original seed is developed, and now flourishes under cultivation, no change may ensue in the character of the plant. There may supervene shape, form, variation in outward appearance, but the nature of each kind must remain the same.\u00a0God forbid that those rose-beds of Catholic interpretation should be converted into thorns and thistles. God forbid that in that spiritual paradise from plants of cinnamon and balsam darnel and wolfsbane should of a sudden shoot forth.<\/p>\n Therefore, whatever has been sown by the fidelity of the Fathers in this husbandry of God\u2019s Church, the same ought to be cultivated and taken care of by the industry of their children, the same ought to flourish and ripen, the same ought to advance and go forward to perfection. For it is right that those ancient doctrines of heavenly philosophy should, as time goes on, be cared for, smoothed, polished; but not that they should be changed, not that they should be maimed, not that they should be mutilated. They may receive proof, illustration, definiteness; but they must retain withal their completeness, their integrity, their characteristic properties.<\/p>\n [58.] For if once this license of impious fraud be admitted, I dread to say in how great danger religion will be of being utterly destroyed and annihilated. For if any one part of Catholic truth be given up, another, and another, and another will thenceforward be given up as a matter of course, and the several individual portions having been rejected, what will follow in the end but the rejection of the whole? On the other hand, if what is new begins to be mingled with what is old, foreign with domestic, profane with sacred, the custom will of necessity creep on universally, till at last the Church will have nothing left untampered with, nothing unadulterated, nothing sound, nothing pure; but where formerly there was a sanctuary of chaste and undefiled truth, thenceforward there will be a brothel of impious and base errors. May God\u2019s mercy avert this wickedness from the minds of his servants; be it rather the frenzy of the ungodly.<\/p>\n [59.]\u00a0But the Church of Christ, the careful and watchful guardian of the doctrines deposited in her charge, never changes anything in them, never diminishes, never adds, does not cut off what is necessary, does not add what is superfluous, does not lose her own, does not appropriate what is another\u2019s, but while dealing faithfully and judiciously with ancient doctrine, keeps this one object carefully in view, \u2013 if there be anything which antiquity has left shapeless and rudimentary, to fashion and polish it, if anything already reduced to shape and developed, to consolidate and strengthen it, if any already ratified and defined to keep and guard it. Finally, what other object have Councils ever aimed at in their decrees, than to provide that what was before believed in simplicity should in future be believed intelligently, that what was before preached coldly should in future be preached earnestly, that what was before practised negligently should thenceforward be practised with double solicitude?\u00a0This, I say, is what the Catholic Church, roused by the novelties of heretics, has accomplished by the decrees of her Councils, \u2013 this, and nothing else, \u2013 she has thenceforward consigned to posterity in writing what she had received from those of olden times only by tradition, comprising a great amount of matter in a few words, and often, for the better understanding, designating an old article of the faith by the characteristic of a new name.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n . . . that\u2019s not all that Hegesippus said, and you\u2019re misrepresenting even the one portion of his comments that you\u2019re describing. Here\u2019s what Eusebius tells us about Hegesippus\u2019 comments:<\/span><\/p>\n [he cites\u00a0Ecclesiastical History\u00a0in this entry<\/a>. I shall cite \u2014 unlike Jason \u2014 the\u00a0entire chapters\u00a0of 3:32 and\u00a04:22<\/a>]:<\/p>\n III, Chapter 32<\/p>\n 1. It is reported that after the age of Nero and Domitian, under the emperor whose times we are now recording,\u00a0a persecution was stirred up against us in certain cities in consequence of a popular uprising.\u00a0In this persecution we have understood that\u00a0Symeon, the son of\u00a0Clopas, who, as we have shown, was the second bishop of the church of\u00a0Jerusalem,\u00a0suffered martyrdom. IV, Chapter 22:\u00a0[my color highlighting]<\/p>\n 1. Hegesippus in the five books of\u00a0Memoirs\u00a0which have come down to us has left a most complete record of his own views. In them he states that on a journey to Rome he met a great many bishops, and that he\u00a0received the same doctrine from all. It is fitting to hear what he says after making some remarks about the epistle of Clement to the Corinthians. 5. But\u00a0Thebuthis,\u00a0because he was not made bishop,\u00a0began to corrupt it. He also was sprung from the seven sects\u00a0among the people, like Simon,\u00a0from whom came the\u00a0Simonians, and Cleobius,\u00a0from whom came the\u00a0Cleobians, and\u00a0Dositheus,\u00a0from whom came the\u00a0Dositheans, and Gorth\u00e6us,\u00a0from whom came the\u00a0Goratheni, and Masbotheus,\u00a0from whom came the\u00a0Masboth\u00e6ans. From them sprang the\u00a0Menandrianists,\u00a0and\u00a0Marcionists,\u00a0and\u00a0Carpocratians, and\u00a0Valentinians, and\u00a0Basilidians, and\u00a0Saturnilians.\u00a0Each introduced privately and separately his own peculiar opinion.\u00a0From them came false Christs, false prophets, false apostles, who divided the unity of the Church by corrupt doctrines uttered against God and against his Christ. III, 32: the two uses of \u201cattempted\u201d indeed indicate that indefectibility was not overcome. The heretical teaching is placed in contradistinction against \u201cin opposition to the preaching of the truth\u201d: that is, orthodox Catholic teaching, that remains as it ever was (as seen in his words from the next excerpt). The heretic tries to overpower the Church but always fails.\u00a0This description brings to mind Jesus\u2019 statement:<\/p>\n Matthew 24:24<\/strong>\u00a0(RSV) For false Christs and false prophets will arise and show great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. (cf. Mk 13:22)<\/p>\n Luke 18:7\u00a0<\/strong>And will not God vindicate his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n IV, 22, sections 1-3 clearly show that Hegesippus believed in apostolic doctrine and succession. He then goes on to detail the proliferation of heresies, that have always been present, since there are always folks around who will believe in false doctrine. He says that the Church was \u201ccorrupted.\u201d But there are different ways to interpret this. The first obvious distinction to be made is to note that the orthodox Christian group and the heretical sect that is doctrinally opposed to it are\u00a0two different<\/em> groups\u00a0in the first place.<\/p>\n By definition, a heretical sect is separate and apart (that \u2018s why they take on different names: usually parroting the founders, as we see above): they are schismatic. They are no longer considered to be part of the orthodox Catholic Church. This is made clear if one studies examples mentioned above that are listed in\u00a0Catholic Encyclopedia\u00a0entries:<\/p>\n Simonians:<\/a>\u00a0\u201cA Gnostic, Antinomian sect of the second century . . . The\u00a0Simonians used\u00a0magic\u00a0and theurgy, incantations, and love-potions; they declared idolatry a matter of\u00a0indifference\u00a0that was neither\u00a0good\u00a0nor bad, proclaimed fornication to be\u00a0perfect\u00a0love, and led very disorderly, immoral lives. In general, they regarded nothing in itself as\u00a0good\u00a0or bad by\u00a0nature. It was not good works that made\u00a0men\u00a0blessed, in the next world, but the\u00a0grace\u00a0bestowed by\u00a0Simon\u00a0and\u00a0Helena\u00a0on those who united with them. The\u00a0Simonians venerated and\u00a0worshiped\u00a0Simon\u00a0under the image of Zeus, and\u00a0Helena\u00a0under that of Athene. The sect flourished in Syria, in various districts of Asia Minor and at Rome.\u201d<\/p>\n Dositheans:<\/a>\u00a0\u201cFollowers of Dositheus, a\u00a0Samaritan\u00a0who formed a Gnostic-Judaistic\u00a0sect, previous to\u00a0Simon Magus. . . . It is certain, however, that a\u00a0Jewish\u00a0sect, mentioned by several Arabic and other\u00a0historians\u00a0under the name of\u00a0Dusitamya or Dost\u00e2n, continued to\u00a0exist\u00a0till the tenth century, and that they were considered similar to the Kut\u00eem, or Samaritans. But they seem never to have possessed any importance in the Christian world, in which from the earliest times there\u00a0existed\u00a0but a vague reminiscence of their name, though they continue to be mentioned in descriptions and lists of heresies, such as the \u201cH\u00e6reses\u201d of\u00a0Epiphanius\u00a0and similar\u00a0collections.\u201d<\/p>\n Marcionists\u00a0(\u201cMarcionites\u201d<\/a>):\u00a0\u201cHeretical sect founded in A.D. 144 at Rome by\u00a0Marcion and continuing in the\u00a0West\u00a0for 300 years, but in the\u00a0East\u00a0some centuries longer, especially outside the Byzantine Empire. They rejected the writings of the Old Testament and taught that Christ was not the Son of the God of the Jews, but the\u00a0Son\u00a0of the\u00a0good\u00a0God, who was different from the\u00a0God\u00a0of the\u00a0Ancient\u00a0Covenant. They anticipated the more consistent dualism of Manichaeism and were finally absorbed by it. As they arose in the very infancy of Christianity and\u00a0adopted\u00a0from the beginning a strong ecclesiastical organization, parallel to that of the Catholic Church, . . .\u00a0Marcion is said to have asked the\u00a0Roman\u00a0presbyters the explanation of Matthew 9:16-17, which he evidently wished to understand as expressing the incompatibility of the New Testament with the Old, but which they interpreted in an orthodox sense. His final breach with the Roman Church occurred in the autumn of 144, for the\u00a0Marcionites counted 115 years and 6 months from the time of Christ to the beginning of their sect. Tertullian roughly speaks of a hundred years and more.\u00a0Marcion seems to have made common cause with\u00a0Cerdo\u00a0(q.v.), the\u00a0Syrian\u00a0Gnostic, who was at the time in Rome; that his doctrine was actually derived from that Gnostic seems unlikely. Irenaeus relates (Against Heresies<\/i>\u00a0III.3) that St. Polycarp, meeting\u00a0Marcion in Rome was asked by him: Dost thou recognize us? and gave answer: I recognize thee as the first born of Satan. This meeting must have happened in 154, . . .\u201d<\/p>\n\n
\n2. Hegesippus, whose words we have already quoted in various places,\u00a0is a witness to this fact also.\u00a0Speaking of certain heretics\u00a0he adds that\u00a0Symeon\u00a0was accused by them at this time; and since it was clear that he was a Christian, he was tortured in various ways for many days, and astonished even the judge himself and his attendants in the highest degree, and finally he suffered a death similar to that of our Lord.
\n3. But there is nothing like hearing the historian himself, who writes as follows:\u00a0Certain of these\u00a0heretics\u00a0brought accusation against\u00a0Symeon, the son of\u00a0Clopas, on the ground that he was a descendant of\u00a0David\u00a0and a Christian;\u00a0and thus he suffered martyrdom, at the age of one hundred and twenty years,\u00a0while Trajan was emperor and Atticus governor.<\/q>
\n4. And the same writer says that his accusers also, when search was made for the descendants of\u00a0David, were arrested as belonging to that family.\u00a0And it might be reasonably assumed that\u00a0Symeon\u00a0was one of those that saw and heard the Lord,\u00a0judging from the length of his life, and from the fact that the Gospel makes mention of Mary, the wife of Clopas,\u00a0who was the father of\u00a0Symeon, as has been already shown.
\n5. The same historian says that there were also others, descended from one of the so-called\u00a0brothers of the Saviour, whose name was Judas, who, after they had borne testimony before Domitian, as has been already recorded,\u00a0in behalf of faith in Christ, lived until the same reign.
\n6. He writes as follows:\u00a0They came, therefore, and took the lead of every church as witnesses and as relatives of the Lord. And profound peace being established in every church, they remained until the reign of the Emperor Trajan,\u00a0and until the above-mentioned\u00a0Symeon, son of\u00a0Clopas, an uncle of the Lord, was informed against by\u00a0the heretics, and was himself in like manner accused for the same cause\u00a0before the governor Atticus.\u00a0And after being tortured for many days he suffered martyrdom, and all, including even the proconsul, marveled that, at the age of one hundred and twenty years, he could endure so much. And orders were given that he should be crucified.<\/q>
\n7. In addition to these things the same man, while recounting the events of that period, records that\u00a0the Church up to that time had remained a pure and uncorrupted virgin,\u00a0since, if there were any that\u00a0attempted\u00a0to corrupt the sound norm of the preaching of salvation, they lay until then concealed in obscure darkness.
\n8. But when the\u00a0sacred college of apostles\u00a0had suffered death in various forms, and the generation of\u00a0those that had been deemed worthy to hear the inspired wisdom with their own ears\u00a0had passed away, then\u00a0the league of godless error took its rise as a result of the folly of heretical teachers,\u00a0who, because none of the apostles was still living,\u00a0attempted\u00a0henceforth, with a bold face, to proclaim,\u00a0in opposition to the preaching of the truth,\u00a0the \u2018knowledge which is falsely so-called.\u2019<\/p>\n
\n2. His words are as follows:\u00a0And\u00a0the church of Corinth continued in the true faith\u00a0until Primus\u00a0was bishop in Corinth. I conversed with them on my way to Rome, and abode with the\u00a0Corinthians\u00a0many days, during which we were mutually refreshed in the\u00a0true doctrine.
\n3. And when I had come to Rome I remained there until Anicetus,\u00a0whose deacon was\u00a0Eleutherus. And Anicetus was\u00a0succeeded\u00a0by Soter, and he by Eleutherus.\u00a0In every succession, and in every city that is held which is preached by the law and the prophets and the Lord.
\n4. The same author also describes the\u00a0beginnings of the heresies which arose in his time, in the following words:\u00a0And after James the Just had suffered martyrdom, as the Lord had also on the same account,\u00a0Symeon, the son of the Lord\u2019s uncle,\u00a0Clopas,\u00a0was appointed the next bishop. All proposed him as second bishop because he was a cousin of the Lord.<\/p>\n
\n6. The same writer also records the ancient heresies which arose among the Jews, in the following words:\u00a0There were, moreover, various opinions in the circumcision, among the children of Israel. The following were those that were opposed to the tribe of Judah and the Christ: Essenes, Galileans, Hemerobaptists,\u00a0Masboth\u00e6ans, Samaritans, Sadducees, Pharisees.<\/q>
\n7. And he wrote of many other matters, which we have in part already mentioned, introducing the accounts in their appropriate places. And from the Syriac Gospel according to the Hebrews he quotes some passages in the\u00a0Hebrew tongue,\u00a0showing that he was a convert from the Hebrews,\u00a0and he mentions other matters as taken from the unwritten\u00a0tradition\u00a0of the Jews.
\n8. And not only he, but also Iren\u00e6us and the whole company of the ancients, called the\u00a0Proverbs of Solomon\u00a0All-virtuous Wisdom.\u00a0And when speaking of the books called\u00a0Apocrypha, he records that some of them were composed in his day by certain heretics. But let us now pass on to another.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n