Cerdo/Kerdo/Kerdon
Posted: Thu May 09, 2024 10:44 pm
From Refutation of al Heresies book 7:
(M David Litwa's book version)
36.3 ... The Holy Spirit through the Revelation of John mocked his [Nikolaos's +/- others'] disciples and exposed them as “fornicators and eaters of meat sacrificed to idols”.199
37. 1. A certain Kerdon likewise took his starting points from these people, as well as from Simon.200 He says that the god proclaimed by Moses and the prophets is not the Father of Jesus Christ. This is because the God proclaimed by Moses can be known, whereas the Father of Christ is unknown. The former is just, while the latter is good. 2. Markion radicalized this dogma when he ventured his Antitheses and everything else he thought would impugn the Artificer of all things.201 Loukianos his disciple taught the same.202
199 cf. Rev 2:14–15; 2:6; Epiph., Pan. 25.3.1; Eusebios, Hist. eccl. 3.29.1.
200 The report on Kerdon is an abbreviation of Iren., Haer. 1.27.1–2a (= Eusebios, Hist. eccl. 4.11.2).b cf. Tert., Adv. Marc. 1.2,e 23; Epiph., Pan. 41.1.1–9;d Ps.-Tert., Adv. omn. haer. 6.6;c Filastrius, Haer. 44;d Ref. 7.10 (table of contents); Theodoret, Haer. fab. 1.24 (PG 83:372–73, 376). See further Gerhard May, “Markion und der Gnostiker Kerdon,” in Greschat and Meiser, Gesammelte Aufsätze, 63–74 (68–69). “These people” (τούτων) seems to refer to the “the school of the gnostics, Kerinthos, and Ebion” mentioned in Ref. 7.35.1. Irenaeus says that Kerdon took his starting points from the followers of Simon (Haer. 1.27.1).a
201 Our author mentions Markion again here because this is where Irenaeus places him. It makes sense that Markion radicalized Kerdon if Kerdon taught a good and just god, while Markion taught a good versus an evil god.
202 For 'Loukianos', see Ref. 7.11 (table of contents); Tert., Res. 2; Ps.-Tert., Adv. omn. haer. 6.3;c (Lucan(?) Filastrius, Haer. 56; Origen, Cels. 2.27; Epiph., Pan. 43.1.1. See further Lampe, Paul to Valentinus, 416.
a Irenaeus Haer. 1.27.1–2,4:
1. Cerdo was one who took his system from the followers of Simon, and came to live at Rome in the time of Hyginus, who held the ninth place in the episcopal succession from the apostles downwards. He taught that the God proclaimed by the law and the prophets was not the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the former was known, but the latter unknown; while the one also was righteous, but the other benevolent.
2. Marcion of Pontus succeeded him, and developed his doctrine. In so doing, he advanced the most daring blasphemy against Him who is proclaimed as God by the law and the prophets, declaring Him to be the author of evils, to take delight in war, to be infirm of purpose, and even to be contrary to Himself. But Jesus being derived from that father who is above the God that made the world, and coming into Judæa in the times of Pontius Pilate the governor, who was the procurator of Tiberius Cæsar, was manifested in the form of a man to those who were in Judæa, abolishing the prophets and the law, and all the works of that God who made the world, whom also he calls Cosmocrator. Besides this, he mutilates the Gospel which is according to Luke, removing all that is written respecting the generation of the Lord, and setting aside a great deal of the teaching of the Lord, in which the Lord is recorded as most dearly confessing that the Maker of this universe is His Father. He likewise persuaded his disciples that he himself was more worthy of credit than are those apostles who have handed down the Gospel to us ...
4. But since this man is the only one who has dared openly to mutilate the Scriptures, and unblushingly above all others to inveigh against God, I purpose specially to refute him, convicting him out of his own writings; and, with the help of God, I shall overthrow him out of those discourses of the Lord and the apostles, which are of authority with him, and of which he makes use. At present, however, I have simply been led to mention him, that you might know that all those who in any way corrupt the truth, and injuriously affect the preaching of the Church, are the disciples and successors of Simon Magus of Samaria. Although they do not confess the name of their master, in order all the more to seduce others, yet they do teach his doctrines. They set forth, indeed, the name of Christ Jesus as a sort of lure, but in various ways they introduce the impieties of Simon; and thus they destroy multitudes, wickedly disseminating their own doctrines by the use of a good name, and, through means of its sweetness and beauty, extending to their hearers the bitter and malignant poison of the serpent, the great author of apostasy [Revelation 12:9].
https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103127.htm
Cerdo also gets a mention in Irenaeus' Adv. Haers. 3.4.3"
1. For Valentinus came to Rome under Hyginus, flourished under Pius, and remained until Anicetus. Cerdon also, Marcion's predecessor, entered the Church in the time of Hyginus, the ninth bishop, and made confession, and continued in this way, now teaching in secret, now making confession again, and now denounced for corrupt doctrine and withdrawing from the assembly of the brethren.
2. These words are found in the third book of the work Against Heresies. And again in the first book he speaks as follows concerning Cerdon: "A certain Cerdon, who had taken his system from the followers of Simon, and had come to Rome under Hyginus, the ninth in the episcopal succession from the apostles, taught that the God proclaimed by the law and prophets was not the father of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the former was known, but the latter unknown; and the former was just, but the latter good. Marcion of Pontus succeeded Cerdon and developed his doctrine, uttering shameless blasphemies."
3. The same Irenæus unfolds with the greatest vigor the unfathomable abyss of Valentinus' errors in regard to matter, and reveals his wickedness, secret and hidden like a serpent lurking in its nest.
4. And in addition to these men he says that there was also another that lived in that age, Marcus by name, who was remarkably skilled in magic arts. And he describes also their unholy initiations and their abominable mysteries in the following words:
5. "For some of them prepare a nuptial couch and perform a mystic rite with certain forms of expression addressed to those who are being initiated, and they say that it is a spiritual marriage which is celebrated by them, after the likeness of the marriages above. But others lead them to water, and while they baptize them they repeat the following words: Into the name of the unknown father of the universe, into truth, the mother of all things, into the one that descended upon Jesus. Others repeat Hebrew names in order the better to confound those who are being initiated."
6. ... In Alexandria Marcus was appointed pastor, after Eumenes had filled the office thirteen years in all. And Marcus having died after holding office ten years was succeeded by Celadion ...
8. But Justin was especially prominent in those days. In the guise of a philosopher he preached the divine word, and contended for the faith in his writings. He wrote also a work against Marcion, in which he states that the latter was alive at the time he wrote.
9. He speaks as follows: "And there is a certain Marcion of Pontus, who is even now still teaching his followers to think that there is some other God greater than the Creator. And by the aid of the demons he has persuaded many of every race of men to utter blasphemy, and to deny that the maker of this universe is the father of Christ, and to confess that some other, greater than he, was the creator. And all who followed them are, as we have said, called Christians, just as the name of philosophy is given to philosophers, although they may have no doctrines in common."
https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250104.htm
c Ps.-Tert. Adversus Omnes Haereses 5-6:
(I'm not sure if '6.6' above is correct(?))
Chapter V (Marcus and Colarbasus)
[1] After these there were not wanting a Marcus and a Colarbasus, composing a novel heresy out of the Greek alphabet. For they affirm that without those letters truth cannot be found; nay more, that in those letters the whole plenitude and perfection of truth is comprised; for this was why Christ said, "I am the Alpha and the Omega." [2] In fact, they say that Jesus Christ descended, that is, that the dove came down on Jesus; and, since the dove is styled by the Greek name peristera/-(peristera), it has in itself this number DCCCI. These men run through their W, Y, X F U, T -through the whole alphabet, indeed, up to A and B-and compute ogdoads and decads. So we may grant it useless and idle to recount all their trifles. [3] What, however, must be allowed not merely vain, but likewise dangerous, is this: they feign a second God, beside the Creator; they affirm that Christ was not in the substance of flesh; they say there is to be no resurrection of the flesh.
Chapter VI (Cerdo, Marcion, Lucan, Apelles)
[1] To this is added one Cerdo. He introduces two first causes, that is, two Gods-one good, the other cruel: the good being the superior; the latter, the cruel one, being the creator of the world. He repudiates the prophecies and the Law; renounces God the Creator; maintains that Christ who came was the Son of the superior God; affirms that He was not in the substance of flesh; states Him to have been only in a phantasmal shape, to have not really suffered, but undergone a quasi-passion, and not to have been born of a virgin, nay, really not to have been born at all. A resurrection of the soul merely does he approve, denying that of the body. The Gospel of Luke alone, and that not entire, does he receive. Of the Apostle Paul he takes neither all the epistles, nor in their integrity. The Acts of the Apostles and the Apocalypse he rejects as false.
[2] After him emerged a disciple of his, one Marcion by name, a native of Pontus, son of a bishop, excommunicated because of a rape committed on a certain virgin. He, starting from the fact that it is said, "Every good tree bears good fruit, but an evil evil," attempted to approve the heresy of Cerdo; so that his assertions are identical with those of the former heretic before him.
[3] After him arose one 'Lucan' by name, a follower and disciple of Marcion. He, too, wading through the same kinds of blasphemy, teaches the same as Marcion and Cerdo had taught.
[4] Close on their heels follows Apelles, a disciple of Marcion, who after lapsing, into his own carnality, was severed from Marcion. He introduces one God in the infinite upper regions, and states that He made many powers and angels; beside Him, withal, another Virtue, which he affirms to be called Lord, but represents as an angel. By him he will have it appear that the world was originated in imitation of a superior world. With this lower world he mingled throughout (a principle of) repentance, because he had not made it so perfectly as that superior world had been originated. The Law and the prophets he repudiates. [5] Christ he neither, like Marcion, affirms to have been in a phantasmal shape, nor yet in substance of a true body, as the Gospel teaches; but says, because He descended from the upper regions, that in the course of His descent He wove together for Himself a starry and airy flesh; and, in His resurrection, restored, in the course of His ascent, to the several individual elements whatever had been borrowed in His descent: and thus-the several parts of His body dispersed-He reinstated in heaven His spirit only. [6] This man denies the resurrection of the flesh. He uses, too, one only apostle; but that is Marcion's, that is, a mutilated one. He teaches the salvation of souls alone. He has, besides, private but extraordinary lections of his own, which he calls "Manifestations of one Philumene, a girl whom he follows as a prophetess. He has, besides, his own books, which he has entitled books of Syllogisms, in which he seeks to prove that whatever Moses has written about God is not true, but is false.
https://www.tertullian.org/anf/anf03/an ... 13_3180099
d According to Wikipedia, Filastrius/Philaster (Haer. 44) and Epiphanius (Haer. 41) make use of Ps.-Tert., Adv. omn. haer. for their accounts of Cerdo.
(M David Litwa's book version)
36.3 ... The Holy Spirit through the Revelation of John mocked his [Nikolaos's +/- others'] disciples and exposed them as “fornicators and eaters of meat sacrificed to idols”.199
37. 1. A certain Kerdon likewise took his starting points from these people, as well as from Simon.200 He says that the god proclaimed by Moses and the prophets is not the Father of Jesus Christ. This is because the God proclaimed by Moses can be known, whereas the Father of Christ is unknown. The former is just, while the latter is good. 2. Markion radicalized this dogma when he ventured his Antitheses and everything else he thought would impugn the Artificer of all things.201 Loukianos his disciple taught the same.202
199 cf. Rev 2:14–15; 2:6; Epiph., Pan. 25.3.1; Eusebios, Hist. eccl. 3.29.1.
200 The report on Kerdon is an abbreviation of Iren., Haer. 1.27.1–2a (= Eusebios, Hist. eccl. 4.11.2).b cf. Tert., Adv. Marc. 1.2,e 23; Epiph., Pan. 41.1.1–9;d Ps.-Tert., Adv. omn. haer. 6.6;c Filastrius, Haer. 44;d Ref. 7.10 (table of contents); Theodoret, Haer. fab. 1.24 (PG 83:372–73, 376). See further Gerhard May, “Markion und der Gnostiker Kerdon,” in Greschat and Meiser, Gesammelte Aufsätze, 63–74 (68–69). “These people” (τούτων) seems to refer to the “the school of the gnostics, Kerinthos, and Ebion” mentioned in Ref. 7.35.1. Irenaeus says that Kerdon took his starting points from the followers of Simon (Haer. 1.27.1).a
201 Our author mentions Markion again here because this is where Irenaeus places him. It makes sense that Markion radicalized Kerdon if Kerdon taught a good and just god, while Markion taught a good versus an evil god.
202 For 'Loukianos', see Ref. 7.11 (table of contents); Tert., Res. 2; Ps.-Tert., Adv. omn. haer. 6.3;c (Lucan(?) Filastrius, Haer. 56; Origen, Cels. 2.27; Epiph., Pan. 43.1.1. See further Lampe, Paul to Valentinus, 416.
a Irenaeus Haer. 1.27.1–2,4:
1. Cerdo was one who took his system from the followers of Simon, and came to live at Rome in the time of Hyginus, who held the ninth place in the episcopal succession from the apostles downwards. He taught that the God proclaimed by the law and the prophets was not the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the former was known, but the latter unknown; while the one also was righteous, but the other benevolent.
2. Marcion of Pontus succeeded him, and developed his doctrine. In so doing, he advanced the most daring blasphemy against Him who is proclaimed as God by the law and the prophets, declaring Him to be the author of evils, to take delight in war, to be infirm of purpose, and even to be contrary to Himself. But Jesus being derived from that father who is above the God that made the world, and coming into Judæa in the times of Pontius Pilate the governor, who was the procurator of Tiberius Cæsar, was manifested in the form of a man to those who were in Judæa, abolishing the prophets and the law, and all the works of that God who made the world, whom also he calls Cosmocrator. Besides this, he mutilates the Gospel which is according to Luke, removing all that is written respecting the generation of the Lord, and setting aside a great deal of the teaching of the Lord, in which the Lord is recorded as most dearly confessing that the Maker of this universe is His Father. He likewise persuaded his disciples that he himself was more worthy of credit than are those apostles who have handed down the Gospel to us ...
4. But since this man is the only one who has dared openly to mutilate the Scriptures, and unblushingly above all others to inveigh against God, I purpose specially to refute him, convicting him out of his own writings; and, with the help of God, I shall overthrow him out of those discourses of the Lord and the apostles, which are of authority with him, and of which he makes use. At present, however, I have simply been led to mention him, that you might know that all those who in any way corrupt the truth, and injuriously affect the preaching of the Church, are the disciples and successors of Simon Magus of Samaria. Although they do not confess the name of their master, in order all the more to seduce others, yet they do teach his doctrines. They set forth, indeed, the name of Christ Jesus as a sort of lure, but in various ways they introduce the impieties of Simon; and thus they destroy multitudes, wickedly disseminating their own doctrines by the use of a good name, and, through means of its sweetness and beauty, extending to their hearers the bitter and malignant poison of the serpent, the great author of apostasy [Revelation 12:9].
https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103127.htm
Cerdo also gets a mention in Irenaeus' Adv. Haers. 3.4.3"
b Eusebios, Hist. eccl. 4.11.1,2,3:3. For, prior to Valentinus, those who follow Valentinus had no existence; nor did those from Marcion exist before Marcion; nor, in short, had any of those malignant-minded people, whom I have above enumerated, any being previous to the initiators and inventors of their perversity. For Valentinus came to Rome in the time of Hyginus, flourished under Pius, and remained until Anicetus. Cerdon, too, Marcion's predecessor, himself arrived in the time of Hyginus, who was the ninth bishop. Coming frequently into the Church, and making public confession, he thus remained, one time teaching in secret, and then again making public confession; but at last, having been denounced for corrupt teaching, he was excommunicated from the assembly of the brethren. Marcion, then, succeeding him, flourished under Anicetus, who held the tenth place of the episcopate. But the rest, who are called Gnostics, take rise from Menander, Simon's disciple, as I have shown; and each one of them appeared to be both the father and the high priest of that doctrine into which he has been initiated. But all these (the Marcosians) broke out into their apostasy much later, even during the intermediate period of the Church.
1. For Valentinus came to Rome under Hyginus, flourished under Pius, and remained until Anicetus. Cerdon also, Marcion's predecessor, entered the Church in the time of Hyginus, the ninth bishop, and made confession, and continued in this way, now teaching in secret, now making confession again, and now denounced for corrupt doctrine and withdrawing from the assembly of the brethren.
2. These words are found in the third book of the work Against Heresies. And again in the first book he speaks as follows concerning Cerdon: "A certain Cerdon, who had taken his system from the followers of Simon, and had come to Rome under Hyginus, the ninth in the episcopal succession from the apostles, taught that the God proclaimed by the law and prophets was not the father of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the former was known, but the latter unknown; and the former was just, but the latter good. Marcion of Pontus succeeded Cerdon and developed his doctrine, uttering shameless blasphemies."
3. The same Irenæus unfolds with the greatest vigor the unfathomable abyss of Valentinus' errors in regard to matter, and reveals his wickedness, secret and hidden like a serpent lurking in its nest.
4. And in addition to these men he says that there was also another that lived in that age, Marcus by name, who was remarkably skilled in magic arts. And he describes also their unholy initiations and their abominable mysteries in the following words:
5. "For some of them prepare a nuptial couch and perform a mystic rite with certain forms of expression addressed to those who are being initiated, and they say that it is a spiritual marriage which is celebrated by them, after the likeness of the marriages above. But others lead them to water, and while they baptize them they repeat the following words: Into the name of the unknown father of the universe, into truth, the mother of all things, into the one that descended upon Jesus. Others repeat Hebrew names in order the better to confound those who are being initiated."
6. ... In Alexandria Marcus was appointed pastor, after Eumenes had filled the office thirteen years in all. And Marcus having died after holding office ten years was succeeded by Celadion ...
8. But Justin was especially prominent in those days. In the guise of a philosopher he preached the divine word, and contended for the faith in his writings. He wrote also a work against Marcion, in which he states that the latter was alive at the time he wrote.
9. He speaks as follows: "And there is a certain Marcion of Pontus, who is even now still teaching his followers to think that there is some other God greater than the Creator. And by the aid of the demons he has persuaded many of every race of men to utter blasphemy, and to deny that the maker of this universe is the father of Christ, and to confess that some other, greater than he, was the creator. And all who followed them are, as we have said, called Christians, just as the name of philosophy is given to philosophers, although they may have no doctrines in common."
https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250104.htm
c Ps.-Tert. Adversus Omnes Haereses 5-6:
(I'm not sure if '6.6' above is correct(?))
Chapter V (Marcus and Colarbasus)
[1] After these there were not wanting a Marcus and a Colarbasus, composing a novel heresy out of the Greek alphabet. For they affirm that without those letters truth cannot be found; nay more, that in those letters the whole plenitude and perfection of truth is comprised; for this was why Christ said, "I am the Alpha and the Omega." [2] In fact, they say that Jesus Christ descended, that is, that the dove came down on Jesus; and, since the dove is styled by the Greek name peristera/-(peristera), it has in itself this number DCCCI. These men run through their W, Y, X F U, T -through the whole alphabet, indeed, up to A and B-and compute ogdoads and decads. So we may grant it useless and idle to recount all their trifles. [3] What, however, must be allowed not merely vain, but likewise dangerous, is this: they feign a second God, beside the Creator; they affirm that Christ was not in the substance of flesh; they say there is to be no resurrection of the flesh.
Chapter VI (Cerdo, Marcion, Lucan, Apelles)
[1] To this is added one Cerdo. He introduces two first causes, that is, two Gods-one good, the other cruel: the good being the superior; the latter, the cruel one, being the creator of the world. He repudiates the prophecies and the Law; renounces God the Creator; maintains that Christ who came was the Son of the superior God; affirms that He was not in the substance of flesh; states Him to have been only in a phantasmal shape, to have not really suffered, but undergone a quasi-passion, and not to have been born of a virgin, nay, really not to have been born at all. A resurrection of the soul merely does he approve, denying that of the body. The Gospel of Luke alone, and that not entire, does he receive. Of the Apostle Paul he takes neither all the epistles, nor in their integrity. The Acts of the Apostles and the Apocalypse he rejects as false.
[2] After him emerged a disciple of his, one Marcion by name, a native of Pontus, son of a bishop, excommunicated because of a rape committed on a certain virgin. He, starting from the fact that it is said, "Every good tree bears good fruit, but an evil evil," attempted to approve the heresy of Cerdo; so that his assertions are identical with those of the former heretic before him.
[3] After him arose one 'Lucan' by name, a follower and disciple of Marcion. He, too, wading through the same kinds of blasphemy, teaches the same as Marcion and Cerdo had taught.
[4] Close on their heels follows Apelles, a disciple of Marcion, who after lapsing, into his own carnality, was severed from Marcion. He introduces one God in the infinite upper regions, and states that He made many powers and angels; beside Him, withal, another Virtue, which he affirms to be called Lord, but represents as an angel. By him he will have it appear that the world was originated in imitation of a superior world. With this lower world he mingled throughout (a principle of) repentance, because he had not made it so perfectly as that superior world had been originated. The Law and the prophets he repudiates. [5] Christ he neither, like Marcion, affirms to have been in a phantasmal shape, nor yet in substance of a true body, as the Gospel teaches; but says, because He descended from the upper regions, that in the course of His descent He wove together for Himself a starry and airy flesh; and, in His resurrection, restored, in the course of His ascent, to the several individual elements whatever had been borrowed in His descent: and thus-the several parts of His body dispersed-He reinstated in heaven His spirit only. [6] This man denies the resurrection of the flesh. He uses, too, one only apostle; but that is Marcion's, that is, a mutilated one. He teaches the salvation of souls alone. He has, besides, private but extraordinary lections of his own, which he calls "Manifestations of one Philumene, a girl whom he follows as a prophetess. He has, besides, his own books, which he has entitled books of Syllogisms, in which he seeks to prove that whatever Moses has written about God is not true, but is false.
https://www.tertullian.org/anf/anf03/an ... 13_3180099
d According to Wikipedia, Filastrius/Philaster (Haer. 44) and Epiphanius (Haer. 41) make use of Ps.-Tert., Adv. omn. haer. for their accounts of Cerdo.