The Gnostic School Becomes a "Catholic" Church, The First Church of Rome

45. The dangers were soon realized. Within a single generation of faithful Pastor Clement, one of the elders ordained by the Bible-believing bishops of Rome crossed over to the Gnostic school founded by Simon Magus. His name was Sixtus. He is the first bishop recorded as having headed the Gnostic school (67) (now counted as a church because it had a bishop to lead it). It is probable that the geographical proximity between the two groups, at the Vicus Patricius and the Vicus Lateranus in the Subura, facilitated fellowship between interested parties on both sides. Sixtus is said by later writers to have been the author of a book called The Sentences, which has no Christian element whatsoever, and is simply a rehash of half-understood, Pythagorean, pagan Greek philosophy. With that kind of interest it is no wonder that Sixtus gravitated towards the Gnostic pseudo-philosophical circle on the Vicus Lateranus. Also, according to the Book of Popes, a late and legendary source, but one which preserves some genuine historical nuggets, Sixtus was a son of one "Pastor". This name "Pastor" (the Shepherd) was commonly given to the prophet Hermas, and it is likely that it is Hermas who is intended here, as he seems to have lived on into the first few decades of the second century AD. Now, we know from Hermas' own book that his sons had backslidden seriously, and that an angel was sent by the Almighty to warn Hermas of the dangers of this backsliding and of the urgent need for repentance. In the apostasy of Sixtus, son of "Pastor", we may see the consequences of a failure to repent on the part of at least one of his family. Confirming this suggestion is the evidence outlined hereafter that Hermas' brother, Pius, was similarly drawn into the Gnostic net.

Probably the end was believed by some of the Roman Christians to justify the means. Ignatius had held up the bishops as the antidote to heresy: would not this Gnostic school only benefit by a pastor like those of the faithful Christian congregations? In any case, the Gnostics seemed genuinely interested in incorporating elements of the tradition handed down from the Apostles in their own school's doctrines. Here was an example of mutual reconciliation: the Gnostics were no longer rejecting the leadership of the Bible-believers and their Jewish brethren - they were accepting it. But a little leaven leavens the lump. It was not the bishop who had won over the Gnostics, it was the Gnostics who had won over the bishop. The (magical) rituals of the Gnostics had to be maintained. The new bishops had to drop their Jewish Passover customs and accept those of the Gnostics (68). The true believers did as Paul had said and KEPT AWAY from the heretics (and the farther the better). The Apostle John had famously fled from a bathhouse (69) when he knew a Gnostic heretic was inside, crying out to his brethren that they should get out with him in case the roof fell in for the blasphemy uttered within its walls. Sixtus, on the contrary, had now become the first of a line of bishops who FELLOWSHIPPED WITH the heretics, and actually TOOK THEM UNDER PASTORAL SUPERVISION. They also attempted to obviate their disfellowshipping by usurping the rights of the Bible-believing pastors in other churches where the original Jewish Passover customs prevailed: they reserved a part of their eucharistic bread and sent fragments of it to sympathetic individuals in these other assemblies (70): they thus established a sort of supercommunion which ignored the existing (and sacred) pastoral boundaries. This was the beginning of Papal supremacy. It was also the beginning of the custom of leaving a portion of the Eucharist in the church building as an object of worship.

46. Sixtus and his successors were not the only ones in Rome to be corrupted. Even a great scholar like Tatian (71),the disciple of the renowned Bible-teacher Justin, was polluted with Gnostic error in the middle years of the second century AD. So was Pastor Florinus (72), who had been a hearer in his youth of Polycarp, the grand old disciple of John the Apostle (73). The more intellectual Christian leaders, particularly, seemed attracted to the pseudoscientific theology of the Gnostic gurus. They began to despise the simple, humble, spiritual Christianity of the Bible-believing majority. The latter were called the "Catholic Church", meaning those who, wherever they existed "throughout the world" ("Catholic" = "worldwide", "universal"), bore witness to the same Holy Ghost religion preached by the Apostles on the Day of Pentecost. The Catholics were universal also in the sense that they encompassed within their communion both Jew and gentile. The Messianic Jews who honored the Law of Moses as members of the nation of Israel were a significant body in the true Catholic Church. But the pressure on Christians in Rome, particularly during the reign of Trajan, when the Jews were in disfavor with the authorities, was to spurn the Jewish Christians and make a clear separation between Church and Synagogue. The Gnostic school was an already-existing, nominally Christian, body which abhorred Judaism, had actually played a major role in the imperial policy of persecution of the House of David, and was ready to welcome compromised believers from the Bible-believing Catholic communion. Those who wanted to be popular with the Roman authorities found a peaceful home in the school of Cerdon.

47. In the intervening years the Gnostic school was busy consolidating its political position with the Roman authorities by informing against the Jewish leadership of the Bible-believers. "Father" Simon was followed by "Father" Cerdon. Then, around AD 115-120, Sixtus, ordained by Alexander, the pastor of what used to be Clement's congregation, apostatized and became the episcopal head of the Gnostic school. Cerdon took a back seat, though evidently an influential back seat, and claimed he had "joined the Church" (74). Transformed into the leader of a heretical sect, Sixtus could still boast of his episcopal succession from the Apostles. He had been ordained by bishop Alexander, Alexander by Evaristus and Evaristus by Clement, and so on back to Linus and the Apostles. But that was before he had apostatized. It in no way authorized his apostasy into Gnosticism. He had now abandoned the true Faith and, with it, all claims he may have once had to be a true elder and bishop. Only those who viewed ordination as some kind of magical rite would imagine that Sixtus was still, after his apostasy, a validly ordained minister of the Gospel. Yet that is precisely how the Gnostic school on the Vicus Lateranus viewed him. In practice, the relationship between the new bishops of the First Church, Sixtus and his immediate successors, and the heretical teachers, who continued to inspire it doctrinally, was similar to the political relationship between a constitutional head of state, who has no actual power, and a prime minister, who runs the day-to-day business of government. Real power rested in the hands of the heretical teachers, Cerdon and his successor, Marcion.

48. According to an early Church tradition preserved by Epiphanius of Salamis (75) Marcion was an immigrant to Rome from Pontus in Turkey, who had once professed to be an ascetic - a man eschewing the luxuries of the world in the service of Jesus - but had failed to live up to his calling. He had been excommunicated from his own Bible-believing Church in his homeland of Pontus, the pastor of which was his own father, because he had had an immoral relationship with an unmarried girl in the congregation. When he arrived in Rome, he first attempted to join the Bible-believing assembly in the city. They discovered the skeleton in his cupboard and refused him communion. He then crossed over to Cerdon's sect. He had no trouble joining that group! Now he had doctrinal justification for his separation from the Bible-believers. He challenged the elders of the Bible-believing assembly to answer the Gnostic problems Cerdon had, to his own satisfaction, solved. They declined to enter into the fruitless debate, and Marcion gloated in his new role of Gnostic theologian, guru and speculator. After Cerdon's death, he became head of Cerdon's school. His ambition proved his undoing, however. In the meantime Cerdon's sect had become a "church" under the supervision of bishops, the "First Church of Rome". Marcion's ever-restless curiosity and doctrinal speculating finally brought him into conflict with the latter-day, increasingly ambitious and strong-willed, bishops of the First Church. He was excommunicated. He then established a Gnostic church of his own. This prospered and spread abroad, surviving for hundreds of years in the East.

Santa Pudenziana, Rome

49. Following in the footsteps of Sixtus, another elder from the Bible-believing group, called Pius, crossed over to the Gnostics. Sixtus, seemingly, was the son, and Pius the brother, of the prophet Hermas. It was a family feud as bitter and as dangerous in its consequences as that between Cain and Abel. Pius had at one time ministered in the house of Pudens (Linus' friend) (76), where Clement's group assembled for meetings. This ancient house-church (77) (ecclesia domestica), to which we have already frequently referred, the mother of the godly Christians of Rome, and traditionally the mother of the British Church (78) as well, can still be seen on the Viminal Hill. It is known as "Santa Pudenziana". There were Roman baths in the building, used for baptismal immersion, called the Baths of Novatus or "the Timothinian Baths"; they were so named from Novatus and Timothy, two Christian brothers associated with Pudens (some call them his sons), and this Timothy was anciently identified with Paul's beloved disciple. The house was later titled "Saint Pudentiana" (Santa Pudenziana), or rather, at first, by the apostate Pius, "Saint Potentiana", after one of Pudens' daughters. She is variously named Potentiana or Pudentiana in the old records and her sister was called Praxedes. Members of this family were buried in the Catacomb of Priscilla on the Via Salaria outside the walls of the city. This was the cemetery for the earliest Bible-believing Catholics of Rome, founded, according to tradition, by Pudens' noble Christian mother Priscilla - a different woman from Priscilla the wife of Aquila, but probably a member of the same Roman household. Inscriptions and frescoes from that primitive era can still be seen there today.

50. It was Pius himself who, after crossing over to the Gnostics, named Pudens' house-church "Potentiana" ("Pudentiana") after one of Pudens' daughters. Its proper name was the Timothinian Baths or the Baths of Novatus, but it could also quite rightly be referred to as Pudentiana in the sense of titulus Pudentis, meaning the house-church of Pudens. It was also known as "The Church of the Shepherd", the Shepherd being Hermas' angelic visitor or Pastor Hermas himself. The Gnostic meeting-place on the Vicus Lateranus Pius named "Praxedes", today Santa Prassede, after Pudens' other daughter, thus falsely associating the Gnostic church he had just joined with the Bible-believing Catholic fellowship he had abandoned. He was claiming, in effect, to be the legitimate successor of the line of Bible-believing bishops at Pudens' house-church before Sixtus. The only real connection was that the heretical group on the Vicus Lateranus seems to have originally been founded by Junia and Andronicus who later, after its fall into heresy, separated from it and became the apostles of the fellowship to which Pudens belonged and which at some subsequent time assembled in Pudens' house.

51. Pius' apostasy and betrayal of the godly believers at Santa Pudenziana brought him what he lacked in their humble company, namely, worldly acclaim and social advancement: he was, at any rate, promoted to become the bishop of the apostate Gnostic church at an advanced age. One of the most infamous Gnostic heretics, Valentinus, like his fellow church-member, Marcion, "flourished" under the ministry of Pius (79). Meanwhile, the true Catholic church at the Baths of Novatus and Timothy (Santa Pudenziana) continued to meet during the lifetime of Pudens' daughters, under the pastorship of the old prophet, Hermas (commonly called simply "Pastor") in the first few decades of the second century AD (80). Shortly thereafter it was blessed with the presence of the Bible-teachers Hegesippus and Justin, and the pastor in the latter's time was a brother called Martinus. The succession of bishops at Santa Pudenziana seems actually to have been under the guiding hand of Hegesippus (80a), who was a Messianic Jew, and a transmitter of the most authentic, Apostolic, teaching of the early Church. He travelled all the way to Rome from the East to help deal with these ecclesiastical problems in Rome. As for Justin, he states clearly that he recognized no Christian, true Catholic, assembly in the city, except for the one that met at the Timothinian Baths (Santa Pudenziana), both in his first sojourn in Rome (not dated but soon after AD 135) and in his second, at the end of which he was brought to trial in the reign of Marcus Aurelius (AD 161-180) (81). The other Bible-believing house-church at Santa Prisca had long ceased to operate: Aquila and Priscilla had moved to Ephesus, on the evidence of Paul's last letter to Timothy, way back in the 60s of the first century AD. The only other church known to have existed within the city walls of Rome in Justin's time was the Gnostic meeting at Santa Prassede and that, of course, did not count as Christian in Justin's estimation.

52. Justin himself was a Christian philosopher by profession. He had been converted before AD 135 in the East and had witnessed to Christ boldly and with great erudition in the city of Ephesus, before he journeyed to Rome, having fellowshipped in the circle of the disciples of the Apostle John. The Church he attended in Rome was very different from the philosophical school on the Vicus Lateranus, though one might have expected him, as a professional philosopher, to tend in that direction. No, his house-church at the Timothinian Baths was on fire for God. The Romans witnessed under its anointed ministry healing miracles and many cases of deliverance from demons (82). This was the vindication of true Catholic teaching: signs of the presence of the resurrected Saviour followed the preaching of the Word.

53. However, the rival Gnostic school of Sixtus and Pius at Santa Prassede soon began to call itself a "Catholic" church, in fact, "THE Catholic Church". It boasted of its line of bishops, going back to the Apostles, Peter and Paul. In this sense only, and that an illegitimate one, could it claim apostolic origin, in the sense that Linus, the first in the line of bishops before Sixtus, had been ordained by apostles. If this so-called "Catholic" church was reproached with having heretical doctrine and ritual, which were innovations of the Gnostics, it emphasized that it was the OLDEST, ORIGINAL and FIRST Church of Rome. And indeed, IT WAS THE FIRST CHURCH OF ROME - it was the original Pentecostal church that had backslidden into Gentile paganism in the days of Claudius.

54. Now, the bishops of this First Church of Rome started to call themselves "Father", the title inherited from its Gnostic founders. This was a pagan, not a Christian, practice, since Jesus had specifically forbidden any Christian leader to be addressed as "Father". They became as particular as the Gnostic teachers in the congregation about ceremonies and rituals. The rituals were treated like magical rites; they had to be performed in a certain way, at a certain time, in a certain state of ritual purity. One of their most important celebrations was a spring festival which they called "Passover" preceded by a (Lenten) fast which Tertullian - a former member of the First Church of Rome - admitted to be essentially the same as in the cult of the Great Mother Goddess (83) (called Cybele, Isis, Astarte etc. by the Romans). Centuries later this so-called Christian festival was given the name "Easter" by the English-speaking peoples, from one of the Mother Goddess' English names, "Eostre" (83a). The First Church of Rome thoroughly despised the scriptural, Jewish Passover celebration - an aversion understandable in the light of their anti-Judaic Samaritan origins - even though the Apostles themselves, being Jews by nationality, had celebrated the Passover in the Jewish manner, and so did their Jewish disciples. It was still the practice in the Bible-believing Catholic Church, and amongst its Gentile members, to celebrate a memorial of the Lord's death at the time that the Jews celebrated the Passover. Even this timing was condemned by the First Church of Rome. To be efficacious, in their view, the festival must be performed in the correct (magical) manner, at precisely the right time of year. In any case, the First Church of Rome wanted nothing to do with Judaism, and the same anti-Semitic spirit has persisted to this day.

The "Mother of the Gods" Cybele

55. If there was ever any illusion that the placement of Sixtus or Pius, ordinands of the Catholic Bible-believers, at the head of this group would bring it back to God, that illusion was soon shattered. It actually served to reinforce their obstinacy and false sense of superiority. New and more virulent Gnostic teachers were attracted to this unusual "Catholic" church. Valentinus found a home there for his mystical doctrines in the episcopate of Hyginus (84) and the Carpocratian heretic, Marcellina, for her idolatrous images under Anicetus (85). Image-worship was condoned by the First Church (86) on the pretext that it was only the despised "Jewish" Law that forbad idolatry, and that the Apostles suppressed its public practice because they were pandering to the scruples of "weaker" Jewish brethren amongst the gentiles. As the years went by and bishop succeeded bishop in the First Church, the heresies became institutionalized. The true Catholics were dismayed and discouraged.

56. The aged bishop Polycarp of Smyrna, who had in his youth sat at the feet of John, the beloved disciple of Jesus, was filled with fatherly concern for the Christians in Rome. He traveled thousands of miles, in spite of the infirmities of his great age, from Smyrna on the coast of Turkey, to the capital of the Empire, to apprise the situation for himself. Like Ignatius, but with less rigidity, Polycarp's inclination was to exalt the bishop's role as a bulwark against Gnosticism. He went straight to work amongst the Bible-believers, and held meetings which were even attended by Bishop Anicetus (87). All Polycarp's efforts were directed to reforming the church at Santa Prassede. The Bishop, for his part, kept disagreements to a minimum. It looked as though Polycarp had succeeded. In front of the whole congregation, and shamed by the spiritual eminence of the disciple of John, Anicetus yielded the celebration of the Lord's supper to Polycarp. In fact, multitudes were persuaded by the personal testimony of Polycarp and were converted from the heretical teachers to true Christianity (88).

57. But the heretical leaders themselves, Marcion and Valentinus being the most important, were not for a long time yet (and then for a different reason) excluded from the First Church (89) and the heathen rituals and doctrines continued. The First Church prided itself in its "multi-faith" approach. Some had images of Jesus and the saints, as well as of the heathen philosophers and deities (90). They prostrated themselves before these idols and served them in the usual pagan manner. The idolatry went back to the original "father" of the First Church. There were idols amongst them called "Lord" and "Lady" (91) which were actually images of Simon Magus and his mistress Helena, their names changed to obscure their identity. To refer to them as Simon and Helena was forbidden. The "Lord" (Simon) was made in the form of the god Jupiter, and the "Lady" (Helena) in the form of the goddess Minerva. Now, Simon Magus himself had been an idiosyncratic devotee of the religion of the Magi. The most popular Magian cult in the Empire at that period was Mithraism, and the name of the god Mithras meant "The Mediator"; he was the god of contracts and oaths. This explains why the statue erected to Simon Magus on the island in the Tiber, the base of which was rediscovered in 1574, was sculpted in the form of the god Semo Sancus, the "god of the oath", this being the Roman deity most nearly corresponding in function to Mithras. It was a common practice in that era to sculpt famous figures with attributes of a deity (e.g. the Emperor Claudius with attributes of Jupiter), as though the god had descended to earth and taken on human form as that person, so this statue would quite be in keeping with the spirit of the age. Of course, the followers of Simon also equated the god's name Semo with the name of their "father", Simon. The inscription on the base of the statue (92) read "Semoni Sanco Deo Fidio Sacrum", meaning "Dedicated to Semo Sancus the God of the Oath". The Gnostics read it as "To Simon (Semoni) the Holy (Sanco = Sancto, holy or sacred) God (Deo) ...." Semo Sancus was also identified with Jupiter by the Romans themselves, so the statue of Simon made in the form of the god Jupiter was probably just another specimen of this multi-faith god, Semo, Jupiter, or Mithras, deliberately sculpted to reflect the facial characteristics of Simon Magus, if it was not, indeed, this same statue on the island in the Tiber. But a reverence for Simon Magus - even under his proper name - survived for centuries in the Roman church. As late as the sixth century AD Acts of the Roman "saints" were concocted which honored Simon Magus with a place amongst the martyrs!

The Island in the Tiber

58. The rituals of the Mithraic Magi are significant in the light of how the First Church of Rome developed. There can be little doubt as to the source whence the following nonbiblical rites and ceremonies crept into the Papal religion. The Mithraic priests were called "father" and their chief priest, the "father of fathers", the very image of a pope, always resided at Rome. The priests wore a mitre-like, pointed, Phrygian cap and carried a shepherd's staff in their hand. Mithras was called CHRESTOS, the "Good One", a common variant of the name Christ. Initiates were marked on their forehead in water with the sign of a cross (symbolic of the sun's crossing over the celestial equator at the spring equinox). Women were excluded from the cult. Mithras was identified with the Sun, the Light of Heaven unconquered by the powers of darkness; accordingly, the Mithraists' holy day was Sunday, the day of the "Unconquered Sun", and December 25th (the winter solstice, following which the sun begins to rise higher in the sky) was the birthday of their god. A perpetual fire was kept burning in their sanctuaries. The Mithraists celebrated a sacred meal in which they ate bread and wine, these elements being believed to infuse a magical virtue into those who partook of them. Furthermore, the Mithraic religion had been combined in the city of Pergamum in Turkey with the cult of Cybele, the "Mother of the Gods", worshipped alongside her divine consort Sabazius (identified with Zeus or Jupiter ) - a cult which heretical Jews had introduced into Rome over a 100 years before the time of Christ (92a). The sign of Sabazius, a raised hand with the thumb and the middle and index fingers held upright and the other two fingers folded down, many representations of which are discovered by archaeologists, is today the characteristic sign of blessing of the Pope. Cybele was identified with the Mithraists' chief goddess, Anaitis and Sabazius with Mithras. In this mixed form Mithraism had become popular at Rome, even with the emperors - Nero and Commodus (two of the most vicious emperors of all) being keen adherents: this meant that both Nero and Commodus were cult brothers of the Gnostic followers of Simon Magus, and would be prepared to use state power to argue their cause. It was this same cult's "Great Mother Goddess" Cybele whose spring festival was identical to the "Passover" feast of the First Church of Rome. In fact, Cybele, Anaitis, Minerva, Astarte, Isis etc. amongst the Romans of that era were simply so many names of this "Great Mother Goddess". She was called the "Queen of Heaven" and the "Mother of God". Because of her feminine tenderness she was commonly served with an "unbloody" sacrifice. The priest lifted up in front of her idol the unbloody sacrifice of a piece of bread baked in a round shape to honor the Sun, and poured out the wine (rather than allowing the congregation to drink it) as a libation at the base of the statue.

59. All this had the tacit, if not the public, approval of the Bishop Anicetus. It is no wonder in the revival atmosphere at Rome during the visit of Polycarp that Anicetus shrunk from celebrating his pagan communion in the presence of that great patriarch. Anicetus would not yield on the principle and doctrine of his spring festival, however. He claimed it had always been celebrated like that in his church. The Bible-believers' concern about the content of the Gnostic cult was diverted into a fruitless debate about the calendrical timing of the "Passover" celebration and the length of the preceding (Lenten) fast. Details like that were of no interest to the Catholics. The anxiety of the heretics, on their side, to receive recognition from Polycarp is illustrated by the famous occasion (93) on which the Gnostic archheretic Marcion approached Polycarp and inquired "Do you recognize us?" Polycarp replied "Yes, I do recognize you - the firstborn of Satan." However, by the adroitness, subtlety and blatant hypocrisy of Bishop Anicetus, the issues were fudged and, in the end, it was the First Church that gained points from Polycarp's visit. Once he was gone, they held up Anicetus' attendance at the Eucharistic celebration as apostolic validation of their cult.

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67. §1. In his letter to Victor, Bishop of the First Church of Rome, Irenaeus lists the bishops of that church preceding Victor. A substantial fragment of Irenaeus' letter is preserved in Eusebius, Hist. Ecc., V. xxiv. 11-17. The list of bishops is found ibid. 14: "Among these [the ones who held on to customs, like the First Church of Rome Passover ritual, which were not strictly in accord with Apostolic practice, ibid.13 ] were the presbyters before Soter, who presided over the church [the First Church of Rome] which thou [Victor] now rulest. We mean [working back in time] Anicetus, and Pius, and Hyginus, and Telesphorus, and Xystus [Sixtus]. They neither observed it [the Jewish Passover celebration] themselves, nor did they permit those after them to do so. And yet though not observing it, they were none the less at peace with those who came to them from the residential districts [of other churches] in which it was observed; although this observance was more opposed to those who did not observe it." [For the continuation of this quotation see note 70 below.] This list only goes as far back as Sixtus then stops abruptly. Irenaeus gives no indication that there were any bishops of that particular church before Sixtus. Yet we know that there were bishops in Rome before Sixtus: Irenaeus himself informs us elsewhere (see note 35 . These were, working back in time from Sixtus: Alexander, Evaristus, Clement, Anencletus, Linus). This suggests the possibility that the pre-Sixtine bishops did not preside over "the church over which thou [Victor] now rulest", as Irenaeus puts it, but over some other church. The evidence for the following observations, confirming this suggestion, will be provided in the footnotes at relevant places in the main text. They form a summary of the reasoning which leads us to believe there were, in the second century AD, two separate churches in Rome, one a Bible-believing fellowship, and the second a gathering of Gnostic heretics under bishops who falsely claimed to be orthodox in faith.
§2. The church at the Timothinian Baths was the church where Justin Martyr fellowshipped throughout both periods he was resident in Rome. This is believed to be the church now known as Santa Pudenziana, which received its name from the Timothy to whom the Roman Baths in that location, according to tradition, were bequeathed, and which were otherwise known as the Baths of Novatus, from Timothy's brother, see further §§5 and 6. The existence of Roman Baths at Santa Pudenziana in the first and second centuries AD has been confirmed by excavation. Justin states he did not recognize any other church in the city, and also the brethren in his fellowship held no communion with the Gnostic heretics, like Valentinus and Marcion. However, the church ruled by the bishops from Sixtus to Victor did hold communion with these heretics (see further §3) throughout the period Justin Martyr was ministering in the capital. This is the most stark, historical, evidence of the separation of two churches in Rome in the second century AD.
§3. A similar situation is envisaged in Epiphanius' account of Marcion, extracted, as is much else in Epiphanius, from circumstantial, early church, records, this probably from a lost work of Hippolytus. When Marcion arrived in Rome (just after the death of Hyginus, and therefore in the time of Pius), being from a Bible-believing, orthodox, background in Pontus, he tried to join the Bible-believing church in Rome. That church refused him communion, because of his immoral conduct in Pontus. He then joined what is called "Cerdon's sect" in the source used by Epiphanius. Later Marcion became head of this sect. Now, Cerdon is known to have been, in actual fact, a professing member of the First Church of Rome, from an era at least as early as the episcopate of Telesphorus. In other words, Marcion, after being rejected by the orthodox church, joined the First Church of Rome, which at that time included in its ranks the heretic Cerdon. This is confirmed, in respect of what relates to Marcion, by Irenaeus, Tertullian and other writers, who state clearly that Marcion was, indeed, a member of a church, and that church was the First Church of Rome, from the time of bishop Pius all the way till the time of bishop Eleutherus (Tertullian's date), by whom he was finally expelled. This was the church of Sixtus and his successors, the one which welcomed fellowship with heretics, including, amongst many others, Marcion and Valentinus. On Justin's evidence, it had nothing to do with the other mentioned Bible-believing fellowship. There was one church in Rome which Marcion never succeeded in joining, viz. the Bible-believing one, and another church in Rome which he did succeed in joining, viz. the same First Church of Rome in which Cerdon professed orthodox faith, but from which he (Marcion) was later expelled. Here is evidence confirming the existence of two churches in Rome in the second century AD, with very different rules of admission and practice.
§4. Another witness to the separation of two churches in Rome in the latter quarter of the second century AD and the first quarter of the second, is Hippolytus of Rome. One church in Hippolytus is a Bible-believing assembly, and the other church is the First Church of Rome, with its line of monarchical bishops including (in Hippolytus' day) Victor, Zephyrinus and Callistus, and with heretics, not only fellowshipping freely within it, but also influencing the trend of its teaching. In his Refutation of All Heresies Hippolytus represents himself as a bishop of a church, with a ministry centered on Rome, but not a bishop in the church ruled by Victor and his successors, Zephyrinus and Callistus, viz. the First Church of Rome. Hippolytus calls his fellow church-members the "brethren" and says that he and his did not at any time have any collusion with the "school" of the heretics who followed the doctrine of Noetus, which increased greatly under the "succession" of such bishops as Zephyrinus and Callistus, but was already present in that church before the time of Zephyrinus (i.e. at least as early as Victor). The scandalous and criminal life of Bishop Callistus of the First Church is vividly portrayed by Hippolytus, who was his contemporary. No mention is made in the narrative of any schism of Hippolytus from the other church. On the contrary, the already existing, and permanent, separation is taken for granted. Only at times there would be discussions between Hippolytus and his people and members of the other church, in order to win the latter back to the true faith. The bishops of the First Church pretended to be orthodox in faith and gave verbal assent to Hippolytus' point of view (certainly they were unable to answer Hippolytus' fierce , Biblical, logic), but nevertheless continued to tolerate the heretical teachers. Now, Hippolytus was a disciple of Irenaeus. Irenaeus had himself been present in Rome at the time of Bishop Eleutherus of the First Church, but did not, as Eleutherus did, fellowship with heretics. Irenaeus was also a staunch upholder of the doctrine of Justin Martyr and of Hermas. I.e. Irenaeus seems to have fellowshipped with the Christians of Justin's group at Santa Pudenziana, whilst Hippolytus, his disciple, seems to have continued his work there as bishop. Hippolytus treats the other congregation as a catholic church in name only, and one which indiscriminately fellowshipped with heretics and was, indeed, under their controlling influence. This work of Hippolytus was, for understandable reasons, "lost" for many centuries and was only recovered in the nineteenth century from a single copy preserved in the Greek Orthodox monastery of Mount Athos. Pope Damasus confirms the existence of a schism between Hippolytus and the First Church of Rome by describing Hippolytus as participating in what he refers to as "the schism" of Novatian, Novatian being the leader of a rival church in Rome in the first half of the third century AD, that is, evidently, the church of which Hippolytus was bishop. Of course, it was actually the First Church that was in schism from the Bible-believers. This notice lets us know, incidentally, that the church at Santa Pudenziana was in the third century AD the church attended by the Novatianists or followers of Novatian (also called, incorrectly and slanderously, Cathari and Novatians, the followers of the similarly-named Novatus, a heretic), who were in permanent "schism" from the First Church of Rome and its allies throughout the third and fourth centuries AD.
§5. Going back now to the beginning of the second century or the very end of the first, we find In The Shepherd of Hermas the prophet Hermas describing in his vision a congregation with which his own church in Rome (the church of Clement) did not hold communion, led by a false prophet or sorcerer seated on a kathedra, or episcopal throne. Members of Hermas' church, however, had been seduced into attending the meeting of this false prophet. Furthermore, Hermas specifically attacks in his book what we would call the Docetist, Gnostic, belief that pure spirit alone is of real consequence, and the flesh unimportant, which suggests - in view of the fact that the Gnostics were also sorcerers - that this false prophet and sorcerer is one of the Docetist Gnostics (perhaps Cerdon himself) who are known to have operated in Rome in the era of Hermas, i.e. about the time of Domitian. Considering that the word kathedra has such negative connotations in The Shepherd of Hermas, both in this vision and earlier ones, it is remarkable to find it stated in the Muratorian Canon, dating from the end of the second century AD, that Hermas' own brother, Pius (the Pius in Irenaeus' list above §1), occupied the kathedra of a church in Rome at the time The Shepherd of Hermas was put into writing. The hint here, as well as elsewhere in the book of Hermas, where it repeatedly highlights the need for repentance in the troubled household of Hermas himself, is that Hermas' own brother may have crossed over to the Gnostics and become a bishop amongst them in another "church" in Rome. This is confirmed by a seemingly reliable, ecclesiastical, tradition, different elements of which are preserved fossilized in the apocryphal Acts of Pastor and Timothy and in the Liber Pontificalis (see note 77 below). The tradition informs us that in the time of one of the bishops in Irenaeus' list, viz. Pius, there were, indeed, two churches in Rome, and the tradition identifies them as Santa Prassede [Latin: Praxedis] and Santa Pudenziana [Pudentiana, though Pius seems to have used the form Potentiana, the name being derived from that of Pudens' daughter]. Pius is described as having ministered at some earlier period in Santa Pudenziana, where Hermas (his natural brother) was pastor. Since only two churches in Rome are mentioned in this tradition and Pius is bishop of Rome, it follows that Santa Prassede is the church where Pius usually ministered as bishop. I.e. Santa Prassede is the First Church of Rome (see further §6). It could not have been otherwise, if only two churches existed in Rome at that time, since we know that the church at Santa Pudenziana (Pudentiana) did not fellowship with heretics, whereas Pius, at his church, did. His church must be that other church mentioned in the apocryphal tradition, viz. Santa Prassede (Praxedis). The apocryphal work does not inform us whether Pius moved from Santa Pudenziana peacefully or in consequence of some conflict, but the evidence already given points to a schism between the two churches.
§6. The Senator Rufus Pudens, whose house is said to have been converted into the house-church Santa Pudenziana, is traditionally connected with Hermas (in Romans 16. 13f.) as well as with two of the bishops preceding Sixtus known from other lists in Irenaeus and elsewhere, namely Linus ("Pudens and Linus" II Timothy 4. 21) and Clement (Shepherd of Hermas VIS. II. iv. 3). This confirms the association of the pre-Sixtine bishops with Santa Pudenziana. The bishops before Sixtus appear, therefore, to have ministered at Santa Pudenziana, whilst Sixtus moved to the other church, Santa Prassede (which did not receive the name Santa Prassede [Praxedis] till the time of Pius), where he was followed as bishop by Telesphorus, and the rest up to Pius, Victor and so forth. Hermas was at some point also bishop at Santa Pudenziana, according to the Acts of Pastor and Timothy, and since he does not appear in Irenaeus' pre-Sixtine list, he seems to have taken the pastor's position after Alexander (the last of the pre-Sixtine bishops) at roughly the time Sixtus crossed over to the Gnostics, i.e. in the first few years of the second century AD.
§7. It can be concluded from this that the First Church of Rome with its bishops from Sixtus through Pius, Eleutherus, Victor etc. was, in the earliest period, the sect of Cerdon, masquerading as a church. Cerdon continued in his role of Gnostic guru and seems simply to have accepted Sixtus and his successors with the title of "bishop", and no great doctrinal influence, in his remodeled "sect-cum-church". In fact, Irenaeus distinctly tells us that Cerdon "came into the church" and "professed orthodox faith" after an undetermined period in which he was a Gnostic teacher, and that he "continued" professing orthodox faith under bishop Hyginus, one of the successors of Sixtus. The word "continued" implies that he "joined the church" at least as early as the time of bishop Hyginus' predecessor, Telesphorus, and, on the evidence produced here, more probably in the time of Telesphorus' predecessor, Sixtus. The precise sequence of events is no longer traceable in the fragments of second-century ecclesiastical literature which have survived. The date of Cerdon's arrival in Rome, even, is not certain; but his inspiration came from Simon himself and his immediate circle, according to the earliest and most reliable witness, Irenaeus, therefore a first century date is preferable. It could be that Sixtus set up a church separate from Santa Pudenziana at the location later known as Santa Prassede and Cerdon and his sectarian colleagues joined it in the time of Telesphorus or in the time of Sixtus himself. In that case, the bishop provided a new ecclesiastical home for the wandering Gnostics of Rome who had been present in the capital since the earliest days of Emperor Claudius. Alternatively, Sixtus physically moved to the location later known as Santa Prassede, where Cerdon was already seated on his Gnostic kathedra. The latter alternative seems preferable inasmuch as Hermas depicts in his vision a sorcerer and false prophet (i.e. a Gnostic heretic), not a backslidden bishop, already seated on a kathedra in Rome, and members of Hermas' church (at Santa Pudenziana) are being seduced into attending his meeting - which is precisely the scenario envisioned if Sixtus moved into the Gnostic church.
§8. Though Cerdon professed to have "joined the church" by accepting an ordained bishop from Santa Pudenziana, the truth seems to have been that the bishop had joined the sect of Cerdon. Strong evidence of a more or less open embracing of Gnosticism in the First Church is the continued fellowshipping of its members, under the succession of these bishops, with heretics - a thing unknown amongst the orthodox. Again, the trend in the First Church, as in Gnosticism, was against Judaism and against Judaizing practices of the kind which were common amongst the orthodox. The bishops of the First Church celebrated thereafter a form of non-Jewish, or rather anti-Jewish, "Passover", which was condemned by the orthodox (as we learn from Tertullian in his tract On Fasting) as a borrowing or imitation of the cult of the Great Mother goddess. This kind of religious syncretism was the hallmark of Gnostic heresy. The First Church absolutely insisted on the practice of its ritual, like some magic rite, and, when it was able to, enforced it on others. It became, in consequence, a source of bitter contention in the early Church all the way into the medieval period. The rigid adherence of Sixtus and his successors on the kathedra of the First Church to this paganizing ritual indicates that, intellectually, the movement of Sixtus was away from the Bible-believing tenets of the church at Santa Pudenziana and towards the Gnostic heretics, who made the transition easy by professing orthodoxy. Some time thereafter, according to the account of Irenaeus, Cerdon's ecclesiastical charade was exposed by the Bible teachers and the separation of communion between the "brethren", as Irenaeus calls them, i.e. the orthodox Bible-believers, and Cerdon was severed. This implies that there was a doubt for a time whether Cerdon had genuinely "repented" and joined the church, by accepting the ministry of the bishops. Hence, it may be, the false accreditation granted to this church at Santa Prassede on occasion by orthodox churches. The bishops in the line of Sixtus claimed that their church was the "first" or "original" church in Rome (Gk. archaiotate, used of that church by Origen in the time of Zephyrinus, Eusebius Hist. Ecc. VI. xiv. 10, or Lat. principalis, as used of that same church by Cyprian) . And so it was, because, whether the bishops had joined the Gnostics, or the Gnostics had joined the bishops, the First Church was the ecclesiastical home in Rome of the Gnostic heretics, whilst the Gnostic heretics originated from the school of Simon Magus, which was, in turn, composed of Gentile converts to Simon's Gnosticism from the earliest and original church in Rome, viz. the Gentile members of the Church of Priscilla and Aquila, and Andronicus and Junia, before the time of Claudius. It was that group of schismatics and heretics denounced shortly thereafter by Paul in Romans 16. 17f.

68. For a reference to the Paschal controversy in the time of Hermas and Sixtus see Appendix 8.

69. Irenaeus Adv. Haer. III. iii. 4: "To these things all the Asiatic Churches testify, as do also those men who have succeeded Polycarp down to the present time, - a man who was of much greater weight, and a more steadfast witness of truth, than Valentinus, and Marcion, and the rest of the heretics. He it was who, coming to Rome in the time of Anicetus caused many to turn away from the aforesaid heretics to the Church of God, proclaiming that he had received this one and sole truth from the apostles, - that, namely, which is handed down by the Church. There are also those who heard from him that John, the disciple of the Lord, going to bathe at Ephesus, and perceiving Cerinthus within, rushed out of the bathhouse without bathing, exclaiming, "Let us fly, lest even the bathhouse fall down, because Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, is within." And Polycarp himself replied to Marcion, who met him on one occasion, and said, "Dost thou recognize us?" "I do recognize thee, the first-born of Satan." Such was the horror which the apostles and their disciples had against holding even verbal communication with any corrupters of the truth; as Paul also says, "A man that is an heretic, after the first and second admonition, reject; knowing that he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself."

70. Irenaeus, from the letter to Victor quoted by Eusebius, Church History, V. xxiv. 15-17: "But none were ever cast out on account of this form [the Jewish Passover]; but the presbyters before thee [viz. before Victor, meaning the bishops from Sixtus up to Victor, as partially listed just prior to this, see note 67 above] who did not observe it, sent the Eucharist to people from the residential districts [of other churches] who themselves observed it, and furthermore, at the time when the blessed Polycarp visited Rome in the time of Anicetus, and having little things against eachother on other points, they [viz. the presbyters of the First Church who did not keep the Jewish Passover, and those from other church districts who did] quickly made peace amongst themselves, not caring to quarrel over this matter. For neither was Anicetus able to persuade Polycarp not to observe what he had always observed with John the disciple of our Lord [i.e. the Jewish Passover celebration], and the other apostles with whom he had associated; neither did Polycarp persuade Anicetus to observe it, as he [Anicetus] said that he ought to follow the customs of the presbyters that had preceded him. And in this state of affairs, they held communion amongst themselves. Also Anicetus conceded the Eucharist in the church to Polycarp, evidently out of a feeling of shame. And they settled the matter between them in peace, both those who observed [the Jewish Passover], and those who did not, maintaining the peace of the whole church." This passage indicates that Anicetus, the bishop of the First Church, was concerned at the impact Polycarp (who practiced the Jewish Passover of the Apostle John) made on the Christians in Rome. Anicetus' practice had been to send the First Church's (magical) eucharist to members of other groups who observed the Jewish Passover. Evidently, the important thing for the bishops of the First Church was to ensure that these outsiders at least partook of their (magical) elements. They, on the other hand, absolutely abstained from the Jewish Passover. This practice continued during Polycarp's visit, but the outsiders who received Anicetus' eucharist seem to have been influenced by Polycarp, on other matters, against the practice of the First Church ("having little things against eachother ... not caring to quarrel over this matter"). In these differences we can see the beginning of a movement like that which developed shortly thereafter in the time when Anicetus' deacon, Eleutherus, became bishop, namely the Montanist movement. This was composed of Christians who accepted the First Church's Paschal practice and other elements of its cult, but were also influenced by the charismatic ministries of the disciples of John. This proved to be a sore trial for the First Church bishops, and led eventually to a schism in the First Church itself, and the separation from it of Tertullian and the Cataproclan Montanists.

71. Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. I. xxviii. 1: "Springing from Saturninus and Marcion, those who are called Encratites (self-controlled) preached against marriage, thus setting aside the original creation of God, and indirectly blaming Him who made the male and female for the propagation of the human race. Some of those reckoned among them have also introduced abstinence from animal food, thus proving themselves ungrateful to God, who formed all things. They deny, too, the salvation of him who was first created. It is but lately, however, that this opinion has been invented among them. A certain man named Tatian first introduced the blasphemy. He was a hearer of Justin’s, and as long as he continued with him he expressed no such views; but after his martyrdom he separated from the Church, and, excited and puffed up by the thought of being a teacher, as if he were superior to others, he composed his own peculiar type of doctrine. He invented a system of certain invisible Aeons, like the followers of Valentinus; while, like Marcion and Saturninus, he declared that marriage was nothing else than corruption and fornication. But his denial of Adam’s salvation was an opinion due entirely to himself."

72. Eusebius, Hist. Ecc. V. 15: "Others, of whom Florinus was chief, flourished at Rome. He fell from the presbyterate of the Church, and Blastus was involved in a similar fall. They also drew away many of the Church to their opinion, each striving to introduce his own innovations in respect to the truth." and Irenaeus in Eusebius, Hist. Ecc. V. 20: "In the letter to Florinus, of which we have spoken, Irenaeus mentions again his intimacy with Polycarp, saying: “These doctrines, O Florinus [i.e. the Gnostic doctrines newly espoused by Florinus], to speak mildly, are not of sound judgment. These doctrines disagree with the Church, and drive into the greatest impiety those who accept them. These doctrines, not even the heretics outside of the Church, have ever dared to publish. These doctrines, the presbyters who were before us, and who were companions of the apostles, did not deliver to thee. “For when I was a boy, I saw thee in lower Asia with Polycarp, moving in splendor in the royal court, and endeavoring to gain his approbation. I remember the events of that time more clearly than those of recent years. For what boys learn, growing with their mind, becomes joined with it; so that I am able to describe the very place in which the blessed Polycarp sat as he discoursed, and his goings out and his comings in, and the manner of his life, and his physical appearance, and his discourses to the people, and the accounts which he gave of his intercourse with John and with the others who had seen the Lord. And as he remembered their words, and what he heard from them concerning the Lord, and concerning his miracles and his teaching, having received them from eyewitnesses of the ‘Word of life,’ Polycarp related all things in harmony with the Scriptures. These things being told me by the mercy of God, I listened to them attentively, noting them down, not on paper, but in my heart. And continually, through God’s grace, I recall them faithfully. And I am able to bear witness before God that if that blessed and apostolic presbyter had heard any such thing, he would have cried out, and stopped his ears, and as was his custom, would have exclaimed, O good God, unto what times hast thou spared me that I should endure these things? And he would have fled from the place where, sitting or standing, he had heard such words. And this can be shown plainly from the letters which he sent, either to the neighboring churches for their confirmation, or to some of the brethren, admonishing and exhorting them.” Thus far Irenaeus."

73. See Appendix 9 on Polycarp.

74. On Cerdon see note 20.

75. §1. EPIPHANIUS Panarion (about AD 375), probably drawing on the lost Syntagma of Hippolytus, 42.1.1 "Marcion, the founder of the Marcionites, took his cue from Cerdon and appeared before the world as a great serpent himself. And because he deceived a large number of people in many ways, even to this day, he became head of a school. (2) The sect is still to be found even now, in Rome and Italy, Egypt and Palestine, Arabia and Syria, Cyprus and Thebaid--in Persia too, moreover, and other places. For the evil one in him has lent great strength to the deceit. 42.1.3 It is very commonly said that he was a native of Pontus--I mean Helenpontus and the city of Sinope. (4) In early life he was an ascetic, if you please, for he was a hermit, and the son of a bishop of our holy catholic church. But in time he unfortunately became acquainted with a virgin, cheated the virgin of her hope and degraded both her and himself. For her seduction he was excommunicated by his own father. ... 42.1.7 As Marcion could not wheedle what he required out of him he felt unable to bear the people's ridicule and fled from his city, and he arrived at Rome itself after the death of Hyginus, the bishop of Rome. (Hyginus was ninth in succession from the apostles Peter and Paul.) Meeting the elders who were still alive and had been taught by the pupils of the apostles, he asked for permission to the church; and no one allowed it to him. (8) Finally, inflamed with jealousy at not getting the headship of the church as well as entry into it, he thought of an expedient, and took refuge in the sect of the fraud, Cerdon. ... 42.2.8 Then Marcion became jealous and was roused to great anger and pride, and since he was that sort of person he made the rent. He became head of his own sect and said, I shall rend your church, and make a permanent rent in it.' He did indeed make a rent of no small proportions, but by rending himself and his converts, not the church"
§2. The chronology of Marcion's sojourn in Rome is complicated, and riddled with inconsistencies, in the standard studies, but only because of a refusal to accept the statements in the original sources, especially the date of Marcion's expulsion from the First Church of Rome in Tertullian, viz. the era of Bishop Eleutherus or shortly thereafter (c. AD 175-189). This dating is rejected because the existence of two separated churches is not contemplated in the usual reconstruction. At the very time when Marcion was outlawed as a heretic by Justin Martyr at the Timothinian Baths (his First Apology mentioning the worldwide spread of Marcion's heresy dates from around the third quarter of the second century AD), and by other orthodox Bible-teachers, he was actually an active, even an overactive, member of the First Church of Rome! In simple summary: Marcion arrived in Rome around AD 141 (just after the death of Bishop Hyginus of the First Church, according to Epiphanius). He was rejected at that time or soon thereafter by the Bible-believing congregation at the Timothinian Baths (Santa Pudenziana), and then joined the First Church as an adherent of Cerdon. (Cerdon continued professing orthodox beliefs within the First Church in the time of Hyginus.) After Cerdon's death Marcion became head of Cerdon's school within the First Church (as Tertullian affirms) at least as early as the episcopate of Bishop Anicetus, and probably earlier c. AD 144 , as the Marcionites dated the birth of their movement some 115 years after Christ, presumably from the baptism of Christ in the 15th year of Tiberius c. AD 29. He continued in this position, "flourishing" (according to Irenaeus) in the episcopate of Anicetus (c. AD 155-166) and planting his movement in other countries (as Justin informs us), till the episcopate of Eleutherus (c. AD 175-189), latterly with varied fortunes. At last he was expelled from the First Church, and started his own sect, outside of the First Church and the Bible-believing orthodox communion.
§3. Other relevant quotations: Tertullian Adv. Marc. I. xix. 2-3: "Of this teacher there is no doubt that he is a heretic of the Antonine period, impious under the pious. Now, from Tiberius to Antoninus Pius, there are about 115 years and 6 1/2 months. Just such an interval do they place between Christ and Marcion. Inasmuch, then, as Marcion, as we have shown, first introduced this God to notice in the time of Antoninus, the matter becomes at once clear, if you are a shrewd observer. The dates already decide the case, that he who came to light for the first time in the reign of Antoninus, did not appear in that of Tiberius; in other words, that the God of the Antonine period was not the God of the Tiberian; and consequently, that he whom Marcion has plainly preached for the first time, was not revealed by Christ (who announced His revelation as early as the reign of Tiberius)." "De quo tamen constat, Antoninianus haereticus est, sub Pio impius. A Tiberio autem usque ad Antoninum anni fere cxv et dimidium anni cum dimidio mensis. Tantundem temporis ponunt inter Christum et Marcionem. [3] Cum igitur sub Antonino primus Marcion hunc deum induxerit, sicut probavimus, statim, qui sapis, plana res est. Praeiudicant tempora quod sub Antonino primum processit sub Tiberio non processisse, id est deum Antoniniani imperii Tiberiani non fuisse, atque ita non a Christo revelatum quem constat a Marcione primum praedicatum." Tertullian Praes. Haer. xxx. 1-3: "Where was Marcion then, that shipmaster of Pontus, the zealous student of Stoicism? Where was Valentinus then, the disciple of Platonism? For it is evident that those men lived not so long ago, — in the reign of Antoninus for the most part, — and that they at first were believers in the doctrine of the Catholic Church, in the church of Rome under the episcopate of the blessed Eleutherus [Tertullian broke away from the First Church about the time of Victor, Eleutherus' successor], until on account of their ever restless curiosity, with which they even infected the brethren, they were more than once expelled. Marcion, indeed, [went] with the two hundred thousand sesterces [Roman currency, but the amount is uncertain: sestertius, masc., is a single sesterce, a small silver coin originally worth two and a half copper asses, whilst sestertium, neut., is a thousand sesterces: unfortunately they both have the same abl. plural, which is the case and number in Tertullian here, so the figure can also (and, in view of Marcion's rather substantial business background as a shipmaster, less probably) be interpreted as "two hundred sesterces"] which he had brought into the church, and, when banished at last to a permanent excommunication, they scattered abroad the poisons of their doctrines. Afterwards, it is true, Marcion professed repentance, and agreed to the conditions granted to him — that he should receive reconciliation if he restored to the church all the others whom he had been training for perdition: he was prevented, however, by death." "XXX. [1] Vbi tunc Marcion, ponticus nauclerus, Stoicae studiosus? ubi Valentinus Platonicae sectator? [2] Nam constat illos neque adeo olim fuisse, Antonini fere principatu, et in catholicae primo doctrinam credidisse apud ecclesiam Romanensem sub episcopatu Eleutherii benedicti, donec ob inquietam semper eorum curiositatem, qua fratres quoque uitabant, semel et iterum eiecti, Marcion quidem cum ducentis sestertiis quae ecclesiae intulerat, nouissime in perpetuum discidium relegati, uenena doctrinarum suarum disseminauerunt. [3] Postmodum Marcion paenitentiam confessus cum condicioni datae sibi occurrit, ita pacem recepturus si ceteros quoque, quos perditioni erudisset, ecclesiae restitueret, morte praeuentus est."

76. This Pudens is mentioned by Paul shortly before his martyrdom, but not then as a pastor: II Timothy, 4. 6-22: "6 For I [Paul] am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. 7 I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: 8 Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing. 9 ¶ Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me: 10 For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica; Crescens to Galatia, Titus unto Dalmatia. 11 Only Luke is with me. Take Mark, and bring him with thee: for he is profitable to me for the ministry. 12 And Tychicus have I sent to Ephesus. 13 The cloke that I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest, bring with thee, and the books, but especially the parchments. 14 Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil: the Lord reward him according to his works: 15 Of whom be thou ware also; for he hath greatly withstood our words. 16 ¶ At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me: I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge. 17 Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me; that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear: and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion. 18 And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom: to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen. 19 Salute Prisca and Aquila, and the household of Onesiphorus. 20 Erastus abode at Corinth: but Trophimus have I left at Miletum sick. 21 Do thy diligence to come before winter. Eubulus greeteth thee, and Pudens, and Linus, and Claudia, and all the brethren. 22 The Lord Jesus Christ be with thy spirit. Grace be with you. Amen. The second epistle unto Timotheus, ordained the first bishop of the church of the Ephesians, was written from Rome, when Paul was brought before Nero the second time."

77. §1. Liber Pontificalis (Book of the Popes), under the name Pius: "Hic ex rogatu beate Praxedis dedicavit aecclesiam thermas Novati, in vico Patricii, in honore sororis sue sanctae Potentianae, ubi et multa dona obtulit; ubi et sepius sacrificium Domino offerens ministrabat. Inmo et frontem baptismi construit fecit, manus suas benedixit et consecravit; et multos venientes ad fidem baptizavit in nomine Trinitatis." "Following the request of the blessed Praxedes [daughter of Pudens], he [Pius] dedicated the baths of Novatus [son of Pudens in some accounts] on the Vicus Patricius as a church in honor of her sister, the holy Potentiana, where also he made many offerings, and where quite frequently he used to minister, offering sacrifice to the Lord. He also had a baptismal font to be constructed, and blessed and consecrated it with his own hands; and many coming to faith he baptized in the Name of the Trinity."
§2. The Liber Pontificalis is a late reworking of early historical items mixed with semi-historical tradition and legend. Duchesne in his edition of the Liber Pontificalis (i, p. 133, fn. 8) notes that this account has some relationship to the Acts of Saints Pudentiana and Praxedes or The Acts of Pastor and Timothy (after 8th century AD), which give a fuller account than the Liber Pontificalis (see for this account Acta Sanctorum , Maii iv, 297-301). These Acts consist of a letter from the presbyter Pastor [supposed to be Hermas, author of the Pastor (Shepherd) of Hermas and brother of Pius] to another presbyter called Timothy [supposed to be Paul's disciple] and the reply of the latter. A short narrative is appended. The story told in these Acts is as follows:
§3. There was a certain Christian called Pudens in Rome whose mother was named Priscilla. She owned some property and had shown great zeal in entertaining Apostles and strangers. After the death of his own wife, Pudens consecrated his house as a church [= Santa Pudenziana]. This church in the house of Pudens was erected into a Roman parish under the name of titulus Pastoris (the presbyter Pastor being placed in charge of it). [This implies Santa Pudenziana was originally known as the church "of Pastor" Hermas, i.e. "The Church of the Shepherd"] Pudens passed his remaining days in prayer, fasting and charitable deeds, along with his two daughters, Praxedis [Praxedes] and Potentiana [Pudentiana], chaste virgins. After Pudens' death, the two daughters obtained the consent of [Pastor's brother] Pius, a bishop himself, to the building of a baptistery adjoining the church. Pius drew the plan of the baptistery with his own hand and frequently attended the church and led the worship there. When the virgin Potentiana deceased, the letter of Pastor informs us, Pastor himself and Praxedis her sister placed her body by the side of that of her father in the Cemetery of Priscilla [evidently here the Priscilla who gave her name to the cemetery is the mother of Pudens] on the Via Salaria.
§4. Now begins what in some MSS. is called the "Acts of Praxedis", which relate how the church on the Vicus Patricius came to be named after Pudentiana or Potentiana. Many noble Christians, including bishop Pius, came to console Praxedis on the loss of her sister. Amongst them was a certain Novatus, described as the brother of one Timothy, though not in these Acts as a son of Pudens (as in later Martyrologies). Novatus later fell ill and Pastor and Praxedis visited him in his affliction: the issue was that he left them the whole of his property in his will. A letter containing all this information was sent to his brother Timothy to find out what he would want them to do in the matter of his brother's estate. Timothy's reply was that he rejoiced at what his brother had done and he was happy to leave the disposition in the hands of Praxedis and Pastor. After these letters comes a narrative of what followed. Praxedis asked bishop Pius that the Baths of Novatus, which at that time were not in use, should be consecrated as a church. Pius consented. Then follows a note on how Pius named this church on the Vicus Patricius, which incorporated the Baths of Novatus, after the departed sister Potentiana, and also another church after the sister Praxedis [= Santa Prassede]: "Thermasque Novati dedicavit ecclesiam sub nomine beatae virginis Potentianae in vico Patricio. Dedicavit autem et aliam sub nomine sanctae virginis Praxedis infra urbem Romam, in vico qui appellatur Lateranus." "Also the Baths of Novatus he [Pius] dedicated as a church with the name of the blessed virgin Potentiana on the Vicus Patricius. Moreover he dedicated the other church inside the boundaries of Rome with the name of the sainted virgin Praxedes on the Vicus Lateranus." The whole narrative is constructed to explain the naming of these churches and the connection with Pius.
§5. The events in the Acts before the naming of the churches by Pius seem to be pictured as occurring in the first few decades of the second century AD, when the aged Hermas (Pastor) was bishop of the congregation at Pudens' house, presumably following bishop Alexander. Hermas' (younger?) brother Pius had not apostatized at this time and was therefore active in the congregation at Pudens' house. However, the wording of the entry in the Book of Popes presumes Pius was no longer active as bishop at the church in Pudens' house at that time when he named the churches. I.e. by that time Pius had apostatized and gone over to the Gnostics at Santa Prassede. Pius was still at Pudens' house-church at the time of Potentiana's funeral and had some time later consented to the consecration of the Baths of Novatus (still as a member of that congregation). However, he would only have named the two churches after his apostasy, as a means of falsely accrediting the Gnostic church at Santa Prassede as a spiritual "twin-sister" of the church at Pudens' house.
§6. Whatever Pius may have been pleased to call it, there is no evidence that the Christians at Pudens' house ever called their own church "Potentiana", after Pudens' daughter (nor for that matter the other church "Praxedis"). In Justin's time it was known as the Timothinian Baths - presumably after Timothy the last owner of the site before it became a church. Its previous name in the Book of Popes and the Acts was "the Baths of Novatus" or earlier (according to the Acts) the "Titulus Pastoris" "Pastor's Church". The usual name from the fourth century on was "Ecclesia Pudentiana" ("The Church of Pudens"), producing the modern name "Santa Pudenziana", or "Titulus Pudentis" (attested AD 528, "Pudens' Church"). However, the historical existence of the two daughters of Pudens is corroborated by the fact that their tombs and that of Pudens are mentioned in the "Liberian Calendar" and in the "Pilgrim Itineraries" as existing in the fourth and fifth centuries in the Cemetery of Priscilla, where, according to the Acts, they were buried. Modern archaeology has consistently confirmed the general reliability of the old traditions respecting early Christians buried in the Catacombs of Priscilla. Paschal I in his translation of the remains of saints from the catacombs into the city in AD 817 brought the sarcophagi of SS. Pudentiana and Praxedis to Santa Prassede, and the names of both are recorded on a catalogue inscribed on a marble slab to the right of the altar there, and their portraits appear in the mosaics of this date, which adorn the church.
§7. The Baths of Novatus on the Vicus Patricius at Santa Pudenziana were certainly not changed into a church building of the familiar kind until after Constantine legitimized the Christian religion, but continued in use as baths for some time. Before that, this edifice was simply a house-church (ecclesia domestica) of the early Christians of Rome which happened to have baths included in the structure. Excavations on the Viminal Hill in 1930 (Terenzio, Bulletino della Commissione Archeologica Comunale di Roma, 1931) confirmed the broad outline of the tradition about the baths of Novatus. In the substructure of Santa Pudenziana the remains of the baths were found, making up part of the masonry of a most vast and complex thermal edifice at three levels. A house from the Republican (i.e. pre-Christian) period formed the base of the baths, which were in use in the second century AD. The baths were located under the floor of the later church.

78. Rev L. Smithett Lewis, late vicar of Glastonbury from St Joseph of Arimathea at Glastonbury, James Clarke & Co, London, 1955. Chapter Two. "There was probably no other aboveground church in Rome than the Titulus [ = Santa Pudenziana - ed.] till the time of Constantine the Great, when the Empire followed him in becoming Christian about AD 326 [this statement is factually incorrect: the author is not aware of the existence and history of Santa Prassede, and of St Mary in Trastevere, founded by Bishop Callistus. It is interesting to note the claim that this Titulus* – or Hospitium Apostolorum, or Palatium Britannicum – was the abode of Rufus Pudens, the Roman noble who married Claudia Britannica, the most cultured woman in Rome, apparently daughter of the British king, Caractacus, and sister of Linus, Bishop of Rome.** [FOOTNOTE ON THE WORD TITULUS: * This "most ample house" with its baths named after Timothy and Novatus, two of the children (sic) of Rufus and Claudia, built on Viminalis Hill, became first a place where their daughter Praxedes hid martyrs, then a hospice for pilgrims from the East, and under Pope Evaristus (AD 100-109) a church, and was called Pastor’s, probably after Pastor Hermas, who wrote to them. Baronius expressly calls St. Timothy a disciple of St. Peter and St. Paul (Baronius, Vol 2, Sec. 56, p47). Pastor Hermas says that all four children, Timotheus, Novatus, Praxedes and Pudentiana, were instructed by preaching of the Apostles (Baronius, Vol. 2, Sec. 8-148.). FOOTNOTE ON LINUS: ** Bishop, AD 69, martyred AD 90 (Baronius, Vol. 1, p778). ... SS Peter and Paul ... Linus succeeded them.]
On the site of this house where St. Paul probably lived with the British Royal Family in exile, and from which he was probably martyred, is now a church dedicated to St. Pudentiana, one of the martyred daughters of Pudens and Claudia. Pudens died, martyred, AD 96, and Claudia, who survived him one year, is said to have given the Titulus to be a Home for the Faithful, afterwards, between AD 100-109, to become a Christian church ....
It is very interesting to note how the ancient British Royal Family was intimately connected with the earliest Apostolic Church, both in exile at Rome, and in Britain, where they fostered it. And there is a most interesting relic of the friendship of St. Paul and the Caractacus family in the existence of contemporary portraits of St. Paul and Linus engraved in two glass paterae (in the Vatican Museum) depicted in Sir Wyke Bayliss’s Rex Regum (pp 60, 61). In the same Museum and the same book (pp. 73-75) there are contemporary portraits engraved on glass medallions with lines filled in with gold of (1) St. John, Damas, St. Peter and St. Paul; (2) St. Peter and St. Paul; (3) Justin and St. Timothy, which makes all these people live to us.
The Roman poet Martial shows that Claudia Rufina was British. [He calls her "Claudia peregrina et edita Britannis" (Foreign Claudia native of the Britons) (Martial, 13B, XI, 53).] "Since Claudia wife of Rufus comes from the blue-set Britons, how is it that she has so won the hearts of the Latin people?" He praises her beauty and that of her three children as greater than that of Greeks and Italians. It is interesting that he speaks of Rufus as her "holy husband". In an earlier epigram he had written, "The foreign Claudia marries my Rufus Pudens". Martial was born in Bilbilis in Spain, and went to Rome AD 65. He wrote the above poem about AD 68. About the same time St. Paul links together the name of Pudens, Linus and Claudia with Eubulus in his greetings to St. Timothy from Rome (2 Tim, iv, 21). In Romans xvi, 13, he sends greetings from Corinth to "Rufus chosen in the Lord, and his mother, and mine" .... A Pudens, servant of the Emperor Claudius, is named among the sepulchral chambers of the Imperial household. It is a matter, too, of interest that the name of Pudens is also in the well- known Latin inscription on a stone discovered at Chichester, which narrates that Pudens, son of Pudentinus, gave a site there for a Temple to Neptune and Minerva. The inscription also bears the name of the Emperor Tiberius Claudius, who died in AD 37. This would be before the conversion of Rufus Pudens, and the dates fit in well. Baronius tells us that Rufus the Senator received St. Peter [sic Baronius following here the common Roman Catholic myth - ed.] into his house on the Viminalis Hill in the year AD 44. [FOOTNOTE: Baronius’ Annales, Sec. 61, f.365. Those who wish to study more closely the question of Rufus Pudens, Claudia, Linus, St. Pudentiana, and St. Timothy, should refer to Ussher, Brit. Eccl. Antiq., p. 19; Archdeacon Williams’s Claudia and Pudens; the Rev. R. W. Morgan’s St. Paul in Britain, in which the matter is fully treated; and Conybeare and Howson’s Life and Epistles of St. Paul, Vol II, pp. 581, 582, 594, 595; and Baronius’s Annales Ecclesiastic, Vol. I, p. 228, re Vol 2, Sec. 56, p.64; Secs. IV and V, pp. 111-112; Secs. I and II, pp. 148 and 150.]
He was apparently a Christian then, before receiving St. Peter. [See note above on Peter in Rome - ed.] If he be the Pudens of the Chichester inscription he was apparently converted between these two dates. Was Rufus Pudens, the Roman, converted in Britain? Was it he who first brought Christianity into the British Royal Family, when or before he married Gladys, soon by an easy transition to become Claudia? It is a fascinating question.
Cressy in his Church History of Brittany, 1618, tells us "Our ancient histories report that Timotheus the eldest son of Rufus came into Brittany [sic] where he converted many to the faith, and at least disposed King Lucius to his succeeding conversion." And Cardinal Baronius distinctly says that Timotheus was a son of the most noble Roman Senator, Rufus Pudens, a disciple of SS. Peter and Paul" (Vol. 2, Sec. LVI, p47) .... Some think that as a result of these early efforts, when Caractacus and his family went to Rome as prisoners in AD 51, his sister Gladys, his daughters, Gladys (who, in compliment to the Emperor Claudius is said to have taken the name Claudia on her marriage to Rufus Pudens), and Euergen, [St Euergen of Caer Salog (Salisbury) and of Llan Illtud, South Wales, was the first British female saint] and Linus his son were already Christians; but Caractacus and his aged father Bran, who had become an Arch-Druid, were unconverted, probably through troubles of State and war. [That Tacitus does not mention Bran being taken prisoner is not a great obstacle. He may have been taken prisoner, but unknown to Tacitus, or Bran may well have joined his son, after the latter was given his life and freedom to live in Rome.]
The Welsh Triads say that Bran was baptized in Rome in AD 58 by St. Paul. Bp. Edwards of St. Asaph’s Landmarks in the history of the Welsh Church, p.2. The date given by the Triads is impossible. St. Paul did not go to Rome till AD 62. The date 58 is probably the date of the baptism, and the Apostle’s name an addition. The Triads hail from the book of Caradoc of Llancarvan, who died in 1156, but most of the events in them refer to the 6th century. And some must be older than that - one speaks of Glastonbury, Llan Illtud and Ambresbury as the three principal Choirs of Britain, but Ambresbury fell in the 6th century.] When they came back they were Christians, and thenceforth fostered and protected in Siluria or South Wales the Christian Church. Bran returned to Britain before Caractacus, AD 58, very probably as a missionary.
Bran Vendigaid, or the Blessed, was a very remarkable personality. The Welsh Triads not only speak of him as one of the introducers of Christianity, [Triads, 18 and 35, 3rd series. Myvyrian Arch., vol 2] but together with Prydain and Dyfnwal as the three who consolidated elective monarchy in Britain. The Triads call the descendants of Bran one of the Three Holy Families of Britain. [Bran is stated to have returned mortally wounded from his punitive expedition to Ireland, and ordered his companions to carry his head to be buried in the White Hill, London (where the White Tower now stands), as a protection against future invasions, and there it remamed till, some 500 years later, King Arthur had it removed. Vide Mabinogion. The Mabinogion (plural of Mabinogi) are the oldest remains of Welsh mythological sagas. Every young Bard had to learn them by heart, which confirms Caesar’s statement that the Druids never committed their learning to writing, although it is said that they used Greek letters in writing.]

79. See note 20 §1.

80. See note 77 above §3ff.

80a. Eusebius, Hist. Ecc. IV. xxii. 1-3: "HEGESIPPUS in the five books of Memoirs which 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 received 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. His words are as follows: "And the church in of Corinth continued in the true faith until Primus was bishop in Corinth [implying some churches and/or Corinth itself did not]. I conversed with them on my way to Rome, and abode with the Corinthians many days, during which we were mutually refreshed in the true doctrine. And when I had come to Rome I formed [or, completed, or supplied] a succession [Gk. diadochên epoiêsamên] until Anicetus, whose deacon was Eleutherus. And Anicetus was succeeded by Soter, and he by Eleutherus. In every succession, and in every city that is held which is preached by the law and the prophets and the Lord."

81. Martyrdom of the Holy Martyrs Justin etc. 2: Rusticus the prefect said, “Where do you assemble?” Justin said, “Where each one chooses and can: for do you fancy that we all meet in the very same place? Not so; because the God of the Christians is not circumscribed by place; but being invisible, fills heaven and earth, and everywhere is worshipped and glorified by the faithful.” Rusticus the prefect said, “Tell me where you assemble, or into what place do you collect your followers?” Justin said, “I live above one Martinus, at the Timothinian Bath [= Santa Pudenziana]; and during the whole time (and I am now living in Rome for the second time) I am unaware of any other meeting than his. And if any one wished to come to me, I communicated to him the doctrines of truth.” Rusticus said, “Are you not, then, a Christian?” Justin said, “Yes, I am a Christian.”

82. Justin Martyr, Second Apology 6: "For He was made man also, as we before said, having been conceived according to the will of God the Father, for the sake of believing men, and for the destruction of the demons. And now you can learn from what is under your own observation. For numberless demoniacs throughout the whole world, and in your city [Rome], many of our Christian men exorcising them in the name of Jesus Christ, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, have healed and do heal, rendering helpless and driving the possessing devils out of the men, though they could not be cured by all the other exorcists, and those who used incantations and drugs."

83. Tertullian, On Fasting, 16: "But it is enough for me that you, by heaping blasphemies upon our xerophagies [fasts in which certain types of food only were permitted, including especially the one before Passover], put them on a level with the chastity of an Isis and a Cybele. I admit the comparison in the way of evidence. Hence (our xerophagy) will be proved divine, which the devil, the emulator of things divine, imitates. It is out of truth that falsehood is built out of religion that superstition is compacted." The whole argument of this tract of Tertullian is aimed at orthodox, Bible-believing, Christians who charged that the fasts imposed on those who celebrated the Passover ritual of Tertullian (the same ritual as was followed in the First Church of Rome) were comparable to the ritual, ascetic, fasts imposed in paganism on devotees of Isis and the Great Mother goddess, Cybele, at the time of the pagan spring festival. The basic (anti-Jewish) Passover ritual had always been practiced in the First Church but was latterly adopted by the Montanists, Tertullian himself being a fervent Montanist. This ritual developed out of the Docetist belief that the bread of the eucharist was the material body of the Supreme or Good God. The adherents of this doctrine abstained from taking communion with those who believed the eucharist represented the body of the historical Jesus who had suffered on the Cross and been raised from the dead. With the (magical) importance of their eucharist uppermost in their minds, the bishops of the First Church even sent portions of it out to any in other churches who were willing to receive it. Those who received this eucharist in other churches and practiced other rituals at the same time, e.g. the Jewish Passover celebrated by the disciples of John, were not at first excommunicated by the bishops of the First Church. When the Montanists took it up, however, they added an obligatory element which was not present originally, because in Montanism rituals of this kind were now declared to be commandments of the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit. From the Montanists the First Church adopted the idea of making the Passover fast obligatory and added this to its already-existing ritual. It is obligatory to this day in Roman Catholicism (Lent). Now those who celebrated the Jewish Passover were summarily excommunicated by the First Church. Irenaeus rebuked the First Church bishop, Victor, for having thus altered the practice of his predecessors (see notes 67 §1 and 70 above). The Lenten fast of seven weeks before Easter was, according to the 6th century Liber Pontificalis, instituted in Rome by bishop Telesphorus (sub nom.).

83a. Bede De Temporum Ratione xv: "In olden times the English people -- for it did not seem fitting to me that I should speak of other nations' observance of the year and yet be silent about my own nation's-- calculated their months according to the course of the Moon. Hence, after the manner of the Greeks and the Romans, [the months] take their name from the Moon, for the moon is called mona and each month monath. The first month, which the Latins call January, is Giuli; February is called Solmonath; March Hrethmonath; April, Eosturmonath .... Eosturmonath has a name which is now translated "Paschal month", and which was once called after a goddess of theirs named Eostre, in whose honor feasts were celebrated in that month. Now they designate that Paschal season by her name, calling the joys of the new rite by the time-honored name of the old observance"

84. See note 20 §1.

85. Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. I. xxv. 6: "Others of them employ outward marks, branding their disciples inside the lobe of the right ear. From among these also arose Marcellina, who came to Rome under [the episcopate of] Anicetus, and, holding these doctrines, she led multitudes astray. They style themselves Gnostics. They also possess images, some of them painted, and others formed from different kinds of material; while they maintain that a likeness of Christ was made by Pilate at that time when Jesus lived among them. They crown these images, and set them up along with the images of the philosophers of the world that is to say, with the images of Pythagoras, and Plato, and Aristotle, and the rest. They have also other modes of honoring these images, after the same manner of the Gentiles."

86. The following quotation relates to a subsequent phase of the Paschal controversy, in the sixth-century Celtic West, but it shows how the First Church promoted paganism (including their obligatory Paschal ritual) by playing it off against Judaism: Bede, Ecclesiastical History, III. xxv: "Then Wilfrid [the representative of the First Church of Rome], being ordered by the king to speak, delivered himself thus :- 'The Easter which we observe, we saw celebrated by all at Rome, where the blessed apostles, Peter and Paul, lived, taught, suffered, and were buried; we saw the same done in Italy and in France, when we traveled through those countries for pilgrimage and prayer. We found the same practiced in Africa, Asia, Egypt, Greece, and all the world, wherever the church of Christ is spread abroad, through several nations and tongues, at one and the same time; except only these and their accomplices in obstinacy, I mean the Picts and the Britons, who foolishly, in these two remote islands of the world, and only in part even of them, oppose all the rest of the universe. When he had so said, Colman answered, 'It is strange that you will call our labors foolish, wherein we follow the example of so great an apostle, who was thought worthy to lay his head on our Lord's bosom, when all the world knows him to have lived most wisely.' Wilfrid replied, 'Far be it from us to charge John with folly, for he literally observed the precepts of the Jewish law, whilst the church still Judaized in many points, and the apostles were not able at once to cast off all the observances of the law which had been instituted by God. In which way it is necessary that all who come to the faith should forsake the idols which were invented by devils, that they might not give scandal to the Jews that were among the Gentiles. For this reason it was, that Paul circumcised Timothy, that he offered sacrifice in the temple, that he shaved his head with Aquila and Priscilla at Corinth; for no other advantage than to avoid giving scandal to the Jews. Hence it was, that James said, to the same Paul, 'You see, brother, how many thousands of the Jews have believed; and they are all zealous for the law.' And yet, at this time, the Gospel spreading throughout the world, it is needless, nay, it is not lawful, for the faithful either to be circumcised, or to offer up to God sacrifices of flesh.'"

87. See note 70 above.

88. Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. III. iii. 4: To these things all the Asiatic Churches testify, as do also those men who have succeeded Polycarp down to the present time, - a man who was of much greater weight, and a more steadfast witness of truth, than Valentinus, and Marcion, and the rest of the heretics. He it was who, coming to Rome in the time of Anicetus caused many to turn away from the aforesaid heretics to the Church of God, proclaiming that he had received this one and sole truth from the apostles, - that, namely, which is handed down by the Church."

89. Tertullian, Praesc. Haer. 30: "Where was Marcion then, that shipmaster of Pontus, the zealous student of Stoicism? Where was Valentinus then, the disciple of Platonism? For it is evident that those men lived not so long ago, — in the reign of Antoninus for the most part, — and that they at first were believers in the doctrine of the Catholic Church, in the church of Rome under the episcopate of the blessed Eleutherus [AD 175-189], until on account of their ever restless curiosity, with which they even infected the brethren, they were more than once expelled. Marcion, indeed, [went] with the two hundred thousand sesterces which he had brought into the church, and, when banished at last to a permanent excommunication, they scattered abroad the poisons of their doctrines. Afterwards, it is true, Marcion professed repentance, and agreed to the conditions granted to him — that he should receive reconciliation if he restored to the church all the others whom he had been training for perdition: he was prevented, however, by death."

90. See note 85 above.

91. Hippolytus, Ref. VI. 15: "The disciples, then, of this [Simon] (Magus), celebrate magical rites, and resort to incantations. And (they profess to) transmit both love-spells and charms, and the demons said to be senders of dreams, for the purpose of distracting whomsoever they please. But they also employ those denominated Paredroi. “And they have an image of Simon (fashioned) into the figure of Jupiter, and (an image) of Helen in the form of Minerva; and they pay adoration to these.” But they call the one Lord and the other Lady. And if any one amongst them, on seeing the images of either Simon or Helen, would call them by name, he is cast off, as being ignorant of the mysteries."

92. The full inscription reads: "Semoni Sanco Deo Fidio SACRVM Sex. Pompeius. S. P. F. Col. Mussianvs Quinquennalis Decur Bidentalis Donum Dedit."

92a. In 139 BC the praetor of Rome, Cornelius Hispalus, "compelled the Jews to return to their homes because they attempted to corrupt Roman morals through their cult of Jupiter Sabazius." This event took place about a year after Simon, the Hasmonean ruler, delegated Numenius, son of Antiochus, and Antipater, son of Jason, as envoys to the Roman Senate to plead on behalf of the Jews. The Jewish Sabazius cult is probably the single, most important, medium by which Hebrew traditions became intermingled with Graeco-Roman paganism. It seems to have been born in the area of Cappadocia, or Pontus, in Armenia, some time after the Assyrian captivity (8th century BC), when members of a Jewish family called Shabbati (the name formed from the Hebrew word shabbat = "sabbath") were established in a new exilic home in Armenia. There the family name was corrupted into the form Shambat. The family was also known as the Bagratunids. (The story of the Bagratunids is preserved in the great History of the Armenians of Moses of Khorene, based on an earlier history, now lost, of one Mar Apas Catina.) These exiles "over the River Sambathion" - the river name presumably derived from that of the family - are famed in Jewish legend. As the family prospered, their Judaism became mingled with the paganism of the Gentiles amongst whom they had settled. Some time after the conquest of Alexander the Great, they adopted the cult of Zeus and titled him "Sabazios" (Greek) or "Sabazius" (Latin), meaning the Zeus "of the Shabbati clan". The God of their ancestors, identified now with Zeus, was titled by them the "Highest God" (Greek Hupsistos) , in contrast, presumably, to the lesser gods of the Gentile pantheon. The religious members of the family also sought connections between their native Hebrew religious traditions and those of their adopted homeland. Now, Armenia featured in one of the most striking histories in the Hebrew scriptures, namely the history of Noah and the Flood, for it was on the "Mountains of Ararat" (commonly translated "Armenia") that the Ark of Noah landed. This mountain was identified with Mount Masius, the highest peak in Armenia. (The Hebrew name spelt a-r-r-t in the consonantal Hebrew text, and read as Ararat in modern translations, is more likely, in reality, the name of the town Arattu in Mesopotamia, which is situated in the region of Shuruppak, where Ziusudra-Noah lived, according to the native Mesopotamian traditions.) Having identified this peak in their new homeland as the place of descent from the Ark, whence all the nations of the world dispersed, the Shambat clan promoted in their exilic home the cult of Noah and his family. Many pictures of Noah and the Ark have been found from this period in the neighboring regions, and these combine Biblical with pagan motifs. A Sibyl, or heathen prophetess, called Sambethe (i.e. "female of the Shambat clan"), also written Sabbe, was declared to have been the bride of a son of Noah, and to have prophesied many things relating to the future history of the sons of Noah. Fragments of the oracular utterances ascribed to Sambethe are found embedded in the Jewish-Christian forgeries known as the Sibylline Oracles, especially III. 117-361 (Greek text, 97-294). Sambethe had a shrine in Thyatira in Asia Minor and the reference in Rev. 2. 20 to the "Jezebel" of Thyatira who calls herself a prophetess is evidently an allusion to the cult of Sambethe. In the Sibylline fragments (III. 132 etc.), Noah has a son called Cronus (Kronos), which is simply the Greek form of the name Sabbath, both the Greek and Hebrew names being designations of the planet Saturn, the tutelary deity in pagan astrology of the seventh day of the week. This son Cronus or Saturn is elsewhere (first in Theophilus of Antioch and then commonly in Byzantine chronicles) identified as Noah's son Shem, the ancestor of the Hebrew race, and presumably the husband of Sambethe. Noah also being the first planter of a vineyard, and famous for having himself succumbed to wine, the cult of Zeus Sabazius was characterized by an emphasis on wine and intoxication. Its adherents indulged in drunken orgies and revelry. Sabazius was identified with the Greek vine-god Dionysus, who in turn was identified with the Egyptian Osiris and Serapis. Both in Greece and later in Italy, the cult of Sabazius, like that of Dionysus in the earlier period, was not infrequently suppressed by the authorities because of the excesses of its devotees, as well as for its barbarian (i.e. non-Graeco-Roman) origin and connections. The snake was the emblem of Sabazius. In Pergamum, the cult of Zeus Sabazius was merged with that of the Phrygian Mother Goddess, Cybele, and Sabazius was identified with her male consort, Atys or Attis. From this or a similar line of syncretistic Judaism came the identification of Jews - Latin Iudaei - with the Idaei, the Idaeans, the people of Mount Ida and the adherents of the Idaean Mother, Cybele. This particular identification is attested in Rome (by Tacitus) and doubtless was a way of linking the Romans, who called themselves Idaeans, because they traced their genealogy back through Aeneas from the area of Mount Ida, with the Jewish Sabazius cultists. This identification explains the reference in Revelation 2. 9 to "the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews and are not, but are the Synagogue of Satan [the Serpent, cp. also Rev. 3. 9 and 12. 9, 20. 2]." The number seven (Hebrew sheva) and the motif of the sacred oath (shava, swear, lit. bind by a sevenfold confirmation) are prominent in the cult of Sabazius, presumably because of the significance of the deity's name and its relation to the seventh day Sabbath. Hence the use of the "Sabazius hand", which seems to be a symbol of the oath of the Sabazius mysteries. Later, the Iranian god of the oath, Mithras, became identified with Sabazius, Iranian paganism (or Magism) being prevalent in Armenia, as exemplified by the name Mithradates borne by several of the kings of Pontus. The worshippers of Mithras spread from Cappadocia into Rome in the time of Pompey. The mysteries of Sabazius and Cybele were performed commonly in caverns or in chambers built to resemble caverns. Later, caverns and chambers, sometimes the identical caverns and chambers, were adopted by the Mithraists. In view of the long history of Sabazius syncretism, specifically the mixture of Hebrew and pagan traditions, in Asia Minor and the West many centuries before the Christian era, it is evident why Simon Magus (i.e. a practitioner of Magism, Mithraism being a sect of the Magian religion) and the Gnostics who succeeded him were able to merge the teachings of Jesus so quickly and successfully with Graeco-Roman paganism. The groundwork had already been done for them by the paganized Jews of the Sabazius cult. It may be a group of Sabazius cultists, or a similar cult derived from them, who are denoted under the name "Sebuaeans" (derived, in all probability, from the Heb. shava, swear, or rather shevuah, oath), listed as one of four Samaritan cults, along with the Dositheans, in Epiphanius (Epiphanius, Panarion, Anacephalaiosis 11, 1 [11]) . Simon, originally an adherent of Dositheus, could have borrowed major elements of his system directly from them. Some of the earliest Gnostics were Naassenes and Ophites, both of whom worshipped the divinity in the form of a snake - the emblem of Sabazius - and made much of the cult of Cybele and Attis. Even the name "Gnostic" may be derived from the Sabazius tradition, since Gnostos "raving mad and false" (!) appears as the name of the father of the Sibyl Sambethe and husband of Circe in the Sibylline Oracles (III. 1013). Likewise, details like the identification of Simon with the god Semo Sancus in Rome can be explained from the adoption by Simon of Sabazius traditions, as the god Semo was not only the Roman god of the oath (an important motif in the Sabazius cult) but was also the divine ancestor of the Sabines, a Latin tribe whose name was traditionally equated, rightly or wrongly, with that of the Saboi or adherents of Sabazius.

93. See note 69 above.