Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume V/Hippolytus/The Refutation of All Heresies/Book VII/Part 26

by Hippolytus

Chapter XXV.—The Heresy of Cerdon.

But one Cerdon^[1] himself also, taking occasion in like manner from these (heretics) and Simon, affirms that the God preached by Moses and the prophets was not Father of Jesus Christ. For (he contends) that this (Father) had been known, whereas that the Father of Christ^[2] was unknown, and that the former was just, but the latter good. And Marcion corroborated the tenet of this (heretic) in the work which he attempted to write, and which he styled Antitheses.^[3] And he was in the habit, (in this book,) of uttering whatever slanders suggested themselves to his mind against the Creator of the universe. In a similar manner likewise (acted) Lucian,^[4] the disciple of this (heretic).

Footnotes

1. Irenæus, i. 27; Eusebius (who here gives Irenæus’ Greek), Hist. Ecclesiast., iv. 2; Epiphanius, c. xli.; Theodoret, Hær. Fab., i. 24; and Philastrius, c. xliv.
2. Hippolytus follows Irenæus but introduces some alterations.
3. ᾽Αντιθέσεις.  This is the emendation proposed by the Abbe Cruice. The textual reading is ἀντιπαραθέσεις (comparisons).
4. See [ut supra, p. 353], Tertullian, Præscript., c. li., and Epiphanius, Hær., c. xliii.