of this Asiatic Gnosticism; Saturninus of Antioch, Ardo of Syria, and
Marcion of Pontus headed the movement, and after them Lucan, Severus,
Blastes, Apelles, and Bardesanes formed new sects. Tatian (see ante, pp.
259, 260) had many followers called Tatianists, and in connection with
him and his doctrines we hear of the Eucratites, Hydroparastates (the
water-drinkers), and Apotactites. The Eucratites appear to have been in
existence before Tatian professed Gnosticism, but he so increased their
influence as to be sometimes regarded as their founder. The Egyptian
Gnostics were less ascetic, and mostly favoured the idea that Jesus had
a real body on which the Æon descended and joined himself thereunto.
They regarded him as born naturally of Joseph and Mary. Basilides, and
Valentinus headed the Egyptians, and then we have as sub-divisions the
Carpocratians, Ptolemaites, Secundians, Heracleonites, Marcosians,
Adamites, Cainites, Sethites, Florinians, Ophites, Artemonites, and
Hermogenists; in addition to these we have the Monarchians or
Patripassians, who maintained that there was but one God, and that the
Father suffered (whence this name) in the person of Christ. This long
list may be closed with the Montanists, a sect joined by Tertullian (see
his account of the orthodox after he became a Montanist, ante, p. 225);
they held that Montanes, their founder, was the Paraclete promised by
Christ, missioned to complete the Christian code; he forbade second
marriages, the reception into the Church of those who had been
excommunicated for grievous sin, and inculcated the sternest asceticism.
He opposed all learning as anti-Christian, a doctrine which was rapidly
spreading among Christians, and which seems, indeed, to have been an
integral part of the religion from its very beginning (Matt. xi. 25, 1
Cor. i. 26, 27). In the third century the heretic camp received a new
light in the person of Manes, or Manichæus, a Persian magus; he appears
to have been a man of great learning, a physician, an astronomer, a
philosopher. He taught the old Persian creed tinctured with