Note (return) — Chapter VI

Alcibiades of Apamea, one of their disciples, came from the East to Rome about 220-230, and endeavoured to spread the doctrines of the sect in the Roman Church. He found the soil prepared, inasmuch as he could announce from the "book" forgiveness of sins to all sinful Christians, even the grossest transgressors, and such forgiveness was very much needed. Hippolytus opposed him, and had an opportunity of seeing the book and becoming acquainted with its contents. From his account and that of Origen we gather the following: (1) The sect is a Jewish Christian one, for it requires the νομου πολιτεια (circumcision and the keeping of the Sabbath), and repudiates the Apostle Paul; but it criticises the Old Testament and rejects a part of it. (2) The objects of its faith are the "Great and most High God", the Son of God (the "Great King"), and the Holy Spirit (thought of as female); Son and Spirit appear as angelic powers. Considered outwardly, and according to his birth, Christ is a mere man, but with this peculiarity, that he has already been frequently born and manifested (πολλακις γεννηθεντα και γεννωμενον πεφηνεναι και φυεσθαι, αλλασσοντα γενεσεις και μετενσωματουμενον, cf. the testimony of Victorinus as to Symmachus). From the statements of Hippolytus we cannot be sure whether he was identified with the Son of God,440 at any rate the assumption of repeated births of Christ shews how completely Christianity was meant to be identified with what was supposed to be the pure Old Testament religion. (3) The "book" proclaimed a new forgiveness of sin, which, on condition of faith in the "book" and a real change of mind, was to be bestowed on every one, through the medium of washings, accompanied by definite prayers which are strictly prescribed. In these prayers appear peculiar Semitic speculations about nature ("the seven witnesses: heaven, water, the holy spirits, the angels of prayer, oil, salt, earth"). The old Jewish way of thinking appears in the assumption that all kinds of sickness and misfortune are punishments for sin, and that these penalties must therefore be removed by atonement. The book contains also astrological and geometrical speculations in a religious garb. The main thing, however, was the possibility of a forgiveness of sin, ever requiring to be repeated, though Hippolytus himself was unable to point to any gross laxity. Still, the appearance of this sect represents the attempt to make the religion of Christian Judaism palatable to the world. The possibility of repeated forgiveness of sin, the speculations about numbers, elements, and stars, the halo of mystery, the adaptation to the forms of worship employed in the "mysteries", are worldly means of attraction which shew that this Jewish Christianity was subject to the process of acute secularization. The Jewish mode of life was to be adopted in return for these concessions. Yet its success in the West was of small extent and short-lived.