Note 331 — II. THE COLOSSIAN HERESY.
Reading edition
Pseudo-Tertull. Hær. 3 ‘Carpocrates præterea hanc tulit sectam: Unam esse dicit virtutem in superioribus principalem, ex hac prolatos angelos atque virtutes, quos distantes longe a superioribus virtutibus mundum istum in inferioribus partibus condidisse.... Post hunc Cerinthus hæreticus erupit, similia docens. Nam et ipse mundum institutum esse ab illis dicit’; Epiphan. Hær. xxviii. 1 ἕνα εἶναι τῶν ἀγγέλων τῶν τὸν κόσμον πεποιηκότων; Theodoret. H. F. ii. 3 ἕνα μὲν εἶναι τὸν τῶν ὅλων Θεόν, οὐκ αὐτὸν δὲ εἶναι τοῦ κόσμου δημιουργόν, ἀλλὰ δυνάμεις τινὰς κεχωρισμένας καὶ παντελῶς αὐτὸν ἀγνοούσας; Augustin. Hær. 8. The one statement is quite reconcilable with the other. Among those angels by whose instrumentality the world was created, Cerinthus appears to have assigned a position of preeminence to one, whom he regarded as the demiurge in a special sense and under whom the others worked; see Neander Church History II. p. 43.