One of the female followers of Carpocrates, by name Marcellina, is said to have visited Rome in the time of Anicetus, and to have seduced many(594).
Respecting CERINTHUS, whom we know from Irenæus to have been a contemporary of St. John(595), the information he furnishes is very slight. He did not attribute the Creation to the Angels in a body, but to some one Power far removed from the Supreme Power. He made Jesus a mere man, but more excellent than other men: he affirmed that the Christ had descended upon him at baptism, and made known to him the unknown Father, and empowered him to work miracles, but that he departed from him before the crucifixion, and left him to suffer alone(596).
Section IV. Cerdon, Marcion, Tatian, And The Cainites.
CERDON would seem to be another independent offset from the stock of Simon. He likewise taught a Supreme God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and another inferior deity, who inspired the prophets(597). He joined the church at Rome under Hyginus, its bishop, i. e. about A.D. 141, and appears to have wished by all means to remain in its communion; and accordingly he recanted his error. He could not, however, refrain from spreading it covertly, and being detected, he again recanted; still he kept his heresy, and being at length judged incorrigible, he was withheld from the communion of the Church(598).
MARCION succeeded Cerdon(599), and took up and amplified his doctrine. He likewise made the Creator inferior to the Supreme God, and the author of evil, fond of war, inconsistent, and self-contradictory; and taught that Jesus was sent by the Supreme God to do away all the operations of the Creator, and especially the Law and the Prophets(600). He agreed with other Gnostics in declaring that the soul alone was capable of salvation, and of souls only those which received his doctrine; but the peculiarity of his system was, that Cain, and the Sodomites, and Egyptians, &c. were saved by believing in Jesus, when he descended into hell; but that Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and all the good men and prophets of the Old Covenant, having often been deceived by their God, were afraid to trust in Jesus, and consequently remain still in the state of death(601).