A Source Book for Ancient Church History - Mirrors

Chapter III. The Defence Against Heresy 125prophets and the Gospels. But they glorify these women abovethe Apostles and every gift, so that some of them presume to saythat there was something more in them than in Christ. Theseconfess God the Father of the universe and creator of all things,like the Church, and all that the Gospel witnesses concerningChrist, but invent new fasts and feasts and meals of dry food [109]and meals of radishes, saying that thus they were taught by theirwomen. And some of them agree with the heresy of the Noetiansand say that the Father is very Son, and that this One becamesubject to birth and suffering and death.Chapter III. The Defence Against HeresyThe Church first met the various dangerous heresies which distractedit in the second century by councils or gatherings ofbishops (§ 26). Although it was not difficult to bring about acondemnation of novel and manifestly erroneous doctrine, therewas need of fixed norms and definite authorities to which toappeal. This was found in the apostolic tradition, which couldbe more clearly determined by reference to the continuity of theapostolic office, or the episcopate, and especially to the successionof bishops in the churches founded by Apostles (§ 27), theapostolic witness to the truth, or the more precise determinationof what writings should be regarded as apostolic, or the canonof the New Testament (§ 28); and the apostolic faith, which wasregarded as summed up in the Apostles' Creed (§ 29). Thesenorms of orthodoxy seem to have been generally established asauthoritative somewhat earlier in the West than in the East. Theresult was that Gnosticism was rapidly expelled from the Church,though in some forms it lingered for centuries (§ 30), and that theChurch, becoming organized around the episcopate, assumed bydegrees a rigid hierarchical constitution (§ 31). [110]