Illicit Sex, Wicked Desire, and the Demonized Heretic
Charges of demonic influence and slavery to desire, found throughout late-first- and early-second-century Christian literature, built upon the traditional association of illicit sex, idolatry, and apostasy; upon well-known categories of Greek invective; and upon moralistic writings that made sōphrosynē and its opposites (akolastos, aselgeia, tryphē) the distinguishing characteristics of a “good” (agathos) or “bad” (kakia) person. These charges, directed at real or imagined opponents, could serve at least three functions simultaneously: to eliminate rivals who, if the charge stuck, would be viewed as anything but Christian; to persuade insiders to adopt and display a strict sexual virtue or face demonization and labeling as an “idolater,” “gentile,” or worse; and to suggest to an audience that the author embodies the in-Christ-ness that he has been promoting, lending legitimacy to his argument and granting him the authority to make it. Sexualized vituperation, therefore, can be read as a rhetorical tactic designed to enforce a sexualized Christian identity—Christians are sexually pure or they are not Christians at all—and to enhance the prestige of the authors who promoted this view. Therefore, when Justin and Irenaeus define, list, and categorize false Christians they call the “heretics,” they adopt what was already a familiar strategy, associating their targets with sexual misbehavior and gender deviance. Justin describes Christian heretics as demon-inspired sex fiends (1 Apol. 26; Dial. 35). Irenaeus defines the error of the heretics according to the two, equally reprehensible practices they purportedly recommended: either they promoted idolatrous slavery to desire or they perversely overcommitted themselves to enkrateia (i.e., self-mastery or self-restraint; Iren. Adv. Haer. 1.6.2, 1.13.2–7, 1.24.5, 1.25.3–4, 1.26.3, 1.28.2, 2.32.2, 5.8.4, 1.24.2; 1.28.1). In both cases, Irenaeus claims, they advanced erroneous, ungodly doctrines and exhibited blameworthy practices. False religion and illicit sexual habits were linked once again.
This chapter explores charges of sexual vice as they appear in the anti-heretical writings of Justin Martyr and Irenaeus of Lyons.1 Composing a work (lit., a 
) “against all the heresies,” Justin Martyr began a trend that was imitated by Irenaeus approximately twenty-five years later. Though Justin’s contribution is now lost, his procedure in identifying and classifying “heresies” (lit. “choices” or “schools of thought”) can be detected in a series of asides found in his extant works.2 Listing the false teachings and the shocking sexual exploits of his rivals, Justin blames them for bringing negative attention to his movement. Since Justin’s “true Christians” must always be chaste, self-disciplined models of sexual virtue, only false Christians could be capable of “the overturning of the lamp stand and promiscuous intercourse and devouring human flesh” (Justin 1 Apol. 26.7). These not-Christians, Justin asserts, teach ridiculous opinions, associate with prostitutes, and engage in the sort of wicked behavior of which all the Christians stand accused: that is, free intercourse under the cover of darkness after dining upon human flesh. If these imposters are guilty of such crimes, Justin contends, then they should be punished severely by the Romans (and by God) for their wicked behavior but not for their “Christianity.” According to Justin’s logic, they could not possibly be “Christian”; they forfeited any claim they had to the title by partaking in such practices.
Following Justin’s lead, Irenaeus composed a comprehensive work against Christian “falsely so-called knowledge,” listing each alleged heresy in turn and cataloging each group by founder, erroneous teaching, and illegitimate practice. According to Ireanaeus’ system, the “Simonians” were the first heretics; all other heresies originated with them. As descendants of the Simonians, the heretics “naturally” followed the example of their “father,” living licentious lives, practicing magic, worshipping statues, and teaching impious doctrines (Iren. Adv. Haer. 1.23.4). The Valentinians, Irenaeus’ principle target, “are insatiably enslaved to the pleasures of the flesh” and “treacherously corrupt those women who are being taught this teaching by them” (Adv. Haer. 1.6.3).3 According to Irenaeus, the Valentinian Marcus seeks out women to seduce and tempts them with the hope that they might prophesy; then, after luring them in, he takes all they have, body and soul: “And she endeavors to repay him, not only by the gift of [her] possessions, by which he has amassed a great fortune, but also by intercourse of the body, being eager to unite in every way with him, in order that she might join together with him into one” (Adv. Haer. 1.13.3).4 The Carpocratians are similarly accused of performing “deeds which it is not only wrong for us to speak of and listen to, but which we may not even think or believe that such things are done among people who live in our cities” (Adv. Haer. 1.25.4).5 The Nicolaitans are charged with asserting that “there is no difference between committing fornication and eating food sacrificed to idols,” both of which they were supposedly eager to do (Adv. Haer. 1.26.3).6 To this list, Irenaeus adds another heretical type: the radical renunciant. According to Irenaeus, the followers of Saturninus, Marcion, and the so-called Encratites declared that marriage is from Satan, displaying a despicable hatred of the flesh (Adv. Haer. 1.24.2, 1.28.1). So, for example, the disciples of Saturninus refrained from meat altogether, “misleading many by this pretense of enkrateia” (Adv. Haer. 1.24.2).7 Still, when summarizing the alleged faults of the heretics, Irenaeus seems to have forgotten about the (heretical) renunciants, remembering only those who gave themselves up to every kind of reprehensible sexual and religious act (Adv. Haer. 5.8.2–4). To Justin and Irenaeus, promiscuous thinking—that is, thinking that they disagree with—inevitably results in promiscuous behavior.
These sorts of arguments are by now familiar; Justin and Irenaeus joined in the denunciations of “false prophets,” this time by condemning illegitimate Christian “schools of thought.” Recent interpreters have pointed to the formulaic character of heresiological representation, arguing that the antiheretical writings offer scant evidence of the actual beliefs or practices of the groups they purport to describe.8 According to this view, the heresiologies of Justin, Irenaeus, and later Christian authors are better understood as evidence of conflict, rhetorical grandstanding, Christian identity production, and the effort to deflect outsider criticism away from one Christian group and onto another; these writings do not provide evidence of antinomian heresies.9 As Elizabeth Clark has shown, late antique “church fathers” attempted to place charges of Christian hatred of the body—lodged by outsiders against Christians in general—squarely on the shoulders of alleged “heretics.”10 By associating the “Simonians” with orgiastic love-feasts and anthropophagy, Justin makes a similar move, blaming them for rumors circulating about illicit Christian rituals. As le Boulluec has argued, heresiological writing was central to the contentious project of early Christian identity formation and formulation, a project that sought to create purity by exclusion.11 Heresiology, therefore, including that of Justin and Irenaeus, lists, names, describes, and constrains, defining what true Christianity is not; in the process, Christianity is elaborated, defended, and constructed.12 By representing the beliefs and practices of Christian “falsely so-called knowledge” and other (allegedly) false Christian positions, Justin and Irenaeus were engaged in powerful epistemological and cultural work that did not necessarily require “real” hedonistic heretics at all.
In addition to employing standard charges of sexualized invective to characterize their targets as corrupt, Justin and Irenaeus adopted another common vituperative practice: they contrast the legitimate origins of their group with the allegedly illegitimate lineage of their rivals. Justin refuses to grant Christian heretics the name “Christian,” insisting that they ought to be labeled according to the founders of their groups; they were not the descendants of Christ, they were “Simonians,” “Marcionites,” “Valentinians,” or “Basilidians” (Justin Dial. 35.6; 1 Apol. 26). Irenaeus juxtaposes the supposedly pure genealogy of the church with the suspect lineage of the heretics throughout his polemic against them, contending that they were all derived from Simon, their true “father,” though they had since grown appallingly diverse, splintering into “Marcionites,” “Valentinians,” “Nicolaitans,” “Carpocratians,” “Basilidians,” and other groups (Iren. Adv. Haer. 1.16.3, 3.3.2, 3.4.1–2, 5.20.2).13 The authors of Jude and 2 Peter also place false teachers in a disgraceful genealogical line; in their case, that line extends back to the biblical villains of old.14 In Justin’s and Irenaeus’ schemes, the heretics were “born” after Christ’s ascension; hence, they traced their opponents’ origins not to biblical villains but to demonically inspired pseudo-Christians.15
Asserting Christian difference on the basis of genealogical metaphors, Justin and Irenaeus circumscribe their group’s borders while positing an elite, divine lineage for those who accept their authority and opinion.16 Heretics are removed from the genos (a group descended from common ancestors) of Christ and God, as are non-Christian Jews and gentiles.17 Christians were not “Jews,” they argue, since the Judeans had largely rejected Christ and were therefore cut off from divine favor.18 Christians, though derived “from every genos,” were a new genos that refused to worship or imitate the demon-gods honored by their ancestors (Justin 1 Apol. 25; Justin Dial. 138.2; Iren. Adv. Haer. 4.24.2, 4.33.1). In this system, true Christians—the not-Judeans, not-gentiles—become the only legitimate heirs of Christ and, therefore, of God. Justin explains: “For all the Gentiles [ta ethnē] were desolate of the true God, serving the works of [their] hands; but Jews and Samaritans, having the word [logos] from God delivered to them through the prophets and constantly expecting the Christ, did not recognize him when he came” (1 Apol. 53; compare Dial. 43.4–5, 67.5, 119.5, 120.5; Iren. Adv. Haer. 4.15.2–2).19 Therefore, “knowing the truth that is contained in his words and those of his prophets,” the Christians are confident that they will “inherit the incorruptible things of eternity”(Justin Dial. 139.5; compare Iren. Adv. Haer. 4.33.1–9, 5.33.3).
Rhetorically assimilated into the category “idolatrous gentiles,” members of illegitimate pseudo-Christian “schools” are promised a share in eternal punishment even as Christians are reminded of their share in eternal bliss. “Too gentile,” they cannot inherit God’s blessings, but, like unrepentant Jews, they will be condemned. Indeed, unlike the Jews, the heretics are never actually included by Justin and Irenaeus in the privileged genos at all; their demon-inspired origin precluded them from salvation. Damned they would remain, whatever they might choose to call themselves. Justin’s and Irenaeus’ accusations regarding illicit sex and illegitimate birth denies heretics a place in a noble Christian lineage that originated, ultimately, with God.20
JUSTIN AND THE PURE PEOPLE OF GOD
Listing, sorting, and defining various heresies 
for the sake of comparison or refutation was an established tradition by the time Justin made the task his own.21 Epictetus, for example, offered the following advice to his students: “Observe yourselves thus in your actions and you will find out to what sect [hairesis] of the philosophers you belong. You will find that most of you are Epicureans, some few Peripatetics, but these without any backbone… . But as for a Stoic, show me one if you can!”22 Epictetus, a Stoic, challenges his students to live up to the “heresy” Stoicism, belittling the Epicurean and Peripatetic “heresies” as schools for the weak. Justin also mentions Epicurean, Pythagorean, Platonic, Stoic, Cynic, and Peripatetic philosophical “heresies”; to this list he adds Jewish “heresies,” including the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Galileans, among others.23 To Justin, however, the existence of heresies indicates an adulteration of an original truth and, therefore, heresies could only have been a negative development. Justin therefore interprets the presence of diverse opinions—philosophical, Jewish, or Christian—as proof of others’ error. Christian philosophy was not construed as the best “school” among comparatively less vigorous competitors but as the only philosophy that had achieved the fullness of truth.
All true philosophical insight has been given by God in the form of a “seed of the Logos,” Justin claims in his apologies, but the philosophers preserved only an adulterated form of this divine “seed,” if they managed to preserve truth at all (1 Apol. 56; 2 Apol. 8, 13). He explains: “For whatever either lawgivers or philosophers uttered well, they elaborated according to their share of Logos by invention and contemplation. But since they did not know all that concerns Logos, who is Christ, they often contradicted themselves” (2 Apol. 10.2–3; see also 2 Apol. 13).24 In other words, partial revelation led to contradictions and to the development of many schools of thought, transforming philosophy into a monstrous “hydra of many heads” as Justin put it elsewhere (Dial. 2.1–2). Christians, by contrast, received the entirety of the Logos, the “whole rational principle,” which became Christ (2 Apol. 10.1); that is, they possessed “the thing itself” (2 Apol. 3).25 Hence, Christians are the best philosophers of all.26
Justin’s argument regarding Jewish heresies is similar: anyone who “examines the matter rightly” recognizes that there can only be one Judaism; those who identify with various Jewish heresies are not properly Jews at all, but something else (Dial. 80.4). Justin goes on to assert that the Christians have become the “true Israel” since the Jews failed at being the “seed of Abraham,” an argument he presented in great detail in his Dialogue with Trypho.27 The Jews, the “seed of Abraham,” preserved the divine truth about Christ in their Scriptures, a “fact” they should have recognized.28 Consequently, Justin declares, “we are the true, spiritual Israel, the genos of Judah, Jacob, Isaac and Abraham” (Dial. 11:4–5; see also 1 Apol. 63):
Some of your genos will be found children of Abraham, seeing as they are found in the portion of Christ. But others, though children of Abraham, are as the sand on the sea-shore which is unproductive and unfruitful, though great and innumerable, not producing any fruit at all but only drinking the water from the sea; of this the majority of your genos are accused, for you drink doctrines of bitterness and godlessness while you spurn the word (logos) of God.
(Dial. 120.2)29
According to Justin, then, the Christians, by recognizing and embracing the “true” meaning of the Jewish scriptures, had become the “children of Abraham,” the chosen genos, and the heirs to God’s favor. The vast majority of Jews, however, had been cut off because by rejecting Christ, they “did not bear fruit.” Justin then deploys familiar biblical tropes involving the sexual and religious misadventures of Israel in the wilderness to claim that the Jews had always been enslaved to desire, hard of heart, and prone to idolatry.30 In this way, Justin describes Christians and Jews as distinct peoples and offers biblical examples of Israel’s apostasies as proof of Jewish intransigence.
As we have seen, the authors of Jude and 2 Peter employ biblical examples of the misbehavior of Israel in the wilderness, but they do so to characterize false insiders rather than a group of outsiders they then labeled “Jews.” In these earlier writings, insider followers of Christ are warned to conform to particular definitions of in-Christ-ness or face the sort of punishment reserved for apostate Israel, fallen angels, and Sodom and Gomorrah. By contrast, Justin employs biblical tales of Israel’s porneiai (sexual misbehavior/apostasy) to distance Jews from the new and supposedly pure Christian genos. The Jews, he claims, “spurn the logos of God,” investing the charge with a double meaning: they spurn Christ, who is the Logos, and the word of God contained in their own Scriptures since they misunderstand everything God had intended to teach them when they deny that Jesus was the Christ. In this way, Justin claims Jewish scriptures and even Jewish genealogy for the Christians—“we” are the spiritual genos of Judah, “we” are the house of Jacob—while simultaneously excising the Jews from God’s community.31 Justin no longer construes himself or his group as “Jewish” per se, therefore the misadventures of Israel apply neither to him nor to other Christians but to sinful Israel alone.32
Justin’s method of eliminating Christian heresies from the family tree is slightly different. They never gained a share of God’s “seed” at all, he argues, but were fashioned by demons to torment the church after Christ ascended into heaven.33 Simon “through the art of the demons” performed magic; Marcion, “with the aid of demons,” caused people of every genos to speak blasphemy; heretics in general were animated by “spirits of error” to say and do things that are godless and blasphemous, or so Justin claims (1 Apol. 26; Dial. 35.1). Animated by “demons,” they actually remained gentiles all along:
And they say that they are Christians, just as they who are among the Gentiles inscribe the name of God upon their idols made by hands and take part in lawless and godless rites. And some of them are called Marcionites, and some Valentinians, and some Basilidians, and some Saturnilians, and others by other names, each being named from the originator of the opinion, just as each of those who think they are philosophers … think it is right to bear the name of the father of that system.
(Dial. 35.5–6)34
In other words, they, like the founders of philosophical schools, adulterated truth. Like the gentiles, they worshiped demons. As such, they have kept “those from every genos” who were invited to join the new Christian genos locked in a dark, degenerate world of “being gentile,” even as they pretended to be Christian. Justin’s message is clear: the Christian heretics and their followers could have no share in divine patrimony.
Justin’s genealogical scheme, therefore, implies two points of exit or entry, both of which pivoted on Christ. The gentiles, though at a disadvantage because of their demonic gods, were invited by Christ to receive the full Logos and become “spiritual Israel.” The Jews, advantaged by their ancestry and the God-given prophecies that were preserved by the Scriptures, were also invited but had largely rejected the invitation. The heretics never entered the family at all, but remained gentiles, and an especially pernicious sort of gentile at that. The Christians, by contrast, constituted God’s own genos, the one pure race, and the true heirs to God’s glory. Justin employed a variety of metaphors to make this argument: “The Christians are the one vine, planted by God” (Dial. 60.4). The Christians “as one person believe on God the Maker of the universe,” and “are now the true high priestly genos of God” (Dial. 66.3). “Christians are a holy people [laos], chosen by God” (Dial. 69.3). Christians are the heirs to God’s blessings, having been “begotten” (gennēsantos) into God by Christ (Dial. 123.9). The Christians are “quarried from the bowels of Christ” (Dial. 135.3). Christ is “the head of another genos” that was begotten “by water and faith and wood [.e., the cross]” (Dial. 138.2). Whether because of their relationship to the “vine,” their election as the “high priestly genos,” their formation in the “bowels of Christ” (ek tēs koilias tou Christou), their designation as a holy people, or their “birth” through baptism, faith, and the crucifixion, Christians had become a distinct people, destined to remain God’s legitimate heirs.35
In contrast to the dispossessed Jews and the demon-inspired gentiles or heretics, the new Christian genos is described as pure in every way. Remarkably chaste, they avoided lust and married once if at all (1 Apol.15). Free from anger, they never quarreled and regarded everyone with patience and gentleness (1 Apol. 16). In fact, Justin claims, the Christians live in perfect harmony with one another and with the rest of the world:
And we who were filled full of war and slaughter one of another, and every kind of evil, have from out of the whole earth each changed our weapons of war, our swords into ploughshares and our spears into farming tools, and we farm piety, righteousness, the love of humanity, faith, and hope, which comes from the Father himself through him who was crucified.
(Dial. 110.3; see also 1 Apol. 67; Dial. 14.2)36
The empire claimed to promote concordial homonoia (“harmony”), but to Justin it was the Christians who had actually achieved this goal, thanks to the intervention of Christ.37
Throughout the Dialogue, then, Justin presents his Christians as a distinct and holy people, separate from Jews and pre- or non-Christian gentiles. The Jews were the conduit of God’s prophecies, but they had been largely cut off from divine guidance in punishment for their misbehavior and their rejection of Christ.38 The gentiles, people from every genos, could be included, but first they were required to transfer their loyalty from the demons to the one true God who then became their “father.” Once they did, they were fully incorporated into a privileged group described as a genos, a laos (a people), or a household, a group of people with a common descent and shared expectations regarding hereditary privileges. Justin’s language for this process was quite literal: the Christians received a “new inheritance” (
Dial. 11.2, 119.5); they were “children of Abraham” because of their faith (Dial. 119.5); they had become the “seed of Judah” and the “house of Jacob” born of faith and spirit (Dial. 135.6).39 In this way, Justin places Christians within an ethnoracial hierarchy, linking his Christians, whatever their original genos, to the ancestors of the Jews while eliminating Jews, gentiles and heretics from the group.40 Alienation from Justin’s God, however, had universal symptoms and universal consequences: he charges Jews with porneiai (illicit sex/apostasies), bloodthirstiness, demon worship, and child sacrifice (Dial. 16.2, 17.1, 19.9–22.11, 46.1–47.1, 110.5, 131.2–134.1, 151.4);41 he accuses gentiles of prostitution, incest, demon worship, bloodthirstiness, and human sacrifice (1 Apol. 9, 21, 25, 54, 64; 2 Apol. 5, 12; Dial. 30.1, 34.7); he associates heretics with demon worship, error, cannibalism, and promiscuous sex (1 Apol. 26; Dial. 35.4, 80.3). All of these outsiders will be destroyed by God if they do not repent (1 Apol. 5; Dial. 35.7, 141.2). Those Justin wishes to denigrate and exclude—Jew, gentile, or heretic—are said to be guilty of almost identical forms of misbehavior and promised the same horrific “inheritance”: eternal punishment. In Justin’s genealogical and moral scheme, therefore, Christians who adopt his authority and perspective are the only genos that can boast a proper lineage as well as the concomitant moral and religious purity. Everyone else is genetically, religiously, and morally corrupt.
IRENAEUS’ ENDLESS GENEALOGIES
Alluding to 1 Timothy 1:4, Irenaeus begins his refutation of Christian heresies by proposing that some Christians “reject the truth and introduce false narratives [pseudeis logous],” by developing “endless genealogies, seeking after questions” rather than preserving truth (Iren. Adv. Haer. Pr.1). He then proceeds to ridicule their “endless genealogies,” distancing himself from the origin myths of the heretics while claiming that his own group preserved the truth about God and origins. To make the latter argument, Irenaeus is quite willing to engage in his own genealogical speculation: Christ Jesus is the one son of God; God is the Father who created all things; the prophets of the Jews received teachings about Christ from the holy spirit before he came; the apostles received the one faith and the one tradition from God through Christ; the church, though dispersed throughout the whole world, guards this true tradition and true faith “as [those] living in one house” (Adv. Haer. 1.10.1–2, 3.3.1–4.2). Father God, divine son, holy spirit, prophet, apostle, bishop, and church were said to form a legitimate chain of command: Christ appointed apostles, who appointed bishops, who in turn appointed (honorable male) successors, thereby safely guarding tradition and truth (Adv. Haer. 3.Pr–3.3.1). Irenaeus places himself within this privileged patrilineage by way of the blessed martyr and bishop Polycarp, a true Christian who had been taught by the apostles: “We ourselves saw him in our early youth, for he lived long and was in extreme old age when he left this life in a most glorious and most noble martyrdom” (Adv. Haer. 3.3.1–4).42 Those who accepted Irenaeus’ authority, therefore, could count themselves as members of the one true church and heirs to the divine patrimony (Adv. Haer. 5.28.4–29.1, 5.33.3–35.1). They were “mingled” with the Logos and had become God’s own adopted sons (Adv. Haer. 3.19.1). Thus Irenaeus, like Justin before him, contrasted the legitimate genealogical line of Christians with the purportedly illegitimate line of the heretics. Refining Justin’s theory of multiple heresies and multiple origins, Irenaeus further suggests that all the heresies had one “father” and therefore one origin: the heresies began with Simon the Samaritan.
SIMON, ORIGINATOR OF THE HERESIES
Simon the Samaritan, the father of the heresies, was first mentioned by the author of Acts: “Now a certain man named Simon had previously practiced magic in the city and amazed the people of Samaria, saying that he was someone great. All of them, from the least to the greatest, listened to him eagerly, saying, ‘This man is the power of God that is called Great’” (Acts 8:9–11, NRSV). Despite his propensity for magic, Simon heard the preaching of the apostle Philip and was convinced, becoming baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Still, after his baptism he sought to buy the power of the holy spirit, provoking a swift rebuke from Peter for his wickedness (Acts 8:14–23). The Simon of Acts, therefore, is accused of greed, but there is no mention of demonic inspiration, prostitutes, continuing magical practices, or a group founded in his name. Simon was next mentioned by Justin: “One certain Simon, a Samaritan from the village called Gitta, during the reign of Claudius Caesar, through the art of the demons who worked in him, did mighty works of magic in your imperial city of Rome and was thought to be a god” (Justin 1 Apol. 26). Justin adds a series of provocative details to the Simon story: Simon traveled with “a certain Helena” who had been a prostitute (proteron epi tegous statheisan), declaring that this former prostitute was his “first thought” and claiming that he and Helena were a god and goddess of sorts. Simon attracted a disciple named Menander who was also animated by demons, who performed magic tricks in Antioch, and who sought to lead the faithful astray (1 Apol. 26). Irenaeus further diverges from the text of Acts: Helena served as Mother of All in Simon’s disgraceful creation myth, the members of his heresy venerated the images of their founders in the guise of Zeus (Jupiter) and Athena (Minerva), and their priests engaged in further debauchery and magic (Iren. Adv. Haer. 23.1–5):
The mystic priests of these people live licentious lives and practice magic, each one in whatever way he can. They make use of exorcisms and incantations, love-potions too and philters, and the so-called familiars, and dream-senders. They also have a statue of Simon patterned after Jupiter, and one of Helen patterned after Minerva. They worship these statues. They also have a name for themselves, the “Simonians” derived from Simon the author of this most impious doctrine, from whom the falsely so-called knowledge took its origin, as one can learn from their assertions.43
Thus, in Irenaeus’ rewriting, the greedy Simon of Acts becomes the founder of a full-fledged libertine heresy.44
HERETICAL EMBELLISHMENT AND GENEALOGICAL SPECULATION
Justin considerably expanded the tale of Simon the Samaritan; Irenaeus adds still more details. The author of Acts accused someone named Simon of engaging in magic prior to his acceptance of Christ. Justin accuses Simon of continuing magical practices after baptism for the express purpose of leading the faithful astray. Irenaeus spells out the type of magic the Simonians preferred.45 Justin suggests that Simon presented himself and Helena as a god and goddess. Irenaeus reports that their followers made idols of their founders in the form of demon-gods. Justin implies that the Simonians were licentious. Irenaeus informed his readers that the Simonians were, in fact, led by “mystic priests” who actively promoted licentiousness and pursued debauchery at every opportunity. The horror of the “Simonians” was described in increasingly lurid terms.46 A similar process can be observed in Irenaeus’ treatment of the Nicolaitans. The Nicolaitans were first mentioned by John of Patmos in the book of Revelation; they were a group of Christ followers with whom the author disagreed, perhaps because they permitted the consumption of food that had been sacrificed to the gods (Rev 2:6, 14–15). Justin does not mention them, but Irenaeus includes them among other miscellaneous heresies, connecting them to Nicolaus, a proselyte from Antioch mentioned in Acts 6:5. John of Patmos implies that their error involved idolatry, labeling this idolatry “fornication” (porneia). Irenaeus goes a step further, explicitly accusing them of teaching that porneia and the consumption of sacrificial meat “are matters of indifference” (Iren. Adv. Haer. 1.26.3).47 In other words, Irenaeus actively embellishes tales of earlier “heretics” in order to provide the Valentinians with an appropriate family tree.48
Justin argued that the philosophical heresies were a “hydra of many heads”; their degraded condition was made evident by their diverse opinions and their many schools. Irenaeus applies a similar image to the Valentinians, asserting that their doctrines were generated “like a Lernaean hydra” out of the Valentinian school (Iren. Adv. Haer. 1.30.14). Irenaeus and Justin share the opinion that diversity implies error and unity implies truth; hence, the more numerous the heresies the more obvious their error. Irenaeus then produces an impression of diversity and multiplicity by comparing rival Valentinian origin myths—even the Valentinians cannot agree on their doctrines, Irenaeus argues—and by listing other heresies for comparison. The Valentinians were the principle target of the refutation, as Irenaeus explains in the preface to the first book: having read some of their commentaries, he resolved to demonstrate that their propositions were “absurd, inconsistent, and discordant with the truth” (Adv. Haer. Pr. 2). He begins the first book with a lengthy, decidedly prejudiced narration of their creation myth, designed to make their beliefs appear to be as ridiculous as possible (Adv. Haer. 1.1–7.5).49 After mocking their beliefs, he sets out to challenge their exegesis of Scripture: “They disregard the order and the connection of the scriptures and, as much as in them lies, they disjoint the members of the truth” (Adv. Haer. 1.8.1). He then accuses them of contradictions and fragmentation, presenting alternative versions of their myths (Adv. Haer. 1.11.1–5).50 Finally, he announces his intention to overthrow all the heresies by exposing their “root,” Simon, and by demonstrating that all of the heretics are ultimately related to one another through him (Adv. Haer. 1.22.2). He then introduces Simon’s spawn—that is, the heresies—one by one, developing a suitably repugnant genealogy for the Valentinians in the process.
By cataloging Christian heresies, highlighting their diversity, and comparing their opinions and practices, Irenaeus places the Valentinians within a genealogical line of Christian corruption that can be contrasted with the line of faithful and apostolic Christians. By beginning with Simon, Irenaeus places the origin of the heresies within the apostolic age, adopting the perspective that Christian heresies began only after Christ’s ascension, a belief he shared with Justin (1 Apol. 26.1). By enumerating the diversity of Valentinian and other Christian myths, he diversifies their doctrines even as he unifies their origins and their basic characteristics. They were unified in their failure at consistency: the Valentinians “do not say the same things about the same subject, but contradict themselves in regard to things and names” (Iren. Adv. Haer. 1.11.1); each heresy had its own nonsensical spin on the “endless [divine] genealogies” these heretics love.51 They were unified by the demonic source of their teachings: inspired by demons, they had Satan as their divine “father” and could not be counted either among the Jews or among the Christians.52 They were unified by their disguised demon worship: though they pretended to be Christians, they remained demon-worshipping gentiles. Finally, they were united by their (alleged) promotion of porneia: even when they pursued enkrateia (self-mastery) they did so out of slavery to lust. Contradictory, demon-inspired, and enslaved to desire, the heretics remained “gentiles” even when they pretended to be “Jews.”
IRENAEUS AGAINST THE JEWS, THE PSEUDO-JEWS, AND THE (GENTILE) HERETICS
According to Irenaeus, the Jews of his time read their scriptures “like a fable” since they did not accept the true meaning of what they had been told (Adv. Haer. 4.26.1). “Tradition” demonstrated there was one God, identical with the God of Israel, and this God had chosen the followers of Christ as his people.53 The patriarchs and the prophets “prefigured our faith and sowed on earth the coming of the Son of God, announcing who and what he would be” (Adv. Haer. 4.23.1), yet the Jews misunderstood and, therefore, they will be judged (Adv. Haer. 4.33.1). With the Jews placed outside of salvation, Irenaeus can further disparage his opponents by accusing them of adopting pseudo-Jewish practices and procedures: they might be demon-inspired gentiles, but they foolishly acted like “Jews.” The Valentinians, for example, pronounced phony Hebrew words during worship to impress their initiates (Adv. Haer. 1.21.3), and the Ebionites foolishly practiced circumcision, maintained Jewish legal customs, and prayed while facing toward Jerusalem (Adv. Haer. 1.26.2).54 Marcion, though he identified the creator God as a demon, “circumcise[d] the scriptures” when he chose to adopt only the Gospel of Luke and portions of the writings of Paul (Adv. Haer. 1.27.2–4). In other words, Irenaeus accuses him of behaving like a Jew even as he rejects any continuity between Judaism and Christianity.55 The heretics could attempt to “be Jewish,” but they always failed, remaining gentile through and through.
Irenaeus repeatedly likenes heretics to gentiles, depicting them as gentile in type if not in name.56 He compares Valentinian, Marcosian, and other Christian narratives of divine origins to the tales of Homer and Hesiod, suggesting that the heretics drew their beliefs from the poets rather than from the apostles. The Valentinians, for example, devised “false fabrications” that were invented in imitation of those who misquote Homer for their own self-aggrandizement (Adv. Haer. 1.9.2–4). Moreover, their narratives included sexual unions between divine beings, an aspect of gentile myth that the apologists had previously derided;57 these ideas could not have originated with Christ but only with demons (Adv. Haer. 2.14.1–5).58 The Valentinians also displayed their inner gentile by deriving doctrines from Cynic contrariness, Pythagorean numerology, and Aristotelian argument, developing “subtle investigations” in their efforts to attack the true faith (Adv. Haer. 2.14.5–6). Not only were their origin myths gentile in type, their practices were equally idolatrous. The Valentinians were “the first to meet during the festivals of the gentiles,” eager to honor idols and attend “the murderous spectacles”(Adv. Haer. 1.6.3). Valentinians, Simonians, Carpocratians, and Nicolaitans went so far as to venerate idols in the name of Christ (Adv. Haer. 1.15.4, 1.23.4, 1.25.6, 1.26.3). Some Christian schools recommended ritual orgies (Adv. Haer. 1.6.3, 1.13.2–7, 1.23.2, 1.25.4–5, 1.31.2), others declared that marriage was from Satan (Adv. Haer. 1.24.2, 1.28.1), but all were “slaves of lust” (Adv. Haer. 5.8.4). In other words, these people remained gentiles even as they posed as Christians or adopted the errors of the Jews.
SEX AND CHRISTIAN ORIGINS
Placing their rivals, real or imaginary, within diverse “schools” with multiple founders and one inspiration (Satan), Justin and Irenaeus developed a classificatory scheme that produced Christianity as a distinct, legitimate, and restricted genos. These legitimate Christians were not Jews; therefore Israel’s misdeeds did not apply (Justin) and heretics could be condemned for behaving “like Jews” (Irenaeus). Biblical language regarding “seed,” discussed in Chapter 2, had been transformed; whereas previously this language was designed to protect and enforce a certain Judean identity, now it was employed to remove Israel from the genos of God altogether. Israel was now described as the unproductive “seed of Abraham”; the Christians had become the spiritually productive “seed,” “race,” and “household.”59 Having been expelled from the family tree, Jews were condemned en masse for idolatry, polygamy, porneia, and uncontrolled lust. Even so, Justin and Irenaeus presupposed and preserved their own versions of a rhetoric they shared with “the Jews,” including Paul: they lumped gentiles into one indistinguishable group of impious sexual sinners. They also repeated and revised the earlier, biblical strategy of describing target insiders as fornicators, apostates, and idolaters; that is, as gentiles. Their principal charge against the heretics—they were inspired and fathered by demons—identified them as unrepentant gentiles, all the more reprehensible because they called themselves Christian.
By labeling heresies, presenting them for examination, and describing their attributes, Justin and Irenaeus constitute the Christians as not-heretics, not-Jews, and not-gentiles, policing insiders even as they work to eliminate specific rivals.60 To achieve the status of Christian, as Justin and Irenaeus describe it, one had to accept the authority of certain male leaders, including themselves,61 recognize the legitimacy of certain books and certain interpretations,62 adopt particular ideas about god, humanity and the world,63 and display “good morals,” especially sōphrosynē (self-control) and eusebeia (piety). Otherwise, one failed at “being Christian” and remained a “gentile” or a “Jew.” By classifying the beliefs and practices of outsiders as illegitimate, Justin and Irenaeus delimited the legitimate beliefs and practices of insiders, drawing boundaries with a customary “language of disqualification” involving charges of impiety, illegitimacy, and sexual misbehavior.64 Yet in this case “Jews” were disqualified as well, a departure from earlier forms of Christian argumentation.
In Chapter 2, I noted that gentiles were regularly accused of sexual perversion by biblical authors; in-group targets were said to be “like the gentiles,” that is, idolatrous and sexually wicked. “Bad” Israelites were the exception that proved the rule: good Israelites simply did not engage in such behavior. By and large, Paul and the authors of Jude and 2 Peter adopted this assumption as their own, presumably because they viewed themselves as within the category “Judean.” For example, Paul warned his gentile-in-Christ audience to refrain from porneia, thereby avoiding the lust that regularly and characteristically troubled gentiles (1 Thess 4:3–7). By contrast, he never accused Judeans of porneia, even when he lamented the failure of some the members of his genos to conclude that Jesus was the Christ.65 Like biblical authors before him, the author of Jude also described the behavior of Israel in the wilderness as an exception, warning his audience not to become like them or face similar punishment (Jude 5, 17–19); the author of 2 Peter adopted a similar perspective, exhorting his readers to be wary of the false prophets of their own time just as the righteous in Israel had refused to listen to the unrighteous during their time, implicitly comparing the righteous followers of Christ to righteous Israel (2 Pet 2:1, 3, 7–10). Among these writers, Israel was presumed to be a holy people with a few bad apples rather than rotten to the core. Justin adopted a different perspective: the “bad” Israelites were not the exception, they were the rule. Indeed, God had given Israel the law to control their innately wicked disposition, yet even then they committed idolatry, fell prey to their lusts, and practiced child sacrifice (Justin Dial. 16.2–22.11, 92.1–93.4, 131.2–134.1). Justin identifies the Jews as an “other” that can be summarily—and stereotypically—attacked. Irenaeus then built on this argument, likening the heretics to pseudo-Jews and warning that the Jews will be punished (Iren. Adv. Haer. 5.33.1). To these authors, Christians were no longer “Jews”; they were a new, privileged genos of God.66
Of course, Justin and Irenaeus were not alone in their effort to assert purity, status, or privilege by enumerating the elite lineage of their group. As observed in the first chapter, status was often defended and justified by referencing virtue; free men were said to be more reasonable, more self-disciplined, and more courageous than their enslaved counterparts. Status distinctions were further validated in terms of kinship and patrimony.67 The emperors advertised their descent from the gods and other famous ancestors, including the illustrious, deified emperors.68 Ancient genealogies linked fathers to sons and families to peoplehood by means of tropes about “seed,” adoption, shared customs, beliefs, or geographic origin.69 As observed in the second chapter, Judean authors also validated their community by references to God’s “holy seed,” a strategy that sought to establish Israel’s (genetic) sexual and religious superiority.70 Thus, when Justin and Irenaeus claimed to be representatives of the “true genos of Israel,” descended from the apostles, recipients of the implanted Logos, keepers of the ancient traditions, members of one harmonious household, and heirs to God’s eternal kingdom, they were constructing a system of noble descent that competed for privilege in recognizable ways. They mapped Christian unity onto a dynastic scheme whereby truth was guarded by a chain of legitimate male heirs from God to Logos to prophet to apostle to Christian.
In this way, the effort to police insiders remained an outsider-focused strategy as well. According to Justin and Irenaeus, the Christians were a righteous genos and an honorable family, the sons and heirs of God.71 Their righteousness could be, and was, compared with the depravity of their rulers. In the third chapter I considered Justin’s repeated insistence that the emperor and his heirs were ruled by demons and lust. Likewise, Irenaeus warned that rulers “will perish for everything they do to harm the just, iniquitously and illegally and in tyrannical fashion” (Av. Haer. 5.24.2). Irenaeus leaves open the possibility that they could turn to his God, control their lust, and properly discipline unruly humanity with their law and their sword (Adv. Haer. 5.24.2), yet he is equally confident that the Christians would rule in the end, a theory he supported by citing Daniel and Revelation in particular (Adv. Haer. 5.26.1–36.3). Justin’s and Irenaeus’ Christians, then, were not simply one genos among many; they were the best genos of all. They were not simply one school of thought among many possible options; they were the only “heresy” that taught the truth. Sexualized invective served as a resistance strategy as well as a policing tactic.
SEXUAL SLANDER AND CHRISTIAN IDENTITY
From biblical tradition, to Greek invective, to early Christian polemics, “the opponents”—be they gentiles or slaves or barbarians or heretics—were universally said to devote themselves to sexual excess. Though there may have been licentious gentiles, slaves, rulers, philosophers, barbarians, heretics, or Christians, the sources I have been exploring will not help us find them. Instead, these sources indicate a widespread attempt to employ moralizing claims regarding sexual behavior and gender deviance to validate authority. Still, there is a sense in which all this sex talk was actually about sex: by strategically claiming superiority on the basis of a strict sexual morality, early Christians were under tremendous pressure to display the sōphrosynē they had defined for themselves.72 Therefore, all of this highly charged sex talk was necessary. Christians had to be convinced to live up to sōphrosynē, displaying it for all to see. Moreover, the content of in-Christ self-discipline required frequent renegotiation and reiteration in light of the changing circumstances of the first Christians. Charges against the heretics provide further clues regarding the contested nature of Christian sōphrosynē as well as the imagined constitution of the group.
Justin does not charge his heretics with an overactive commitment to enkrateia (self-mastery) in his extant writings; instead, he describes them as universally prone to lust. Yet, a few years later, Irenaeus condemned Tatian and other “heretics” for preaching abstinence from marriage thereby “[making] void God’s pristine creation” and indirectly reproving God himself “who made male and female for generating the human race” (Iren. Adv. Haer. 1.28.1). Irenaeus gives a name to their “school”; they were the “Encratites.” Could it be that the overly ascetic heretic was invented, in part, to define what “good sexual asceticism” might look like? In her analysis of some of the antiheretical writings, Elizabeth Clark notes that the church fathers were forced to defend themselves against accusations that they promoted a hatred of marriage and the body.73 Their views on ascetic discipline, especially on sexual renunciation, were read by their enemies as a disparagement of the Creator and creation. The fathers responded to this criticism by deflecting it onto their rivals.74 Clement of Alexandria refers to the problem: “There are some who say outright that marriage is fornication and teach that it was introduced by the devil. They proudly say that they are imitating the Lord who neither married nor had any possession in this world, boasting that they understand the gospel better than anyone else” (Strom. 3.6.49; compare 3.12.81).75 Because of Christians like this, Clement laments, the Christian name was blasphemed. Yet Irenaeus, Clement, and the other fathers also recommended sexual renunciation to the faithful. As noted in Chapter 4, Clement of Alexandria taught that Christians ought to overcome desire altogether, though it is porneia, not marriage, that is a sin (Strom. 3.11.90). Irenaeus, like Hermas, asserts that God punishes sins of thought as well as deed; God was offended not only by adultery but by the thought of adultery (Iren. Adv. Haer. 2.32.1; 4.15.5; 4.28.2). Jerome offers another, particularly striking example. He argues, on the one hand, that all sexual intercourse was unclean but, on the other, that only heretics would deny the goodness of marriage.76 The dividing line between the “heretical” renunciative practices of, for example, Tatian and Saturninus, and those recommended by Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, or Jerome may have been rather more blurred than their writings initially suggest.77
Clark argues that charges of excessive ascetic rigor against the heretics can be read as a diversionary tactic, designed to privilege one Christian group at the expense of another. I have made a similar suggestion regarding Justin’s attempt to associate promiscuous intercourse and the eating of human flesh with the followers of Simon, Menander, and Marcion. But such accusations were not only diversionary tactics since, as Clark rightly notes, the church fathers were intensely interested in developing a program of sexual renunciation that would meet the standards of orthodoxy as they defined it.78 Christians of all sorts sought to promote sexual renunciation.79 Irenaeus’ contention that false Christians can only be of two types—radical ascetics or libertine sensualists—can be read as part of this intense discussion about the importance of sexual renunciation. Charges of sexual license against the heretics reflected an attempt on the part of early Christian authors to develop a sexualized disciplinary discourse that could be effective at eliminating their opponents, protect them from their non-Christian critics, and enhance their own status as the authentic bearers of Christian tradition. The alleged sexual practices of the heretics, then, point to the internal debates of Justin’s and Irenaeus’ respective communities, debates that were partially framed in response to pressures from without.
The impact of outsider critique on insider-directed heresiology can be observed in other areas as well. As observed in the Chapter 3, by the second century Christians were being accused of ritual orgies, incest, and cannibalism, the very same charges that Justin and Irenaeus lodged against heretics, Jews, and gentiles. There are still further parallels: Irenaeus accused the heretics of playing at being Jews; Celsus asserted that the Christians tie their antiquity to the Jews and foolishly adopt Jewish customs although they are not Jews at all (Origen, Contra Celsum, 1.16, 5.41). Irenaeus suggested that the heretics developed numerous nonsensical and contradictory doctrines; Celsus argued that the Christians disagreed about everything and repeated a ridiculous myth involving an earth creature and a woman formed from his side (Origen, Contra Celsum, 3.1–10, 4.36, 4.63). If Celsus was repeating standard arguments against the Christians, as some scholars have argued, these parallels may not be coincidental.80 In other words, the sorts of charges lodged against heretical insiders shifted in concert with the sorts of charges Christians as a group were facing, reflecting the unstable terrain of insider-outsider controversies and group definition.
Disagreements over the content of Christian sōphrosynē provide further evidence of this phenomenon. As observed in the Chapter 2, Paul presupposed that women were “naturally” more prone to desire than men and therefore they “naturally” required surveillance by men; he was anxious to ensure that the brothers and sisters in Christ remained “real men” and “real women.” Still, he presupposed that women would prophesy during church meetings and contribute to the churches as patrons, deacons, and even apostles.81 Within a generation, however, women’s (limited) authority was reinterpreted as improper and shameful by many Christian authors,82 a position that was reinforced by Irenaeus’ critique of the heresies. Irenaeus depicted women’s leadership as an indication of heretical sexual deviance, implying that such behavior could not be imagined among apostolic Christians.83 His patrilineal theory of apostolic succession also eliminated women from the divine genealogy, with the exception of Mary whose purpose was to undo the sin of Eve (Iren. Adv. Haer. 3.22.4–23.5). Irenaeus’ exclusively patrilineal notion of descent together with his accusations against the heretics may have been designed to silence women within his Christian community as well as to deflect charges—lodged against Christians in general—that they attracted “silly women.”84 Arguments regarding the strict control of good Christian women could serve an additional purpose: Christian male authors advertised their own “manly” self-control by broadcasting the firm hold they maintained over “their” women, a particularly pressing need given the feminization of Christians by critical outsiders.
Claims about Christian manliness and self-discipline and about heretical, gentile, and Jewish slavishness and decadence involved cultural production and the performance of power relationships. As such, the implied content of sexual immorality was subject to constant reinterpretation and renegotiation by those who attempted to define and constitute them for the sake of their own persuasive projects. When the early Christian authors I have been discussing suggest that sexual licentiousness is a sign of God’s rejection—non-Christian gentiles are abandoned by God to lust, false Christians are motivated by their lusts, Jews were slaves to lust all along—they are not describing what immorality is, they were creating a definition of immorality that suited their interests. Accusations regarding immorality characterize and constitute “the other” by describing what “they” are and what “we” are not, just as “slavishness” was supposed to be a characteristic of slaves, not of free citizens. By accusing enemies of sexual immorality, Christians such as Justin and Irenaeus not only challenged the claims and pretensions of those they opposed—insiders or outsiders—they defined their own movement in sexual terms. Nevertheless, the very terms of the argument remained (and remain) inherently unstable.