apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

THE GENUINENESS.
3^1
for the fact that in the age of Ignatius this strongest and purest form of
Docetism was rife. Even if the doctrine here attributed to Simon
belong rather to the disciples than to the master himself,
it will still
fall within our limits of time. So again Saturninus must have been a
contemporary of Ignatius.
He is
represented as a pupil of Menander,
and he is
placed before BasiUdes in the sequence of heresiarchs. Thus
he must have flourished about a.d. ioo— 120. Simon was a Samaritan,
and Saturninus was a native of Ignatius' own city Antioch. Thus the
theological atmosphere, more especially in Syria and Palestine, was
charged with Docetism at this time.
But we have evidence also from another quarter. The Epistles of
S.
John are obviously directed against some strong
form of Docetism.
This heresy is distinctly attacked in the Avords of the First Epistle; 'Every
spirit which confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God,
and every spirit
which confesseth not Jesus
is not of God, and this is
the spirit of the antichrist whereof ye have heard that it cometh, and
now it is in the world already' (i Joh. iv. 3, 4).
So again in the Second
Epistle ; Many deceivers are gone forth into the world, even they that
'
confess not that Jesus Christ cometh in the flesh. This is the deceiver
and the antichrist' (2 Joh. 7).
This explains the otherwise strange
asseveration in the opening of the First Epistle; 'That which our hands
handled (eY^Xa