§ 1.
Now from these who have been mentioned many offshoots of many heresies have in course of time arisen; because many of them, yea all, desire to be teachers; and set themselves to withdraw from the sect in which they were, and to teach in a new way, forming one doctrine out of one opinion, and another out of another; still proclaiming themselves the inventors of whatever notion they have put together. To give an example: from Saturninus and Marcion those who are called The Continent preached abstinence from marriage, setting at nought God’s original formation, and tacitly blaming Him Who made male and female for the generation of men. And they brought in abstinence from the things which are called among them animate, behaving themselves unthankfully to God Who made all. And they deny the salvation of the first Man. And this has even now been invented among them, one Tatian having in the first instance brought in that blasphemy: who having been a hearer of Justin, as long as he was with him uttered nothing of the kind, but after his martyrdom falling away from the Church, elated and puffed up with the conceit of being a teacher, did as one excelling all others establish for himself a school with a peculiar stamp: like Valentinus’ people, making out a mythology of certain invisible Æons; like Marcion and Saturninus, denouncing marriage, as corruption and fornication; but his denial of Adam’s salvation he invented of himself.
§ 2.
But others again, taking their hint from Basilides and Carpocrates, have brought in indiscriminate concubinage, and polygamy, and carelessness about eating things offered to idols; saying that God doth not greatly regard these things. To be short, there is no counting the number of those who in one way and another have fallen away from the truth.