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1 eranoj - a meal to which every one contributes a share; a club feast, or pic-nic, and eranisthj is in classical Greek a contributor to such a feast. But eranizw = (a) "contribute," and (b) "beg for contributions." So eranisthj is by some rendered "beggar." The idea of Theodoretus seems rather that his worse character is a picker up of various scraps of heresy from different quarters, and this explanation of the name is borne out by his use of the cognate verb eranizomai in reference to the selection by Audaeus of some of the doctrines of Manes in Hist. iv. 9.
5 Cerdo, the gnostic teacher of the middle of the 2nd c., and placed by Theodoretus (Haer. Fab. i. 24) in the reign of Antoninus, a.d. 138-161, is described by the Ps. Tertullian as denying that Christ came in the substance of the flesh, but in appearance only. According to Marcion the greater follower of Cerdo, Christ was not born at all, but came down from heaven to Capernaum a.d. 29, his body being an appearance and his death an illusion. Simon Magus, the "father of all heretics" of Irenaeus (adv. Haer. pr. in lib. iii.) is apparently quoted rather as the supposed originator of Gnosticism, than from any definite knowledge of his tenets.
6 Valentinus (taught at Rome c. 140) the arch.gnostic is identified with the doctrine of emanation. Bardesanes (Bar Daisan), who lived some thirty years later at Edessa, was a great leader of the Syrian school of oriental dualism. For mention of his son Harmonius vide Hist. p. 129.