CAP VII.
VVhat heretickes, and ecclesiasticall wryters lyued then.
WHen as many ecclesiasticall persons in those dayes, striued in the behalf of the trueth, and contended with sure, and certaine reasons, for the Apostolicke, and Ecclesiasticall doctrine: some also as forefencers, haue exhibited instruction to the posterity, by their commentaries, leuealing at the aforesayd heresies, of which number one Agrippa Castor, a stout champion, and a famous wryter of those times, published a confutation of Basilides, disclosing all his Satanicall iugling. hauing displaied his secrety, he reporteth that Basilides wrote foure and twenty bookes vpon the gospell, fayning vnto him self prophets, whome he calleth Barcabus, and Barcoph, and certaine others neuer heard of before: Inuenting those barbarous names, to amaze the hearers withall: teaching that indifferently thinges offred to Idols may be eaten: that in time of persecution, the fayth with periury may be renounced: cōmaunding silence after the manner of Pythagoras, for the space of fiue yeares. And such like heresies of Basilides, the sayd writer hathe plainely confuted. Irenaeus wryteth, that in the time of these two: Carpocrates liued, ye father of that heresie, which the Gnostici hould, who thought good, not to publish the sorcery of Simon priuely, after his manner, but openly. Glorying of charmed loue drinkes: of diuelish, & dronken dreames: of assistent, and associate spirites: with other like illusions. They teach farther, that who so will attaine vnto the perfection of their mysteries, or rather abhominable deuises, must worke such fa∣ctes, by they neuer so filthy, otherwise can they not ouercome (as they terme them, the secular po∣tentates, vnlesse euery one play his parte, after the same secret operation. So it came to passe that Sathan reioycing in his deuelish subtlety, seduced many of thē thus already snared, whome he led to perdition, by the meanes of such wicked ministers, & gaue hereby great occasion to ye in∣fidels, of blasphemy agaynst the diuine doctrine, and spred a great slaunder in that the fame of them was bruted abrode throughout christendome. By this meanes it fell out often that the infi∣dels of those times conceaued a wicked, absurde, and shamefull opinion of vs, that that we vsed the vnlawfull company, of Mothers, & sisters: that we fed vpon the tender infantes & sucklinges. But these reports preuailed not long for the trueth tride it self, & in tyme folowing shined as the sonne beames. for the sleyghts, and subtleties of the aduersaries turned to their owne confusion, whilest that new heresies dayly sprong, creeping one vpon an other, the latter taking place, the former vanished away, & encreasing into diuerouse, & manifold sectes chaunging now this way, anone that waye, they were destroyed. The brightnes of the catholicke, and onely true churche, continuing alwayes the same, encreased, & enlarged dayly the boundes thereof, that the grauitie sinceritie, liberty, and temperancy of Godly conuersation, and christian philosophie, shined and florished among all the nations, both of the Grecians, and Barbarians. Thus the slaunder slyded