Spirit could not be supposed capable of falling into sin. This supplies one indication that the tract to which Tertullian replies was in Latin; and Hermogenes, as a Greek by birth, would probably not use the current Latin translation of the Bible, but render for himself.
The opinion of Hermogenes (not mentioned by Tertullian, but recorded by Clement, Hippolytus, and Theodoret) is that our Lord on His ascension left His body in the sun and Himself ascended to the Father, a doctrine which he derived or confirmed from Ps. xix., "He hath placed his tabernacle in the sun." (Theodoret adds that Hermogenes taught that the devil and the demons would be resolved into hyle. This agrees very well with the doctrine that the soul derived its origin from matter.) It is a common point of Gnostic doctrine that our Lord's nature was after the passion resolved into its elements and that only the purely spiritual part ascended to the Father. But on no other point does Hermogenes approach Gnostic teaching; in his theory of creation, he recognizes neither emanation from God nor anything intervening between God and matter; his general doctrine was confessedly orthodox and he would seem to have no wish to separate from the church nor to consider himself as transgressing the limits of Christian philosophic speculations.
It remains to notice Philaster's confused account of Hermogenes. It would not cause much difficulty that he counts (Haer. 53) the Hermogenians as a school of Sabellians, called after Hermogenes as the Praxeani were after Praxeas. Though the silence of Tertullian leads us to believe that Hermogenes himself was orthodox on this point, his followers may very possibly have allied themselves with those of Praxeas against their common opponent. But in the next section Philaster tells of Galatian heretics, Seleucus and Hermias, and attributes to them the very doctrines of Hermogenes that matter was co-eternal with God, that man's soul was from matter, and that our Lord deposited His body in the sun in accordance with the Psalm already quoted. It is beyond all probability that such a combination of doctrines could have been taught independently by two heretics and it is not likely that Hermogenes had disciples in Galatia; we may therefore reasonably believe that Philaster's Hermias is Hermogenes. Philaster, however, attributes to his heretics other doctrines which we have no reason to think were held by Hermogenes: that evil proceeded sometimes from God, sometimes from matter; that there was no visible Paradise; that water-baptism was not to be used, seeing that souls had been formed from wind and fire, and that the Baptist had said that Christ should baptize with the Holy Ghost and with fire; that angels, not Christ, had created men's souls; that this world was the only "infernum," and that the only resurrection is that of the human race occurring daily in the procreation of children. Philaster may have read tracts not now extant, in which Tertullian made mention of Hermogenes, and possibly if we had the lost tract de Paradiso it might throw light on Philaster's statements. But we may safely reject his account as untrustworthy, even though we cannot now trace the origin of his confusion.
The tract against Hermogenes has been analysed by writers on Tertullian; e.g. Neander, Antignosticus, p. 448, Bohn's trans.; Kaye, Tertullian, p. 532; Hauck, Tertullian, p. 240. Consult also arts. s.v. in Tillemont, iii. and Walch, Hist. der Ketz. i. 576; and E. Heintzel Hermogenes (Berlin, 1902).
[G.S.]
Hesychius (3) (Hesechius), bp. of an Egyptian see, mentioned as the author, with Phileas, Theodorus, and Pachumius, of a letter to Meletius, schismatic bp. of Lycopolis in Egypt. The letter, given in a Latin version in Gallandius, Bibl. Patrum, iv. 67, is a remonstrance to Meletius on his irregular ordinations in other dioceses, and was written (c. 296) when the authors were in prison and Peter of Alexandria alive. The martyrdom of Hesychius under Galerius, with Phileas, Pachumius, and Theodorus, is recorded in Eus. Hist. Eccl. viii. 13. This Hesychius has been usually identified with the reviser of the text of the LXX, and of N.T., or at least of the Gospels, which obtained extensive currency in Egypt. There are no grounds for questioning the truth of this conjecture. This Hesychian recension is mentioned more than once by Jerome, who states that it was generally accepted in Egypt, as that of his fellow-martyr, Lucian of Antioch, was in Asia Minor and the East (Hieron. Praef. in Paralipom. ad Chromat. Ep. 107, repeated in Apologia II. adv. Rufin. vol. i. p. 763, Paris, 1609). Jerome also refers to it as "exemplaria Alexandrina" (in Esai. lviii. 11). We know little or nothing more of this edition of the LXX. It was doubtless an attempt, like that of Lucian, to purify the text in use in Egypt, by collating various manuscripts and by recourse to other means of assistance at hand. Jerome speaks with some contempt of his labours in the field of O.T. recension, and still more of his and Lucian's recension of the Gospels. If we interpret his words strictly, Hesychius, as well as Lucian, added so much to the text as to lay them open to the charge of falsifying the Gospels and rendering their work "apocryphal" (Hieron. Praef. in Evang. cad Damasum). The words of the famous Decretal of Gelasius (c. 500) "on ecclesiastical books," which are, however, regarded by Credner (Zur Gesch. d. K. p. 216) as additions to the original decree "made at the time it was republished in Spain under the name of Hormisdas, c. 700–800" (Westcott, Hist. of Can. p. 448, n. 1), are equally condemnatory: "Evangelia quae falsavit Isicius [Hesychius]—Apocrypha" (Labbe, Conc. iv. 126). Westcott pronounces Hug's speculations as to the influence of this recension, "of which nothing is certainly known," "quite unsatisfactory" (ib.).
[E.V.]
Hesychius (25), presbyter of Jerusalem in the first half of 5th cent., a copious and learned writer whose comments on Holy Scripture and other works gained a great reputation. Considerable confusion exists as to the authorship of several of the treatises ascribed to him—a confusion which it is hopeless entirely to remove. It is possible that some were written by the bp. of Salona. [HESYCHIUS (6).] It is altogether a mistake
