Cerdo

, a famous Heresiarch, who lived at the end of the first, or beginning of the second century, is said to have maintained the existence of two gods, one good, the Creator of heaven, the other bad, and Creator of the | earth to have rejected the law, the prophets, and all the New Testament, except part of St. Luke’s gospel, and some of St. Paul’s epistles. He is also said to have been Mansion’s master; but it is much more probable that he was only his disciple, if, as is asserted, he taught that the body assumed by Jesus Christ was a phantom, i. e. an apparent body, but not a real one, composed of flesh and bones like the human body; and all the ancient writers call Marcion the author of this heresy. The report of Cerdo’s having retracted his errors is doubted by Lardner, who gives a very ample account of him and his opinions. ¹