Oath of Justin the Gnostic, as reported in Refutation of all Heresies, 5.23-24; 5.27:1-3

Oath of Justin the Gnostic, as reported in Refutation of all Heresies, 5.23-24; 5.27:1-3

In the anonymous Refutation of All Heresies, written in the third century in Rome, we are told of the “Gnostic” heretic Justin, his book “Baruch,” and the oath by which he binds his followers.

Source: Refutation of All Heresies. 2016. Trans: M. David Litwa. Writings from the Greco Roman World, Vol. 40. SBL Press. p. 331; 333; 353.

[5.23] Justin became a full-scale opponent against the teaching of holy scripture and in particular against the voice of the blessed evangelists. This is because the Word taught his disciples, "Do not depart to the path of Gentiles" (that is, pay no attention to the futile teachings of pagans), while this fool tries to lead his hearers astray to the fantastic tales and teachings of the pagans by directly quoting Greek myths. He neither teaches nor hands on his perfect mystery before he binds his dupe with an oath. 2. Then he sets out his myths to capture their souls. Consequently, the readers of the boundless blabbering in his books have his myths as a diversion. It is like when someone on a long journey finds an inn and decides to rest. Justin uses this method so that they will not despise diligent study when again they turn to their regimen of readings. They pursue this course until, swelling with pride, they rush toward the oft-trumpeted crime that he fabricated. He binds these people beforehand with hair-raising oaths neither to declare [the mysteries] nor to apostatize—and he forces them to consent. This is his method of handing on his impiously invented mysteries! Some-times, as I said, he employs Greek myths, at other times doctored books that in some respects reflect the aforementioned heresies. All these heretics, driven by one spirit, flow together into a single sewage "depth" as they variously narrate and relate the same doctrines in different ways. But all of them independently refer to themselves as “gnostics,” since they alone have gulped down the wondrous knowledge of the perfect and good!

[5.24] "Swear," Justin says, if you desire to know "what eye has not seen nor ear heard nor has it risen in the human heart." Swear by the one superior to all, the Good, the Highest one, to guard what is inexpressible, these teachings covered in silence! For surely our Father, too, when he saw the Good and was initiated by him, guarded the inexpressible secrets of silence and swore, as it is written: "The Lord swore and will not repent!" So, having sealed them by these words, Justin captures their souls with a host of myths in a bevy of books. Thus he leads them to the Good, initiating his initiates into unuttered mysteries!

So that we can travel without frequent detours, I will expose his unspeakable secrets from one of his books, a book that, in his view, is "glorious:' It is entitled Baruch. In it, I will reveal one out of many of his mythological discourses, a story with a prehistory in Herodotos. By reformulating this myth, Justin presents it to his hearers as something novel and from it constructs the entire system of his school.

[5.27:1-3] There is also written an oath in the first book entitled Baruch, which they make those about to hear these mysteries and become initiated into the Good swear. This oath, Justin claims, "our Father Elohim" swore when he arrived beside the Good. He swore and did not repent of this oath. The scriptures refer to this, he claims, in the verse: "The Lord swore and will not repent." This is the oath:

I swear by the one over all things, the Good, to keep these mysteries and to tell them to no one, nor will I backslide away from the Good toward creation.

Whenever one swears this oath, one comes to the Good and sees "what eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it risen in the human heart," and drinks from "living water" (which refers to their baptismal bath), which they suppose to be a fount of "living, bubbling water." There was made a division, he explains, between water and water so that there is a water of the evil creation below the firmament, in which the earthly and animate are washed, and a water of the Good above the firmament. This water is living, and in it are washed the living spiritual humans. In it Elohim washed himself. When he washed, he did not repent.