Samaritanism, and from it the Samaritans. This heresy originated from Judaism before heresies appeared among the Greeks, and before their teachings were formed, but after the establishment of the worship of God among the Greeks, namely, from the time of Nebuchadnezzar and the Jewish captivity. Being exiles from Assyria to Judea, the Samaritans received one of the Pentateuches of Moses, when the king sent it to them from Babylon through a priest called Ezra. They have everything in common with the Jews, except that they abhor the Gentiles and touch no other things, and except the denial of the resurrection of the dead and other prophecies that took place after Moses.

Some of them preserve virginity, and others abstinence. They also believe in the resurrection of the dead, which is alien to the Samaritans.

The Jews have seven heresies:

The scribes, who were lawyers and guardians of the secondary laws or traditions of the so-called elders, who with excessive zeal observed the arbitrarily accepted liturgical rites, which they did not learn from the law, but composed for themselves rites, as it were, lawful and righteous.

The Pharisees, which means set apart, who led the highest life and seemed righteous more than others. They, like the scribes, recognize the resurrection of the dead, and the existence of angels and the Holy Spirit. Their life is special: they observe abstinence until a certain time, as well as celibacy, fasting twice a week, purification of mugs, dishes and cups, as well as, as with the scribes, decimate, first-fruits, continuous prayer, prescribed by arbitrary superstition, the external appearance of the garment, consisting of a robe similar to a sticharion and a dalmatic, or a garment without sleeves, with an enlargement of the storehouses (Matt. 23:5), that is, stripes of scarlet, and buttons on the criments of the robe, which served as a sign of what they kept until the time of abstinence. They introduced the doctrine of birth and fate.

The Sadducees, which means the most truthful, descended from the Samaritans, and together from the priest Zadok. They denied the resurrection of the dead, did not recognize either angel or spirit; In all other things, there were Jews.

The Imerobapti, who were Jews in all respects, but maintained that no one would receive eternal life unless he performed ablutions every day.

Ossins, which means the bravest. They did everything according to the law, but they also used other writings that appeared after the law; however, most of the later prophets were rejected.

The Nazarenes, which means unrestrained, forbid all meat-eating, do not eat animate at all, in the Pentateuch the holy names of the patriarchs before Moses and Joshua accept and believe in them, I mean Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the elders, as well as Moses himself, Aaron and Jesus. They teach, however, that the Pentateuch is not the Scripture of Moses, and assert that instead of this they have other writings.

The Herodians were Jews in everything, but they recognized Herod as Christ, and to the latter they gave honor and ascribed the name of Christ.

Here is the first section, which contains a denunciation of all twenty heresies; there is also a discourse on the coming of Christ and an exposition of the confession of the truth, the one and only true faith of God.

Hitherto there has been set forth a refutation of the twenty heresies that preceded Christ and a sermon on faith and the coming of Christ in the flesh. When soon followed the coming in the flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, it overtook the above-mentioned seven heresies in Jerusalem, and His power quenched and scattered these heresies. All the other heresies took place after His coming,

This God, the Word, born in Bethlehem and circumcised, was brought to Jerusalem, received there into the arms of Simeon, confessed by Anna the prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, and was carried away to Nazareth. In the following year he came (to Jerusalem) to appear before the Lord, for the sake of kinship he was carried to Bethlehem, then he was again taken to Nazareth. During the second year he again came to Jerusalem, carried by His Mother; in Bethlehem with His Mother and Joseph, already an old man, but not forsaking Mary, he entered the house, and there, in the second year after His birth, he was found (by the Magi), received the gifts, and that same night, according to a revelation from the angel to Joseph, he was taken to Egypt, and from thence again, after two years, returned when Herod died, and Archelaus became his successor.

The Saviour is born in Bethlehem of Judea; in the thirty-third year of Herod, and in the forty-second year of King Augustus, he departs to Egypt in the thirty-fifth year of Herod, and returns from Egypt after the death of Herod. For this reason, in the thirty-seventh year of the same reign of Herod, the Lord was a child of four years, when Herod, having fulfilled the age of thirty-seven, ended his life. And Archelaus reigned nine years; At the beginning of his reign, Joseph, with Mary and the Youth, hearing that Archelaus reigned, withdrew to the countries of Galilee and settled in Nazareth. Archelaus begat Herod the younger, and Herod by succession reigns in the ninth year of the reign of Archelaus' father. From the coming of Christ in the flesh, thirteen years were reckoned at that time. In the eighteenth year of Herod, who was called Agrippa, Jesus began to preach, and then he received baptism from John, and preached the year pleasantly (Luke 4:19), not meeting with reproach from anyone (Luke 2:34), neither from the Jews, nor from the Greeks, nor from the Samaritans, nor from any other people; then in the second year he preached, meeting with rebuke, when the reign of the same Herod was nineteen years, and the Saviour was thirty-second. In the twentieth year of Herod, who is called the tetrarch, salvific suffering and impassibility took place, the tasting of death on the cross, when the Lord truly suffered, but remained passionless according to Divinity. Christ who suffered for us in the flesh, says the Divine Scripture (1 Peter 4:1); and again: "He was put to death in the flesh, but was made alive in the Spirit" (1 Peter 3:18). and so on. He is nailed to the cross, buried, descends into hell with Divinity and soul, captivates captivity, and rises three days with the same holy body [9], uniting the body with the Divinity, no longer suffering, not possessed by death, as the Apostle says: "Death does not possess Him" (Romans 6:9). Also in truth the body, the same flesh, the same soul, also everything; and it was not any other body, but the same thing that the Lord clothed with power and united in one unity, in one Godhead, making the carnal incorruptible, the corporeal spiritual, the coarse subtle, the mortal immortal, who did not see corruption at all, since His soul did not leave in hell (Acts 2:31); His body did not deviate even partially to sin, His mind was not defiled by turning to the worst; on the contrary, He took upon Himself all that was human, but kept everything perfect, since the Divinity gave a place to true needs, bodily and mental, and to those who receive confirmation from the human mind, in true incarnation: hunger and thirst, weeping and sorrow, tears and sleep, fatigue and repose are understood. This is not a form of sin, but a sign of true humanity itself, whereby the Divinity, which is truly co-existent with humanity, does not tolerate that which is proper to humanity, but on the contrary, the Divinity deigns to do that which is beneficial, and is beyond sin and turning to the worst. But He also rose again, and entered through the door of the imprisoned, in order to show to the refined a coarse body, having flesh and bones. When He entered, He showed His hands and feet, and pierced ribs, bones and sinews, and so forth, to prove that what He saw was not a phantom. Thus He fulfilled by Himself the promise of our faith and hope, having accomplished all things, and eating and abiding with the disciples, not illusory, but truly; and instructing, He taught them to preach the Kingdom of Heaven in truth, giving them to understand the great and most important mystery of the disciples, and saying, "Teach the tongues" (Matt. 28:19), that is, turn the nations from vice to truth, from heresies to the one Godhead, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in the Lord's name of the Trinity, the holy and royal seal, in order to show by this name, that there is no change in the one unity. For those who are baptized are commanded to be baptized in the name of the Father (undoubted doxology), in the name of the Son (the name of one who lacks nothing), in the name of the Holy Spirit (indissoluble unity, not alienated from the one Godhead).