By Water & Blood

On Menander

A certain Menander, himself also a Samaritan, setting out from a village so called Chabrai, succeeded to that man’s sorcery; yet he did not name himself the first Power—for he said that this is unknown—but, boasting that he had been sent by that one, he styled himself Savior. The angels, similarly to Simon, he said had been projected by the Thought, and that these crafted the world; and that those baptized into him are saved and are made superior even in this life, and receive power so as easily to prevail over the world-making powers.

Against these Justin wrote—he who became an advocate of the truth in the guise of a philosopher and who won the crown of martyrdom—and Irenaeus, of whom we made mention before (and this man too is apostolic), and Origen, who practiced much learning. Having this man as teacher, Saturnilus and Basilides—the one boasting as fatherland Antioch neighboring the river Orontes, and Basilides Alexandria—invented myths opposed both to their teacher and to one another; and both lived in the time of Hadrian Caesar.