Hermogenes (1), a teacher of heretical doctrine towards the close of
2nd cent., the chief error ascribed to him being the doctrine that God had formed the world, not out of nothing, but out of previously existing uncreated matter. Tertullian wrote two tracts in answer, one of which is extant, and is our chief source of information about Hermogenes. The minuteness with which his arguments are answered indicates that Tertullian is replying to a published work of Hermogenes, apparently written in Latin. Another doctrine of Hermogenes preserved by Clement of Alexandria (Eclog. ex Script. Proph. 56 p. 1002, being unlike anything told of him by Tertullian, was conjectured by Mosheim (de Rebus Christ. ante Const. p. 435) to belong to some different Hermogenes. But the since recovered treatise on heresies by Hippolytus combines in its account of Hermogenes (viii. 17, p. 273) the doctrines attributed to him by Clement and by Tertullian. Probably Clement and Hippolytus drew from a common source, namely, the work "against the heresy of Hermogenes," which, Eusebius tells us (H. E, iv. 24), was written by Theophilus of Antioch, and which is mentioned also by Theodoret (Haer. Fab. i. 19), who probably drew from it his account of Hermogenes, in which he clearly employs some authority different from the tenth book, or summary, of Hippolytus, of which he makes large use of elsewhere. Theodoret adds that Hermogenes was also answered by Origen, from which it has been supposed that he refers under this name to the summary now ascribed to Hippolytus; but there is no evidence that Theodoret regarded this work as Origen's (see Volkmar, Hippolytus und die römischen Zeitgenossen, p. 54), so that some lost work of Origen's must be presumed. The passages cited are all our primary authorities about Hermogenes, except some statements of Philaster (see below).
A considerable distance of time and place separates the notices by Theophilus
and Tertullian. survived the accession of Commodus in 180, but probably not more than two years. Hence 180 would be our latest date for the teaching of Hermogenes, which may have been earlier. He probably had disciples at Antioch, and therefore must have taught at or near there, and any writing of his answered by Theophilus must have been written in Greek. Tertullian's tract against Hermogenes is assigned by Uhlhorn (Fundamenta Chron. Tert. p. 60) to 206 or 207. In it Hermogenes is spoken of as still living ("ad hodiernum homo in saeculo") and coupled with one Nigidius in the work on Prescription, c. 30, as among the heretics "who still walk perverting the ways of God." There are indications that the work to which Tertullian replies was in Latin, and every reason to think that Hermogenes (though probably, as his name indicates, of Greek descent) was then living in Carthage, for Tertullian assails his private character, entering into details in a way which would not be intelligible unless both were inhabitants of the same city. The same inference may be drawn from the frequency of Tertullian's references to Hermogenes in works of which his errors are not the subject (de Monog. 16; de Praescrip. 30, 33 adv. Valent. 16; de Animâ, 1, 11, 21, 22, 24); for apparently proximity gave this heretic an importance in his eyes greater than was otherwise warranted. Tertullian describes him as a turbulent man, who took loquacity for eloquence and impudence for firmness. Two things in particular are shocking to his then Montanist principles, that Hermogenes was a painter, and that he had married frequently. Neander and others have supposed that the offence of Hermogenes was that he painted mythological subjects. But there is no trace of this limitation in Tertullian's treatise, which shews all through a dislike of the pictorial art, and Tertullian seems to have considered the representation of the human form absolutely forbidden by the 2nd commandment. As for the charge of frequent marriages, if Hermogenes, who in 207 would be advanced in life, was then married to a third wife, a writer so fond of rhetorical exaggeration as Tertullian might describe him as one who had formed a practice of marrying (nubit assidue), or who had "married more women than he had painted." Tertullian's language may imply that Hermogenes had also endeavoured to prove from Scripture that a second marriage was not unlawful.