42 Irenaeus: Life, Scripture, LegacyBut it would be well if the others would co-operate with him.”^34 It is not accidental
that Lyco was formally chosen by the group as the διάδοχος.^35 The will Lyco clarifies
exactly: “I leave the Peripatus to such of my friends who choose to make use of it, to
Bulo, Callinus, Ariston, Amphion.... They shall put over it any such person as in
their opinion will persevere with the work of the school, and will be most capable
of extending it.”^36 Clearly a διάδοχος of a philosophical school also had control over
prop e r t y.^37
Irenaeus cannot parallel such ownership in the case of a president of a philosophi-
cal school with that of Christian πρεσβύτεροι or ἐπίσκοποι as διάδοχοι τῶν ἀποστόλων.
This is because there is little evidence of any property held in common under the law:
Roman Christians met in private houses as Lampe has described and justified in part
by an analysis of the house-situation presupposed in the background of the Hippoly-
tan Apostolic Tradition.^38 Undoubtedly, Justin Martyr had previously used the term
“president” (used of a philosophical school) to designate the president of a Christian
Eucharist. Justin’s προεστώς presides over a congregation that gathers “above the baths
of Myrtinus” and is understood by analogy with a philosophical school.^39 Indeed he
had claimed as a teacher of Christianity to be the teacher of the true philosophy.^40 But
Justin’s group, as Lampe argued, was one group among a loose confederation of house
churches, acknowledging their unity as Christians by the exchange of the fermentum,
but each presided over by their particular πρεσβύτερος–ἐπίσκοπος–συνεστώς.^41 Could
they all be διάδοχοι or did not the model require one διάδοχος? There was not here a
clear fit between the scholastic model and the loose confederation of house churches.
Schism and the designation of “heresy” could not, given a church existing in the
form of such house-groups, apply to a single community splitting, with the result that
one of them physically leaves the sacred space and goes off to occupy another of its
own in separation. There was no parallel here with Aristotle leaving Plato’s academy
and setting up on his own estate with its walkway for philosophical discussion, or the
Stoic occupation of a Portico. The followers of Marcion or Valentinus did not “leave”
in the sense that they departed from church buildings. Rather it was the case that they
remained in their house-groups: their “leaving” was a case of their adopting a version
of the faith that was not considered by the rest to be the διαδοχή ἀποστόλων.
Irenaeus’s description of Valentinus could not be expressed more clearly when he
says of him: “For he was the first from the so called Gnostic heresy to reshape the
first principles of their school into his own character [τὰς ἀρχὰς εἰς ἴδιον χαρακτῆρα
διδασκαλείου μεθαρμόσας] .”^42 Valentinus “left” not by being formally expelled as an
individual from the orthodox community but by reconfiguring the teaching of his
group so that it became transformed into another tradition, another διαδοχή. Of Val-
entinus Irenaeus might have used the same description as did the Hippolytan writer
later of Callistus, namely that the latter “founded a school [συνεστήσατο διδασκαλεῖον],
having taught against the Church [κατὰ τῆς ἐκκλησίας διδάξας] .”^43
That writer fully acknowledged that it was possible for someone to be “called a
Christian [λεγόμενος Χριστιανός]” and yet to “assemble (for worship) with a different
person [παρ ̓ ἑτέρῳ τινὶ συναγόμενος].” It was when someone so gathering went over to
Callistus’s group for easy absolution from what the writer considered to be a heretical