Seleucians
Seleucians the followers of Seleucus, a philosopher of Galatia, who, about the year 380, adopted some of the notions of the Valentinians. He taught that Jesus Christ assumed a body only in appearance; that the world was not made by God, but was eternal; that the soul was only an animated fire created by angels; that Christ does not sit at the right hand of the Father in a human body, but that he lodged his body in the sun, according to Ps 19:4; and that all the pleasures of happiness consist in corporeal delight. Augustine says that the Seleucians rejected the use of water in baptism, under the pretense that this was not the baptism instituted by Christ, because John, comparing his baptism with that of Christ, says, "I baptize you with water; but he that cometh after me shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire." They deemed a baptism of fire more suitable to the spiritual nature of man than a baptism of water, since they taught that the soul was a portion of living fire. SEE HERMIANS.
