ancient heretics, who maintained most of the errors of Simon Magus, Saturninus, and the Manichæes. They took their name from their leader Cerdon, a Syrian, who came to Rome in the time of pope Hyginus, and there abjured his errors: but in appearance only; for he was afterwards convicted of persisting in them, and accordingly cast out of the church again. Cerdon asserted two principles, the one good and the other evil: this last, according to him, was the creator of the world, and the god that appeared under the old law. The first, whom he called unknown, was the father of Jesus Christ; who, he taught, was incarnate only in appearance, and was not born of a virgin; nor did he suffer death but in appearance. He denied the resurrection; and rejected all the books of the Old Testament, as coming from an evil principle. Marcion, his disciple, succeeded him in his errors.

CEREALIA, in antiquity, feasts of Ceres, instituted by Triptolemus, son of Celeus king of Eleusine in Attica, in gratitude for his having been instructed by Ceres, who was supposed to have been his nurse, in the art of cultivating corn and making bread.

There were two feasts of this kind at Athens; the one called Eleusinia, the other Thesmophoria. See the article Eleusinia. What both agreed in, and was common to all the cerealia, was, that they were celebrated with a world of religion and purity; so that it was esteemed a great pollution to meddle, on those days, in conjugal matters. It was not Ceres alone that was honoured here, but also Bacchus. The victims offered were hogs, by reason of the waste they make in the products of the earth: whether there was any wine offered or not, is matter of much debate among the critics. Plautus and Macrobius seem to countenance the negative side; Cato and Virgil the positive. Macrobius says, indeed, they did not offer wine to Ceres, but mulsum, which was a composition of wine and honey boiled up together; that the sacrifice made on the 21st of December to that goddess and Hercules, was a pregnant sow, together with cakes and mulsum; and that this is what Virgil means by Mill Baccho. The cerealia passed from the Greeks to the Romans, who held them for eight days successively; commencing, as generally held, on the fifth of the ides of April. It was the women alone who were concerned in the celebration, all dressed in white: the men, likewise in white, were only spectators. They eat nothing till after sun-set; in memory of Ceres, who in her search after her daughter took no repast but in the evening.

No 68.

After the battle of Cannæ, the desolation was so great at Rome, that there were no women to celebrate the feast, by reason they were all in mourning; so that it was omitted that year.