ancient heretics who maintained most of the errors of Simon Magus, Saturninus, and the Manicheans. Their leader Cerdö, a Syrian of the second century, went to Rome and there abjured his errors; but he was afterwards convicted of persisting in them, and cast out of the church. Cerdö maintained the existence of two first causes of all things, the one good and the other evil; and also an intermediate deity, who was the Creator of the world, and the God and the Lawgiver of the Jews. The first, whom he called unknown, was the Father of Jesus Christ, who, he taught, was incarnate only in appearance, and did not actually suffer death; with many other errors, in which he was succeeded by his disciple Marcion. (Reid's edition of Mosheim's Eccles. Hist.)

CEREALIA, in Antiquity, a festival of Ceres, instituted by Triptolemus, son of Celeus king of Eleusis, in gratitude for having been instructed by Ceres in agriculture and the art of making bread. The cerealia passed from the Greeks to the Romans, who celebrated them with games in the Circus Maximus, commencing generally on the ides or 13th of April, or as some suppose on the 7th. The spectators always appeared in white; and the wanderings of Ceres in search of Proserpine were represented by women in white robes, and holding lighted torches in their hands.