was Valentinus’s student, Marcus, who unleashed the pharmakon on the ancient Mediterranean in the years he was active, between AD 160 and 180. Ruck notes that “although all the heretical sects had a reputation for herbalism and sorcery, Marcus himself was apparently notorious for his expertise with drugs: thus Irenaeus accused him of pharmacological deviltry.”11 Similarly to Simon Magus, Marcus apparently seduced the wife of one of Irenaeus’s deacons to become a Marcosian with a blasphemous “love potion.” For some inexplicable reason, both Irenaeus and another Church Father named Hippolytus
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