Philosophumena; or, The refutation of all heresies, Volume II

by Antipope Hippolytus

FOOTNOTES

[1] He of course refers to the Ophites, whence it is clear that he included Justinus among them. His language may imply that all these serpent-worshipping sects had been in existence some time before, but did not begin to write their doctrines until they had taken on a veneer of Christianity. This is very probable, but there is not as yet any convincing proof that this was the case.

[2] Here again it is very difficult to say whether τῶν ἀκολούθων means those who follow in point of time or in the pages of the book.

[3] ὄργια, “secret rites” and ὀργή, “wrath,” is the pun here.

[4] Simon Magus, the convert of Philip the Evangelist, is said by all patristic writers to be at once the first teacher and the founder of all (post-Christian) Gnosticism; but until the discovery of our text our knowledge of his doctrines hardly went further than the statements of St. Irenæus and Epiphanius that he claimed to be the Supreme Being. The only other light on the subject came from Theodoret, who, writing in the fifth century, discloses in a few brief words the assertion by Simon of a system of aeons or inferior powers emanating from the Divinity by pairs. It is plain that in this, Theodoret must have either borrowed from, or used the same material as, our author, and it is now seen that Simon’s aeons were said by him to be six in number, the sources of all subsequent being, and to be considered under a double aspect. On the one hand, they were names or attributes of God like the Amshaspands of Zoroastrianism or the Sephiroth of the Jewish Cabala; and on the other they were identified with natural objects such as Heaven and Earth, Sun and Moon, Earth and Water, thereby forming a link with the Orphic and other cosmogonies current in Greece and the East. We now learn, too, for the first time that Simon taught, like the Ophites, that the Supreme Being was of both sexes like his antitypes, that the universe consisted of three worlds reflecting one another, and that man must achieve his salvation by coming to resemble the Deity—a result which was apparently to be brought about by finding his twin soul and uniting himself to her. None of these ideas seem to have been Simon’s own invention, and all are found among those of earlier or later Gnostics. Hence their appearance has here given rise to the theories, put forward in the first instance by German writers, but also adopted by some English ones, that the Simon of our text was not the magician of the Acts but an heresiarch of the same name who flourished in the second century, and that the opponent of St. Peter covers under the same name the personality of St. Paul. Neither theory seems to have any foundation.

[5] τοῦ Γιττηνοῦ. Hippolytus’ usual practice is to use the place-name as an adjective. The Codex has Γειττηνοῦ, Justin Martyr, “of Gitto.”

[6] Probably Paramedes or Agamedes is intended. Cf. Theocritus, Idyll, II, 14. The Paramedes or Perimedes there mentioned was said to have been a famous witch, child of the Sun, and mistress of Poseidôn.

[7] Acts viii. 9-14.

[8] i. e. Cyrene.

[9] This story in one form or another appears in Maximus Tyrius (Diss. xxxv), Ælian (Hist., xiv. 30), Justin (xxi. 4), and Pliny (Nat. Hist., viii. 16). The name seems to be Psapho.

[10] Cruice’s emendation. Schneidewin, Miller, and Macmahon read τάχιον ἀνθρώπῳ γενομένῳ, ὄντως θεῷ, “sooner than to Him who though made man, was really God;” but there seems no question here of the Second Person of the Trinity.

[11] γέννημα γυναικός, “birth of a woman.”

[12] This is the evident meaning of the sentence. Hippolytus ignores all rules as to the order of his words. Macmahon translates as if Christ were meant.

[13] Deut. iv. 24, “consuming” only in A. V.

[14] Empedocles also. See Vol. I. pp. [40]-[41] supra.

[15] τὸ γράμμα ἀποφάσεως, liber revelationis, Cr., “the treatise of a revelation,” Macmahon; as if it were the title of a book. But the title of the book attributed to Simon is given later as Ἡ ἀποφάσις μεγάλη, and there seems no reason why the second syzygy of the series should be singled out in it for special mention.

[16] A phrase singularly like this occurs in the “Naassene” author. See Vol. I. pp. [140]-[141] supra, where the “universals” are enumerated.

[17] Or that which can only be perceived by the mind and that which can be perceived by the senses.

[18] ἐπινοήσῃ. The sense of the passage seems to require “perceive”; but the Greek can only mean “have in one’s mind.” Probably some blunder of the copyist.

[19] Here, again, he has inverted the order. The hidden is the intelligible, the manifest, the perceptible.

[20] The simile of the Treasure-house finds frequent expression in the Pistis Sophia.

[21] Dan. iv. 12.

[22] ἐξεικονισθῇ. Macmahon translates “if it be fully grown” on the strength apparently of a passage in the LXX; but the word is used too frequently throughout this chapter to have that meaning here.

[23] Isa. v. 7. The A.V. has “the men” for “a man” and “pleasant” for “beloved.”

[24] τοῖς ἐξεικονισμένοις.

[25] 1 Pet. i. 24, 25. The A.V. has “glory of man” for “glory of flesh.”

[26] τέλειον νοερὸν. It is very difficult to find in English a word expressing the difference between this νοερός, “intellectual,” and νοητός, “intelligible.”

[27] Reading ἀπειράκις ἀπείρων (ὄντων) for the ἀπειράκις ἀπείρως of Cruice’s text.

[28] Cruice’s emendation. The Codex has γνώμην ἴσην, “equal opinion”? Schneidewin, νώματος αἶσαν.

[29] Here we have Simon’s cosmogonical ideas set out for the first time in something like his own words. He seems to postulate the existence of a Logos who makes the Six Powers or Roots and who is himself present in them all. This does not appear to differ from the view of Philo, for which see Forerunners, I, 174, or Schürer’s Hist. of the Jewish People there quoted.

[30] Νοῦς καὶ Ἐπίνοιαν, Φωνὴ καὶ Ὄνομα, Λογισμὸς καὶ Ἐνθύμησις. The last name is the only one that presents any difficulty, although every heresiologist but Hippolytus gives the female of the first syzygy as Ἔννοια. Ἐνθύμησις is translated Conceptio by Cruice, “Reflection” by Macmahon. It seems as if it here meant “desire” in a mental, not a fleshly, sense; but as this word has a double meaning in English, I have substituted for it “Passion.” Hereafter the Greek names will be used.

[31] This daring idea that the Logos, the chief intermediary between God and matter in whom all the lesser λόγοι and powers were contained, as Philo thought, must himself either return to and be united to God or else be lost in matter and perish, is met with in one form or another in nearly all later forms of Gnosticism. It is this which makes the redemption of Sophia after her “fall” so prominent in the mythology of Valentinus, while its converse is shown in the First Man of Manichæism conquered by Satan and groaning in chains and darkness until released by the heavenly powers and placed in some intermediate world to wait until the last spark of the light which he has lost is redeemed from matter. It seems to be the natural consequence of Philo’s ideas, for which see Schürer’s Hist. of the Jewish People (Eng. ed.) II, ii. pp. 370-376. Whether these did not in turn owe something to Greek stories of mortals like Heracles and Dionysos deified as a reward for their sufferings is open to question. Cf. Forerunners, vol. I.

[32] Justinus also used this quotation from Isaiah i. 2, although in abbreviated form. See supra, Vol. I. p. [179]. The A.V. has “nourished and brought up” for “begotten and raised up,” and “rebelled against” for “disregarded.”

[33] So Philo according to Zeller and Schürer, (op. cit., p. 374) understands by the Logos “the power of God or the active Divine intelligence in general.” He designates it as the “idea which comprises all other ideas, the power which comprises all powers in itself, as the entirety of the supersensuous world or of the Divine powers.”

[34] Gen. ii. 2.

[35] The Sethiani also quote this. See supra, Vol. I. p. 165.

[36] So Ecclesiasticus xxiv. 9, makes Wisdom or Sophia say, “He created me from the beginning before all the world,” and Proverbs viii. 23, “I was set up from everlasting,” but neither passage is here directly quoted.

[37] Gen. i. 2, “moved upon the face of,” A.V.

[38] ἔπλασε, “moulded.”

[39] That is, masculo-feminine.

[40] ἐξεικονισθῇ again. Like the Boundless Power or the Logos?

[41] Quotation already used by the Peratæ. See supra, Vol. I. p. [148]. For the Indivisible Point which follows, see the Naassene chapter, Vol. I. p. [141] supra.

[42] Jer. i. 5. “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee,” A.V.

[43] Gen. ii. 10, “to water the garden,” A.V. The four divisions of the river have been already referred to in different senses by Justinus and the Naassene author. So far from this repetition arguing forgery, as contended by Stähelin, it seems only to show that all these half-Jewish sects found in the traditions recorded in Genesis an obstacle that they were bound to explain away if possible.

[44] ὀχετοὶ πνεύματος. Cruice and Macmahon translate πνεῦμα by “spirit,” but it here evidently means “breath” from what is said later about the nostrils. Cruice mentions that the ancients finding the arteries empty at death concluded that they were filled by air during life.

[45] The use of the first person shows that this is Hippolytus’ and not Simon’s explanation.

[46] ἀναπνοή, “inbreathing.”

[47] Cruice’s emendation.

[48] A hiatus to be filled evidently with some reference to the mouth. The whole of this passage seems corrupt. From what is said about the bitterness of the water Exodus should be taste, Leviticus smell and Numbers hearing.

[49] The simile as well as the phrase is to be found in Aristotle. Cf. his Organon, c. viii.

[50] Cf. Isa. ii. 4; Micah iv. 3.

[51] Matt. iii, 10; Luke iii, 9.

[52] So the Bruce Papyrus (ed. Amélineau, p. 231) says that God when he withdrew all things into Himself, did not so draw “a little Thought,” and from this one Thought all the worlds were made.

[53] οὐ κοσμεῖται, non ordinaretur, Cr., “is not adorned,” Macmahon.

[54] Reading μητροπάτωρ for μήτηρ πατήρ. Cf. Clem. Alex., Strom., v. 14 for this word. The other epithets seem to cover allusions to the Dionysiac, the Osirian and the Attis myths.

[55] ἡ μεταβλητὴ γένεσις, “changeable,” because those thus born would have to go through many changes of bodies. The phrase is used by the Naassene author.

[56] A play τροπή, “turning,” and τροφὴ, “nutriment.”

[57] καὶ ἔσται δύναμις ἀπέραντος, ἀπαράλλακτος αἰῶνι ἀπαραλλάκτῳ μηκέτι γινομένῳ εἰς τὸν ἀπέραντον αἰῶνα; Cr., et erit potestas infinita, immutabilis in saeculo immutabili quod non amplius fit per infinitum sæculum; “and will become a power indefinite and unalterable, equal and similar to an unalterable age which no longer passes into the indefinite age,” Macmahon.

[58] Words in brackets Cruice’s emendation.

[59] παραφυάδες.

[60] δύναμις σιγή, a name compounded of two nouns like Pistis Sophia. The practice seems peculiar to this literature.

[61] ἀντιστοιχοῦντες, a term used in logic for “corresponding.” Simon here seems to think of the Egyptian picture of the air-god Shu, separating the Heaven Goddess Nut from the Earth God Seb, and supporting the first-named on his hands.

[62] So that the Supreme Being is of both sexes.

[63] This is the exact converse of what has just before been said about the Father containing Thought within himself.

[64] καταγινομένη, “descending into” (women’s forms)?

[65] This sentence is taken verbatim from Irenæus, I, 16, 2.

[66] ἐπὶ τέγους, literally, “on the roof.”

[67] διὰ τῆς ἰδίας ἐπιγνώσεως; per suam agnitionem, Cr.; “thro’ his own intelligence,” Macmahon.

[68] Reading ἄρχοντες for the ἀρχαί of the Codex.

[69] This sentence also appears verbatim in Irenæus, I, 16, 1.

[70] i. e. the prophets.

[71] The whole of this from the last quotation to the end of the section is also from Irenæus, I, 16, 2.

[72] What these πάρεδροι οἱ λεγομένοι were is hard to say; but one of the later documents of the Pistis Sophia introduces a fiend in hell as the “Paredros Typhon.” “Assessor” or “coadjutor,” the meanings of the word in classical Greek, would here seem inappropriate.

[73] From the beginning of the section to here is from Irenæus, I, 16, 3.

[74] That is, made up this doctrine.

[75] C. W. King in the Gnostics and their Remains (2nd ed.) thinks that the omitted word is Persia. There is evidently a lacuna here, and perhaps a considerable one.

[76] Because his age made his pretensions to divinity absurd. The story given after this directly contradicts all ecclesiastical tradition which makes Simon perish by the fall of his demon-borne car while flying in the presence of Nero and St. Peter in the Campus Martius.

[77] The sources of this chapter are fairly plain. There is little reason to doubt that Hippolytus had actually seen and read a book attributed to Simon Magus and called the Great Announcement from which he quotes, after his manner, inaccurately and carelessly, but still in good faith. Whether the work was by Simon himself is much more doubtful, but it was probably in use by the sect that he founded, and therefore represents with some fidelity his teaching. The style of it as appears from the extracts here given is a curious mixture of bombast and philosophical expressions, and bears a strong likeness to certain passages in the chapters in the fifth book on the Naassenes and the Peratæ. The other traceable source of the chapter is the work Against Heresies of St. Irenæus, of which the quotations here given go to establish the Greek text. But intertwined with this, especially towards the end of the chapter, is a third thread of tradition, quite different from that used in the Clementines and other patristic accounts of Simon’s career, which cannot at present be identified.

[78] With Valentinus, we leave at last the tangled genealogies and unclean imagery, as it seems to us, of the early traditions of Western Asia, to approach a form of religion which although not without fantastic features is yet much more consonant with modern European thought. Valentinus was, indeed, with the doubtful exception of Marcion, the first of heretics in the present acceptation of the term, and many features of his teaching were reproduced later in the tenets of one or other of the Christian sects. At first sight, the main difference between his doctrine and that of the Catholic Church consists in the extraordinary series of personified attributes of the Deity which he thought fit to interpose between the Supreme Being and the Saviour. This he probably borrowed either from the later Zoroastrian idea of the Amshaspands or Archangels who surround Ahura Mazda, or, more probably, from the paut neteru, (“company of the gods”) of the Egyptian religion of Pharaonic times; and it has been suggested elsewhere that he probably attached less importance to dogmatism on the matter than the Fathers would wish to make out. But Hippolytus’ account of his other doctrines show other divergences from the Church’s teaching both graver and wider than we should have gathered from the statements of Irenæus, Tertullian, or Epiphanius. His view of the ignorance and folly of the Demiurge seems to be taken over bodily from the Ophite teaching, and, as he identifies him by implication with the God of the Jews, must logically lead to the rejection of the whole of the Old Testament except perhaps the Psalms, Proverbs, and the historical portions. He is also as predestinarian as Calvin himself, for he assigns complete beatitude to the Pneumatics or Spirituals only, while relegating the Psychics to an inferior heaven and dooming the Hylics to complete destruction. Yet the class to which each of us is assigned has nothing to do with conduct, but is in the discretion of Sophia, the Mother of all Living.

The most marked novelty in Valentinus’ teaching, however, is the cause, according to him, of the gift of this partial salvation to man. This is not, as in the Catholic, the fruit of God’s love towards his creature, but the last stage of a great scheme for the reconstruction and purification of the whole universe. First, the Pleroma or Fulness of the Godhead is purified by the segregation from it of the Ectroma or abortion to which Sophia in her ignorance and ambition gave birth; then the Ectroma herself is freed from her passions by the action of Christ and the Holy Spirit, and made the Mother of Life; and finally this material world, the creation of the God of the Jews, is to be purged by the Divine Mission of Jesus from the gross and devilish elements introduced into it by the ignorant clumsiness of the same God of the Jews. But this theory was poles asunder from the geocentric ideas of the universe then current among Greeks, Jews, and Christians alike, and comes startlingly near the hypotheses of modern science on the very low place of the earth and humanity in the scheme of things. Whence Valentinus drew the materials from which he constructed his theory must be reserved for investigation at some future date; but it is fairly clear that some part of it was responsible for not a few of the tenets of the Manichæism which arose some hundred years later to maintain a strenuous opposition to the Catholic faith for at least nine centuries.

Finally, it may be said that Hippolytus also tells us for the first time of the divisions among Valentinus’ followers and the different parts played therein by Ptolemy, Heracleon and others, including that Bardesanes or Bar Daisan whose name was great in the East as late as Al Bîrûnî’s day.

[79] οὐκ ἀλόγως ὑπομνησθήσομαι.

[80] τὰ κορυφαιότατα τῶν αὐτοῖς ἀρεσκομένων.

[81] The Codex has Σολομῶν—evidently a copyist’s mistake. Cf. Plato, Timæus, § 7.

[82] Not necessarily the Supreme Being. Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus, I, 8, says, “God is one, and beyond the One, and above the Monad itself.”

[83] A fairly common form of Zoroaster. The quotation is probably from the “Chaldean Oracles” so-called.

[84] Diogenes Laertius, Book VIII, c. 19 quotes from Alexander’s Successions of Philosophers that Pythagoras in his Commentaries put first the monad, then the undefined dyad, and said that from these two numbers proceeded, from numbers signs, from signs lines, from lines plane figures, from planes solids, and from solids perceptible bodies consisting of the four elements, fire, water, earth and air.

[85] Miller would substitute νομιστέον for προστιθέμενον.

[86] These verses are said by Cruice to be in Sextus Empiricus, but I have not been able to find them in any known writings of that author.

[87] νοητά, as opposed to αἰσθητά.

[88] Cf. Matt. v. 18.

[89] These “accidents” are enumerated by Aristotle in his Metaphysics, Book IV, and more briefly in his Organon. He does not there acknowledge any indebtedness to Pythagoras.

[90] συνέχει.

[91] φιλία, not ἀγάπη. Macmahon translates “friendship.”

[92] i. e. the “Fashioner” = one who makes things out of previously existing material, but does not create them ex nihilo.

[93] διανομή, a word peculiar apparently to the Pythagoreans. Jowett translates it “regulation.”

[94] ἀπορῥαγάδας, a word unknown in classical Greek, which should by its etymology mean “chinks” or “rents.” I have taken it as a mistake for ἀπορῥήματα, which is found in Plutarch.

[95] Not Pythagoras, but Plutarch, de Exilio, § 11. He attributes it to Heraclitus.

[96] The reference seems to be to the Phaedrus, t. 1, p. 89 (Bekker).

[97] Or “practise philosophy”: but Hippolytus always uses the word with a contemptuous meaning.

[98] τὰς ἀρχάς. Evidently a mistake for τοὺς ἄρχοντας.

[99] Hippolytus in the interpretation of these sayings seems to have followed Diogenes Laertius.

[100] Ἀριθμητής.

[101] So Shu the Egyptian God of Air was figured between Earth (Seb) and Heaven (Nut).

[102] Roeper would read τὸν μέγαν ἐνιαυτὸν ἀπεργάζεται κόσμου, “completes the Great Year of the world.”

[103] Ἄθηλυς, “without female.”

[104] Σιγή, “Silence.” Cf. the Orphic cosmogony which makes Night the Mother of Heaven and Earth by Phanes the First-born, who contains within himself the seeds of all creatures (Forerunners, I, 123).

[105] The attribution of this monistic doctrine to Valentinus is found for the first time here. Irenæus and Tertullian both make him say that Sige is the spouse of the Supreme Being.

[106] οὐσία. Here as elsewhere in this chapter, save where an obvious pun is intended, to be translated as in text, and not “substance,” which is generally the equivalent of ὑπόστασις.

[107] φιλέρημος γὰρ οὐκ ἦν.

[108] Νοῦν καὶ ἀλήθειαν. Here as elsewhere with the names of Aeons, the English equivalent of the Greek name is first given, and, in later repetitions, the Greek name transliterated into English.

[109] Λόγον καὶ Ζωήν.

[110] Ἄνθρωπον καὶ Ἐκκλησίαν.

[111] τέλειος used in its double sense of “perfect” and “complete.”

[112] ὁ Λογος μετὰ τῆς Ζωῆς. The curious conception by which the two partners in a syzygy are regarded as only one being is very marked throughout this passage.

[113] ἀγεννησία; “unbegottenness” would be a closer translation, but is uncouth in this connection. Cf. I, p. [147] supra.

[114] Βυθὸς καὶ Μίξις, Ἀγήρατος καὶ Ἕνωσις, Αὐτοφυὴς καὶ Ἡδονή, Ἀκίνητος καὶ Σύγκρασις, Μονογενὴς καὶ Μακαρία. For the first name Irenæus (I, i. 1, p. 11, Harvey), has Bythios, thereby making the substantive into an adjective. So Epiphanius, Haer. XXXI (p. 328, Oehler). This is doubtless correct.

[115] Παράκλητος καὶ Πίστις, Πατρικὸς καὶ Ἐλπίς, Μητρικὸς καὶ Ἀγάπη, Ἀείνους καὶ Σύνεσις, Ἐκκλησιαστικὸς καὶ Μακαριστός, Θελητὸς καὶ Σοφία. The Codex is here very corrupt, and for Ἀείνους we may, if we please, read Αἰώνιος, “Everlasting,” and for Μακαριστός, Μακαριότης, “Blessedness.” As the name of the male partner in each syzygy is an adjective and that of the female a substantive it is probable that the two are intended to be read together, as e. g. “Profound Admixture,” and the like.

[116] Sophia, who plays a great part in the Jewish Apocrypha, is almost certainly a figure of the prototypal earth like Spenta Armaiti, her analogue in Mazdeism. Cf. the quotation from Genesis which follows immediately.

[117] οὐσία. Here “substance” and “essence” would have the same meaning, and the first-named word is used only to avoid ambiguity.

[118] Gen. i. 2.

[119] Exod. xxxiii. 3.

[120] Ἔκτρωμα.

[121] Ἐπιπροβληθεὶς οὖν ὁ Χριστὸς καὶ τὸ Ἅγιον Πνεῦμα. Christ and the Holy Spirit are therefore treated as a syzygy and, as it were, a single person.

[122] μονογενές.

[123] τὸ ὑστέρημα: “the Void,” the converse and opposite of the Pleroma or “Fulness.”

[124] For this Platonic theory of “partaking,” see n. on I, p. [53] supra.

[125] So that the first work of the Mission of Jesus was the freeing of the whole universe—not only our earth—from the evil which had entered into it.

[126] ὑποστάτους οὐσίας; “underlying beings.” Here we have the two ideas of hypostasis, or “substance” in its etymological meaning, and “essence,” or “being,” side by side.

[127] ψυχικὴν οὐσίαν, i. e. the stuff of which the soul is made.

[128] Ps. cxi. 10; Prov. i. 7; ii. 10.

[129] That is Jehovah, the God of the Jews. Hebdomad as including the seven “planets.”

[130] Deut. ix. 3.

[131] The “below,” Ὑποκάτω, and “above,” ὑπεράνω, seem to have become inverted; but as I am not sure whether this is the scribe’s mistake or not, I have left the text as it is. If we consider (as we must) that the heaven of Sophia is the highest and those of the seven worlds below it like steps of a ladder, we have the conception of Sophia, her son Jaldabaoth, and his six sons, current among the Ophites as shown in Book V above. The figure of Sophia as a “day” is at once an instance of the curious habit among the Gnostics of confusing time and space, and an allusion to the O.T. name of “Ancient of Days.”

[132] I have sought to show elsewhere (P.S.B.A., 1901, pp. 48, 49) in opposition to the current explanations that this name, properly written Beelzebuth, is at once a sort of parody of Jabezebuth or “Jehovah (Lord) of Hosts,” and the name given to the “ruler of demons” by the parallelism which, as in Zoroastrianism, makes each good spirit have its evil counterpart of similar name.

[133] προβεβήκασιν. So in Homer (Iliad, VI, 125). Cruice translates “provenerunt,” Macmahon reading apparently προβεβλήκασιν, “there has been projected.”

[134] Gen. ii. 7.

[135] 1 Cor. ii. 14. In the preceding passage taken apparently from Eph. iii. 14 either the Gnostic author or Hippolytus has taken some strange liberties with the received Text, which see.

[136] It is plain, therefore, that the Valentinians rejected these parts of the O.T.

[137] John x. 8.

[138] The τὸ μυστήριον τὸ ἀποκεκρυμμένον ἀπὸ τῶν αἰώνων καὶ ἀπὸ τῶν γενεῶν of Coloss. 1. 26 seems to be what is aimed at.

[139] ἅτε δὴ ἀπὸ τοῦ Δημιουργοῦ λελαλημένα; “inasmuch as they certainly had been uttered by the Demiurge alone,” Macmahon.

[140] τέλος ἔλαβεν, “received the finishing touch.”

[141] διὰ Μαρίας τῆς Παρθένου. A manifest allusion to the well-known Gnostic doctrine that Jesus took nothing from His Mother but came into being through her ὡς διὰ σωλῆνος, “as through a pipe or conduit.”

[142] Luke i. 35. Ὕψιστος, “the Highest,” was according to M. Camont (Suppl. Rev. instr. publ. en Belgique, 1897) the name by which the God of Israel was known throughout Asia Minor in pre-Christian times.

[143] καὶ τοῦ Ὑψίστου. These words are not in the Codex.

[144] τὴν δὲ οὐσίαν ... παράσχῃ. Again “essence” would etymologically be the better word, but “substance” is used as more familiar to the English reader.

[145] διδασκαλία. It is significant of the position held by Valentinus’ teaching in the Christian community that the Valentinians are often spoken of by the Fathers as a school of thought rather than a schismatic Church like that founded by Marcion.

[146] γέγωνε τῷ ψυχικῷ. So in Manichæism, the Living Spirit goes towards the Land of Darkness, where the First Man is entombed after his defeat by Satan, and “cries in a loud voice, and this voice was like a sharp sword and discovered the form of the First Man,” who is thereupon drawn up out of the Darkness and raised to the upper spheres where dwells the Mother of Life. Cf. Forerunners, II, pp. 294, 300, n. 1, and 302, n. 1, and Theodore bar Khôni and other authors there quoted.

[147] Rom. viii. 11; the words in brackets are not in the received text.

[148] Gen. iii. 19.

[149] So Cruice. Miller’s text has Ἀρδησιάνης.

[150] ἡ δημιουργικὴ τέχνη, “the process of fashioning.”

[151] διώρθωτο. So that Valentinus was the first to advance the theory which we find later among the Manichæans that this earth of ours, instead of being the centre of the universe, was in fact the lowest and most insignificant of all the worlds, and that salvation only came to it after the greater universe had been reformed—an extraordinary conception on the part of one who must have held, like his contemporaries, geocentric views in astronomy.

[152] Ex. vi. 2, 3.

[153] κατὰ τὴν αὐτὴν ἀκολουθίαν. Here as elsewhere in the text, ἀκολουθία has the meaning of imitation.

[154] ἰσόζυγος.

[155] ἐπανόρθωσιν, “re-rectification”!

[156] What follows is from Plato’s Second Epistle, which is thought to have been written after Plato’s return from his third voyage to Syracuse, and is perhaps rather less suspect than the other Platonic epistles. Yet the chances of interpolation are so great that no stress can be laid on the genuineness of any particular passage.

[157] This passage alone is sufficient to make one doubtful as to the Platonic authorship. If Plato really wanted to keep his doctrine secret, the last thing he would have done would be to call the attention of the chance reader to the fact.

[158] Burges translates: “But about a second are the secondary things and about a third the third.”

[159] Nearly two pages are here omitted from the Epistle.

[160] Possibly an allusion to the Platonic theory that all learning is remembrance.

[161] Τὰ δὲ νῦν λεγόμενα Σωκράτους. “Said of him” or “said by him”? The passage is quoted by the Emperor Julian and by Aristides.

[162] So that Hippolytus’ attempt to show that Valentinus plagiarized from Plato resolves itself into an imaginative interpretation of a purposely obscure passage in an epistle which is only doubtfully assigned to Plato. That Valentinus like every one educated in the Greek learning was influenced by Plato is likely enough, but that there was any conscious borrowing of tenets is against probability.

[163] προαρχή τῶν ὅλων Αἰώνων.

[164] That Valentinus is said to have written psalms, see Tertullian, de Carne Christi, I, c. xvii, xx, t. ii, pp. 453, 457 (Oehl.).

[165] Of the sources from which the author of the Philosophumena drew this account of Valentinus’ doctrine, much has been written. Hilgenfeld in his Ketzergeschichte des Urchristenthums, and Lipsius in the article “Valentinus” in Smith & Wace’s D.C.B., agree that its main source is the writings of Heracleon. Cruice, Études sur les Philosophumena, on the other hand, thinks it largely composed of extracts from a work of Valentinus himself, entitled Sophia. Salmon (Hermathena, 1885, p. 391), while not committing himself to a definite pronouncement as to the writer quoted, says that Hippolytus undoubtedly quoted from a genuine Valentinian treatise, and that this last is above the suspicion of forgery with which he is inclined to view other quotations in the Philosophumena.

[166] The notice of the followers, real or supposed, of Valentinus which occupies the remainder of Book VI adds little to our previous knowledge of their doctrines, being taken almost verbatim from the work of Hippolytus’ teacher, St. Irenæus. It is noteworthy, however, that although the Table of Contents promises us an account of (among others) Heracleon, nothing is here said of him, although that shrewd critic of the Gospels was thought worthy of refutation by Origen some fifty years later. Yet Hippolytus mentions Heracleon as being with Ptolemy a leader of the Italic School of Valentinians which seems to dispose of the theory advanced by Lipsius (Smith & Wace’s D.C.B., s. v. “Valentinus”) that Heracleon was the author from whom Hippolytus took his account of Valentinus’ own doctrine. Of Secundus nothing more is known than is set down in the text, while the “Epiphanes” here mentioned is thought by some to be not a name, but an adjective, so that the passage would read “a certain illustrious teacher of theirs.” This was certainly the reading of Irenæus’ Latin translator, who renders the word by “clarus.” Is this a roundabout way of describing Heracleon? As to this see Salmon in D.C.B., s. v. “Heracleon.”

[167] ἀποστᾶσαν καὶ ὑστερήσασαν. Evidently Sophia is meant.

[168] ἀρχή.

[169] Μονότης.

[170] Ἑνότης.

[171] προήκαντο μὴ προέμεναι, protulerunt non proferendo ex se, Cr. So Irenæus, I, xi. 3, p. 104, H. In his note Harvey says that the passage implies that Henotes and Monotes “put forth as the original cause the Beginning, but so as that the Beginning was eternally inseparable from their unity.”

[172] Irenæus makes ὁ λόγος, “the Word,” the speaker. So Tertullian, adv. Val., “quod sermo vocat.” But it seems more natural to refer the speech to Epiphanes or “the Illustrious Teacher.”

[173] Προαρχή, Ἀνεννόητος, Ἄρῥητος and Ἀόρατος. The three first names, however, are not in the text but are restored from Irenæus, I, v. 2, p. 105, H.

[174] These four new names are: Ἀρχή, Ἀκατάληπτος, Ἀνωνόμαστος and Ἀγέννητος.

[175] Of Ptolemy we know a little more than we do of Secundus, a letter by him to his “fair sister Flora” being given by Epiphanius (Haer. XXXIII.) which shows a system not inconsistent with that described in the text. Unlike Valentinus himself he gives the Father a spouse, or rather two.

[176] διαθέσεις, perhaps “states.” Cr. and Macmahon translate “dispositions.”

[177] Hippolytus here suddenly changes from Thelesis to Thelema. But there is no discoverable difference in the meaning of the two words.

[178] Words in [ ] from Irenæus.

[179] This Marcus is practically only known to us from the statements of Irenæus, from which the accounts in the text and in the later work of Epiphanius are copied. Salmon’s argument (D.C.B., s. v. “Marcus”) that Marcus taught in Asia Minor or Syria, and that Irenæus himself only knew his doctrines from his writings and the confessions of his Gaulish followers on their conversion to Catholicism seems irrefutable. There is no reason to doubt Irenæus’ statement here repeated that Marcus was a magician, nor the generally accepted statement of modern writers on Gnosticism that he was a Jew. This last deduction is supported by his use of Hebrew formulas, of which Irenæus gives many examples, including one beginning “βασημαχαμοσση” which appears to be “In the name of Achamoth,” the Hebrew or Aramaic equivalent of the Greek Sophia. A more cogent argument is that his identification of the Gnostic Aeons with the letters of the Greek alphabet and their numerical values is, mutatis mutandis, exactly correspondent to that of the so-called “practical Cabala” of the Jews which was re-introduced into Europe in the tenth to twelfth centuries, but which probably goes back to pre-Christian times and is ultimately derived from the decayed relics of the Chaldæan and Egyptian religions. On the other hand, Irenæus’ classing of Marcus among the “successors” or followers of Valentinus is much more open to question. The reverence he shows for the books of the Old Testament and for the Pentateuchal account of the Creation, which is indeed the foundation of the greater part of the system of the Cabala, is inconsistent with the views of Valentinus, who as we have seen (n. on p. [33] supra) must logically have rejected the inspiration of the Old Testament altogether. St. Jerome (Ep. 75, ad Theod., I, 449), says indeed that Marcus was a Basilidian, and although we have too little of Basilides’ own writings to check this statement, it is not impossible that the nomenclature of the Aeons, which is the chief point in which Valentinus and Marcus coincide, was common to all three heretics, and perhaps drawn from a source earlier than them all. The language of the formulas given by Irenæus but not reproduced by Hippolytus, in several instances bear a strong likeness to that of the Great Announcement attributed in the earlier part of this Book to Simon Magus.

[180] εὺχαριστῶν.

[181] αἱματώδη δύναμιν, “the potentiality of blood”?

[182] ἐλεγχόμενος. The word shows that by “refutation” the author generally means “exposure.”

[183] He has not done so, unless in some part which has been lost.

[184] ἐδίδου.

[185] Γνῶσις.

[186] ὑγραῖς οὐσίαις. Here οὐσία is used in the English sense of “substance.” No such substances are mentioned in Book IV as it has come down to us.

[187] The wine used in the Marcosian Eucharist was evidently mixtum, not merum. Some effervescent powder is indicated.

[188] ἐξαφανίσας; Cr. translates seduxit.

[189] εὐκόλους ... πρὸς τὸ ἁμαρτάνειν. Cf. the doctrine of certain Antinomian sects that “God sees no sin in His elect.”

[190] Ἀπολύτρωσις, perhaps “Ransom.”

[191] πανούργημα.

[192] In one of the documents of the Pistis Sophia, (p. 238, Copt) a “mystery” to be spoken “into the two ears” of an initiate about to die is described. The idea was evidently to provide him with a password which would enable him to escape the “punishments” of the intermediate state, and is to be traced to Egyptian beliefs.

[193] ἐπ’ ἐσχάτων, perhaps “to the utmost.”

[194] ἀφορμαί. In the Philosophumena, the word nearly always bears this construction.

[195] οἱ ἐντυχόντες.

[196] ἀεὶ ἀρνεῖσθαι. Cf. the “Geist der stets verneint” of Goethe.

[197] συγκεχωρήσθω.

[198] “His attempted heresy.”

[199] Like the rest of this section and most of this chapter, Hippolytus here follows Irenæus verbatim. Why the apparition of the Tetrad should be more supportable in female than in male shape can only be guessed; but the frequent personification of the Great Goddess of Western Asia may have had something to do with it.

[200] οὗ πατὴρ οὐδεὶς ἦν, “whose father was no one”—a curious expression in place of the more concise ἀπάτωρ.

[201] καὶ ἦν ἡ συλλαβὴ αὐτοῦ στοιχείων τεσσάρων, “and taken together it was of four letters.” He is punning here on the double sense of στοιχεῖον as meaning both “letter” and “element.” In the Magic Papyrus of Leyden which calls itself “Monas, the 8th (book?) of Moses,” there is a curious account of how the light and the rest of creation were brought into being by the successive words or rather the laughter of the Creator. Cf. Leemans, Papyri Græci, etc., Leyden, 1885, II, pp. 83 ff.

[202] γράμματα.

[203] χαρακτῆρα, “impress,” or character as we might say Greek characters or script. The different meanings of στοιχεῖα, γράμματα, and χαρακτήρ are here well marked.

[204] So Irenæus.

[205] τὴν ἀποκατάστασιν. This Return to the Deity was, as has been shown above, the great preoccupation of all these Gnostic sects. They may have borrowed it from the Stoic philosophy. Cf. Arnold, Roman Stoicism, p. 193.

[206] The primitive Church attributed great power to the ritual utterance of the word Amen. Thus Ignatius’ second Epistle to the Ephesians: “There was hidden from the ruler of this world the virginity of Mary, and the birth of our Lord, and the three mysteries of the shout ... and hereby ... magic began to be dissolved and all bonds to be loosed and the ancient kingdom and the error of evil, is destroyed” (Cureton’s translation, London, 1845, p. 15); but Lightfoot would read κήροξις, “proclamation,” for κραυγή, “shout.” In the Pistis Sophia the word Amen is used to denote a class of Powers concerned apparently with the organization of the Kerasmos or semi-material world and called sometimes “the Three” and sometimes “the Seven Amens.”

[207] τοὺς [φθόγγους]. The word in brackets is not in the Codex, but is supplied from the corresponding passage in Irenæus.

[208] πρόσωπον, a word which, as Hatch noted, is used for the character or part played by an actor in a drama. Matt. xviii. 10 is here evidently alluded to.

[209] Cf. the Stoic theory of λόγοι σπερματικοί or “seed-Powers,” for which, see Arnold, op. cit., p. 161.

[210] προήκατο.

[211] That is to say, before Chaos was organized and the Aeons brought into existence.

[212] A plain reference to the Ectroma or Sophia Without.

[213] ἰδίᾳ τῶν γραμμάτων γραφέντων (Miller). The Codex has διὰ for ἰδίᾳ and γραφέντος for γραφέντων. Cruice bungles the passage and Macmahon omits it. It is not found in Irenæus.

[214] e. g. the δ can be written δ, ε, λ, τ, α.

[215] ὑπόστασις.

[216] A pun on the name of the Supreme Father, Bythos or the Deep.

[217] φιλοπονία and ματαιοπονία.

[218] Or Truth.

[219] i. e. Man.

[220] It would seem from this that Marcus, following perhaps in this the Anatolic School of Valentinus, made Sige not the spouse of Bythos but merely another name for Aletheia.

[221] τῆς διανοίας νόημα. As if he were trying to avoid writing the word Nous.

[222] Hippolytus or Marcus here plays upon the identity of the ἐπίσημον or digamma, the name of the sixth letter in the Greek alphabet, which was used for numeration only, and the adjective ἐπίσημον, “illustrious.”

[223] The word in brackets supplied from Irenæus.

[224] ὧν τὰ μεγέθη. The allusion seems to be again to Matt. xviii. 10. The angels might well be considered on the Valentinian theory the greater parts or counterparts of their terrestrial spouses. In Epiphanius τὸ Μέγεθος seems to be used for the Supreme Being. Cf. Panar. Haer., XXXI, p. 314, Oehl. The passage is said to be suspect.

[225] One of the later documents of the Pistis Sophia speaks repeatedly of certain τριδυναμεις or τριδυναμοι (both spellings are used) which seem to hold a very exalted rank in the scale of beings, alike in the spiritual and the material parts of the universe.

[226] φ, χ, θ, η, κ, τ, β, γ, δ.

[227] λ, μ, ν, ρ, ς, ζ, ξ, ψ.

[228] τὰ φωνήεντα.

[229] α, ε, η, ι, ο, υ, ω.

[230] μορφὴν αὐτοῖς περιεποίησεν, “has put shape round them.”

[231] Reading Ἐπειδὴ with Irenæus instead of the Ἐπὶ δὲ of Hippolytus.

[232] So that the “ineffable” name of Christ consisted of 30 letters. So Epiphanius, Haer., XXXIV, p. 448, Oehl. No guess hitherto made as to its transliteration into Greek letters seems entirely satisfactory; but Harvey (Iren., I, p. 146, nn. 1, 2), shows that χὶ, ρὼ, εἴψιλον (for which spelling Nigidius Figulus and Aulus Gellius are quoted), ἰῶτα, σῖγμα, ταῦ, οὐ (for ὀμικρόν), and, again, σῖγμα, can be made to count 30.

[233] The text has ἀναλογίας, for which Miller rightly restores οἰκονομίας from Irenæus. Cf. p. 318 Cr. infra.

[234] πεφηνέναι. Irenæus has πεφυκέναι, “grew.”

[235] See the Transfiguration according to Matt. xvii. and Mark ix.

[236] Or “the Episemon.”

[237] π = 80, ε 5, ρ 100, ι 10, σ 200, τ 300, ε 5, ρ 100, α 1 = 801. So Α 1 + Ω 800 = 801.

[238] Ἡ παρασκευή. “The Preparation” (for the Passover) i. e. Friday.

[239] τὸν τῶν ἕξ ἀριθμὸν, δύναμιν ποιήσεως κτλ. So Irenæus’ Latin translation, “Scientem eum numerum qui est sex virtutem fabricationis et regenerationem habentem.”

[240] 6 + 24 = 30.

[241] τῆς αὐτοβουλήτου βουλῆς ... ὁ καρπός, “the Fruit of the self-counselled Council,” Irenæus.

[242] μιμήσει τὴς Ἑβδομάδος δυνάμεως ἐψύχωσε κόσμον, “imparted in imitation of the seven powers animation to this world,” (Macmahon); but see Irenæus in loc. cit.

[243] As before, this probably means “Desire.”

[244] This seems the first time we meet with the idea of “The Column of Praises” of the Manichæans which mounting from the earth and bearing with it the prayers and praises of mankind plays with them a considerable part in the redemption of Light from Matter.

[245] Ps. viii. 2.

[246] Ps. xix. 1.

[247] Irenæus puts what follows into the mouth of “the all-wise Sige.” A section dealing with the name of Aletheia is omitted by Hippolytus.

[248] Or perhaps “Unity in Solitude.”

[249] i. e. “Ineffable.”

[250] Four, unless we spell the word as he apparently does, Σειγή.

[251] In the section omitted (see n. 2 supra) the “body of Aletheia” is said to be δωδεκάμελος or “of 12 members,” which points to some different notation.

[252] Cf. Rev. xix. 11-13.

[253] As Harvey (Iren., I, p. 145, n. 3) points out, this forced isopsephism is only reached by spelling Eta ηι and the Iota in Χριστός εἶ. He quotes Aulus Gellius in support.

[254] The words in brackets ( ) are not in Irenæus and are probably the addition of some commentator.

[255] The Codex has χρι.

[256] π = 80, ε = 5, ρ = 100, ι = 10, σ = 200, τ = 300, ε = 5, ρ = 100, α = 1: total 801. It is evident, therefore that Marcus considered Christ and the Holy Spirit to be the same Person.

[257] ἄρῥητον γένεσιν, “unspoken derivation”?

[258] δεκαοκτώ, an unusual word, unknown to classical Greek.

[259] Words in square brackets [ ] supplied from Irenæus.

[260] δημιουργία. Here, as elsewhere, the word implies construction from previously existing matter.

[261] τὸν τόπον ἀναπεπληρωκέναι.

[262] Cf. Luke i. 35.

[263] κατ’ οἰκονομίαν. This seems here the meaning of the word. See Döllinger, First Age of Christianity, Eng. ed., p. 170, n. 2, Hatch; Influence of Greek Ideas upon the Christian Church, p. 131; Tollinton, Clement of Alexandria, II, p. 13, and n. 1, for other meanings.

[264] This seems unintelligible unless we suppose the “body of Aletheia,” said above to be the number 12, to be the heaven known as “the Place of Truth.” Cf. Pistis Sophia, p. 128, Copt.

[265] The same expression is used in the Pistis Sophia where Jesus “sows” a power of light in Elizabeth the mother of John the Baptist. Cf. p. 12, Copt.

[266] Or “Arrangement.” Marcus, perhaps here imitating Valentinus, postulates several Saviours, one of whom restores order in the arrangement of the Aeons before coming to this earth.

[267] In Irenæus there follows here a lengthy “refutation” of Marcus’ doctrines and a poem condemning him and his teaching which some think to be the work of Pothinus, Irenæus’ martyred predecessor at Lyons.

[268] With this sentence, Hippolytus again picks up his quotations from Irenæus.

[269] πάθος, “a passion” or “The Passion”?

[270] πεπλανῆσθαι.

[271] Irenæus’ Latin version here makes better sense:—Similiter et a duodecade abscedentum unam virtutem perisse divinant et hanc esse mulierem quae perdiderit drachmam, et accenderit lucernam, et invenerit eam.

[272] α = 1, μ 40, η 8, ν 50, total 99. Writers of the sub-Apostolic age seem to have laid much stress on the miraculous power of the word Amen when uttered in unison. Cf. the Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians (Cureton’s translation), p. 15, as to the “mysteries of the shout.”

[273] Thus α = 1, β 2, γ 3, δ 4, ε 5, ζ 7, η 8 = 30.

[274] εἰς ὁλόκληρον. Because the decad is a “perfect” number.

[275] ἐπισυμπλέκοντες καὶ δεκαπλασιάσαντες.

[276] τῆς ἄνω οἰκονομίας. The word can here mean nothing else.

[277] α = 1, β 2, γ 3, δ 4, ε 5, ζ 7, η 8, θ 9, ι 10, κ 20, λ 30 = 99.

[278] Because the Episemon has no τόπος.

[279] στοιχεῖον here used for “character.”

[280] ΛΛ = M.

[281] ὑστέρημα; the usual Gnostic name for the Void.

[282] This section passes over Irenæus’ refutation of the last, and forms the beginning of the Xth Chap. (p. 164, H.).

[283] There must be some mistake here, as the Sun and Moon were included among the seven planetary heavens.

[284] Not of course the Egyptian god, but the Gnostic “Limit” or Cross. The passage is not very clear.

[285] Irenæus has φαεινῆς, “radiant,” and the text κενῆς, “empty”; Irenæus’ Latin version “non apparentes” or invisible. Probably μεγάλης was the original word.

[286] κατὰ κάθετον. Macmahon thinks this refers to the position of the sun, which is unnecessary.

[287] Irenæus omits the words “of the Ogdoad.”

[288] κατάλυσιν λαβεῖν, “receive dissolution.”

[289] καινότερα. The text has κενώτερα, “more inane.”

[290] περιεργίας, “bye-work.”

[291] Κολάρβασος. The name which is repeated by Tertullian, Philaster and Theodoret can be traced back to the single passage in Irenæus, where it appears in connection with the name Σιγή as “the Sige of Colarbasus.” A German commentator long since suggested that it was not the name of a brother heretic or follower of Marcus, but a corruption of the words קל־ארבע Qol-Arba, or the “Voice of the Four,” and this seems now generally accepted. As most if not all of Marcus’ pretended revelations are said to have been dictated to him by an apparition of the Supreme Tetrad, he may well have called the book in which they were written and which seems to have been known to Irenæus, by some such name.

[292] It seems needless to point out that the whole of these chapters dealing with the real or supposed successors of Valentinus is taken direct from Irenæus, and that they have no relation to any other author.

p. 333.

BOOK VII
BASILIDES, SATURNILUS, AND OTHERS

1. These are the contents of the 7th (Book) of the Refutation of All Heresies.

2. What is the opinion of Basilides, and that he, having been struck with the doctrines of Aristotle, constructed his heresy from them.

3. And what things Satornilus, who flourished at the same time as Basilides, says.

4. How Menander set himself to declare that the world came into being by angels.

5. What was the madness of Marcion, and that his doctrine is neither new nor (taken) from the Holy Scriptures, but comes from Empedocles.

6. How Carpocrates talks foolishness, and thinks existing things to have been produced by angels.

7. That Cerinthus in no way framed his opinion from Scripture, but out of the teachings of the Egyptians.

p. 334. 8. What are the Ebionites’ opinions, and that they prefer to cleave to the Jewish customs.

9. How Theodotus also erred, having borrowed some things from the Ebionites [but others from the Gnostics].

10. And what was taught by Cerdo, who both declared things (taken) from Empedocles and wickedly put forward Marcion.

11. And how Lucian, becoming a disciple of Marcion, did not blush to blaspheme God.

12. Of whom Apelles becoming a disciple, did not teach the same things as (the rest of) the school, but being moved by the doctrines of the physicists, supposed an essence for the universe.

1. About Basilides.[1]

p. 335. 13. Seeing that the doctrines of the heretics are like a sea lashed into waves by the force of the winds, their hearers ought to sail through them in quest of the calm harbour. For such a sea is both wild and hard to overpass, as the Sicilian (sea) is said to be, wherein are fabled to be Cyclops and Charybdis and Scylla and ... the Sirens’ rock.[2] Which sea the Greek poets make out that Odysseus sailed through, skilfully availing himself of the terror of those fierce beasts: for their cruelty to those sailing among them was notorious. But the Sirens, singing clearly and musically for the beguiling of those sailing past, persuaded with their sweet voices those who listened to approach them. And they say that Odysseus, hearing this, stopped with wax his companions’ ears, but having had himself bound to the mast sailed without danger past the Sirens while listening to their song. Which I advise those who meet with them to do, and either having on account of weakness stopped their ears with wax to sail through the teachings of the heretics without listening to what, like the shrill song of the Sirens, might easily persuade them to pleasure; or else to bind themselves to the Cross of Christ, hearkening faithfully (to Him) and (thus) not to be harassed, being persuaded (only) by Him to whom they p. 336. are bound and standing upright.[3]

14. Since now we have set forth in the six Books before this, the (opinions) which have gone before, it seems now that we should not keep silent about those of Basilides which are those of Aristotle the Stagirite, and not of Christ. But although the doctrines of Aristotle have been before expounded, we shall not shrink from now setting them forth in epitome, so that the teacher by their closer comparison may readily perceive that the sophisms of Basilides are those of Aristotle.

15. Aristotle, then, divides being[4] into three. For one part of it is genus, another, as he says, species,[5] and another something undivided.[6] But the atom is so called, not because p. 337. of the smallness of its body, but because by its nature it can in no way be cut. But the genus is, as it were, a heap composed of many different seeds. From which heap-resembling genus, all the species of existent things are severed;[7] and it is (one) genus which is sufficient for all things which have come into being. In order that this may be clear, I will point out an example whereby the whole theory of the Peripatetic can be retraced.

16. Let us say that there exists simply “animal,”[8] not any particular animal. This “animal” is neither ox, nor horse, nor man, nor god, nor anything else that can anyhow be apparent, but simply “animal.” From this “animal” the species of all animals have their substance.[9] And the undifferentiated[10] “animal” is the substance of the animals who have been produced in species[11] but is yet none of them. For an animal is man, who takes his beginning p. 338. from that “animal,” and an animal is horse who does likewise. The horse and ox and dog and each of the other animals takes its beginning from the simple “animal” which is none of them.

17. But if that “animal” is not one of these, (then) the substance of the things which have been produced has, according to Aristotle, come into being from the things which are not: for the “animal” whence these have severally received it is not one (of them). But, while being none (of them), it has become the one beginning of things which are. But who it is who has sent down this beginning[12] of the things which have been produced later, we shall see when we come to its proper place.

18. Since the threefold essence is, as he says, genus, species and atom, and we have granted[13] “animal” to be genus, and man to be species already differentiated from the multitude of animals, but at the same time commingled with them and not yet transformed into a species of substantial being,[14]—I, when I give form to the man taken apart from the genus, call him by the name of Socrates p. 339. or of Diogenes or any one of the many names (there are), and when I (thus) restrict with a name the man who from genus has become species, I call such being an individual.[15] For the genus is divided into species and the species into an atom; but the atom when restricted by a name cannot by its nature be divided into anything else, as we have divided each of the things aforesaid.

This Aristotle calls essence in its first, chief, and strictest sense, nor is it said of any subject nor as existing in any subject.[16] But he speaks of the subject as if it were genus when he said “animal” of all the animals severally ranged under it, such as an ox, a horse, and the rest, describing them by a common name. For it is true to say that man is an animal, and a horse is an animal and an ox is an animal and all the rest. This is subjective, the one (name) being likewise capable of being said of many p. 340. and different species.[17] For neither a horse nor an ox differs from man quâ animal; for the definition of animal fits all the aforesaid animals alike. For what is an animal? If we define it, a common definition will include all the animals. For an animal is a living,[18] feeling being, such as a man, a horse and all the rest. But, “in the Subject,” he says, is that which exists in anything, not as part of it, but as being incapable of existing apart from that wherein it is, (and is) each[19] of the accidents of being. The which is called Quality because by it we say what certain things are, as, for instance, white, green, black, just, unjust, prudent and such like. But none of these (qualities) can come into being by itself, but must needs be in[20] something. But, if neither the “animal,” which is the word I use for all living beings taken severally, nor the “accidents” which are found to occur in all of them, can come into being of themselves, then from those things which do not exist, the individual things[21] are developed and the triply-divided essence is not compounded[22] from other things. Hence Being[23] so called in its first and chiefest and strictest sense, p. 341. exists according to Aristotle from those things which do not exist.[24]

19. About Being[25] then enough has been said. But Being is called not only genus, species and individual; but also matter, form and privation. But there is no difference among these while the division stands. And Being being such as it is, the ordering of the cosmos came about automatically in the same way. The cosmos is according to Aristotle divided into many [and different] parts; [and] the part of the cosmos which exists from the earth as far as the moon is without providence or governance and has its rise only in its own nature. But that which is beyond the moon, is ordered with all order and providence and is (so) governed up to the surface of heaven. But the (same) surface is a certain fifth essence renewed from all the elements of nature wherefrom the cosmos is made up, and this is Aristotle’s “Quintessence,” being as it were a hypercosmic essence. And his system of philosophy is p. 342. divided so as to agree with the division of the cosmos. For there is by him a treatise on physics called Acroasis, wherein he has treated of the doings of Nature, not of Providence, from the Earth to the Moon. And there is also his Metaphysics, another special work thus entitled, concerning the things which take place beyond the Moon. And there is also his work On the Quintessence, wherein he theologizes.[26] Like this also is the division of the universals as they are defined by type in Aristotle’s philosophy. But his work On the Soul is puzzling; for it would be impossible in three whole books to say what Aristotle thinks about the soul. For what he gives as the definition of the soul is easy to say; but what is explained by the definition is hard to find. For, he says, the soul is an entelechy of the physical organism. What this is would need many words and great enquiry. But the God who is the cause of all these fair beings p. 343. is one, even to one speculating for a very long time, more difficult to be known than is the soul. Yet the definition which Aristotle gives of God, is not hard to be known, but impossible to be understood. For He, he says, is a conception of conception which is altogether non-existent. But the cosmos is according to Aristotle imperishable and eternal; for it contains nothing faulty and is governed by Nature and Providence. And Aristotle has not only put forth books on Nature and the Cosmos and Providence and God,[27] but there is also a certain treatise by him on ethics which is called The Ethical Books wherein he builds up a good ethics for his hearers out of a poor one. If, then, Basilides be found not only potentially but in the very words and names to have transferred the doctrines of Aristotle to our evangelical and soul-saving teaching, what remains but by restoring these extraneous matters to their (proper) authors to prove to Basilides’ disciples that, as they are heathenish, Christ will profit them nothing?

p. 344. 20. Now Basilides and Isidore, Basilides’ true son and disciple, say that Matthias recounted to them secret[28] discourses which he had heard from the Saviour in private teaching.[29] We see then how plainly Basilides together with Isidore and their whole band belie not only Matthias but also the Saviour. There was, he says, was, I do not say that this existed, but I speak thus to signify what I wish to indicate. I say then that nothing at all existed. For, says he, that which is named is plainly not ineffable; for at any rate we call one thing ineffable, but another not ineffable. For truly that which is not even ineffable is not named ineffable, but is, he says, above every name which is named. For neither are there names enough for the cosmos, he says, so diverse is it, but there is a lack of them. Nor do p. 345. I undertake, says he, to find proper names for everything; but one must silently understand in the mind not their names, but the properties of the things named. For identity of names has made confusion and error concerning things[30] among those who hear them. And they who first made this appropriation and theft from the Peripatetic lead astray the folly of those who herd with them. For Aristotle who was born many generations earlier than Basilides, was the first to set forth in the Categories a system of homonyms which these men expound as their own and as a novelty [derived] from the secret discourses of Matthias.

21. When nothing [existed], neither matter, nor essence, nor the simple nor the compound, nor [that which is conceived by the mind] nor that which cannot be [so] conceived, [nor that which is perceived by the senses][31] nor that which cannot be [so] perceived, nor man, nor angel, nor God, nor generally any of the things which are named or apprehended by sensation, or of things[32] which can be p. 346. conceived by the mind but can be thus and even more minutely described by all:—(then) [the] God-who-was-Not—whom Aristotle calls Concept of Concept, but (Basilides) Him-who-is-Not, without conception, perception, counsel, choice, passion or desire willed to create a cosmos. But I say (only) for the sake of clearness, says he, that He willed. I signify that he did this without will or conception or perception; and [the] cosmos was not that which later became established in its expanse and diversity,[33] but a Seed of a cosmos. And the Seed of the cosmos contained all things within itself, as the grain of mustard (seed) collects into the smallest space and contains within itself all things at once:—the roots, stem, branches and the numberless leaves, with the seeds begotten by the plant, and often again those grown by many other plants. Thus the God-who-was-Not made the cosmos from things which were not,[34] casting p. 347. down and planting[35] a certain single seed containing within itself the whole seed-mass[36] of the cosmos. But in order that I may make clearer what these (men) say, it was even as an egg of some gorgeous and parti-coloured bird such as a peacock of some other yet more variegated and many-coloured, contains within it, though one, many patterns[37] of multiform and many-coloured and diversely-constructed beings[38]—so, says he, the non-existent seed of the cosmos cast down by the God-who-was-Not contained (a Seed-mass) at once multiform and (the source) of many beings.[39]

22. All things, then, which are to be described, and those which not having yet been discovered must be left out of the account, were destined to be fitted for the cosmos which was to come into being at the proper time by the help given to it by such and so great a God, whose quality[40] the creature can neither conceive nor define. And these things existed stored within the seed, as, in a new-born p. 348. child, we see teeth and the power of fatherhood and brains accrue later; and those things which belong to the man but do not at first exist, evolve gradually out of the child. For it would be impossible to say that any projection by the God-who-was-Not became something non-existent,—since Basilides entirely shuns and has in horror [the notion of] substances of things begotten [arising] by way of projection.[41] For what, says he, is the need of projection or of any substructure of matter in order that God may fashion a cosmos as the spider makes webs, or mortal man takes brass or wood or some other portion of matter to work with?).—But He spoke, says he, and it came to pass; and this is, as these [heretics] say, what Moses spake:—“Let there be light and there was light.”[42] Whence, says he, came the light? From nothing. For it is not written says he, whence it came, but only that it came forth from the word of the speaker. For the speaker, says he, was not, nor did that which was spoken [formerly] exist. The seed of the cosmos, he says, came into being from non-existent things [and this seed is] the word which was spoken: “Let there be light.” And this, says he, is the saying in the Gospels: “This is p. 349. the true light which lighteneth every man who cometh into the world.”[43] It takes its beginnings[44] from that seed and gives light. This is the seed which contains within itself all the Seed-Mass which Aristotle says is the genus divided into boundless species, since we divide from the non-existent animal ox, horse [and] man. Further, of the underlying cosmic seed, they say, “whatever I may say came into being after this, seek not to know whence it came.” For it contained all seeds stored and shut up within itself, as it were things which were not, but which were foreordained to exist by the God-who-was-Not.

Let us see then what they say came into being in the first, second or third place from the cosmic seed. There existed (Basilides) says within the seed itself, a Sonhood, threefold throughout, of the same essence[45] with the God-who-was-Not and begotten of the things that were not. Of this triple divided Sonhood, one part was subtle, (one coarse) and one wanting purification. Now the subtle (part) p. 350. straightway and as it became the first emission of the seed by the One-who-was-Not, escaped and ascended and went on high from below with the speed described by the poet—

“like wing or thought,”[46]

and came, he says, before the One-who-was-Not. For towards him every nature strains on account of his exceeding beauty and bloom,[47] but each differently. But the coarser part still remaining in the seed, although resembling the other,[48] could not go on high, for it lacked the fineness of division which the ascending Sonhood had of itself, and was (therefore) left behind. Then the coarser Sonhood wings itself with some such wing as that wherewith Plato, Aristotle’s teacher, equips the soul in the Phaedrus,[49] and Basilides calls the same not a wing but Holy Spirit, clothed wherewith the Sonhood both gives and receives benefit. It gives it because a bird’s wing taken by itself and severed from the bird would neither become uplifted nor high in p. 351. air, nor would the bird be uplifted and high in air if deprived of the wing. This then is the relation which the Sonhood bears to the Spirit and the Spirit to the Sonhood. For the Sonhood borne aloft by the Spirit as by a wing bears aloft the wing, (that is the Spirit) and draws nigh to the subtler Sonhood and to the God-who-was-Not and fashions all things from the non-existent. But [the Spirit] cannot abide with the Sonhood for it is not of the same essence,[50] nor has it the same nature as the Sonhood. But just as dry and pure air is naturally fatal to fishes, so naturally to the Holy Spirit was that place, more ineffable than the ineffable ones and higher than all names, which is the seat at once of the God-who-was-Not and of the [first] Sonhood. Therefore the Sonhood left the Spirit near that blessed place which cannot be conceived nor characterized[51] by any speech, [yet] not altogether alone nor [completely] severed from the Sonhood. For just as when a sweet perfume is poured into a jar, even if the jar is carefully emptied a certain fragrance of the perfume still remains and is left behind, and although p. 352. the perfume be removed from the jar, the jar retains the fragrance, but not the perfume—so the Holy Spirit remained bereft of and severed from the Sonhood. And this is the saying: “As the perfume on Aaron’s head ran down to his beard.”[52] This is the savour carried down by the Holy Spirit from on high into the Formlessness[53] and Space of this world of ours, whence the Sonhood first went on high as on the wings of an eagle and borne on his loins. For all things, he says, strain upward from below, from the worse to the better. But there is thus nothing of those things which are among the better which is immovable, so that it cannot come below. But the third Sonhood, he says, which is in need of purification, remains in the great heap of the Seed-mass giving and receiving benefits. And in what manner it does this, we shall see later in the fitting place.[54]

p. 353. 23. Now when the first and second ascensions of the Sonhood[55] had come to pass, and the Holy Spirit remained by itself in the way described, being set midway between the hypercosmic firmaments and the cosmos—for Basilides divides the things that are into two first made and primary divisions, one of which is called by him an ordered world,[56] and the other hypercosmic things—and between these two [he places] the Boundary Spirit,[57] which same is at once Holy and holds abiding in it the savour of the Sonhood, it being the firmament which is above the heaven.[58] [When these ascensions had taken place], there escaped from and was engendered from the cosmical seed and the Seed-mass, the Great Ruler, the head of the cosmos, a certain beauty and greatness and power which cannot be spoken.[59] For he is, says [Basilides], more ineffable than the ineffable ones, mightier than the mighty, and better than all the fair ones you can describe. He, when engendered, burst through, soared aloft, and was borne right up on high as far as the firmament, but stayed there thinking that the firmament was the end of all ascension p. 354. and uplifting and not imagining that there was anything at all beyond this. And he became wiser, mightier, more eminent, and more luminous and everything which you can describe as excelling in beauty all the other cosmic things which lay before him, save only the Sonhood left behind in the Seed-mass. For he knew not that [this Sonhood] was wiser and mightier and better than he. Therefore he deemed himself Lord and King[60] and wise architect, and set about the creation in detail[61] of the ordered world. And in the first place he did not think it meet for him to be alone, but created for himself and engendered from the things which lay below him a Son much better and wiser than himself. For all this the God-who-was-Not had foreordained when he let fall the Seed-mass. When, therefore, [the Great Ruler] beheld his Son, he wondered, and was filled with love and astounded: for so [splendid] did the beauty of the son appear to the Great Ruler. And the Ruler seated him at his right hand. This is what is called by Basilides the Ogdoad where sits the Great Ruler. Then the Great Wise Demiurge fashioned the whole of the p. 355. heavenly, that is, the aethereal creation. But the Son begotten by him set it working and established it, being much wiser than the Demiurge himself.[62]

24. This [creation] is according to Aristotle, the “entelechy”[63] of the organic natural body, the soul activating the body, without which the body can effect nothing, a something greater and more manifest and wiser than the body. The theory therefore which Aristotle first taught regarding the soul and the body, Basilides explained as referring to the Great Ruler and his so-called son. For the Ruler according to Basilides begat a son; and Aristotle says that the soul is an entelechy, the work and result[64] of the organic natural body. As, then, the entelechy controls the body, so the son, according to Basilides, controls the more ineffable God of the Ineffables. All things soever then which are in the aether up to the Moon are foreseen and controlled by the majesty[65] of the Great Ruler; for here [i. e. at the Moon] the air is divided from the aether. Now when all aethereal things had been set in order, yet p. 356. another Ruler ascends from the Seed-Mass, greater than all the things which are below him, save only the Sonhood which is left behind, but much inferior to the first Ruler. And this one is called by them “able to be named.”[66] And his place is called Hebdomad, and he is the controller and Demiurge of all things lying below him, and he has created to himself from the Seed-Mass a Son who is more foreseeing and wiser than he in the same way as has been said about the first [Ruler]. And in this space,[67] he says, are the heap and the Seed-Mass, and events naturally happen as they were (ordained) to be produced in advance by Him who has calculated that which will come to pass and when and what and how it will be.[68] And of these there is no leader nor guardian nor demiurge. For that calculation which the Non-Existent One made when he created them suffices for them.

25. When, then, according to them, the whole cosmos and the hypercosmic things were completed, and nothing p. 357. was lacking, there still remained in the Seed-Mass the third Sonhood which had been left behind to give and receive benefits in the Seed. And the Sonhood left behind had to be revealed and again established on high above the Boundary Spirit in the presence of the subtler Sonhood and the one that resembles it and the Non-Existent One, as, says he, it is written, “All creation groans and is in travail in expectation of the revelation of the sons of God.”[69] We spiritual men, he say, left here below for the arrangement and perfect formation and rectification and completion of the souls which by nature have to remain in this [Middle] Space, are the “sons [of God].” “Now from Adam to Moses sin reigned”[70] as it is written. For the Great Ruler reigned who held sway up to the firmament, thinking that he alone was God, and that there was nothing higher than he. For all things were kept hidden in silence. This, says he, is the mystery which was not known to the earlier generations; but in those times the King and Lord, as it seemed to him, of the universals was p. 358. the Great Ruler, the Ogdoad. Yet of this [Middle] Space the Hebdomad was King and Lord, and the Ogdoad is ineffable but the Hebdomad may be named. This Ruler of the Hebdomad, says he, it was who spoke to Moses, saying, “I am the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and the name of God was not made known to them:”[71] for thus they will have it to have been written—that is to say [the name] of the Ineffable Ogdoad, Ruler, God. All the prophets therefore who were before the Saviour, spoke from that place.[72] When then, he says, the sons of God had to be revealed to us, about whom, he says, creation groaned and travailed in expectation of the revelation, the Gospel came into the cosmos and passed through every Dominion[73] and Authority and Lordship and every name which is named. And it came indeed, although nothing descended from on high, nor did the Blessed Sonhood come forth from that Incomprehensible and Blessed God-who-was-Not. But as the Indian naphtha, when only kindled from afar off, takes fire, so from the Formlessness of the heap below do p. 359. the powers of the Sonhood extend upward. For as if he were something of naphtha, the son of the Great Ruler of the Ogdoad catches and receives the concepts from the Blessed Sonhood which is beyond the Holy Spirit. For the Power in the midst of the Holy Spirit in the Boundary of the Sonhood distributes the rushing and flowing concepts to the Son of the Great Ruler.[74]

26. Therefore the Gospel came first from the Sonhood, he says to the Ruler, through his Son who sits beside him, and the Ruler learned that he was not the God of the universals, but was a generated [being] and had above him the outstretched Treasure-house of the Ineffable and Unnameable God-who-was-Not and of the Sonhood.[75] And he was astounded and terrified when he perceived in what ignorance he had been, and this, says [Basilides] is the saying: “The fear of [the] Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”[76] For he began to be wise when instructed by the Christ seated beside him, and learned what was the Non-Existent One, what the Sonhood, what the Holy Spirit, and what was the constitution[77] of the universals and p. 360. how these will be restored.[78] This is the wisdom spoken of in mystery, as to which, says he, the Scripture declares: “Not in the words taught by human wisdom, but in the teachings of [the] Spirit.”[79] Then, says he, the Ruler when he had been instructed and made to fear, confessed thoroughly the sin he had committed in magnifying himself. This, says he, is the saying: “I acknowledge my sin and I know my transgression; upon this I will make full confession for ever.”[80]

Now when the Great Ruler had been instructed, and every creature of the Ogdoad had been taught and had learned, and the mystery had been made known to those above the heavens, it was still necessary that the Gospel should come to the Hebdomad also, so that the Ruler of the Hebdomad might be instructed in like manner and be evangelized.[81] The Son of the Great Ruler [therefore] enlightened the Son of the Ruler of the Hebdomad, having caught the light which he had from the Sonhood on high, and the Son of the Ruler of the Hebdomad was enlightened, and the Gospel was announced to the Ruler of the Hebdomad, and he in like manner as has been said was both terrified and made confession. When then all things in the p. 361. Hebdomad had been enlightened, and the Gospel had been announced to them—for according to them, the creatures belonging to these spaces are boundless and are Dominions and Powers and Authorities, concerning whom they have a very long story told by many [authors]. [And] they imagine that there are there 365 heavens, and Habrasax is their Great Ruler, because his name comprises the cipher 365, wherefore the year consists of that number of days[82]—but when, says he, these things had come to pass, it was still necessary that our Formlessness should be enlightened and that the mystery unknown to the earlier generations should be revealed to the Sonhood left behind in the Formlessness as if he were an abortion. As, says he, it is written: “By revelation was made known to me the mystery;”[83] and again, “I heard unspeakable words which it is not lawful for man to utter.”[84] [Thus] the light came down from the p. 362. Hebdomad, which had come down from the Ogdoad on high to the Son of the Hebdomad, upon Jesus the son of Mary, and He, having caught it, was enlightened by the light shining upon Him.[85] This, says he, is the saying:—“The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee,” [that is], that which passed from the Sonhood through the Boundary Spirit into the Ogdoad and Hebdomad down to Mary, “and the Power of the Highest shall overshadow thee,”[86] [that is] the power of the unction[87] from the Height of the Demiurge on high unto the creation which is of the Son. But, he says, up till that [time] the cosmos was thus constituted, until [the time] when the whole Sonhood left behind in the Formlessness to benefit souls and [itself] to receive benefits should be transformed and follow Jesus, and should go on high and come forth purified, and should become most subtle as it might do by ascension like the First [Sonhood]. For it possesses all the power of attaching itself naturally to the light which shines downward from on high.

27. When therefore, he says, every Sonhood shall have come [forth] and shall be established above the Boundary p. 363. Spirit, the creation shall then receive pity. For up till now, he says it wails and is tortured and awaits the revelation of the sons of God, so that all the men of the Sonhood shall ascend from this place. When this shall have come to pass, he says, God shall bring upon the whole cosmos the Great Ignorance, so that all things shall remain as they are by nature, and none shall desire any of those things beyond [its] nature. For all the souls of this space which possess a nature enabling them to remain immortal in this [space] alone, will remain convinced that there is nothing different from nor better than this [space]. Nor will any tidings or knowledge of higher things abide in those below, so that the lower souls shall not be tormented by yearning after the impossible, as if a fish should desire to feed with the sheep on the hills. For, says he, such a desire should it happen to them[88] would be [their] destruction. Therefore, he says, all things which remain in their own place are imperishable; but perishable if they wish to overleap and rise above [the limits] of their nature. Thus the Ruler of the Hebdomad will know nothing of the things above him. For the Great p. 364. Ignorance will lay hold of him, so that grief and pain and sighing will stand off from him, for he will neither desire anything impossible nor will he grieve. And in like manner this Ignorance will lay hold of the Great Ruler of the Ogdoad, and similarly all the creatures subject to him, so that none of them shall grieve and mourn for anything outside his own nature. And this shall be the Restoration of all things established according to nature in the seed of the universals at the beginning, but they shall be restored [each] in their proper season. But [to prove] that everything has its proper season, it is enough to mention the saying of the Saviour:—“Mine hour is not yet come”[89] and the Magi observing the star. For, says [Basilides] He himself was foretold by the nativity[90] of the stars and of the return of the hours into the great heap. This is according to them, the spiritual inner man conceived in the natural man—which is the Sonhood who leaves the soul, not to die but to remain as it is by nature, just as the first Sonhood[91] p. 365. left the Holy Spirit which is the Boundary in its appropriate place and then did on his own special soul.[92]

In order that we may omit nothing of their [doctrines], I will set forth what they say also about (a) Gospel.[93] Gospel is according to them the knowledge of hypercosmic things, as has been made plain, which the Great Ruler[94] did not understand. When then there was manifested to him what are the Holy Spirit that is the Boundary, and the Sonhood and the God-who-is-Not the cause of all these, he rejoiced at the words and exulted,[95] and this according to them is the Gospel. But Jesus according to them was born as we have before said. And He having come into being by the Birth before explained, all those things likewise came to pass with regard to the Saviour as it is written in the Gospels. And these things came to pass [Basilides] says, so that Jesus might become the first-fruits of the sorting-out of the things of the Confusion.[96] For when the Cosmos was divided into an Ogdoad which is the head of the whole ordered world, [the head whereof is] the Great Ruler, and into a Hebdomad which is the head of the Hebdomad, the p. 366. Demiurge of the things below him, and into this space of ours, which is the Formlessness, it was necessary that the things of the Confusion should be sorted out by the discrimination of Jesus.

That which was His bodily part[97] which was from the Formlessness, therefore suffered[98] and returned to the Formlessness. And that which was His psychic part which was from the Hebdomad also returned to the Hebdomad. But that which was peculiar to the Height of the Great Ruler ascended and remained with the Great Ruler. And He bore aloft as far as the Boundary Spirit that which was from the Boundary Spirit and it remained with the Boundary Spirit. But the third Sonhood which had been left behind to give and receive benefits was purified by Him, and traversing all these places went on high to the Blessed Sonhood.[99] For this is the whole theory,[100] as it were a Confusion of the Seed-Mass and the discrimination [into classes] and the Restoration of the things confused into their proper places. Therefore Jesus became the first-fruits of the discrimination, and the Passion came to pass for no other reason than this discrimination.[101] For in this manner, he says, all the Sonhood left behind in the Formlessness to p. 367. give and receive benefits separated into its components in the same way as [the person] of Jesus was separated. This is what Basilides fables after having lingered in Egypt, and having learned from them [of Egypt] such great wisdom, he brought forth such fruits.[102]

2. Satornilus.[103]

28. And a certain Satornilus who flourished at the same time as Basilides, but passed his life in Antioch of Syria, taught the same things as Menander.[104] He says that one father exists unknown to all, who made Angels, Archangels, Powers [and] Authorities. And that from a certain seven angels the cosmos and all things therein came into being. And that man was [the] creation of angels, there having p. 368. appeared on high from the Absolute One[105] a shining image which they could not detain, says Saturnilus, because of its immediate return on high. [Wherefore] they exhorted one another, saying: “Let us make man according to image and resemblance.”[106] Which, he says, having come to pass, the image could not stand upright by reason of the lack of power among the angels, but grovelled like a worm. Then the Power on high having pity on it, because it had come into being in his likeness, sent forth a spark of life which raised up the man and made him live.[107] Therefore, says he, the spark of life returns at death to its own kindred and the rest of [man’s] compound parts is resolved into its original elements.[108] And he supposed the unknown Father[109] to be unbegotten, bodiless, and formless. But he says that He showed Himself as a phantom in human shape, and that the God of the Jews is one of the angels. And, because the Father wished to depose all the angels, Christ came for the putting-down of the God of the Jews and for the salvation of those who believe on him; and that these [believers] p. 369. have the spark of life within them. For he says that two races of men were formed by the angels, one bad and one good. And that since the demons help the bad, the Saviour came for the destruction of the bad men and demons, but for the salvation of the good. And he says that to marry and beget [children] is from Satan. Many of this man’s adherents abstain from things that have had life, through this pretended abstinence (leading astray many).[110] And they say that the Prophecies were uttered, some by the world-creators, some by Satan whom he supposes to be an angel who works against the world-creators and especially (against) the God of the Jews.[111] Thus then Satornilus.

3. Concerning Marcion.[112]

p. 370. 29. Marcion of Pontus, much madder than these, passing over many opinions of the majority and pressing on to the more shameless, supposed that there were two principles of the All,[113] one good and the other bad. And he, thinking that he was bringing in some new [doctrine], manufactured a school filled with folly and of Cynic life, being himself a lewd one.[114] He thought that the multitude would not notice that he chanced to be a disciple not of Christ, but of Empedocles, who was very much earlier, and he laid down and taught that there were two causes of the All, [i. e.] Strife and Love.[115] For what says Empedocles on the conduct of the cosmos? If we have said it before,[116] yet I will not now keep silence, if only for the sake of comparing p. 371. the heresy of this plagiarist[117] [with the source]. He says that all the elements of which the cosmos was compounded and consists are six, to wit:—two material, [viz.] Air and Water; two instruments, whereby the material elements are arranged[118] and changed about, [viz.] Fire and Air; and two which work with the instruments and fashion matter, [viz.] Strife and Love. He says something like this:—

Hear first the four roots of all things:

Shining Zeus and life-bearing Here and Aïdoneus.

And Nestis who wets with tears the source of mortals.[119]

Zeus is fire and life-bearing Here the earth which bears fruits for the support of life. But Aïdoneus is the air, because while beholding all things through it, it alone we do not see. And Nestis is water, since it is the only vehicle of food, and therefore the becoming cause of all growing things,[120] yet cannot nourish them by itself. For if it could so give nourishment, he says, living things[121] could never die of hunger, for there is always abundance of water in the cosmos.[122] Whence he calls water Nestis, because it is a becoming cause of nourishment, yet cannot itself nourish growing things. These things then are, to sum them up in outline, those which comprise the foundation[123] of the cosmos [i. e.] water and Earth from which all things come, p. 372. Fire and Spirit[124] the tools and agents, and Strife and Love which fashion all things with skill. And Love is a certain peace and even mindedness and natural affection,[125] which determines that the cosmos shall be perfect and complete; but Strife ever rends asunder that which is one and divides it and makes many things out of one. Therefore the cause of the whole creation is Strife, which [cause] he calls baneful, that is deadly.[126] For it takes care that through every aeon, its creation persists. And Strife the deadly is the Demiurge and maker of all things which have come into being by birth; but Love, of their leading-forth from the cosmos and transformation and return to unity.[127] Concerning which, Empedocles [says] that there are two immortal and unbegotten things which have never yet had a source of existence. He speaks, however, somehow like this:—

For it was aforetime and will be; never, I ween,

Will the unquenchable aeon lack these two.[128]

p. 373. But what are these two? Strife and Love. For they had no source of existence, but pre-existed and ever were, being through their unbegotten nature incorruptible. But Fire [and Water] and Earth and Air die and again come to life. For when the things which have come into being through Strife die, Love takes them and leads them and adds and attaches them to the All,[129] so that the All may remain One, being ever marshalled by Love in one fashion and form. Yet when Love creates the One from many things, and arranges the things which have been scattered in the One, Strife again rends them away from the One, and makes them [into] many, that is, Fire, Water, Earth [and] Air, whence are produced animals and plants and whatever parts of the cosmos we perceive. And concerning the form[130] of the cosmos as ordered by Love, he speaks somehow like this:—

For not from the back do two arms[131] spring

p. 374.Nor feet nor active knees, nor hairy genitals.

But it was a sphere and everywhere alike.[132]

Such things [does] Love, and turns out the most beautiful form of the world as One from many; but Strife rends gradually from that One the principle of its arrangement, and again makes it [into] many. This is what Empedocles says of his own birth:—

Of whom I also am now a fugitive and an exile from the gods.[133]

That is, he calls the One divine, and says that the unity formerly existing in the One was rent asunder by Strife and came into being in these many things, existing according to Strife’s ordering. For, says he, Strife is the furious and troublous and unresting Demiurge of this cosmos, whose p. 375. [fashioner] Empedocles calls it. For this is the judgment and compulsion of the souls which Strife rends away from the One and fashions and works up, which process [Empedocles] describes somehow like this:—

Who having sinned swore falsely

And demons are allotted long-drawn out life.[134]

calling the long-lived souls “demons” because they are immortal and live through long ages.

For three myriad seasons they wandered from the blessed,[135]

calling “blessed” those whom Love has made from the many into the oneness of the intelligible[136] cosmos. Therefore, says [Empedocles] they wandered

Putting on in time all mortal forms[137]

p. 376.Interchanging the hard ways of life.[138]

He says that the transmigrations and transmutations of the souls into bodies are “hard ways.” This is what he says:—

Interchanging the hard ways of life.

For [the souls pass from body to body] being changed about and punished by Strife and are not allowed to remain in the One, but are punished in all punishments by Strife. This is what he says:—

For aetherial might drives souls seawards.

And sea spits them upon Earth’s surface; and Earth into the beams

Of the radiant Sun, and he casts them into the whirls of aether

Each takes them from the other, but all hate them.[139]

p. 377. This is the punishment wherewith the Demiurge punishes, just as a smith forging iron, taking it from the fire, dips it in water. For Fire is the aether, whence the Demiurge casts the souls into the Sea; and the Earth is the ground. Whence he says, from water to Earth, from Earth to Air. This is what he says:—

into the beams

Of the radiant Sun, and he casts them into the whirls of aether

Each takes them from the other, but all hate them.

Therefore, according to Empedocles, Love gathers the hated and tortured and punished souls together into this world. For [Love] is good and has pity on their wailing and the disorder and wickedness created by furious Strife. And she hastens and toils to lead them forth quickly out of the world and to settle them in the One, so that all things brought together by her may come to oneness. It p. 378. is then by reason of this arrangement of this much-divided[140] world by deadly Strife, that Empedocles exhorts his disciples to abstain from all things which have life. For he says that the bodies of animals which are eaten are the dwellings of punished souls, and he teaches those who hear such [his] words to refrain[141] from companying with women, so that they may not cooperate and help in the deeds which Strife effects, ever undoing and rending asunder the work of Love.

Empedocles says that this is the greatest law of the government of the All, speaking somehow thus:—

There is a thing of Necessity, an ancient decree of the gods.

Eternal and sealed with broad oaths.[142]

thus calling Necessity the change by Strife of the One into many and that by Love of many into the One. He says, indeed, that there are four mortal gods, Fire, Water, Earth and Air; and two immortal unbegotten and enemies one to the other for ever [viz.] Strife and Love; and that Strife is ever unjust and grasping and rends asunder what belongs p. 379. to Love and takes it to itself; and that Love is ever good and anxious for unity and calls back to herself and leads and makes one the things rent asunder from the All and tortured and punished in creation by the Demiurge. In some such way does Empedocles philosophize for us on the genesis of the Cosmos and its destruction and its constitution established from good and evil.

And he says that there is a certain conceivable[143] third power which may be conceived[144] from these, speaking somehow like this:—

For if having fixed these things with knowing mind[145]

You behold them favourably with pure attention

They all will be present with you throughout the age

But many others will come forth from these. For they will increase

Each into a habit as is the nature of each.[146]

And if you desire such other things as are among men

A myriad woes arise and dull the edge of care

p. 380.Take heed lest they leave you suddenly as time rolls on.

Yearning to join their own beloved race

For know that all things have perception and an allotted share of mind.[147]

30. When therefore Marcion or any of his dogs shall bay against the Demiurge, bringing forward arguments from the comparison of good and evil, they should be told that neither the Apostle Paul nor Mark of the maimed finger[148] reported these things. For none of them is written in the Gospel [according] to Mark; [and] Marcion, having stolen them from Empedocles of Agrigentum, the son of Meto, thought until now to conceal the fact that he had taken the whole arrangement of his heresy from Sicily, [after] having transferred the actual words of Empedocles to the Gospel discourses. For now, O Marcion, since you have p. 381. made antithesis[149] of good and evil, I also to-day, following up the teachings you have secretly borrowed[150] set them over against [the originals]. Thou sayest that the Demiurge of the cosmos is wicked.[151] Dost thou not then feel shame in teaching to the Church the words of Empedocles? Thou sayest that there is a good God who destroys the creations of the Demiurge. Dost thou not then clearly preach as good news[152] to thy hearers the good Love of Empedocles? Thou dost forbid marriage and the begetting of children and [dost order thy hearers] to abstain from the meats which God has created for the participation of the faithful and of those who know the truth,[153] having purposely forgotten that thou art teaching the purifications of Empedocles. For, following him as you truly do throughout, you teach your own disciples[154] to avoid meats, lest they should eat some body covering a soul punished by the Demiurge. You dissolve marriages joined by God, [thus] following the teachings of Empedocles so that you may preserve the work of Love undissevered. For marriage according to Empedocles dissevers the One and creates many as we have shown.[155]

p. 382. 31. The earliest and least altered[156] heresy of Marcion, comprising the mingling of good and evil, has been shown by us to be that of Empedocles. But since in our own time, a certain Prepon the Assyrian,[157] a Marcionite, in a book addressed to Bardesianes the Armenian, has undertaken discourses on this heresy, I will not keep silence about this either. Considering that there is a third principle, just and set between good and evil, Prepon also does not thus succeed in escaping the teaching of Empedocles. For Empedocles says that the cosmos is governed by wicked Strife, and the other conceivable [world] by Love, while between the two opposed[158] principles is a just Logos, by whom the things severed by Strife are brought together and are attached by Love to the One. But this same just Logos, p. 383. who fights on the side of Love, Empedocles proclaims as a Muse and invokes her to fight on his side, speaking somehow thus:—

If for creatures of a day, O deathless Muse,

Thou art pleased to relieve our cares by thought,

Be propitious once more to my prayer, Calliope!

For I show forth a pious discourse of [the] blessed gods.[159]

Following this up, Marcion repudiates altogether our Saviour’s Birth, thinking it out of the question that a creature[160] of destructive Strife should become the Logos fighting on the side of Love, that is of the Good. But he said that without birth, in the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Cæsar, He came down from on high to teach in the synagogues, being between evil and good. For if He is p. 384. a Mediator,[161] he says, He is freed from all nature of evil, for evil, as he says, is the Demiurge and all his works. But He was freed also, he says, from the nature of good, so that He might be a Mediator, as Paul says,[162] which he himself confessed [in the saying] “Why callest thou me good? there is one Good.”

These then are Marcion’s doctrines, whereby he has caused many to err by making use of the words of Empedocles and transferring the philosophy stolen from that person to his own teaching. [Thus] he has compounded a godless heresy which I think has been sufficiently refuted by us. Nor [do we think] that we have omitted anything of those who, having stolen [opinions] from the Greeks, insolently oppose the disciples of Christ, as if these last had become their teachers of these things. But since it seems to us that the opinions of this [Marcion] have been sufficiently exposed,[163] let us see what Carpocrates says.

p. 385.

4. Carpocrates.[164]

32. Carpocrates says that the cosmos and the things which are therein, came into being by angels much below the unbegotten Father, but that Jesus was begotten by Joseph and was born like other men, though more just than the rest. And that His soul having been born strong and pure remembered what it had seen in the sphere of the unbegotten God;[165] and that therefore a power was sent down to it from that [Deity], so that by its means it might escape from the world-making angels. And that this [soul][166] having passed through them all and having been freed from them went on high to the presence of the unbegotten Father, and so will the souls[167] [go] who cleave to similar things. And they say that the soul of Jesus, although lawfully trained in Jewish customs, disdained them and therefore received the powers whereby He made of none effect[168] the passions attached to men for their punishment. p. 386. And that therefore the soul which like that of Christ can disdain the world-making rulers, receives in the same way power to do like things. Whence also they reach such [169] and therefore similarly disdaining the world-makers, are worthy of the same power [as He] and will go to the same place. But that if anyone should disdain more than He the things below, he might become more excellent than He.

p. 387. They practise, then, magic arts, and incantations and [use] philtres and love-feasts, and familiar spirits and dream-senders and other evil works, thinking that they already have authority to lord it over the rulers and makers of this world, nay even over all created in it. Who have themselves been sent forth by Satan for the dishonour[170] of the divine name of the Church before the Gentiles, so that men hearing in one way or another of their doctrines and thinking that we are all even as they, may turn away their ears from the preaching of the Truth, [or] beholding their deeds, may speak evil of us all.

And they consider that [their] souls will change their bodies until they have fulfilled all their transgressions; but that when nothing is left undone, they will be set free to depart to the presence of the God who is above the world-making angels, and that thus all souls will be saved. But if any anticipating matters should combine all transgressions p. 388. in one advent,[171] they will no longer change their bodies, but as having paid all penalties at once, will be freed from further birth in a body. Some of them also brand their disciples in the back part of the lobe of the right ear. And they make [172] images of Christ saying that they were made [in the time] of Pilate.[173]

5. Cerinthus.[174]

33. But a certain Cerinthus, having been trained in the schooling of the Egyptians, said that the cosmos did not come into being by the First God, but by a certain Power derived from the Authority set over the universals, which is yet ignorant of the God who is over all. And he supposed Jesus not to have been begotten from a virgin, but to have been born the son of Joseph and Mary like all other men, p. 389. and to have been more wise and just than they. And that, at the Baptism, the Christ in the form of a dove descended upon Him from the Absolute Power[175] which is over the universals. And that then He announced[176] the unknown Father and perfected His own powers; but that in the end the Christ stood away from Jesus, and Jesus suffered and rose again;[177] but that the Christ being spiritual remained impassible.

6. Ebionæi.[178]

34. But the Ebionæi admit that the cosmos came into being by the God who is; and concerning Christ they invent[179] the same things as Cerinthus and Carpocrates. They live according to Jewish customs, thinking that they will be justified by the Law and saying that Jesus was justified in practising[180] the Law. Wherefore He was named by God Christ and Jesus, since none of them has fulfilled p. 390. the Law. For if any other had practised the commandments which are in the Law, he would be the Christ. And they say it is possible for them if they do likewise to become Christs; and that He was a man like unto all [men].

7. Theodotus the Byzantian.[181]

35. But a certain Byzantine named Theodotus brought in a new heresy, asserting things about the beginning of the All which partly agree with [the account of] the True Church, since he admits that all things came into being by God. But having taken[182] his [idea of] Christ from the school of the Gnostics and from Cerinthus and Ebion,[183] he considers He appeared in some such fashion as this:—Jesus was a man begotten from a virgin according to the Father’s will, living the common life of all men. And having become most pious,[184] He at length on His baptism in Jordan received the Christ from on high, who descended in the p. 391. form of a dove. Wherefore the powers within Him did not become active, until the Spirit which came down was manifested in Him, which [Spirit] declared Him to be the Christ. But some will have it that He did not become God on the descent of the Spirit; and others that [this took place] on His resurrection from the dead.

8. Another Theodotus.

36. But while different enquiries were taking place among them[185] a certain man who was also called Theodotus, a money-changer by trade, undertook to say that a certain Melchizedek was the greatest power, and that he was greater than Christ. After the image of whom they allege that Christ happened [to come]. And they like the Theodotians before mentioned say that Jesus was a man, and in the same words [declare] that the Christ descended upon Him.

p. 392. But the opinions[186] of Gnostics are varied, and we do not deem it worth while to recount in detail their foolish doctrines, composed of much absurdity and charged with blasphemy, the most respectable of which those Greeks who philosophized on the Divine have refuted. But one cause of the great conspiracy of these wicked ones was Nicolaus, one of the seven appointed to the diaconate by the Apostles.[187] He, having fallen away from the right doctrine, taught that it was indifferent how men lived and ate: whose disciples having waxed insolent, the Holy Spirit exposed in the Apocalypse as fornicators and eaters of things offered to idols.[188]

9. Cerdo and Lucian.[189]

37. But a certain Cerdo taking in like manner his starting-point from these [heretics] and from Simon, says that the p. 393. God announced by Moses and [the] Prophets was not the Father of Jesus Christ. For that this God was known, but the Father of the Christ unknowable; and that the first-named was [only] just, but the other, good. The doctrine of this [Cerdo] Marcion confirmed when he took in hand the Antitheses[190] and everything which seemed to him to speak against the Demiurge of all things. And so did Lucian his disciple.

10. Apelles.[191]

38. Now Apelles who [sprang] from among these men, says thus:—There is a certain good God as Marcion supposed; but he who created all things is [only] just; and there is a third [God] who spoke to Moses, and yet a fourth, a cause of evil. And he names these angels and speaks ill of the Law and the Prophets, deeming the Scriptures of human authorship and false. And he picks out of the Gospels and Epistles the things favourable to him. Yet he clings to the discourses of a certain Philumena as the manifestations[192] p. 394. of a prophetess. And he says that the Christ came down from the powers on high, i. e. from the Good One and was the son of that One, and was not begotten from a virgin, nor did He appear bodiless;[193] but that taking parts from every substance[194] of the All, He made a body, that is from hot and cold and wet and dry. And that in this body He lived unnoticed by the cosmic authorities during the time that He spent in the cosmos. And moreover that having been crucified[195] by the Jews He died, and after three days rose again and appeared to the disciples showing the marks of the nails and [the wound] in his side, and thereby convinced them that He existed and was not a phantom but was incarnate. The flesh [Apelles] says, which He showed, He gave back to the earth whence was its substance, and He desired nothing of others, but merely used [the flesh] for a season. He gave back to each its own, having loosed again the bond of the body, i. e. the hot to the hot, the cold to the cold, the wet to the wet and the dry to the dry,[196] and thus passed to the presence of the good Father, leaving the seed of life to the world to those who believe through the disciples.[197]

p. 395. 39. It seems to us that we have set forth sufficiently these things also. But since we have decided to leave unrefuted no doctrines taught by any [heretic], let us see what has been excogitated by the Docetae.