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

by Antipope Hippolytus

FOOTNOTES

[1] Of the Basilides with whose doctrines this book opens, little is known. While some would on slender grounds make him a Syrian, there is no doubt that he taught in Egypt and especially in Alexandria, where he seems to have steeped himself in Greek philosophy. This must have been during the reign of Hadrian and some time before the appearance of the far greater heresiarch Valentinus. If we could believe the testimony of Epiphanius, Basilides was a fellow-disciple with Satornilus, to be presently mentioned, of Menander, the immediate successor of Simon Magus; and, according to the more trustworthy witness of Clement of Alexandria (Strom., VII, 17), he himself claimed to be the disciple of Glaucias, “the interpreter” of St. Peter. He had a son Isidore who shared his teaching, and he wrote a treatise in twenty-four books on the Gospels which he called Exegetica. The sect that he founded, although never popular, lingered for some time in Egypt; but there is much probability in Matter’s conjecture (Hist. crit. du Gnost., 2nd ed., III, 36), that most of his followers became the hearers of Valentinus.

Our author’s account of Basilides’ doctrine at first sight differs so widely from that given by Irenæus and his copyists that it was for long supposed that the two accounts were irreconcilable. The late Prof. Hort, however, in his lucid article on the subject in the Dictionary of Christian Biography showed with much skill that this was not so, and that the Basilidian doctrine contained in our text is in all probability that of the Exegetica itself, while the teaching attributed to Basilides by Irenæus and others was the same doctrine largely corrupted by the inconsistent and incoherent superstitions which invariably attach themselves to any faith propagated in secret. The immediate source of Basilides’ own teaching cannot, up to the present time, be satisfactorily traced; but, although its coping-stone, the non-existent Deity, shows some likeness to the Buddhistic ideas which were at any rate known in the Alexandria of his time (Clem. Alex., Strom., I, 15), it is probable that among the relics of the ancient Egyptian religion, then almost extinct, something of the same idea might have been found. His obligation to the Stoic philosophy is well brought out by Hort; and he was doubtless versed in the dialectical methods of Aristotle, which, then as later, formed the universal equipment of the student of philosophy. Hippolytus’ theory that the ground-work of the Basilidian edifice is a conscious or unconscious borrowing from Aristotle derives no support from any Aristotelian writings known to us. Unlike other Gnostics, Basilides displays no animus towards the Jews beyond reducing their Deity to the Ruler of the Hebdomad, or lowest spiritual world, and he accepts as fully as possible the Divinity of Jesus and the authority of the New Testament. Of the Docetism attributed to him by Irenæus and others, there is here no trace, and the Bishop of Lyons’ statement on this point can only be explained by supposing that he here confused Basilides with some other heresiarch.

The distinctive features of Basilides’ teaching as disclosed in our text are, however, plain enough. Rejecting all idea of a pre-existing matter, he derives everything from the Supreme Being, whom he considers to be so unspeakably and inconceivably great that he will not even say of Him that He exists. He it is who from the first decreed not only the foundation of the universe but also the means and agency by which this is to be brought about. Nor do the apparent defects in its constitution involve in Basilides’ system any thwarting of the Divine Will by intermediate agents, or any lapse from duty on their part. All things subsequent to the Supreme Being are in effect His children, and from the Panspermia or Seed-Mass originally let fall by Him emerges the First Sonhood, or purest part of the Sonhood, which, rising from the heap by its own lightness and tenuity, springs upward into the presence of the First Cause, where it remains for the purpose of giving light when needed to the lower parts of creation. This is quickly followed by the Second Sonhood (or Second Part of the Sonhood), which, emerging in like manner, rises not from its own unaided power, but with the assistance of the Boundary Spirit, who must have its origin in the Seed-Mass, and who is left as the Boundary between the visible and the invisible part of the universe when the Second Sonhood passes to the Ogdoad or Eighth Heaven. This Eighth Heaven is under the sway of the Great Ruler, a functionary emitted by the Seed-Mass for the purpose of governing this abode of perfection, from which it may be inferred that the Second Sonhood like the First ultimately returns to the presence of the Supreme Being. In his organization of this Eighth Heaven, the Great Ruler is much helped by the Son whom he calls forth from the Seed-Mass, who is expressly stated to be greater and wiser than his own Father.

There remains in the Seed-Mass two other world-creating powers. The first of these is the maker of the Seven Heavens or Hebdomad, which can here hardly be the planets, because they are expressly said to be sublunary. He, too, produces from the Seed-Mass a Son greater and wiser than himself, who again, it may be supposed, assists his father in the organization of this Hebdomad. What form this organization took we are not told, although there is some talk of 365 beings who are all “Dominions and Powers and Authorities” with a ruler called Habrasax. Below this Hebdomad, however, comes this world of ours called the “Formlessness,” which has, it is said, “no leader nor guardian nor demiurge” (i. e. architect), everything happening in it as decreed by the Supreme Being from the first. Yet this Formlessness contains within it the Third Sonhood (or third part of the Sonhood) whose mission is apparently to guide the souls of men to the place for which they are predestined, which it does by imparting to them some of its own nature. Then, when the time came for the Coming of the Saviour, a light shining from the highest heavens was transmitted through the intermediate places to the Son of the Hebdomad and fell upon “Jesus the son of Mary,” and He after the Passion ascended like the two first parts of the Sonhood to the Divine Presence. In due time the third part of the Sonhood will, it is said, follow Him. When this happens, the soul predestined to the Seven Heavens will pass thither, those more enlightened will be admitted to the Eighth Heaven, and those entitled to the most glorious destiny of all will probably ascend with the third part of the Sonhood to the Highest. On the two inferior classes, there will then fall the “Great Ignorance,” a merciful oblivion which will prevent them from remembering or otherwise being troubled in their beatitude by the knowledge of the still better things above them.

How the salvation of these souls is to be effected there is no indication in Hippolytus, and he leaves us in entire doubt as to whether Basilides allowed any free-will to man in the matter. It is probable that he taught the doctrine of transmigration as a means of purification from sins or faults committed in ignorance. But it is several times asserted that he looked on suffering as a cleansing process for the soul, and that he did not admit the existence of evil (see Hort’s article on Basilides in D.C.B., I, pp. 274, 275 for references). About some of his teaching there was deliberate concealment (ibid., p. 279), and Irenæus (I, xxiv. 6), tells us that his followers were taught to declare that while they were “no longer Jews” they were “not yet” (or perhaps “more than”) Christians. In this we may perhaps see the influence of the rubrics of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, and the beginning of that secret propagation of religion which was to find its ripest fruit in Manichæism. For the rest, although Irenæus (I, xxiv. 5) tells us that Basilides, like Simon, Valentinus, and other Gnostics, taught that the body of Jesus was a phantasm, and even that Simon of Cyrene had been crucified in His stead, there appears no trace of this in our text, and it is possible that the Bishop of Lyons is here again confusing Basilides’ doctrines with those of his successors.

[2] ὄρος, “hill”; possibly a copyist’s error for ὅρος, “boundary” or “shore.”

[3] This exordium was evidently intended to be spoken.

[4] οὐσία, Cruice and others translate this by “substance.” Here it evidently means “essence” in the sense of “being.”

[5] εἶδος, i. e. appearance = that which is seen.

[6] ἄτομος, “which cannot be cut or divided,” = “atom.”

[7] ἀναδέξασθαι τομήν, “receive cutting.”

[8] ζῷον ἁπλῶς. See Aristotle, Categor., c. 3. The “living creature” of the A. V. would here make better sense; but I keep the word “animal” in the text out of respect for my predecessors.

[9] ὑπόστασις, literally substantia, with no meaning as has οὐσία of “being.” See Hatch, Hibbert Lectures, p. 275.

[10] ἀνείδεον, “abstract,” or “non-specific”?

[11] εἴδεσιν.

[12] The text has ταύτην .... [τὴν οὐσίαν], the words in brackets being rightly deleted, as Cruice notes.

[13] ἐθέμεθα, “posited.”

[14] εἰς εἶδος οὐσίας ὑποστατικῆς, which shows the distinction made by the author between ὀυσία and ὑπόστασις.

[15] ἄτομον, “undivided.”

[16] The text is here corrupt and has to be restored from Aristotle’s, the word I have translated “essence” being as before οὐσία while subject is ὑποκειμένον. Cf. Aristotle Cat., c. 5, and Metaphysica, IV, c. 8.

[17] Or “of many animals although they differ in species.”

[18] ἔμψυχος, “animated” or “ensouled.”

[19] ἕκαστον [sic]. One of the accidents would make better sense. Cf. vol. I, p. [56] supra.

[20] i. e. “inherent.”

[21] τὰ ἄτομα.

[22] συμπληροῦται.

[23] οὐσία, which here as elsewhere in the text may be translated “essence.” “Being,” perhaps, is better here as more familiar to the English reader.

[24] These definitions of “accident” and the like are not to be found in the Categories of Aristotle as we have them in the work known as the Organon, nor in any other of his extant works. But they correspond with those given in Book VI, and are there attributed to Pythagoras. Cf. p. [21] supra.

[25] οὐσία throughout.

[26] That is, makes fables or myths about the gods.

[27] Macmahon remarks that these must be among Aristotle’s lost works. This is doubtful.

[28] ἀποκρύφους. Is Matthias a corruption of Glaucias? See n. on p. [59] supra.

[29] Basilides and his son must therefore have been contemporaries of the Apostles. Even if we treat the word αὐτοῖς here as a copyist’s interpolation, it is evident that Basilides must have been considerably anterior in time to Valentinus.

[30] πραγμάτων, “transactions.”

[31] The words in this sentence in square brackets are emendations in the text made by different editors.

[32] πραγμάτων, as in last note but one.

[33] κατὰ πλάτος καὶ διαίρεσιν.

[34] Basilides is thus the first Gnostic to teach the doctrine of creation e nihilo.

[35] ὑποστήσας. Cf. the legend of Cybele, Vol. I, p. [118], n. 1 supra.

[36] πανσπερμίαν. The word is found in the fragments of Anaxagoras and Democritus as well as in Plato. Its use has been revived by Darwin and Weissmann.

[37] ἰδέας.

[38] οὐσιῶν. Nothing is here got by translating the word “substances.”

[39] πολυούσιον. Galen uses it as equivalent to “very wealthy.”

[40] ὁποῖον. As in Aristotle, Cate., c. 5.

[41] This with Hippolytus’ interpolated remark emphasizes the great difference between Basilides’ doctrine with its assertion of the creation e nihilo and the emanation theory of all other Gnostics. It does away with the necessity for a pre-existent matter.

[42] Gen. 1. 3.

[43] John 1. 9. This and “Mine hour is not yet come” are the only undoubted references to the Fourth Gospel made by Basilides.

[44] ἀρχάς.

[45] ὁμοούσιος. The first occurrence, so far as it can be traced, of this too-famous word. If I am right, the interpretation of οὐσία by “substance” came later. The nature of the Sonhood (Υἱότης, Lat., filietas, which I translate “Sonhood” by analogy with paternitas = Fatherhood) is peculiar to Basilides, the idea being apparently that within the Panspermia was concealed a germ which was more closely related to its Divine Parent than the rest. The same idea mutatis mutandis reappears in Weissmann’s theory of the germ-plasm.

[46] Homer, Odyssey, VII, 36.

[47] δι’ ὑπερβολὴν κάλλους καὶ ὡραιότητος. The longing of all nature for something higher is also mentioned in the Book on the Ophites (See Book V, Vol. I, pp. [123], [140] supra). The phrase was evidently a favourite one with Hippolytus, and he therefore uses it in regard to several heresies, as he has done with the magnet simile.

[48] μιμητική τις οὖσα, “being an imitative thing.”

[49] Plato, Phaedrus, cc. 55, 56.

[50] ὁμοούσιον.

[51] χαρακτηρισθῆναι.

[52] Ps. cxxxiii. 2.

[53] ἀμορφίας καὶ τοῦ διαστήματος τοῦ καθ’ ἡμᾶς. The ἀμορφία corresponds exactly to the Chaos of the other Gnostics, as contrasted with the Cosmos or ordered world which in this case is above it. In it, as we see later (p. 356 Cr.) there is neither “leader nor guardian nor demiurge,” and everything happens by predestination. The διάστημα we have already met with in the teaching of Simon Magus (p. 261 Cr.). Although in classical Greek it means an “interval,” it is here evidently intended to signify something uncultivated, or, as we should say, a “waste.”

[54] It gives benefit by passing into the souls of certain chosen men and thus enabling them to obtain the highest beatitude. It receives it by thus purifying itself and so working out in turn its own salvation.

[55] He evidently regards the three persons of the Sonhood as one being.

[56] “Cosmos.”

[57] Τὸ Μεθόριον Πνεῦμα.

[58] The likeness of this to the Egyptian Horus who was at once the sky-god and the ruler of the sublunary world, whose earthly representative was the Pharaoh, is manifest. So, too, is its connection with Horos, the Limit, of the Pleroma in Book VI.

[59] So in the Pistis Sophia the great ruler of the material world is only spoken of as the Great Propatôr or Forefather, but his personal name is never mentioned. The word Ἄρχων here applied to this power is never used by later Gnostics except in a bad sense.

[60] δεσπότης = autocrat or ruler having unlimited power.

[61] καθ’ ἕκαστα.

[62] This idea of a Power bringing into being a son greater than himself seems peculiar to Basilides among Gnostic teachers. Its origin may, perhaps, be sought among Pagan religions like the Greek worship of Isis. See Forerunners, I, p. 63.

[63] This ἐντελεχεία or Quintessence Aristotle defines (Metaphys., X, 9, 2) as actuality or the property of a thing in posse which lends to its motion or activity in esse.

[64] ἀποτέλεσμα. The word is much used in astrology.

[65] μεγαλειότητος. The word is post-classical and used in its modern sense as an epithet of the Emperor in Byzantine times. Cf. LXX, Jer. xxxiii. 9; Luke ix. 43; Acts xix. 27.

[66] ῥητός as opposed to ἄρῥητος, “ineffable.”

[67] That is to say, our world.

[68] ὡς φθάσαντα τεχθῆναι ὑπὸ τοῦ τὰ μέλλοντα γενέσθαι ὁτε δεῖ καὶ οἷα δεῖ καὶ ὡς δεῖ λελογισμένου. The reading is very uncertain. Cf. Cruice, p. 356 nn. 9, 10.

[69] Rom. viii. 22.

[70] Rom. v. 13, 14. In the Greek not ἁμαρτία as in the text, but θάνατος, “death.”

[71] Cf. Exod. vi. 2, 3. Basilides has twisted the last sentence, “By my name Jehovah was I not known to them,” as Hippolytus notes.

[72] ἐκεῖθεν, i. e. from the Hebdomad. Cruice will have it from the Ogdoad, but is clearly wrong.

[73] Ἀρχή, “Rule.” Cf. Milton’s “Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Virtues, Powers.”

[74] The simile of the vapour of naphtha rising and catching fire from a light above it is apt. As Prof. A. S. Peake points out in his article on “Basilides” in Hastings’ Dictionary of Religion and Ethics, Basilides throughout his system asserts in opposition to Gnostics like Valentinus that salvation comes from the uplifting of the lower powers rather than by the degradation of the higher.

[75] There are many conjectural readings of this passage, for which see Cruice.

[76] Prov. i. 7. So Clem. Alex. (Strom., II, 8, 36), who clearly quotes this passage from Basilides.

[77] κατασκευή. Cf. LXX, Gen. i. 1.

[78] ἀποκατασταθήσεται. This Apocatastasis, or return of the worlds to the Deity from whom they came forth, is a favourite source of speculation with all Gnostics.

[79] 1 Cor. ii. 13.

[80] A conflation of Ps. xxxii. 5, and Ps. li. 3.

[81] εὐαγγελισθήσεται, “have the good news announced to him”?

[82] It is the words in brackets which connect the system of the text with that attributed to Basilides by Irenæus and Epiphanius. Cf. Iren., I, xxiv. 5, pp. 202, 203, and n. 6, H., and Epiph., Haer., XXIV.

[83] Eph. iii. 3, 5.

[84] 2 Cor. xii. 4.

[85] As at the Baptism in Jordan where, according to the almost universal tradition, the water was lighted up.

[86] Luke i. 35.

[87] δύναμις τῆς χρίσεως. Thus in Cruice. Miller would read κρίσεως, and Roeper Ὀγδοάδος. Perhaps the correct reading is χριστός, according to the idea common to nearly all Gnostics that the Christos only came upon Jesus at His Baptism.

[88] ἐγένετο ἄν.

[89] John iffi. 5.

[90] ὑπὸ γένεσιν, “configuration” or “geniture.” The proper word for a theme or horoscope.

[91] It was the Second and not the First Sonhood who left the Holy Spirit at the Boundary.

[92] It is plain from this that Basilides taught that the most spiritual part of man’s soul was part of the Sonhood and that it was separated from the rest at death. This is confirmed by what is said later about what happened after the Passion.

[93] Εὐαγγέλιον = “good news”? The article is omitted in both these sentences.

[94] He of the Ogdoad.

[95] ἠγαλλιάσατο, a kind of pun on Ἐὐαγγέλιον, “glad tidings.”

[96] ἵνα ἀπαρχὴ τῆς φυλοκρινήσεως γένηται τῶν συγκεχυμένων. So Clem. Alex. (Strom., II., 8, 36), quoting from the “followers of Basilides,” says that the Great Ruler’s fear became the ἀρχὴ τῆς σοφίας φυλοκρινητικῆς, “the origin of the wisdom which discriminates.”

[97] σωματικὸν μέρος.

[98] This flatly contradicts the story attributed to Basilides by Irenæus to the effect that Simon of Cyrene took His place on the Cross. It has long been thought likely that Irenæus was here confusing Basilides with his contemporary Saturninus.

[99] So in the Pistis Sophia, the incorporeal part of man is said to consist of four parts.

[100] ὑπόθεσις.

[101] καὶ τὸ πάθος οὐκ ἄλλου τινὸς χάριν γέγονεν [ἢ] ὑπὲρ τοῦ φυλοκρινηθῆναι τὰ συγκεχυμένα.

[102] As has been said, there appears no reason to doubt that Hippolytus took his account of Basilides’ doctrines directly from the works of that heresiarch or of his son Isidore. The likeness of the quotations from Basilides or “those about Basilides” in Clement of Alexandria—a far more accurate and critical writer than Hippolytus—to our text leave no doubt on this point, and it is even probable that, as Hort thought, most of Hippolytus’ information is gathered from Basilides’ Exegetica. His account of the universe and its creation is largely Stoic, as may be seen by a comparison of this chapter with that on the Universe in Prof. E. V. Arnold’s excellent Roman Stoicism (Cambridge, 1911); but he differs from all the Pagan philosophy of his time by his view of matter which he makes neither pre-existent nor malignant. In this, and in the “happy ending” to his drama of the universe, we may perhaps see the result of the Golden Age of the Antonines, and it is to this, perhaps, that he owed the influence that he, without any great followers or successors, had upon the future theology of orthodox and heretic alike. Many of his ideas, and even a few of his very words, appear in documents like the later parts of the Pistis Sophia, and in certain Manichæan writings, although the strict monotheism which distinguishes them is in sharp contrast with the dualism of his successors. This begets a doubt whether these last were conscious borrowers of his opinion, or whether both he and they took their doctrines from some common source of Eastern tradition not now recognizable; but on the whole, the first-named hypothesis seems the more probable.

[103] Σατορνεῖλος. So Epiph., Haer. XXIII, and Theodoret, Haer. Fab., I, 3, spell the name. Iren., I, 22; Eusebius, H.E., IV, 7, and later writers spell it Σατορνῖνος. All these accounts, however, together with that in our text, are in effect copies of the chapter in Iren., which is the earliest in time that has remained to us. Salmon in D.C.B., s.v. “Saturninus,” thinks that this last is itself copied from Justin Martyr, which is likely enough, but remains without proof.

[104] Epiphanius, Haer. XXIII, p. 124, Oehl. adds to this that Saturninus and Basilides were co-disciples, which, if true, would connect their systems with Menander’s teacher, Simon Magus. Nothing further is, however, known about Saturnilus or Saturninus or his heresy, which Epiphanius makes the third after Christ, nor is there any mention in any of the heresiologies of any writings by him. His story of a First or Pattern Man made in the image of the Supreme Being is common, as has been said, to many of the early heresies, and reappears in Manichæism. It is probably to be referred to some tradition current in Western Asia. See Bousset’s Hauptprobleme der Gnosis, cap. “Der Urmensch.”

[105] τῆς αὐθεντίας, “one who holds absolute rule.” Summa potestas, Cr.

[106] Cf. Gen. i. 26.

[107] This story is also met with among the Ophites. See Iren. (I, xxx. 5), where life is given to the grovelling figure by Jaldabaoth, the chief of the seven powers. Epiphanius adds to it that the world-makers divided the cosmos among them by lot, and that it was a spark of his own Power that the “Power on high” sent down for the vivification of the First Man, “which spark, he says, they fancy to be the human soul.”

[108] καὶ τὰ λοιπὰ ἐξ ὧν ἐγένετο, εἰς ἐκεῖνα ἀναλύεσθαι.

[109] So Miller. Theodoret has Σωτῆρα, “Saviour,” for Father.

[110] Words in ( ) restored from Epiphanius.

[111] No necessary mistake or confusion, as has been thought. The “deposition” might be merely that of an unsuccessful general, as in Manichæism.

[112] Marcion of Pontus was the heresiarch most dreaded by the Ante-Nicene Fathers, and is said to have led away from the Primitive Church a greater number of adherents than any teacher of that age, with the doubtful exception of Valentinus. He also differed from all other heretics of the time in setting up a Church fully equipped with bishops, priests, and deacons over against the Catholic, and in seeing that his followers openly avowed their faith in times of persecution. He rejected the Old Testament entirely, and reduced the New to a shorter edition of the Gospel of St. Luke and ten of the Epistles of St. Paul. This has led to his heresy receiving more attention than any other of its contemporaries at the hands of modern scholars, especially in Germany. Hence it is to be regretted that the chapter in our text which is devoted to him adds nothing to our knowledge of his history or tenets, while its statement that Marcion called the Demiurge πονηρός (wicked) shows either that Hippolytus was ignorant of Marcion’s opinions, or that he misread his authority. The first is the more likely theory, as his master Irenæus gives a more scanty account of Marcion than of any other heretic, while promising to write a special treatise against him. This intention does not seem to have been carried out, and it is probable that while the Marcionite heresy flourished at an early date in the Eastern provinces of the Empire, it had too slight a hold in the West to have given such writers as Irenæus and Hippolytus much first-hand knowledge concerning it. It is also noted that in the so-called “epitome of heresies” in Book X, Hippolytus does not, after his manner with the other heresies, quote from this chapter.

[113] τοῦ παντός. This expression, as has been many times said above, means the universe without the Void. It does not therefore, exclude the collateral existence of Chaos or unformed matter.

[114] This accusation of incontinence against Marcion is disproved by Tertullian, de Præscript, c. 30. Cf. Forerunners, II, 206, n. 5.

[115] Φιλία, Cr., “Amicitia,” Macm., “Friendship.” The stronger word Love seems to express better Hippolytus’ meaning. It is, of course, distinct from the ἀγάπη or “charity” of the A. V.

[116] He refers to the scanty account of Empedocles’ doctrines in [Book I], q.v.

[117] κλεψιλόγος, “word-stealer.”

[118] κοσμεῖται, “set in order.”

[119] κρούνωμα βρότειον, ll. 55-57, Karsten; 33-35, Stein. Cr. translates these words humanam scaturiginem, and Macm., “the mortal font.” It is difficult to assign any meaning to them in the absence of the context.

[120] τρεφομένοις, “things in course of nurture.”

[121] ζῷα, “animals.”

[122] He appears to ignore the desert, or perhaps thinks this no part of the ordered world.

[123] ὑπόθεσιν, lit., “substructure.”

[124] πνεῦμα, a manifest slip for Ἀήρ as before.

[125] στοργή, as in the N. T.

[126] ὀλέθριον.

[127] εἰς τὸ ἓν ἀποκαταστάσεως. The Codex has τὸν ἕνα. That the meaning is as given above, see p. 373 Cr., where we find ἐκ πολλῶν ποιήσῃ τὸ ἕν κ.τ.λ.

[128] ll. 110, 111, Stein. In p. 274 Cr., supra, these lines are quoted as the opinions of “the Pythagoreans.”

[129] τὸ πᾶν, not τὸ ὅλον. See n. on I, p. 35 supra.

[130] ἰδέα, “species”; so Cruice.

[131] κλάδοι, lit., “branches.”

[132] ll. 107, 205, Karsten.

[133] l. 7, Karsten; 381, Stein.

[134] ll. 4, Karsten; 372, 373, Stein.

[135] l. 5, Karsten; 374, Stein.

[136] νοητός, “that which can be understood by the mind rather than by the senses.”

[137] εἴδεα θνητῶν, “forms of mortals.”

[138] ll. 6, Karsten; 375, 376, Stein.

[139] ll. 15-19, Karsten; 377-380, Stein.

[140] μεμερισμένου, minutatim divisi, Cr.

[141] ἐγκρατεῖς εἶναι, “to be abstainers.”

[142] ll. 1, 2, Karsten; 369, 370, Stein.

[143] νοητήν, as before.

[144] ἐπινοεῖσθαι.

[145] Reading for ἀδινῇσιν ... πραπίδεσσιν, ἰδυιῄσι πραπίδεσσιν, as in Hom., Il., I, 608.

[146] Φύσις ἑκάστῳ, “the nature of each one”?

[147] Cf. ll. 313 sqq., Karsten, and 222 sqq., Stein. Schneidewin has restored the very bad text in Philologus, VI, 166. But the lines are still obscure—even for Empedocles. They seem to hint at a hidden meaning, to be got by study.

[148] κολοβοδάκτυλος. See Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology (Cambridge), March 1855, p. 87. The story of St. Mark cutting off his thumb to make himself ineligible for the priesthood is quoted by Cruice from St. Jerome.

[149] ἀντιπαράθεσιν, “the setting over against.”

[150] ὑπολαμβάνεις. Cr. and Macm. both translate, “as you suppose them to be.” But Marcion could have been in no doubt as to his own opinions.

[151] Marcion did not say that the Demiurge, whom he probably identified with the God of the Jews, was wicked. On the contrary, he said that he was just, though harsh. See Forerunners, II, xi.

[152] εὐαγγελίζῃ.

[153] Cf. 1 Tim. iv. 1-5, as quoted in Book VIII, p. 422 Cr.

[154] Reading τοὺς σεαυτοῦ μαθητάς for the τοὺς ἑαυτοῦ μαθητάς of the text.

[155] All this argument is a petitio principii of the most flagrant kind. There is nothing in the quotations here given from Empedocles to show that that philosopher made Love and Strife the two ἀρχαί of the universe, as Empedocles associates with them the four “elements” of Fire, Earth, Water and Air, and Ἀνάγκη or Fate seems, according to his teaching, to be superior to them all. The quotations prove, however, that Empedocles taught metempsychosis, unless Hippolytus is here confusing him with Pythagoras. Marcion did not, and the reason that he gave for abstinence from animal food is different from that attributed to Empedocles. The quotations themselves are much corrupted, and Hippolytus seems to have taken them from memory only, as he is careful to say that these are “something like this.” All of them appear in Karsten’s or Stein’s collections, which were made before the discovery of our text, and are, therefore, an argument against Salmon’s theory of forgery.

[156] καθαριωτάτη, “purest.”

[157] This Prepon, probably a Syrian, is mentioned by no other writer except Theodoret, who doubtless borrowed from our text. The “Bardesianes” was probably the famous Bardaisan or Ibn Daisan who taught at Edessa and was a follower of Valentinus. It is noteworthy that the Armenian author, Eznig of Goghp, gives a different account of Marcion’s teaching from any of the Western heresiologists and makes him admit the independent existence of a third principle in the shape of malignant matter. For this, see Forerunners, II, p. 217, n. 2.

[158] διαφερούσας, “differentiated”?

[159] ll. 338-341, Stein. Schneidewin has restored the lines as far as is possible.

[160] ὑπόπλασμα, “that which has been moulded.”

[161] Μεσίτης. Not intercessor, but something placed between two others.

[162] Not St. Paul, but Luke xvii. 19.

[163] There is no indication of the source from which Hippolytus drew the material for this chapter. It does not seem to have been the writings of Irenæus, for his remarks in I, xxv tell us even less about Marcion than our text. Possibly Hippolytus was here indebted to the work of Justin Martyr, which seems to have been extant in the time of Photius. With the exception of the notice of Prepon, our text contains nothing that was not known otherwise.

[164] This Carpocrates, whom Epiphanius calls Carpocras, seems to have been another of “the great Gnostics of Hadrian’s time,” and to have been learned in the Platonic philosophy. He is mentioned by all the heresiologists, but there is little that is distinctive about his tenets as they have come down to us, and his followers were probably few. They are accused by Irenæus, from whose chapter on the subject Hippolytus’ account is condensed, of a kind of Antinomianism having its origin in the contention that all actions are indifferent.

[165] μετὰ τοῦ ἀγενήτου Θεοῦ περιφορᾷ.

[166] χωρήσασαν can only apply to ψυχή. The return of the Power to the Deity could not be supposed to affect other souls.

[167] ὁμοίως.

[168] κατήργησε.

[169] τῆς ὑπερκειμένης ἐξουσίας. Cruice points out that these words have slipped into the text from the margin. Irenæus has ex eadem circumlatione devenientes, “descending from the same sphere,” which is doubtless correct.

[170] εἰς διαβολήν, probably a play on διάβολος.

[171] ἐν μιᾷ παρουσίᾳ, “in one appearance.”

[172] κατασκευάζουσι, “mould or cast.”

[173] This chapter is in effect a condensation of Irenæus I, xx, which it follows closely. Hippolytus omits mention of the obscenities attributed to the sect which are hinted at by Irenæus and described fully by Epiphanius. Irenæus also mentions that they claimed to get their doctrine from the secret teaching of Jesus to the Apostles, that one Marcellina taught their heresy in Rome under Pope Anicetus, and that the images of Christ were worshipped by them, more Gentilium, along with those of Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle. Epiphanius derives the heresy from Simon Magus. It is suggested that the branding by which they knew each other was due to a “baptism by fire.”

[174] This chapter also is practically identical with Irenæus I, xxi, which is extant in the Latin version. Cerinthus was one of the earliest of the Gnostics and tradition makes him contemporary with St. John. He was probably a member of the Jewish-Alexandrian school of Philo, and Epiphanius (Haer. XXVIII) adds to Irenæus’ account that he taught in Asia, and especially in Galatia.

[175] αὐθεντίας, as before.

[176] κηρύξας, perhaps “preached.”

[177] Does this amount to an admission of the resurrection of the body? If so it is in marked contrast to the Docetism of Marcion and others.

[178] Ἐβιοναῖοι, Latin [Iren.] qui dicuntur Ebionæi, as if they were followers of a mythical leader Ebion. The existence of any founder of this name is now generally given up, and the word is more probably a mere transliteration of the Hebrew אביון, “poor.” The Ebionites were in all likelihood Judaizing Christians who had remained behind in Palestine through the wars of Titus and Hadrian, and still kept to the observance of the Mosaic Law. The brief statement in our text is probably derived from Hippolytus’ recollection of Irenæus, I, c. 21, the first sentence being in nearly the same words in both authors. Irenæus adds to it that they used the gospel of St. Matthew only and did not consider St. Paul as an apostle, because he did not keep the Law; also that they adored Jerusalem as the “house of God.”

[179] μυθεύουσιν, “fable.” Irenæus’ Latin version here inserts a non, evidently a clerical error.

[180] ποιήσαντα, Cruice, servare, Macm., “fulfilled.” In either case a curious meaning for ποιέω. Cf. the ποιέω τὴν μουσικήν of Plato, Phaedo, 60. E.

[181] In the accounts of the two Theodoti, which may here be taken together, Hippolytus leaves Irenæus, from whom he has hitherto been content to copy his account of the smaller heresies, and draws from some source not yet identified, but which may be the Little Labyrinth of Caius (see Salmon in D.C.B., s.v. “Theodotus.”). His description of the heresy of Theodotus of Byzantium corresponds with that of Eusebius (Eccl. Hist., V, 28). The Melchizedekian theory of the “other” Theodotus is mentioned by Philaster (c. 53, p. 54, Oehl.) without reference to Theodotus, although on the preceding page he has given the Byzantine heresy as in our text. Pseudo-Tertullian in Adv. Omn. Haer. (II, p. 764, Oehl.) gives the story of both Theodoti much as here, which may give support to the theory that this tract is a summary of the lost Syntagma of Hippolytus. Epiphanius (Haer. XXXIV, XXXV) divides the Melchizedekians from the Theodotians, and says the first were ἀποσπασθέντες from the second, but without naming the banker. He also gives some particulars about the first Theodotus, which he does not seem to have taken from Hippolytus. He quotes one Hierax as saying that Melchizedek was the Holy Spirit, and says that “some” say that Heracles was his father and Astaroth or Asteria his mother, while Melchizedek plays a great part in the earliest part of the Pistis Sophia as the “Receiver of the Light.”

[182] ἀποσπάσας, lit., “torn away.”

[183] So that Hippolytus believed in the mythical founder of the Ebionites.

[184] εὐσεβέστατον.

[185] i. e. the heretics.

[186] γνῶμαι.

[187] Acts vi. 5.

[188] Rev. ii. 6.

[189] This Cerdo is only known to us as a predecessor of Marcion, whose teaching he appears to have influenced, although in what measure cannot now be ascertained. His date seems to be fairly well settled as about the year 135 (see D.C.B., s.h.v.), which is that of his coming to Rome, and it was doubtless here that Marcion met him. According to Irenæus, his teaching was mainly in secret and he was always ready to make submission to the Church and recant his errors when publicly arraigned. His doctrine, so far as it has come down to us, does not seem to differ from that of Marcion, Tertullian (adv. Marcion) and the tractate Adv. Omn. Haer. giving the best account of it. Of Lucian, we know nothing, save that, while Epiphanius (Haer. XLII, p. 688, Oehl.) makes him out the immediate successor of Marcion and to have been succeeded by Apelles, Tertullian (de Resurrectione, c. 2) speaks of him—if he be the person there referred to as Lucanus—as an independent teacher with no apparent connection with Marcion’s heresy. He adds that he taught a resurrection neither of the body nor of the soul, but of some part of man which he calls a “third nature.” See Forerunners, II, p. 218, n. 2, and 220.

[190] Ἀντιπαραθέσεις. See n. on p. [88] supra.

[191] Of this Apelles, our knowledge is mainly derived from Tertullian, for references to whom see Hort’s article “Apelles” in D.C.B. He was certainly later than Marcion, for Rhodo (see Euseb., Hist. Eccl., V, c. 13), writing at the end of the second century, A.D., speaks of him as still alive, though an “old man.” The same author seems to consider that on Marcion’s death he founded a sect of his own, in which he “corrected” Marcion’s teaching in some particulars. This is doubtful, but Rhodo’s statements go to show that he quoted from the Old Testament and did not hold the body of Jesus to be a phantasm. Tertullian also mentions several times the connection of Apelles with the “possessed” Philumene, on which he puts a construction negatived by the evidence of Rhodo. Cf. Forerunners, II, pp. 218-220.

[192] Hippolytus here accepts the statement of Tertullian (de Præscript., c. 30) that Apelles wrote a book called Φανερώσεις, or Manifestations, containing the prophecies of Philumene. He repeats this with more distinctness in [Book X], c. 20, q. v.

[193] ἄσαρκον.

[194] οὐσία.

[195] ἀνασκολοπισθέντα, lit., “impaled.” It is, however, used by both Philo and Lucian as equivalent to “crucified.”

[196] This “giving back” of the component parts of man’s being to the different powers from which they are derived is a frequent theme among the later Gnostics, and is fully described in the Pistis Sophia. Cf. Forerunners, II, p. 184.

[197] The source of this chapter is certainly the tractate Adv. Omn. Haer., formerly attributed to Tertullian and to be found in the second volume of that author’s works in Oehler’s edition. No other author mentions Apelles with such particularity, and all those subsequent to Tertullian appear to have taken their information either from Tertullian’s other works, from this tractate, or from our text. This tractate has been discussed in the Introduction (see Vol. I, pp. [12] and [23] supra) and perhaps all difficulties may be solved by supposing it to be, not indeed the actual Syntagma of Hippolytus, but a summary of it.

BOOK VIII
THE DOCETAE, MONOIMUS, AND OTHERS

p. 396. 1. These are the contents of the 8th [Book] of the Refutation of all Heresies.

2. What are the opinions of the Docetae,[1] and that they teach things which they say are from the Physicist Philosophy.[2]

3. How Monoimus speaks foolishly, giving heed to poets and geometricians and arithmeticians.

4. How Tatian’s [heresy] sprang from the opinions of Valentinus and Marcion wherefrom he compounded his own. And that Hermogenes has made use of the teachings of Socrates, not of Christ.

5. How those err who contend that Easter should be celebrated on the 14th day [of the month].

6. What is the error of the Phrygians, who think Montanus and Priscilla and Maximilla to be prophets.

p. 397. 7. What is the vain doctrine of the Encratites, and that their teachings are compounded not out of the Holy Scriptures, but from their own [views] and from those of the Gymnosophists among the Indians.[3]

1. The Docetae.

8. Since the many, making no use of the Lord’s counsel, while having the beam[4] in their eye, yet give out that they can see, it seems to us that we should not be silent as to their doctrines. So that they, being brought to shame by our forthcoming refutation, shall recognize how the Saviour counselled them to take away the beam from their own eye, and then to see clearly the straw which was in their brother’s eye. Now, therefore, having set forth sufficiently and adequately the opinions of most of the heretics in the seven books before this, we shall not now be silent upon those which follow. Exhibiting the ungrudging grace of the Holy Spirit, we shall also refute those who seem to have p. 398. attained security, They call themselves Docetae and teach thus:—The first God[5] is as it were the seed of a fig, in size altogether of the smallest, but in power boundless, a magnitude unreckoned in quantity, lacking nothing for bringing forth, a refuge for the fearful, a covering for the naked, or veil for shame, a fruit sought for, whereto, he says, the Seeker came thrice and found not.[6] Wherefore, he says, He cursed the fig-tree,[7] so that that sweet fruit was not found on it, [i. e.] the fruit that was sought for. And [the seed] being, so to speak briefly, of such a nature and so old [yet] small and without magnitude, the cosmos came into being from God, as they think, in some such way as this:—The branches of the tree becoming tender, put forth leaves, as is seen, and fruit follows, wherein is preserved the innumerable p. 399. [and] stored-up seed of the fig. We think, therefore, that three things first come into being from the seed of the fig, the stem which is the fig-tree, leaves, and the fruit or fig, as we have before said. Thus, says he, three Aeons came into being as principles from the First Principle of the universals.[8] And on this, he says, Moses was not silent, when he said that the words of God were three: “Darkness, cloud and whirlwind and he added no more.”[9] For, he says, God added nothing to the Three Aeons, but they sufficed and do suffice for all things which come into being. But God Himself abides by Himself and far removed from all the Aeons.[10]

When, therefore, each of these Aeons, he says, had received a principle of generation, as has been said, it little by little increased and grew great and became perfect. Now they think that the perfect number [is] ten.[11] Then the Aeons having come into being equal in number and perfection, as they think, they were thirty Aeons in all,[12] each of them being complete in a decad. But they are divided and the three having equal honour among themselves, differ in position only, because one of them is first, p. 400. another second, and another third. But this position produced a difference of power. For he who is nearest to the First God—to the seed as it were—chances to have a power more fruitful than the others, he who is the Immeasureable One having measured himself ten times in magnitude. And the Incomprehensible One, who has become second in position to the first, comprehended himself six times. And the third in position, becoming removed to an infinite distance by reason of his brethren’s dilatation, conceived[13] himself three times and, as it were, bound himself by a certain eternal bond of unity.[14]

9. And this they think is the Saviour’s saying:—“The sower went forth to sow and that which fell upon good and fair ground made some 100, some 60, and some 30.”[15] And hence, says he, He said, “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear,” because this is not what all understand.[16] All these Aeons [to wit] the Three and all the boundlessly boundless ones [who come] from them, are masculo-feminine ones.[17] Therefore having increased and become great, and all of them being from that one first seed of their concord p. 401. and unity, and all becoming together one Aeon, they all begat from the one Virgin Mary, the begettal common to them all, a Saviour in the midst of them all,[18] of equal power in everything with the seed of the fig, save that He was begotten. But that first seed whence is born the fig is unbegotten. Then those three Aeons having been adorned[19] with all virtue and holiness, as these teachers think, all the conceivable, lacking-nothing, nature of that Only-Begotten[20] Son—for He alone was born to the boundless Aeons by a triple generation; for three immeasureable Aeons with one mind begot Him—was adorned also. But all these conceivable and eternal things were Light; but the Light was not formless and idle, nor did it lack anything superadded to it: but it contained within itself the boundless forms of the various animals here below corresponding in number to the boundlessly boundless after the pattern of the fig-tree. And it shone from on high into p. 402. the underlying chaos. And this [chaos], being at once illuminated and given form from the various forms on high, received consistence[21] and took all the supernal forms from the Third Aeon who had tripled himself.[22] But this Third Aeon, seeing all the types[23] that were his at once intercepted in the underlying darkness beneath, and not being ignorant of the power of the darkness and the simplicity and generosity[24] of the light, would not allow the shining types from on high to be drawn far down by the darkness beneath. But he subjected [the Firmament] to the Aeons. Then, having fixed it below, he divided in twain the darkness and the light.[25] “And he called the light which is above the firmament, Day, and the darkness he called Night.”[26] Therefore, as I have said, when all the boundless forms of the Third Aeon were intercepted in this lowest darkness, and the impress[27] of that same Aeon was stamped upon it along with the rest, a living fire came from the light whence the Great Ruler came into being p. 403. of whom Moses says: “In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth.”[28] Moses says that this fiery God[29] spoke from the bush, that is from the darksome air, for batos [bush] is the whole air which underlies the darkness. But it is batos, says Moses according to him, because all the forms of light go from on high downwards, having the air as a passage.[30] And the word from the bush is no less recognized by us. For a sound significant of speech is reverberating air, without which human speech could not be recognized. And not only does our word from the bush, that is from the air, make laws for and be a fellow-citizen with us, but also odours and colours manifest their powers to us through the air.

10. Then this fiery God—the fire born from the light—made the cosmos, as Moses says, in this manner, he being substanceless,[31] [and] darkness having the substance and being ever silent towards the eternal types of the light which are intercepted below.[32] Therefore, until the Saviour’s manifestation, there was a certain great wandering of souls by reason of the God of the Light, the fiery Demiurge. For the forms are called souls, having been cooled down[33] from the things above and they continue in darkness to change about from body to body under the supervision of p. 404. the Demiurge. And that this is so, we may know from the words of Job: “And I also am a wanderer from place to place and from house to house.”[34] The Saviour also says: “And if you will receive it, this is the Elias who shall come. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.”[35] But by the Saviour, change of bodies has been made to cease; and faith is preached for the putting-away of transgressions.[36] In some such way that Only-Begotten Son beholding from on high the forms of the Aeons changing about in the darksome bodies willed to come down for their deliverance. When He saw that the multitude of Aeons could not bear to behold without ceasing the Pleroma of all the Aeons, but remained as mortals dreading corruption,[37] being held by the greatness and glory of power, He drew Himself together as a very great flash in a very small body, or rather, like the light of the eye drawn together under the eyelids, and goes forth to the p. 405. heaven and the shining stars. And there He again withdraws Himself under the eyelids at His pleasure. Thus does the light of the eye, and although it is everywhere present and is all things to us, it is invisible; but we see only the lids of the eye, the white corners, a broad membrane of many folds and fibres, a horn-like coat, and under this a berry-like pupil, both net-like and disk-like, and if there are any other coats to the light of the eye, it is enwrapped and lies hidden within them.

Thus, he says, the Only-Begotten Son, eternal on high, did on Himself (a form) corresponding to each Aeon of the Three Aeons, and being in the triacontad of Aeons, came into the world of the Decad[38] being of such age and as little as we have said, invisible, unknown, without glory and not believed upon. in order then, say the Docetae,[39] that he might do on also the Outer Darkness which is the flesh, an angel came down with Him from p. 406. on high and made announcement[40] to Mary as it is written, and He was born from her as it is written. And He who came from on high put on that which was born, and did all things as it is written in the Gospels; and was baptized in Jordan. And he was baptized, receiving the type and seal in the water of the body born from the Virgin, in order that when the Ruler should condemn the form which was his to death, to the Cross, that soul which had grown up within the body should strip off that body and affix it to the Tree. And thus (the soul) having triumphed by its means over the Principles and Authorities would not be found naked, but would put on that body reflected in the likeness of that flesh in the water when He was baptized. This he says, is the Saviour’s saying: “Unless a man be born of water and of [the] Spirit, he shall not enter into the kingdom of the heavens; because that which is born of the flesh is flesh.”[41]

From the thirty Aeons, then, He did on thirty forms. Wherefore that Eternal One was thirty years on the earth, every Aeon being manifested in his own year. And souls are all the forms which have been intercepted from each of p. 407. the thirty Aeons, and each of them possesses a nature capable of understanding the Jesus who exists according to nature which that Only-Begotten One from the eternal places puts on. But these places are different. Therefore so many heresies contending [with each other] about it, seek Jesus. And He is claimed[42] by them all, but is seen differently by each from the different places. Towards whom, he says, each [soul] is borne and hurries, thinking that she is alone. Who is indeed her kinsman and fellow-citizen. Whom she beholding for the first time recognizes as her own brother and all the rest as bastards. Those then who have their nature from the lower places cannot see the forms of the Saviour above them. But those on high, he say, from the middle Decad and the most excellent Ogdoad[43]—whence, say they, we are—know Jesus the Saviour not in part but wholly, and are alone the Perfect from above, while the others are only partly so.

p. 408. 11. I think then that this is for right-thinking persons sufficient for the knowledge of the complicated and inconsistent heresy of the Docetae—those who attempt to make arguments about inaccessible and incomprehensible matter calling themselves thus. Certain of whom do not only seem[44] to be mad; and we have proved that the beam from such matter has entered their own eye, if they are anyhow able to see clearly; and, if not, they will be unable to blind others. Whose dogma the early sophists of Greece anticipated in many points of sophistry, as our readers will understand. These then are the teachings of the Docetae.[45] It seems right also that we should not keep silence as to the [teachings] of Monoimus.

2. Monoimus.

12. Monoimus the Arab[46] was a long way off[47] the glory of the great-voiced poet; for he thinks that some such man as Oceanus existed, of whom the poet speaks somehow like this:—

p. 409.Oceanus, the birth of gods and birth of man.[48]

Turning this into other words, he says that a Man is the All which is the source of the universals, [being] unbegotten, incorruptible, and eternal; and that there is a Son of the aforesaid Man, who is begotten, and capable of suffering, being born in a timeless, unwilled, and previously undefined way. For such, says he, is the Power of that Man. And when it was so, the son of the Power came into being more quickly than reasoning or counsel. And this is, he says, the saying in the Scriptures: “He was and came into being,”[49] which is: Man was and his son came into being, as if one were to say: Fire was and Light came into being in a timeless, unwilled, and previously undefined way, while being at the same time fire. But this Man is a single monad, uncompounded [and] undifferentiated, [and yet] compounded [and] differentiated, loving and at peace with all things, [and yet] fighting with and at war with all things before him,[50] unlike and like, as it were a certain musical p. 410. harmony which contains whatever one may say or leave unsaid, showing all things and giving birth to all things. “This is Father, this is Mother, Two Immortal names.”[51] But for the sake of an instance, conceive, he says, as the greatest image of the Perfect Man, the one tittle which is one tittle uncompounded, simple, a pure monad having no composition whatever from anything, [yet] compounded of many forms, of many parts. That undivided One, he says, is the many-faced and myriad-eyed and myriad-named one tittle of the Iota,[52] which is an image of that Perfect and Invisible Man.

13. The one tittle, he says, is then the monad and a decad. For by this power of the one tittle of the Iota [are produced] also [the] dyad and triad and tetrad and pentad and hexad and heptad and ogdoad and ennead up to the ten. For these are the diversified numbers dwelling within that simple and uncompounded tittle of the p. 411. Iota. And this is the saying:—“Because it pleased the whole Pleroma to dwell within the Son of Man bodily.”[53] For such compounds of numbers from the simple and uncompounded one tittle of the Iota become he says bodily hypostases. Therefore, he says, the Son of Man was born from the Perfect Man, whom none know. But, he says, every creature who is ignorant of the Son, represents Him as the offspring of a woman. Of which Son some shadowy rays come very close to this world and secure and control change [of bodies and] birth. And the beauty of that Son of Man is till now unrevealed to all men who are misled as to the offspring of a woman. Nothing then of the things here come into being, he says, from that Man, nor will they ever do so; but all things that have come into being have done so not from the whole, but from some part of the Son of Man. For, says he, the Son of Man is one Iota, one tittle flowing from on high, full, and filling full all things, and containing within itself whatever the Man, Father of the Son of Man possesses.[54]

p. 412. 14. Now the cosmos, as Moses says, came into being in six days, that is, in six powers which are in the one tittle of the Iota.[55] [But] the seventh, a rest and a Sabbath, came into being from the Hebdomad which is over Earth and Water and Fire and Air, out of which the cosmos came into being by the one tittle. For the cubes and the octahedrons, and [the] pyramids and all the figures like these of which Fire, Air, Water, [and earth] consist, came into being from the numbers which are comprised in that single tittle of the Iota, which is a Perfect Son of a Perfect Man. When then, says he, Moses says that (the) rod was turned about in different ways for the plagues on Egypt,[56] these [plagues], he says, are symbols allegorizing the Creation. [For] he does not use the rod which is one tittle of the Iota, duplex and varied, as a figure[57] for more plagues than ten. This Creation of the world, he says, is the ten plagues.[58] For p. 413. everything struck produces and bears fruit as, for instance, vine-shoots. Man, he says, has burst forth from Man, and was severed from him by a certain blow,[59] so that he might be born and might declare the Law which Moses laid down after having received it from God. The Law is according to that one tittle, the Decalogue which allegorizes the divine mysteries of the words. For, says he, the Ten Plagues and the Decalogue[60] are the whole knowledge of the universals which none has known who has been misled concerning the offspring of the woman. And if you say that the whole Law is a Pentateuch, it is [still] from the pentad which is comprised in the one tittle. But the whole Law is for those who have not thoroughly crippled their understanding [a] mystery, a new feast not yet grown old, legal and eternal, a Passover of the Lord God kept unto our generations by those who can see [and] beginning on the 14th [day] which is the beginning, he says, of the decad from which they reckon.[61] For the monad up to 14 is the sum total of the one tittle of the perfect number. And p. 414. one + two + three + four become ten, wherefore it is the one tittle. But from fourteen up to twenty-one, a hebdomad subsists in the one tittle, the unleavened creature of the world in all these.[62] For what, says he, should the one tittle want of any substance like leaven for the Passover of the Lord, the eternal feast which is given for generations. For the whole cosmos and all the causes of creation are the Passover Feast of the Lord. For God rejoices in the transmutation of creation which is wrought under the strokes of the one tittle. The which is the rod of Moses given by God, which strikes the Egyptians and changes the bodies, as did the hand of Moses, from water into blood. And the other [plagues] are in nearly the same way [such as that of the] locusts, wherefore change of the elements he calls flesh into grass: “for all flesh is grass,”[63] he says. p. 415. But none the less do these men in some such way receive the whole Law. Following, perhaps, as it seems to me, the Greeks who say that there are Substance and Quality and Quantity and Relation and Position and Action and Possession and Passion.[64]

15. So for example Monoimus himself says distinctly in his letter to Theophrastus:[65] “Leave aside enquiry concerning God and Creation and the like, and enquire about Him from thyself, and learn who it is who simply makes His own all that is within thee, saying ‘My God, my mind, my understanding, my soul, my body.’ Learn also what are grief and rejoicing, and love and hate, and undesired watching and sleep, and undesired anger and love. And if,” says he, “thou dost carefully seek out this, thou wilt find Him in thyself [as both] one and many things after the likeness of that one tittle, he finding the outlet for Himself.”[66] This then is what these [men] say, which we are under no necessity to compare with what has been before excogitated by the Greeks. Since it is plain from p. 416. their statements that they have their origin from the geometrical and arithmetical art, which the disciples of Pythagoras set forth more excellently. As the reader may learn in the passages where we have before explained all the wisdom of the Greeks.

But since we have sufficiently refuted Monoimus,[67] let us see what others have elaborated who wish thereby to raise for themselves an idle name.

3. Tatian.

16. But Tatian, although himself a disciple of Justin Martyr, was not of like mind with his master, but attempted something new. He says that there were certain Aeons [about whom] he fables in the like way with the Valentinians. But in the same way as Marcion he says that marriage is destruction. And he asserts that Adam will not be saved, through his becoming a leader of rebellion. And thus Tatian.[68]

4. Hermogenes.

p. 417. 17. A certain Hermogenes[69] thinking also to devise something new, says that God created all things from co-existent and ungenerated matter. For he held it impossible that God should create the things that are from those that are not. And that God is ever Lord and Maker, but Matter ever a slave and [in process of] becoming. But yet not all [matter], for, as it was being borne about violently and disorderly, He set it in order in this manner. Beholding it boiling like a pot on the fire, He divided it into parts; and that part which he took from the All He reclaimed, and the other He allowed to be borne about disorderly. And the reclaimed part, he says, is the cosmos; and that the other remains waste and is called acosmic[70] matter. He says that this is the essence[71] of all things, as if he were introducing p. 418. a new doctrine to his disciples; but he does not consider that this fable happens to be Socratic, and is better worked out by Plato than by Hermogenes. But he confesses that Christ is the Son of the God who created all things, and that He was begotten of the Virgin and of Spirit according to the [common] voice of the Gospels. Who after He had suffered rose again in a body and appeared to His disciples, and ascending to the heavens, left His body in the Sun, but Himself went on into the presence of the Father. And in witness of this,[72] he thinks he is corroborated by the word which David the Psalmist spake: “In the Sun he set up his tent, and like a bridegroom coming forth from his bridal chamber, he will rejoice like a giant to run his course.”[73] This then is what Hermogenes attempts.[74]

5. About the Quartodecimans.[75]

18. But certain others, lovers of strife by nature, unskilled p. 419. in knowledge, very quarrelsome by habit, maintain that the Passover ought to be kept on the 14th day of the First Month, according to the ordinance of the Law, on whatever day [of the week] it may fall. They have regard [merely] to that which has been written in the Law: [that is] that he will be accursed who does not keep it as it is laid down. They pay no attention to the fact that it was enacted for the Jews, who were to kill the True Passover. Which [Law] has spread to the Gentiles and is understood by faith, not kept strictly in the letter. They pay attention to this one commandment, but do not regard the saying of the Apostle: “For I bear witness to every man who is circumcised that he is a debtor to do the whole Law.”[76] In other matters they agree concerning all things handed down to the Church by the Apostles.

6. Phrygians.[77]

19. But there are others also very heretical by nature, Phrygians by race, who have fallen away after being deceived p. 420. by certain women, Priscilla and Maximilla by name, whom they imagine to be prophetesses. Into these they say the Spirit Paraclete has entered and they likewise glorify [even] above these one Montanus as a prophet. Having endless books of their own, they are not judging what is said in them according to reason, nor giving heed to those capable of judgment; but, carried along heedlessly by the faith that they have in them, imagine that they learn more through them than from the Law, the Prophets, and the Gospels. They glorify these wenches[78] above Apostles and every grace,[79] since some of them dare to say that there are those among them who have become greater than Christ. They confess that God is the Father of the universals, and the creator of all things in the same way as [does] the Church, and also [confess] whatever the Gospel testifies concerning Christ. But they innovate in the matter of feasts and fasts and the eating of vegetable food and roots,[80] thinking that they have learned this from the women. And some of them, agreeing with the heresy of the Noetians, say that the Father is the Son, and that He by being born, underwent p. 421. both suffering and death. Concerning these, I shall later explain more minutely; for to many their heresy has become the starting-point of evils. We judge then that what has been said is sufficient, we having proved briefly to all that their many absurd books and attempts are feeble and not worth consideration, whereto those of sound mind need pay no heed.[81]

7. Encratites.

20. But others calling themselves Encratites[82] confess the [facts] about God and Christ in like manner with the Church. But with regard to the way of life, they having become puffed up,[83] have reverted [to earlier opinions]. They think themselves glorified through food by abstaining from things which have had life, drinking water, and forbidding marriage, and in the other things of life are austerely careful. Such as they are judged to be rather Cynics than Christians, seeing that they pay no heed to what was said to them aforetime through the Apostle Paul, who prophesied the innovations that would come by the folly of some, saying p. 422. thus:—“The Spirit says expressly: In the last times some will fall away from the wholesome teaching,[84] giving heed to deceiving spirits and the teachings of demons, through the hypocrisy of men that speak lies, branded in their own consciences as with a hot iron, forbidding to marry and (commanding) to abstain from meats, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be rejected which is received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified through the words of God and prayer....”[85] This saying then of the Blessed Paul is sufficient for the refutation of those who live thus and honour themselves as righteous men, and to show that this also is a heresy.[86]

But although some other heresies are named [to wit those] of the Cainites, Ophites or Noachites[87] and others such as they, I do not think it necessary to set forth their sayings and doings, lest they should thereby think themselves somebody or worthy of argument.[88] But since what p. 423. has been said about them seems to be sufficient, we will come to the source of all evils, the heresy of the Noetians, and having disclosed its root and proved plainly the poison lurking within it, we will hold back from such error those who have been swept away by a violent spirit as by a torrent.