[180] This seems to correspond with the Ophite description of Sophia or the third Person of their Triad in Chaos. Cf. Irenæus, I, 28.
[181] The source of this chapter on the Naassenes is so far undiscoverable. Contrary to his usual practice, Hippolytus here mentions the name of no heretical author as he does in the following chapters of this Book. It is probable, therefore, that he may have taken down his account of “Naassene” doctrines from the lips of some convert, which would account for the extreme wildness of the quotations and to the incoherence with which he jumps about from one subject to another. This would also account for the heresy here described being far more Christian in tone than the other forms of Ophitism which follow it in the text, and the quotations from Scripture, especially the N.T., being more numerous and on the whole more apposite than in the succeeding chapters. The style, such as it is, is maintained throughout and its continuity should perhaps forbid us to see in it a plurality of authors. Little prominence in it is given to the Serpent which gives its name to the sect, although it is here said that he is good, and this seems to point to the Naassene being more familiar with the Western than with the Eastern forms of Cybele-worship.
[182] No mention of this sect is made by Irenæus or Epiphanius, and Theodoret’s statements concerning it correspond so closely with those of our text as to make it certain either that they were drawn from it or that both he and Hippolytus drew from a common source. Yet Clement of Alexandria knew of the Peratics (see Stromateis VII, 16), and Origen (cont. Cels. VI, 28) speaks of the Ophites generally as boasting Euphrates as their founder. The name given to them in our text is said by Clement (ubi cit.) to be a place-name, and the better opinion seems to be that it means “Mede” or one who lives on the further side of the Euphrates. The main point of their doctrine seems to be the great prominence given in it to the Serpent, whom they call the Son, and make an intermediate power between the Father of All and Matter. In this they are perhaps following the lead of some of the Græco-Oriental worships like that of Sabazius, one of the many forms of Attis, or that of Dionysos whose symbol was the serpent. The proof of their doctrines, however, they sought for not, like the Naassenes, in the mystic rites, but in a kind of astral theology which looked for religious truths in the grouping of the stars; and it was in pursuit of this that they identified the Saviour Serpent with the constellation Draco. Yet they were ostensibly Christians, being apparently perfectly willing to accept the historical Christ as their great intermediary. Their attitude to Judaism is more difficult to grasp because, while they quoted freely from the Old Testament, they apparently considered its God as an evil, or at all events, an unnecessarily harsh, power, in which they anticipated Manes and probably Marcion. Had we more of their writings we should probably find in them the embodiment of a good deal of early Babylonian tradition, to which most of these astrological heresies paid great attention.
[183] πηγή.
[184] τὸ μὲν ἓν μέρος. Cruice thinks these words should be added here instead of in the description of the “great source” just above. See Book X, II, p. 481 infra.
[185] Probably “Great Father.”
[186] This is entirely contradictory of Hippolytus’ own statement later of their doctrine that the universe consists of Father, Son, and Matter. Αὐτογενής, for which αὐτογέννητος is substituted a page later, is the last epithet to be applied to a son. Is it a mistake for μονογέννητος, “only begotten?” For the three worlds, see the Naassene author also, p. [121] supra.
[187] The cause assigned a little later is the salvation of the three worlds.
[188] τριδύναμος probably means with powers from all three worlds. The phrase is frequent in the Pistis Sophia.
[189] συγκρίματα, concretiones, Cr. and Macmahon. It might mean “decrees” and is used in the Septuagint version of Daniel for “interpretations” of dreams.