[270] So has this with the “Peratic.” Cf. p. [154] supra.
[271] κράσις ... μίξις.
[272] καταμεμῖχθαι λεπτῶς.
[273] τέχνη.
[274] Matt. x. 34.
[275] This again seems to be Hippolytus’ own repetition of a simile which he met with in the Naassene author and which so pleased him that he made use of it in his account of the Peratic heresy as well as here. Cf. pp. [144] and [159] supra.
[276] ἅλας πηγνύμενον.
[277] Herodotus VI, 20, mentions the City of Ampe, but says nothing there about the well which is described in c. 119 as at Ardericca in Cissia.
[278] The title of the book is given in the text as Παράφρασις Σήθ, which is a well-nigh impossible phrase.
[279] On the whole it may be said that this is the most suspect of all the chapters in the Philosophumena, and that, if ever Hippolytus was deceived into purchasing forged documents according to Salmon and Stähelin’s theory, one of them appears here. Much of it is mere verbiage as when, after having identified Mind or Nous with the fragrance of the spirit, he again explains that it is a ray of light sent from the perfect light, or when he explains the difference between the three different kinds of law. The quotations too are seldom new, nearly all of them appearing in other chapters and are, if it were possible, more than usually inapposite, while almost the only new one is inaccurate. The sentence about the Paraphrase (of) Seth, if that is the actual title of the book, does not suggest that Hippolytus is quoting from that work, nor does the phrase, “he says,” occur with anything like the frequency of its use in e. g., the Naassene chapter. On the whole, then, it seems probable that in this Hippolytus was not copying or extracting from any written document, but was writing down, to the best of his recollection the statements of some convert who professed to be able to reveal its teaching. It is significant in this respect that when the summary in Book X had to be made, the summarizer makes no attempt to abbreviate the statement of the supposed tenets of the Sethians, but merely copies out the part of the chapter in which they are described, entirely omitting the stories of the frescoed porch at Phlium and the oil-well at Ampa.