[142] οὐ μᾶλλον, “not rather.”
[143] See n. on p. [49] supra. The doctrines here given are those of the Sceptics, and are to be found in Diog. Laert., IX, vit. Pyrrho, c. 79 ff. and in Sextus Empiricus, Hyp. Pyrrho, I, 209 ff. Diog. Laert. quotes from Ascanius of Abdera that Pyrrho introduced the dogma of incomprehensibility, and Hippolytus seems to have copied this without noticing that he has said the same thing about Xenophanes.
[144] Diog. Laert., I, Prooem., c. 1, mentions both Gymnosophists and Druids, but if he ever gave any account of their teaching it must be in the part of the book which is lost. Clem. Alex., Stromateis, I, c. 15, describes the two classes of Gymnosophists as Sarmanæ and Brachmans. The Sarmanæ or Samanæi (Shamans?) seem the nearer of the two to the Brachmans of our text.
[145] ἀκροδρύοι, hard-shelled fruit such as acorns or chestnuts.
[146] Roeper suggests the Ganges.
[147] Megasthenes, for whom see Strabo V, 712, differs from Hippolytus in making the abstinence of the Gymnosophists endure for thirty-seven years only.
[148] Nothing has yet been said about any bank.
[149] The whole of this sentence is corrupt. Macmahon following Roeper would read: “This discourse whom they name God they affirm to be incorporeal, but enveloped in a body outside himself, just as if one carried a covering of sheepskin to have it seen; but having stripped off the body in which he is enveloped, he no longer appears visibly to the naked eye.”
[150] ἐγείρας τρόπαιον, lit., “raised a trophy.”
[151] θεολογοῦσι. Eusebius, Præp. Ev., uses the word in this sense. For the Dandamis and Calanus stories, see Arrian, Anabasis, Bk. VII, cc. 2, 3.