If, however, we turn from this to such statements of Hippolytus as we can check from other sources, we find many reasons for doubting not indeed the good faith of him or his informants, but the accuracy of one or other of them. Thus, in his account of the tenets of the philosophers, he repeatedly alters or misunderstands his authorities, as when he says that Thales supposed water to be the end as it had been the beginning of the Universe,[27] or that “Zaratas,” as he calls Zoroaster, said that light was the father and darkness the mother of beings,[28] which statements are directly at variance with what we know otherwise of the opinions of these teachers. So, too, in Book I, he makes Empedocles say that all things consist of fire, and will be resolved into fire, while in Book VII, he says that Empedocles declared the elements of the cosmos to be six in number, whereof fire, one of the two instruments which alter and arrange it, is only one.[29] Again, in Book IX, he says that he has already expounded the opinions of Heraclitus, and then sets to work to describe as his a perfectly different set of tenets from that which he has assigned to him in Book I; while in Book X he ascribes to Heraclitus yet another opinion.[30] Or we may take as an example the system of arithmomancy or divination by the “Pythagorean number” whereby, he says, its professors claim to predict the winner of a contest by juggling with the numerical values of the letters in the competitors’ names, and then gives instances, some of which do and others do not work out according to the rule he lays down. So, too, in his unacknowledged quotations from Sextus Empiricus, he so garbles his text as to make it unintelligible to us were we not able to restore it from Sextus’ own words. So, again, in his account of the sleight-of-hand and other stage tricks, whereby he says, no doubt with truth, the magicians used to deceive those who consulted them, his account is so carelessly written or copied that it is only by means of much reading between the lines that it can be understood, and even then it recounts many more marvels than it explains.[31] Some of this inaccuracy may possibly be due to mistakes in copying and re-copying by scribes who did not understand what they were writing; but when all is said there is left a sum of blunders which can only be attributed to great carelessness on the part of the author. Yet, as if to show that he could take pains if he liked, the quotations from Scripture are on the whole correctly transcribed and show very few variations from the received versions. Consequently when such variations do occur (they are noted later whenever met with), we must suppose them to be not the work of Hippolytus, but of the heretics from whom he quotes, who must, therefore, have taken liberties with the New Testament similar to those of Marcion. Where, also, he copies Irenæus with or without acknowledgment, his copy is extremely faithful, and agrees with the Latin version of the model more closely than the Greek of Epiphanius. It would seem, therefore, that our author’s statements, although in no sense unworthy of belief, yet require in many cases strict examination before they can be unhesitatingly accepted.[32]
4. The Composition of the Work
In these circumstances, and in view of the manifest discrepancies between statements in the earlier part of the text and what purports to be their repetition in the later, the question has naturally arisen as to whether the document before us was written for publication in its present form. It is never referred to or quoted by name by any later author, and although the argument from silence has generally proved a broken reed in such cases, there are here some circumstances which seem to give it unusual strength. It was certainly no reluctance to call in evidence the work of a schismatic or heretical writer which led to the work being ignored, for Epiphanius, a century and a half later, classes Hippolytus with Irenæus and Clement of Alexandria as one from whose writings he has obtained information,[33] and Theodoret, while making use still later of certain passages which coincide with great closeness with some in Book X of our text,[34] admits, as has been said, Hippolytus’ claim to both episcopacy and martyrdom. But the passages in Theodoret which seem to show borrowing from Hippolytus, although possibly, are not necessarily from the work before us. The author of this tells us in Book I that he has “aforetime”[35] expounded the tenets of the heretics “within measure,” and without revealing all their mysteries, and it might, therefore, be from some such earlier work that both Epiphanius and Theodoret have borrowed. Some writers, including Salmon,[36] have thought that this earlier work of our author is to be found in the anonymous tractate Adversus Omnes Hæreses usually appended to Tertullian’s works.[37] Yet this tractate, which is extremely short, contains nothing that can be twisted into the words common to our text and to Theodoret, and we might, therefore, assert with confidence that it was from our text that Theodoret copied them but for the fact that he nowhere indicates their origin. This might be only another case of the unacknowledged borrowing much in fashion in his time, were it not that Theodoret has already spoken of Hippolytus in the eulogistic terms quoted above, and would therefore, one would think, have been glad to give as his informant such respectable authority. As he did not do so, we may perhaps accept the conclusion drawn by Cruice with much skill in a study published shortly after the appearance of Miller’s text,[38] and say with him that Theodoret did not know that the passages in question were to be found in any work of Hippolytus. In this case, as the statements in Book IX forbid us to suppose that our text was published anonymously or pseudonymously, the natural inference is that both Hippolytus and Theodoret drew from a common source.
What this source was likely to have been there can be little doubt. Our author speaks more than once of “the blessed elder Irenæus,” who has, he says, refuted the heretic Marcus with much vigour, and he implies that the energy and power displayed by Irenæus in such matters have shortened his own work with regard to the Valentinian school generally.[39] Photius, also, writing as has been said in the ninth century, mentions a work of Hippolytus against heresies admittedly owing much to Irenæus’ instruction. The passage runs thus:—
“A booklet of Hippolytus has been read. Now Hippolytus was a disciple of Irenæus. But it (i. e. the booklet) was the compilation against 32 heresies making (the) Dositheans the beginning (of them) and comprising (those) up to Noetus and the Noetians. And he says that these heresies were subjected to refutations by Irenæus in conversation[40] (or in lectures). Of which refutations making also a synopsis, he says he compiled this book. The phrasing however is clear, reverent and unaffected, although he does not observe the Attic style. But he says some other things lacking in accuracy, and that the Epistle to the Hebrews was not by the Apostle Paul.”
These words have been held by Salmon and others to describe the tractate Adversus Omnes Hæreses. Yet this tractate contains not thirty-two heresies, but twenty-seven, and begins with Simon Magus to end with the Praxeas against whom Tertullian wrote. It also notices another heretic named Blastus, who, like Praxeas, is mentioned neither by Irenæus nor by our author, nor does it say anything about Noetus or the Apostle Paul. It does indeed mention at the outset “Dositheus the Samaritan,” but only to say that the author proposes to keep silence concerning both him and the Jews, and “to turn to those who have wished to make heresy from the Gospel,” the very first of whom, he says, is Simon Magus.[41] As for refutations, the tractate contains nothing resembling one, which has forced the supporters of the theory to assume that they were omitted for brevity’s sake. Nor does it in the least agree with our text in its description of the tenets and practices of heresies which the two documents treat of in common, such as Simon, Basilides, the Sethiani and others, and the differences are too great to be accounted for by supposing that the author of the later text was merely incorporating in it newer information.[42]
On the other hand, Photius’ description agrees fairly well with our text, which contains thirty-one heresies all told, or thirty-two if we include, as the author asks us to do, that imputed by him to Callistus. Of these, that of Noetus is the twenty-eighth, and is followed by those of the Elchesaites, Essenes, Pharisees and Sadducees only. These four last are all much earlier in date than any mentioned in the rest of the work, and three of them appeared to the author of the tractate last quoted as not heresies at all, while the fourth is not described by him, and there is no reason immediately apparent why in any case they should be put after and not before the post-Christian ones. The early part of the summary of Jewish beliefs in Book X is torn away, and may have contained a notice of Dositheus, whose name occurs in Eusebius and other writers,[43] as a predecessor of Simon Magus and one who did not believe in the inspiration of the Jewish Prophets. The natural place in chronological order for these Jewish and Samaritan sects would, therefore, be at the head rather than at the tail of the list, and if we may venture to put them there and to restore to the catalogue the name of Dositheus, we should have our thirty-two heresies, beginning with Dositheus and ending with Noetus. We will return later to the reason why Photius should call our text a Biblidarion or “booklet.”
Are there now any reasons for thinking that our text is founded on such a synopsis of lectures as Photius says Hippolytus made? A fairly cogent one is the inconvenient and awkward division of the books, which often seem as if they had been arranged to occupy equal periods of time in delivery. Another is the unnecessary and tedious introductions and recapitulations with which the descriptions of particular philosophies, charlatanic practices, and heresies begin and end, and which seem as if they were only put in for the sake of arresting or holding the attention of an audience addressed verbally. Thus, in the account of Simon Magus’ heresy, our author begins with a long-winded story of a Libyan who taught parrots to proclaim his own divinity, the only bearing of which upon the story of Simon is that Hippolytus asserts, like Justin Martyr, that Simon wished his followers to take him for the Supreme Being.[44] So, too, he begins the succeeding book with the age-worn tale of Ulysses and the Sirens[45] by way of introduction to the tenets of Basilides, with which it has no connection whatever. This was evidently intended to attract the attention of an audience so as to induce them to give more heed to the somewhat intricate details which follow. In other cases, he puts at the beginning or end of a book a more or less detailed summary of those which preceded it, lest, as he states in one instance, his hearers should have forgotten what he has before said.[46] These are the usual artifices of a lecturer, but a more salient example is perhaps those ends of chapters giving indications of what is to follow immediately, which can hardly be anything else than announcements in advance of the subject of the next lecture. Thus, at the end of Book I, he promises to explain the mystic rites[47]—a promise which is for us unfulfilled in the absence of Books II and III; at the end of Book IV, he tells us that he will deal with the disciples of Simon and Valentinus[48]; at that of Book VII, that he will do the same with the Docetæ[49]; and at that of Book VIII that he will “pass on” to the heresy of Noetus.[50] In none of these cases does he more than mention the first of the heresies to be treated of in the succeeding book, which the reader could find out for himself by turning over the page, or rather by casting his eye a little further down the roll.
Again, there are repetitions in our text excusable in a lecturer who does not, if he is wise, expect his hearers to have at their fingers’ ends all that he has said in former lectures, and who may even find that he can best root things in their memory by saying them over and over again; but quite unpardonable in a writer who can refer his readers more profitably to his former statements. Yet, we find our author in Book I giving us the supposed teaching of Pythagoras as to the monad being a male member, the dyad a female and so on up to the decad, which is supposed to be perfect.[51] This is gone through all over again in Book IV with reference to the art of arithmetic[52] and again in Book VI where it is made a sort of shoeing-horn to the Valentinian heresy[53]. The same may be said of the “Categories” or accidents of substance which Hippolytus in one place attributes to Pythagoras, but which are identical with those set out by Aristotle in the Organon. He gives them rightly to Aristotle in Book I, but makes them the invention of the Pythagoreans in Book VI only to return them to Aristotle in Book VII.[54] Here again is a mistake such as a lecturer might make by a slip of the tongue, but not a writer with any pretensions to care or seriousness.
Beyond this, there is some little direct evidence of a lecture origin for our text. In his comments on the system of Justinus, which he connects with the Ophites, our author says: “Though I have met with many heresies, O beloved, I have met with none viler in evil than this.” The word “beloved” is here in the plural, and would be the phrase used by a Greek-speaking person in a lecture to a class or group of disciples or catechumens.[55] I do not think there is any instance of its use in a book. In another place he says that his “discourse” has proved useful, not only for refuting heretics, but for combating the prevalent belief in astrology;[56] and although the word might be employed by other authors with regard to writings, yet it is not likely to have been used in that sense by Hippolytus, who everywhere possible refers to his former “books.” There is, therefore, a good deal of reason for supposing that some part of this work first saw the light as spoken and not as written words.