[195] οἱ ἐντυχόντες.
[196] ἀεὶ ἀρνεῖσθαι. Cf. the “Geist der stets verneint” of Goethe.
[197] συγκεχωρήσθω.
[198] “His attempted heresy.”
[199] Like the rest of this section and most of this chapter, Hippolytus here follows Irenæus verbatim. Why the apparition of the Tetrad should be more supportable in female than in male shape can only be guessed; but the frequent personification of the Great Goddess of Western Asia may have had something to do with it.
[200] οὗ πατὴρ οὐδεὶς ἦν, “whose father was no one”—a curious expression in place of the more concise ἀπάτωρ.
[201] καὶ ἦν ἡ συλλαβὴ αὐτοῦ στοιχείων τεσσάρων, “and taken together it was of four letters.” He is punning here on the double sense of στοιχεῖον as meaning both “letter” and “element.” In the Magic Papyrus of Leyden which calls itself “Monas, the 8th (book?) of Moses,” there is a curious account of how the light and the rest of creation were brought into being by the successive words or rather the laughter of the Creator. Cf. Leemans, Papyri Græci, etc., Leyden, 1885, II, pp. 83 ff.
[202] γράμματα.
[203] χαρακτῆρα, “impress,” or character as we might say Greek characters or script. The different meanings of στοιχεῖα, γράμματα, and χαρακτήρ are here well marked.
[204] So Irenæus.