[149] ἀντιπαράθεσιν, “the setting over against.”
[150] ὑπολαμβάνεις. Cr. and Macm. both translate, “as you suppose them to be.” But Marcion could have been in no doubt as to his own opinions.
[151] Marcion did not say that the Demiurge, whom he probably identified with the God of the Jews, was wicked. On the contrary, he said that he was just, though harsh. See Forerunners, II, xi.
[152] εὐαγγελίζῃ.
[153] Cf. 1 Tim. iv. 1-5, as quoted in Book VIII, p. 422 Cr.
[154] Reading τοὺς σεαυτοῦ μαθητάς for the τοὺς ἑαυτοῦ μαθητάς of the text.
[155] All this argument is a petitio principii of the most flagrant kind. There is nothing in the quotations here given from Empedocles to show that that philosopher made Love and Strife the two ἀρχαί of the universe, as Empedocles associates with them the four “elements” of Fire, Earth, Water and Air, and Ἀνάγκη or Fate seems, according to his teaching, to be superior to them all. The quotations prove, however, that Empedocles taught metempsychosis, unless Hippolytus is here confusing him with Pythagoras. Marcion did not, and the reason that he gave for abstinence from animal food is different from that attributed to Empedocles. The quotations themselves are much corrupted, and Hippolytus seems to have taken them from memory only, as he is careful to say that these are “something like this.” All of them appear in Karsten’s or Stein’s collections, which were made before the discovery of our text, and are, therefore, an argument against Salmon’s theory of forgery.
[156] καθαριωτάτη, “purest.”
[157] This Prepon, probably a Syrian, is mentioned by no other writer except Theodoret, who doubtless borrowed from our text. The “Bardesianes” was probably the famous Bardaisan or Ibn Daisan who taught at Edessa and was a follower of Valentinus. It is noteworthy that the Armenian author, Eznig of Goghp, gives a different account of Marcion’s teaching from any of the Western heresiologists and makes him admit the independent existence of a third principle in the shape of malignant matter. For this, see Forerunners, II, p. 217, n. 2.
[158] διαφερούσας, “differentiated”?