[179] μυθεύουσιν, “fable.” Irenæus’ Latin version here inserts a non, evidently a clerical error.
[180] ποιήσαντα, Cruice, servare, Macm., “fulfilled.” In either case a curious meaning for ποιέω. Cf. the ποιέω τὴν μουσικήν of Plato, Phaedo, 60. E.
[181] In the accounts of the two Theodoti, which may here be taken together, Hippolytus leaves Irenæus, from whom he has hitherto been content to copy his account of the smaller heresies, and draws from some source not yet identified, but which may be the Little Labyrinth of Caius (see Salmon in D.C.B., s.v. “Theodotus.”). His description of the heresy of Theodotus of Byzantium corresponds with that of Eusebius (Eccl. Hist., V, 28). The Melchizedekian theory of the “other” Theodotus is mentioned by Philaster (c. 53, p. 54, Oehl.) without reference to Theodotus, although on the preceding page he has given the Byzantine heresy as in our text. Pseudo-Tertullian in Adv. Omn. Haer. (II, p. 764, Oehl.) gives the story of both Theodoti much as here, which may give support to the theory that this tract is a summary of the lost Syntagma of Hippolytus. Epiphanius (Haer. XXXIV, XXXV) divides the Melchizedekians from the Theodotians, and says the first were ἀποσπασθέντες from the second, but without naming the banker. He also gives some particulars about the first Theodotus, which he does not seem to have taken from Hippolytus. He quotes one Hierax as saying that Melchizedek was the Holy Spirit, and says that “some” say that Heracles was his father and Astaroth or Asteria his mother, while Melchizedek plays a great part in the earliest part of the Pistis Sophia as the “Receiver of the Light.”
[182] ἀποσπάσας, lit., “torn away.”
[183] So that Hippolytus believed in the mythical founder of the Ebionites.
[184] εὐσεβέστατον.
[185] i. e. the heretics.
[186] γνῶμαι.
[187] Acts vi. 5.
[188] Rev. ii. 6.