[49]. E.g. Irenaeus, op. cit. Bk I. c. 1, I. p. 9, Harvey. Here he is called ὅμοιος τε καὶ ἴσος τῷ προβαλόντι, “like and equal to him who had sent him forth.” There is certainly here no allusion to “begetting” in the ordinary sense of the word.
[50]. As in the epithet of Persephone in the Orphic Hymn quoted above. See Chapter IV, supra. The unanimity with which all post-Christian Gnostics accepted the superhuman nature of Jesus seems to have struck Harnack. See his What is Christianity? Eng. ed. 1904, pp. 209, 210.
[51]. Iliad I. ll. 560 sqq.; IV. ll. 57, 330; XIV. ll. 320 sqq.
[52]. Odyssey XI. ll. 600 sqq.; Plutarch, Life of Pelopidas, c. XVI.
[53]. Plutarch, de Is. et Os. c. LXXI.
[54]. Ibid. cc. XXV., XXVII., XXX.
[55]. Probably this was one of the reasons why the Mysteries which showed the death of a god had in Greece to be celebrated in secret. See Diodorus’ remark (Bk V. c. 77, § 3) that the things which the Greeks only handed down in secret were by the Cretans concealed from no one.
[56]. Hippolytus, op. cit. Bk VI. c. 19, p. 265, Cruice.
[57]. Irenaeus, op. cit. Bk I. c. 19, II. p. 200, Harvey.
[58]. ἀμορφία. Hippolytus, op. cit. Bk VII. c. 27, p. 366, Cruice.