[257]. Soul, perhaps, does not here mean anything more than animating principle, spark, or breath of life.
[259]. τοὺς τελείους ἀβασιλεύτοὐς γενέσθαι καὶ μετασχεῖν τοῦ πληρώματος, Hippolytus, op. cit. Bk V. c. 8, p. 168, Cruice. See also the same expression in n. 3, p. [41], supra.
[260]. Origen’s testimony on this point can be the better relied on, because his good faith, unlike that of writers like Epiphanius, is above suspicion. He and Clement of Alexandria are the only two writers on Gnosticism among the Fathers to whom M. de Faye (Introd. p. 1) will allow “intelligence” and “impartialité.”
[261]. He gives, op. cit. p. 79, a map showing their chief seats from the head of the Persian Gulf on the one hand to Crete and the Adriatic on the other.
[262]. In the Bruce Papyrus mentioned in Chapter X, there is much said about a god called Sitheus, so that it is by no means certain that the Seth after whom they were named was the patriarch of Genesis. He might be the Egyptian Set, whose name is transliterated in the Magic Papyri as Σηϊθ. His appearance in Egypt first as the brother and then as the enemy of Osiris has never been fully accounted for. See “The Legend of Osiris,” P.S.B.A. for 1911, pp. 145 sqq. Epiphanius’ attempt in the Panarion (Haer. XXXIX. c. 3, p. 524, Oehler) to connect the genealogy of Jesus with the Seth of Genesis is not even said to depend on the doctrines of the sect, and the whole chapter reads like an interpolation. Cf. Friedländer, Vorchristliche jüdische Gnosticismus, Göttingen, 1898, p. 25.
[263]. Praedestinatus, de Haeresibus, Bk I. c. 17, p. 237, Oehler.
[264]. Matter, Hist. du Gnost. t. II. p. 176.
[265]. See Acta Philippi before quoted passim.
[266]. Irenaeus, Bk I. c. 28, § 8, p. 241, Harvey. King, Gnostics, etc. p. 101, quotes from Tertullian, de Praescript., “Serpentem magnificant in tantum ut etiam Christo praeferant,” which sounds like an Ophite doctrine; but I have failed to verify the quotation.