pointed out the loose manner in which Hippolytus and other early writers, in dealing with different schools of heretics, indifferently quote the founder or his followers without indicating the precise person quoted. This practice is particularly apparent in the work of Hippolytus when the followers of Valentinus are in question. Tischendorf himself is obliged to admit this. He asks: "Even though it be also incontestable that the author (Hippolytus) does not always sharply distinguish between the sect and the founder of the sect, does this apply to the present case"?(1) He denies that it does in the instance to which he refers, but he admits the general fact. In the same way another apologist of the fourth Gospel (and as the use of that Gospel is maintained in consequence of a quotation in the very same chapter as we are now considering, only a few lines higher up, both the third and fourth are in the same position) is forced to admit: "The use of the Gospel of John by Valentinus cannot so certainly be proved from our refutation-writing (the work of Hippolytus). Certainly in the statement of these doctrines it gives abstracts, which contain an expression of John (x. 8), and there cannot be any doubt that this is taken from some writing of the sect. But the apologist, in his expressions regarding the Valentinian doctrines, does not seem to confine himself to one and the same work, but to have alternately made use of different writings of the school, for which reason we cannot say anything as to the age of this quotation, and from this testimony, therefore, we merely have further confirmation that the Gospel was early(2) (?) used in the
2 Why "early"? since Hippolytus writes about a.d. 225.
School of the Valentinians,"(1) &c. Of all this not a word from Canon Westcott, who adheres to his system of bare assertion.
Now we have already quoted(2) the opening sentence of Book vi. 35, of the work ascribed to Hippolytus, in which the quotation from John x. 8, referred to above occurs, and ten line3 further on, with another intermediate and equally indefinite "he says" [———], occurs the supposed quotation from Luke i. 35, which, equally with that from the fourth Gospel, must, according to Weizsäcker, be abandoned as a quotation which can fairly be ascribed to Valentinus himself, whose name is not once mentioned in the whole chapter. A few lines below the quotation, however, a passage occurs which throws much light upou the question. After explaining the views of the Valentinians regarding the verse: "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee," &c., the writer thus proceeds: "Regarding this there is among them [———] a great question, a cause both of schism and dissension. And hence their [———] teaching has become divided, and the one teaching according to them [———] is called Eastern ['———] and the other Italian. They from Italy, of whom is Heracleon and Ptolemæus, say [———] that the body of Jesus was animal, and on account of this, on the occasion of the baptism, the Holy Spirit like a dove came down—that is, the Logos from the Mother above, Sophia—and became joined to the animal, and raised him from the dead. This, he says [———] is the declaration [———],"—and here be it observed we come to another of the "clear
references" which Canon Westcott ventures, deliberately and without a word of doubt, to attribute to Valentinus himself,(1)—"This, he says, is the declaration: 'He who raised Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies,'(3) that is animal. For the earth has come under a curse: 'For dust, he says [———] thou art and unto dust shalt thou return.'(3) On the other hand, those from the East [———], of whom is Axionicus and Bardesanes, say [———] that the body of the Saviour was spiritual, for the Holy Spirit came upon Mary, that is the Sophia and the power of the Highest."(4) &c.
In this passage we have a good illustration of the mode in which the writer introduces his quotations with the subjectless "he says." Here he is conveying the divergent opinions of the two parties of Valentinians, and explaining the peculiar doctrines of the Italian school "of whom is Heracleon and Ptolemæus," and he suddenly departs from the plural "they" to quote the passage from Romans viii. 11, in support of their views with the singular "he says." Nothing can be more obvious than that "he" cannot possibly be Valentinus himself, for the schism is represented as taking place
